This multifaceted portrait of the court's business and its people � from its inception by middle-class, maternal feminists to its demise in 1934, from the repeat offender to its controversial magistrate, Margaret Patterson � reveals the experiment's fundamental contradiction. The court was both a site for feminist adaptations of justice and a court empowered to punish the women who appeared on its docket.
Feminized Justice sheds new light on maternal feminist politics, women and crime, and the role of resistance, agency, and experience in the justice system.