Women's Property

The Married Women's Property Acts made a big change...but women's property remains an exception*

I have been doing some deep reflection on the progress of my thesis. I have concluded that my thesis question seems to have suffered a little from 'drift' away from my initial goal, to something that incorporated it but was perhaps a little different.

In my last iteration, I was looking at the doctrinal incoherence of constructive trusts... Indeed I was immersed in the intricacies of why across four common law jurisdictions (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and England) the law of trusts was uniform in recognising the 'intimate partner' constructive trust - and so a means of recognising women's separate property - but so diverse in the doctrine harnessed to deal with the 'problem' of women's separate property.

I've spent this last few weeks going back to basics. What was I really trying to show? My (bigger than PhD) idea is that the notion of property is itself inappropriate to deal with contemporary issues. I think property theory, in its liberal market mould, is unsuitable for our contemporary culture (copyright), for culture in its wider sense (first nations/Indigenous peoples' customary 'title') and it is most certainly unsuitable to deal with the huge issue of the environment, including of course, climate change. My PhD thesis is about the gendered nature of property and how it upholds the economic dependence of married women (married in a legal and de facto sense).

In my view, all property does is support the creation of a new market based on the idea of atomised, separated, individuals who are 'rational profit maximisers' and are in competition and unconnected with anyone else.

I'm not anti-capitalism - I agree that markets have created the circumstances for improvement in people's lives. But there must be a balance to the greed that accompanies unaccountable, unrelated, disembodied beings who exist in the eyes of the law (and economic theory).

So I have returned, in my thesis, to the roots of the question that first engaged me. I ask: is property gendered?

Here is a prezi that embodies my present thinking about how this argument might run. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

*image from https://ontariorealestatesource.wordpress.com/tag/women/