The Imaginary Domain

This book addresses the legal and political programme needed for the recognition of sexual difference. Cornell shows that by affirming feminine sexual difference we should rethink the traditional conception of a public/private divide. This book fundamentally alters the terrain of feminist legal and political philosophy, and does so in a prose style that is lucid and accessible. Cornell defends a feminist view of legal equality that synchronizes the distinct values of freedom and equality in the emotionally fraught sphere of life we call sex. Feminist legal theory has been plagued by the seemingly irreconcilable tension between these two values, particularly when it comes to issues like pornography and sexual harassment where they have been explicitly pitted against one another.