Abstract
Tax law is not neutral—it encodes social values and reinforces certain longstanding hierarchies. For over fifty years, legal scholarship at the intersection of gender and tax has exposed how seemingly neutral tax laws perpetuate gender inequality. This Article uses the metaphor of quilting to trace the evolution of this scholarly field across three distinct eras.
Part I names and defines the designing era (1971–1986), which began with Grace Blumberg’s writing on the gendered impact of tax laws on marriage, labor, and caregiving; she framed taxation as a tool of social control over women. Blumberg’s work laid the foundation for other scholars who took up the project of uncovering gender bias embedded in the tax law. Part II explores gender and tax scholarship’s assembling era (1987–2015), when the focus expanded beyond marriage and families to include the tax law’s intersections with race, immigration status, sexuality, and the human body. Scholars analyzed tax expenditures, administration, and social policy, deepening their critiques of structural inequalities created and sustained by the tax law. Part III then turns to gender and tax scholarship’s binding era (2016–present), a period launched by a shift in the federal definition of marriage and continuing to the present day, as scholars shore up and expand on past insights in the face of increasing political resistance.
This Article also identifies eight recurring scholarly moves in gender and tax scholarship, including auditing tax laws for gender bias and demonstrating that taxation is a feminist issue. It predicts the growing difficulty of doing this type of scholarship in a political climate hostile to critical inquiry. As the federal government attempts to suppress work that acknowledges differences on the basis of gender, race, and other identity axes, scholars face data suppression, funding constraints, and erasure from policy discourse.
Despite these challenges, tax law remains a powerful tool for advancing justice, operating in many instances outside of close political scrutiny. Thus, the binding era of gender and tax scholarship must not only continue to preserve past insights but also resist forces that seek to unravel any gains. Just as a quilter adjusts fabric to keep a pattern intact during a quilt’s construction, gender and tax scholars must continuously reposition their work to counter new pressures while advancing a fairer and more just tax system.
Recommended Citation
Bridget J. Crawford,
Confronting Inequality: Three Eras of Gender and Tax Scholarship,
58 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 873
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Available at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/llr/vol58/iss4/3
