Abstract:This article explores understandings of harm in law through the application of a feminist perspective. Drawing on the idea of harm as a social construct, the article considers the role of law in shaping perceptions of when a harm has occurred and whether it should be redressed. These themes are illustrated by means of a close legal and contextual analysis of the House of Lords decision in Waters v Metropolitan Police Commissioner 1 , in which a woman was allegedly bullied at work for reporting she had been raped by a fellow officer. The article raises questions about why this particular claimant had difficulty establishing that she had suffered harm, despite alleging 89 separate hostile acts by fellow officers and even though the courts who heard her claim assumed for the purposes of legal argument that the facts alleged were true. It is argued that the narrowness of the approach adopted by most of the judges who heard Ms Waters' claim precluded recognition of the seriousness of the allegations and the social, political, and legal need to provide redress.

This article seeks to address the current state of theoretical debate within feminist legal studies in the United Kingdom and beyond. It is part map, part critique of dominant theoretical trends -an attempt to identify and explore a range of questions about feminist scholarly engagement in law, including the relationship between academic feminism and political activism, the distinction (if any) betweeǹ feminist' analyses and broader engagements with law and gender, and the normative underpinnings of feminist legal scholarship. The author makes no pretence to neutrality on these issues, questioning the perceived`drift' between political and academic feminism, and arguing strongly for the recognition and realization of feminism's normative and transformative aspirations. Similarly, she challenges the emergence of an`anti-essentialist' norm in feminist discourse, and reaffirms the value of`women-centred' feminist approaches. Finally, this article is also a personal venture, a`stock-taking' exercise which seeks to interrogate the author's own understanding of what feminist legal work entails.

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