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Health inequalities are a social injustice experienced globally. State action to address this has generally been insufficient, with inequities persisting, or - as in the case of the UK - worsening. This article contends that social epigenetics has a role in generating more robust state responses and makes two related arguments. First, it is argued that an epigenetic explanation of avoidable health inequalities has the potential to provoke change because it works within the gene paradigm. Second, epigenetics provides an opportunity to challenge a different paradigm, that of the liberal legal subject. This fictive figure has long impoverished understandings of harm and responsibility; including in the context of health inequalities. Martha Fineman's model of the vulnerable subject is engaged as an alternative to this figure. The original and expansive articulation of the epigenetic landscape - an idea now significantly narrowed – is articulated as a space for an interdisciplinary exploration of the role of epigenetics in securing a state more responsive to inequalities.

The medical profession's formative role in the development of abortion law has been acknowledged. A number of the studies to have considered the development of law in the nineteenth century have traced how the emerging profession's campaigns against abortion advanced its social and economic goals. Analysis of abortion law as a focus for medicine's professionalisation has not, however, extended into the twentieth century. Consideration of this period generally characterises medicine's influence as a product of its professional power. Rather than evidence of a static professional status, this article argues that consideration of the first half of the twentieth century reveals how abortion remained the terrain on which the profession actively pursued its occupational ambitions. Further, it highlights how medical responses to abortion changed as the imperatives of professionalisation changed. Employing work that has highlighted the importance of boundaries for enduring social entities, this article recognises abortion as a boundary issue for the profession; that is, a key site where professional jurisdiction is asserted. A dynamic model of the processes of professionalisation, and an identification of the role of abortion in medicine's professionalisation project, is essential in order to understand the contemporary social and legal reality of abortion.

This article takes as its focus the discourses that emerged around access to Viagra. More specifically, the construction and privileging of a legal familial masculinity is addressed. These responses to Viagra provide the focus for a number of reasons. The debates marked a shift in public consideration of masculine sexuality in a variety of ways. Most notably, it introduced a degree of transparency in the public consideration of what was and what was not appropriate, and hence deserving, masculinity. The article starts by outlining the understanding of masculinity that underpins the subsequent analysis. It then moves to introduce aspects of the relationship between law and masculinity. It considers how the discourses around access relate to broader legal and cultural matrices that privilege a certain masculinity, one which is heterosexual, genito-centric, naturalistic, and above all familial. Importantly, the privileging of penile/ vaginal contact denies the legitimacy of other connections that do not exist within this economy. Finally, consideration is given to the wider question of what Viagra tells us about techniques of social organization.

I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel. I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my fore head, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed; when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shut ters, I beheld the wretch - the miserable monster whom I had created. (Shelley, 1992: 57)

Articulacy of fingers, the language of the deaf and dumb, signing on the body body longing. Who taught you to write in blood on my back? Who taught you to use your hands as branding irons? You have scored your name into my shoulders, referenced me with your mark. The pads of your fingers have become printing blocks, you tap your message onto my skin, tap meaning into my body.... Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights; the accumulation of a life time gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like braille. I like to keep my body rolled up away from prying eyes. Never unfold too much, tell the whole story. I didn't know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book. (Winterson, 1993:89)

Introduction / Martha Albertson Fineman -- Asking the man question : masculinities analysis and feminist theory / Nancy E. Dowd -- Feminisms and masculinities : questioning the lure of multiple identities / Martha Albertson Fineman -- Martyred women and humiliated men / Roja Fazaeli -- Colonial optics : dancehall and legal imperatives against the "unnatural" / Camille A. Nelson -- Toward multidimensional masculinities theory : policing Henry Louis Gates / Frank Rudy Cooper -- Male genital cutting and the new discourse of race and masculinity / Marie Fox and Michael Thomson -- The challenge of pleasure : let's talk about sex in feminist and masculinity studies theorising / Chris Beasley -- Gender, masculinities, and transition in conflicted societies / Fionuala Ni Aolain, Naomi Cahn, and Dina Haynes -- Migrating and mutating masculinities in institutional law reforms / Jamie R. Abrams -- Thinking through the "boy crisis" : from multiple masculinities to intersectionality / Juliet A. Williams -- No boy left behind : single-sex education and the essentialist myth of masculinity / David S. Cohen -- Masculinities and disparate impacts / Ann C. McGinley -- Masculinities narratives and Latino immigrant workers : a case study of the Las Vegas residential construction trades / Leticia M. Saucedo and Maria Cristina Morales -- On masculinities, law, and family practices: a case study of fathers' rights and gender / Richard Collier -- Taking custody of motherhood : fathers' rights activists and the politics of parenting / Jocelyn Elise Crowley -- To be male : homophobia, sexism, and the production of "masculine" boys / Clifford J. Rosky.

While masculinities theory has had much to say on relationships of subordination, few feminist legal scholars have examined the implications of masculinities theory for feminist legal theory. This volume investigates the ways in which emerging masculinities theory in law could inform feminist legal theory in particular and law in general. As many of the chapters in this collection illustrate, law is constantly in a dynamic interaction with masculinities: it has both influenced existing masculinities and has been influenced by those masculinities. The contributions focus feminist and critical theoretical attention on masculinities and consider the implications of masculinities theory for law and legal theory. The book sets out the theoretical trajectory of masculinities studies as a field and its application in law and uses insights from a masculinities approach to study socio-political construction of gender identities in specific settings. It also explores how understanding historical construction of gender identities can inform more effective public policy and activism. Publisher's note.