Becoming a law scholar
In the deep dark days of 2000 I stepped onto the University of Central Lancashire’s campus for the first time, eager to learn and passion for knowledge. One of my first choices was selecting optional modules, which I alighted on EU law of all things to study. Oh sweet spring child, how blissfully unprepared you were. Fast forward seven years after crashing out of university and bumming around searching for a job in York I ended up at a law firm as a legal secretary. This led to seven years as a secretary and then an insurance claims handler, slaving away over a hot desk resolving personal injury claims. After exiting the industry in 2014 I swore off ever working in the legal industry ever again. Then I started my PhD in 2020. Oh boy. Law came a calling in an interdisciplinary way, and I went all the way down the rabbit hole.
So here is the thing. Legal theory has a reputation: cis, white, heterosexual, male, Oxbridge, Harvard, men, men, men. You look up any legal theorist from the last five hundred years you will find men coming out the woodwork. Hobbes, Kant, Dworkin, Hart, Rawls, they roll off the tongue within legal circles. Bentham, Austin, Paine, Marx, I could go on. Yet, scratch the surface and Arendt, Crenshaw, Ben Habib and other wonderful ladies start to bubble up. As a woman wanting to enter the field pushing back against the male dominated discourse was a starting point, with Arendt the…
