Citizenship and Gender Hierarchies in Political Liberalism

2019 ◽  
pp. 142-169
Author(s):  
Gina Schouten
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Policy Initiatives ◽  
Gendered Division Of Labor ◽  
Gender Hierarchies ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Liberal Concept

This chapter considers the work of liberal feminists Christie Hartley and Lori Watson. Hartley and Watson argue that political liberalism can approve gender-egalitarian interventions on the grounds that gender inequality threatens citizenship. I agree with Hartley and Watson that the liberal concept of citizenship is the key to justifying progressive gender-egalitarian political interventions. I argue, however, that their argument establishes only that a hierarchal gendered division of labor threatens citizenship. This is problematic because the gendered division of labor is not essentially hierarchal, and morally objectionable harms inhere in its non-hierarchal components. Moreover, the policy initiatives licensed by a hierarchal diagnosis of the gendered division of labor could exacerbate the harms that inhere in its non-hierarchal features. Hartley and Watson’s argument may offer a partial reconciliation of liberalism and feminism, but on its own it could further entrench the injustice of the gendered division of labor.

The Mal-Distribution Strategy

2019 ◽  
pp. 92-113
Author(s):  
Gina Schouten
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Distribution Strategy ◽  
Relative Value ◽  
Gendered Division Of Labor ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Way

This chapter critiques the prevailing strategy for defending gender-egalitarian political interventions as legitimate exercises of political power compliant with the neutrality constraint. According to this strategy, the gendered division of labor constitutes or causes unjust distributions of goods, and gender-egalitarian interventions can be legitimate means to remedy those unjust distributions. This strategy is appealing because of its apparent promise of justifying gender-egalitarian policies without making any judgments as to the relative value of gender-egalitarian and gender-inegalitarian lifestyles. I argue that, despite its appeal, this strategy is inadequate. First, the distributional strategy is not compliant with the neutrality constraint in the way that its proponents have claimed; second, independently of liberal legitimacy, the injustice of the gendered division of labor is not best diagnosed as distributional.

scholarly journals (Un)configurable masculinities and gender dynamics in men’s eyes: “Mixed” couples of Filipino migrants in Belgium and the Netherlands

2020 ◽  
pp. 011719682097402
Author(s):  
Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Household Chores ◽  
Filipino Women ◽  
Gendered Division Of Labor ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Filipino Migrants ◽  
And Gender

Studies on “mixed” couples focus mainly on women’s perspectives, which results in the neglect of the viewpoints of men. Addressing this empirical gap, this research note investigates the case of Belgian and Dutch men in (former) relationship with Filipino women, and Filipino men (currently or previously) married to Belgian/Dutch women. Ethnographic data analysis unveils the importance of the traditional division of household chores to these men. Belgian and Dutch informants maintain a gendered division of labor in their respective households, whereas Filipino informants, whose Belgian/Dutch spouses pursue gender equality, adopt various strategies to regain their masculine self.

Subtle Linguistic Cues Affecting Gender In(Equality)

2021 ◽  
pp. 0261927X2110351
Author(s):  
Magdalena Formanowicz ◽  
Karolina Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Gender Bias ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Gender Discrimination ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Linguistic Cues ◽  
Gender Hierarchies ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
And Gender

Gender stereotypes and related gender discrimination are encoded in and transmitted through language, contributing to gender inequality. In this article, we review research findings on subtle linguistic means of communicating gender stereotypes and gender hierarchies. Our goal is to provide a comprehensive repository of various instances of subtle linguistic biases potentially useful in creating a text analysis toolbox to quantify gender bias in language. Our focus is predominantly on those areas that have received less attention both in research and in policy making. As gender inequalities are communicated through linguistic practices, attempts to change social reality include changes in language. Therefore, we suggest possible interventions for practices of gender equality in language.

Liberalism, Adaptive Preferences, and Gender Equality

Hypatia ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 127-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Levey
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Adaptive Preferences ◽  
Gendered Division Of Labor ◽  
And Gender

I argue that a gendered division of labor is often the result of choices by women that count as fully voluntary because they are an expression of preferences and commitments that reflect women's understanding of their own good. Since liberalism has a commitment to respecting fully voluntary choices, it has a commitment to respecting these gendered choices. I suggest that justified political action may require that we fail to respect some people's considered choices.

Liberal Daddy Quotas: Why Men Should Take Care of the Children, and How Liberals Can Get Them to Do It

Hypatia ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Barclay
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Gender Difference ◽  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Parental Leave ◽  
Policy Measure ◽  
Gendered Division Of Labor ◽  
Theories Of Justice ◽  
Significant Patterns ◽  
Direct Attack

The gendered division of labor is the major cause of gender inequality with respect to the broad spectrum of resources, occupations, and roles. Although many feminists aspire to an equality of outcome where there are no significant patterns of gender difference across these dimensions, many have also argued that liberal theories of social justice do not have the conceptual tools to justify a direct attack on the gendered division of labor. Indeed, many critics argue that liberalism positively condones it, presuming that it arises from the free choices of individuals, which must be respected. In this paper I will accept the feminist goal of equality of outcome across roles, occupations, income, and wealth, but will argue that liberal theories of justice are consistent with strong measures aimed at promoting such equality. I will show that liberalism has the conceptual resources to justify a concrete policy measure that goes considerably beyond the measures usually championed by feminists. The example I focus on is “daddy quotas,” which refers to the tagging of a significant part of parental leave for the exclusive use of fathers.

Equal Citizenship and Public Reason

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christie Hartley ◽  
Lori Watson
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Substantive Equality ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Gendered Division Of Labor ◽  
Historical Sites ◽  
Equal Citizenship

This book is a defense of political liberalism as a feminist liberalism. The first half of the book develops and defends a novel interpretation of political liberalism. It is argued that political liberals should accept a restrictive account of public reason and that political liberals’ account of public justification is superior to the leading alternative, the convergence account of public justification. In the second half of the book, it is argued that political liberalism’s core commitments restrict all reasonable conceptions of justice to those that secure genuine, substantive equality for women and other marginalized groups. Here it is demonstrated how public reason arguments can be used to support law and policy needed to address historical sites of women’s subordination to advance equality; prostitution, the gendered division of labor and marriage, in particular, are considered.

Liberalism, Neutrality, and the Gendered Division of Labor

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gina Schouten
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Liberal Society ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Gender Egalitarianism ◽  
Gendered Division Of Labor ◽  
Public Resources ◽  
Paid Labor ◽  
Political Intervention

The trend toward gender equalization in domestic and paid labor allocations has stalled, and a growing number of scholars argue that, absent political intervention, further eroding of the gendered division of labor will not be forthcoming anytime soon. Certain political interventions could jumpstart the stalled gender revolution, but beyond their prospects for effectiveness, such interventions stand in need of another kind of justification. In a diverse, liberal state, reasonable citizens will disagree about what makes for a good life and a good society. Because a fundamental commitment of liberalism is to limit political intrusion into the lives of citizens and allow considerable space for those citizens to act on their own conceptions of the good, questions of legitimacy arise. Legitimacy concerns the constraints we must abide by as we seek collective political solutions to our shared social problems, given that we will disagree, reasonably, both about what constitutes a problem and about what costs we should be willing to incur to fix it. The interventions in question would subsidize gender-egalitarian lifestyles at a cost to those who prefer to maintain a traditional gendered division of labor. In a pluralistic, liberal society where many citizens reasonably resist the feminist agenda, can scarce public resources be used to finance political interventions to subsidize gender egalitarianism? This book argues that they can, and moreover, that they can even by the lights of political liberalism, a particularly demanding theory of liberal legitimacy.

African Americans and the Crisis of Modernity

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 53-60
Author(s):  
Eric S. King
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Black People ◽  
Black Family ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Crisis Of Modernity

This article examines Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun by exploring the conflict between a traditionally Southern, Afro-Christian, communitarian worldview and certain more destabilizing elements of the worldview of modernity. In addition to examining the socio-economic problems confronted by some African Americans in the play, this article investigates the worldviews by which these Black people frame their problems as well as the dynamics within the relationships of a Black family that lives at the intersection of racial, class, and gender inequality in Chicago during the latter 1950s.

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