Sri Lanka, its Laws and its Women: Feminist Jurisprudence Views Law as a Subversive Site for Women

Abstract

Patriarchal laws of a country subject women to various degrees of oppression owing to socially constructed institutions. Sri Lankan women continue to struggle with socio-economic, political, and cultural issues that marginalise them, as different social structures, classes, castes, customs, religions and societal behaviours influence, control and suppress them. In this background, the Sri Lankan judicial thinking is dominated by the sameness approach to equality that ensures ‘gender neutral’ laws. And feminists argue that this ‘neutrality’, is simply a male-standard. In this explanatory investigation, this paper questions this ‘male-standard’ and ‘asks the woman question’ to provide insight to the question; Does Sri Lankan Law serve as a Subversive Site for Women? Through this inquiry, it deduces that, taking a difference approach to achieve substantive equality by understanding positionalities and intersectionalities of women in patriarchal societies shall inhibit the contribution of a country’s laws to create a subversive site for its women.