Susan B. Boyd

Professor of Law
Chair in Feminist Legal Studies
Director, Centre for Feminist Legal Studies

B.A. Bishop's University 1975; LL.B. McGill University 1978; LL.M. University of London 1982

D.E.I., University of Amsterdam, 1979

Tel: 604.822.6459
Fax: 604.822.8108
E-mail: boyd@law.ubc.ca
Office Location: Allard Hall, room 351

Personal Web Page: http://faculty.law.ubc.ca/boyd/index.htm

Profile

Susan B. Boyd joined the UBC Faculty of Law in 1992. She taught previously at Carleton University's Department of Law in Ottawa. At UBC, she holds the endowed research Chair in Feminist Legal Studies, and is Director of the Centre for Feminist Legal Studies.

Professor Boyd teaches courses in the fields of Feminist Legal Studies, Family Law, and Law and Social Justice. She researches and publishes on feminist legal theory, and gender and sexuality issues in the fields of family law, especially child custody and parenthood law. In 2007, she co-edited Reaction and Resistance: Feminism, Law, and Social Change and Poverty: Rights, Social Citizenship and Legal Activism. Law and Families appeared in 2006. Her book Child Custody, Law, and Women's Work was published in 2003. Canadian Feminist Literature on Law: An Annotated Bibliography appeared in 1999. Challenging the Public/Private Divide: Feminism, Law, and Public Policy was published in 1997. Her recent work focuses on legal parenthood and the possibilities for autonomous motherhood.

Professor Boyd is a long-standing member of the editorial board of the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law and is on several other editorial or advisory boards. She also works for law reform in the family law field and is a member of organizations that work for social change, such as the National Association of Women and the Law.

Professor Boyd's recent awards include a UBC Law Faculty Scholar Award (2010) and a UBC Law Alumni Award for Research (2008).

Courses

• Family Law
• Women, Law and Social Change
• Women, Law and Family
• Law, Society, State
• Feminist Legal Studies: Key Themes and Current Debates
• Feminist Legal Theory

Research Interests

• Law of Parenthood
• Family Law and Gender
• Feminism and Law
• Child Custody Law Reform and Gender
• Inclusion of Same Sex Partners in the Legal System
• Law and Social Justice
• Family Law and Privatization.

Representative Published Works

• “Joint Custody and Guardianship in the British Columbia Courts: Not a Cautious Approach” Full text: (2010) 29 Can. Fam. L.Q. 223-252
• "Autonomy for Mothers? Relational Theory and Parenting Apart" (2010) 18(2) Feminist Legal Studies 137-158.
• “Is Equality Enough? Fathers' Rights and Women's Rights Advocacy.” In Rethinking Equality Projects in Law: Feminist Challenges, edited by Rosemary Hunter, 59-79. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2008, Onati International Series in Law and Society.
• Reaction and Resistance: Feminism, Law, and Social Change (with D. Chunn and H. Lessard)
• “Gendering Legal Parenthood: Bio-Genetic Ties, Intentionality and Responsibility.” (2007) 25 Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice 55-85.
• "Losing the Feminist Voice? Debates on the Legal Recognition of Same Sex Partnerships in Canada." (2006) 14 Feminist Legal Studies 213-240 (with C. Young).
• Law and Families, International Library of Essays in Law and Society (edited with H. Rhoades) (Ashgate 2006)
• Child Custody, Law, and Women's Work (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2003)
• "Canadian Feminist Literature on Law: An Annotated Bibliography", (1999) 11 Canadian Journal of Women and the Law.
• Challenging the Public/Private Divide: Feminism, Law, and Public Policy (University of Toronto Press, 1997).
• "Who Influences Family Law Reform? Discourses on Motherhood and Fatherhood in Legislative Reform Debates in Canada" (2002) 26 Studies in Law, Politics, and Society 43-75 (with C. Young)

Publications listed on the UBC Law Library Faculty Research Publications Database