Feminist
Thought
Liberalism
Liberalism: a
political philosophy prominent in the 17th - 19th centuries. Most well
known from the writings of Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Hobbes, Mill.
The major philosophical influence upon the American founders
What are its major
assumptions/tenets?
that the RIGHTS
of the INDIVIDUAL are sacred, natural
Individuals are the bearers
of rights, not groups - group rights are a product of the fact that they are
comprised of individuals
Said individuals are
EQUAL to each other before the law, possess
EQUAL RIGHTS
the purpose of the
STATE and LAW is to protect INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS, i.e., to protect one person from
violating the rights of another.
purpose of
constitutional democracy to prevent the STATE itself from violating individual
rights
First Wave Feminism
Focused on Rights,
especially right to vote as a means to secure all other rights
Feminist Critiques of Liberalism
presupposes the division of
life into spheres that warrant state intervention and those that do not
the “public” - the sphere
that requires state intervention, regulation
the “private” - the
sphere that should be free from state intervention
Therefore, sometimes the
private construed as the market/economy since it should be free of state
intevention according to laissez-faire liberals
[I argue that it is
analyitically more precies to speak of a three sector model - state, economy,
civil society - different criteria for decision making, different ends - each
organized at different levels (macro/micro)]
Why is the public/private
distinction problematic for women?
“individuals” “citizens” =
men
patriarchy - private
property - women (and children) as men’s property
2nd Wave Feminism's slogan:
The personal is the political
in what senses?
what is politics -
who gets what, where, and when
men’s power over
women
the law’s power over
women - liberal legal system institutionalizes men’s right to women as property
(e.g. no such thing as marital rape, right to marry off one’s daughter)
public v. private
private sphere as
refuge from the world, sphere of intimacy, place to develop one’s talents
has it been these
for women?
Economic world - modern
capitalist system
premised on the
public/private distinction
assumption that
women are at home tending to children
while men engaged
in “work” in the economic sphere
The myth of state
non-intervention into the private sphere
examples of state
intervention?
child welfare laws
state
sanction/construction of the private
public
assistance programs, the construction of heterosexual
marriage as a legal contract recognized by the state to the
exclusion of others
tax codes/tax treatment
of married couples with children
“head of
household”