A Taxing Woman: The Relationship of Feminist Scholarship to Tax

Part I of this Article explores possible definitions of feminist scholarship and the role of feminist theory in scholarship, using tax as an example. Part II examines the current usage of feminist tax articles and the effect of the feminist tax scholarship label. Part III discusses the value of feminist tax scholarship to tax and non-tax legal scholarship. The Article concludes that, despite confusion as to the exact definition, some tax articles are labeled “feminist tax scholarship.” This label can have both positive and negative effects on whether these articles are read and how they are perceived. Independent of the label, the true value of this scholarship lies in its ability to enrich both tax and non-tax scholarship. The feminist aspect deepens our understanding of tax by analyzing it from a nontraditional perspective; its tax aspect has the potential, little used as yet, to broaden other disciplines’ understanding of how tax issues affect their areas.