A feminist star atlas: mapping legal history through feminist constellations

Astronomers use constellations—groups of named patterns or sets of stars— to map the galaxies around us. They understand the sky by drawing connections and patterns between stars, and this has varied according to time, culture and place. In this chapter, we apply the method of mapping constellations to feminist legal history. We argue that a ‘feminist constellations’ approach can be used to understand the relationships between and within feminist activist groups and law reform in new ways. It is a methodology that enables feminist individuals, locations and groups to be connected and resituated across time and place. The purpose of this chapter is two-fold. First, we explain the purpose and transformative potential of a feminist constellations approach. We then explain how others can uncover gender in legal history by mapping their own constellations, in ways that can resist temporalities and rehabilitate feminist heroines.