Topics in Feminist Philosophy, Misc

Greater numbers of women are entering workplaces in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries. Structural features of patriarchy are changing in Middle Eastern societies and workplaces, but women’s experiences of gendered segregation, under-representation and exclusion raise questions around the feminist politics and ethics mobilized to respond to them. Building on and extending emerging research on feminism, gender, resistance, feminist ethics and the Middle East, we use data from an interview study with 58 Saudi Arabian women to explore their attitudes (...) toward gender-segregated and mixed workplaces. We develop a novel conceptualization of how gender is experienced through patternings of resistance and conformity shaped by the ethicopolitical, religiopolitical and sociocultural webs of meaning in Saudi society that permeate workplaces. Saudi women’s attitudes and actions in the workplace are neither entirely individual and private nor entirely collective and public, but made up of nuanced commitments and resistances to context-relevant identity issues. We discuss implications of our findings for the feminist ethics and politics of gendered resistance and conformity to working practices and norms in Islamic and Middle Eastern settings. (shrink)

Why does workplace gender diversity matter? Here, we provide a review of the literature on both justice‐based and organizational benefits of workplace gender diversity that, importantly, is informed by evidence regarding sex differences and their relationship with vocational behavior and outcomes. This review indicates that the sexes are neither distinctly different, nor so similar as to be fungible. Justice‐based gains of workplace gender diversity include that it may cause less sex discrimination and may combat androcentrism in products and services. We (...) then consider potential instrumental benefits of workplace gender diversity to organizations, including for team and firm performance, innovation, occupational well‐being, and corporate governance. The evidence of positive association is currently strongest for occupational well‐being and governance. We recommend that policy makers ground gender diversity initiatives in this comprehensive and evidence‐based understanding of the benefits of workplace gender diversity. (shrink)

Having elsewhere connected Walter Otto’s interpretation of Dionysus as a politically progressive deity to Huey P. Newton’s vision for the Black Panthers, I here expand this inquiry to a line of Otto-inspired scholarship. First, Alain Daniélou identifies Dionysus and Shiva as the dancing god of a democratic/decolonizing cult oppressed by tyrannical patriarchies. Arthur Evans sharpens this critique of sexism and heteronormativity, concluding that, as Dionysus’ chorus is to Greek tragedy, so Socrates’ circle is to Western philosophy. I thus call for (...) the creation of hybrid Dionysian-Socratic revolutionary philosophical chorus, modeled on Dionysus Lyseus (from -lysis), wielding philosophical analysis to loosen injustice’s bonds, as a vanguard of social justice. I find a handbook for this chorus’ creation in Euripides’ Bacchae, whose Dionysus is an ally of immigrant women, overthrower of Theban patriarchy, and international revolutionary. Finally, I offer a contemporary example of a such a chorus, namely the Birmingham Philosophy Guild. (shrink)

Ascribing autonomous status to agents is a valuable practice. As such, we ought to care about how we engage in practices of autonomy ascription. However, disagreement between first-personal experiences of an agent’s autonomy and third-personal determina- tions of their autonomy presents challenges of ethical and epistemic concern. My view is that insights from a dialogical rather than nondialogical account of autonomy give us the resources to combat the challenges associated with autonomy ascription. I draw on Andrea Westlund’s account of dialogical (...) autonomy—on which autonomy requires a dialogical disposition to hold oneself answerable to external critical perspectives—to make my case. (shrink)

My goal in this short paper is to introduce a dilemma regarding the pronouns ‘ she ’, ‘ he ’, and their various declensions. This dilemma arises from the practice, common in the English speaking world and especially the USA, of letting people choose their own pronouns. And as will become apparent at the end of this paper, I want to suggest that this dilemma might be unique to the English language.

Stereotypes are commonly alleged to be false or inaccurate views of groups. For shorthand, I call this the falsity hypothesis. The falsity hypothesis is widespread and is often one of the first reasons people cite when they explain why we shouldn’t use stereotypic views in cognition, reasoning, or speech. In this essay, I argue against the falsity hypothesis on both empirical and ameliorative grounds. In its place, I sketch a more promising view of stereotypes—which avoids the falsity hypothesis—that joins my (...) earlier work on stereotypes in individual psychology with the work of Patricia Hill Collins on cultural stereotypes. According to this two-part hybrid theory, stereotypes are controlling images or ideas that enjoy both a psychological and cultural existence, which serve a regulative social function. (shrink)

Contemporary feminisms are ineluctably drawn into comparisons with historic discourses, forms of praxis and tactical repertoires. While this can underscore points of continuity and commonality in ongoing struggles, it can also result in nostalgia for a more unified and purposeful feminist politics. Kate Eichhorn argues that our interest in nostalgia should be to understand feminist temporalities, and in particular the specific context in which we experience such nostalgia. Accordingly, this article takes up the idea that neoliberalism and populism, which have (...) given rise to both neoliberal feminism and femonationalism, have produced a series of contestations regarding the purpose and nature of feminist politics, as expressed by white popular feminism in the United Kingdom. This article examines two dimensions of feminist nostalgia: first, nostalgia for a more radical form of feminist politics – one not co-opted by neoliberal forces, not individualistic and not centred around online activism; and second, a nostalgia for the idea of ‘sisterhood’ – a time before white feminists were called upon to engage with intersectionality or be inclusive of trans-women. We analyse these themes through analysis of white popular feminism produced in the United Kingdom between 2010 and 2020, cautioning against a feminist nostalgia which neglects to engage with the radical politics of intersectionality. (shrink)

I explore both the potential and the perils of Twitter as a space for constituting a Deweyan public aimed at transforming how "we" (here, I mean not only citizens of the United States but global citizens) affectively receive and thereby respond to and resist sexual violation. In the course of this brief exploration, I operate with a pragmatic notion of "truth," namely, as democratically formulating a hypothesis concerning the nature of a social problem that enables fruitful amelioration of the problem. (...) I specifically focus on the viral #WhyIDidntReport Twitter campaign provoked by Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court hearing. (shrink)

Contents: 1. Testosterone is not the only Game in Town: The Transgender Woman Athlete 2. Queer Language Lessons: The Confusion over ‘My Pronouns’ 3. Legal Fictions: Changing Sex by Changing Gender 4. More than a Feeling: Rock Stars, Heroines and Transwomen 5. To Compete, or not to Compete, that is the Question: Which is Nobler for Transwomen Athletes? 6. The Power of Words 7. Feminism, Conceptual Engineering, and Trans Identit.

Part 1. Social and political language: methodological and foundational Issues 1. Conceptual engineering in philosophy (Matti Eklund) 2. Social ontology (Mari Mikkola) 3. An invitation to social and political metasemantics (Derek Ball) 4. Linguistic prescriptivism (Alex Barber) 5. Speech acts (Rachel McKinney and Dan Harris) 6. On the Uselessness of the Distinction between Ideal and Non-Ideal Theory (at least in the Philosophy of Language) (Herman Cappelen and Josh Dever) Part 2. Non-ideal semantics and pragmatics 7. Lying, Deception, and Epistemic Advantage (...) (Eliot Michaelson and Andreas Stokke) 8. Propaganda (Anne Quaranto and Jason Stanley) 9. Code words (Justin Khoo) 10. Racist and sexist figleaves (Jennifer Saul) 11. Protest and speech act theory (Matthew Chrisman and Graham Hubbs) 12. Defective contexts (Andrew Peet) Part 3. Linguistic harms 13. Varieties of pejoratives (Robin Jeshion) 14. Microaggressions and the problem of attributional ambiguity (Christina Friedlaender) 15. Hermeneutical injustice (Rebecca Mason) 16. Generics and essentializing (Rachel Sterken) 17. Language extinction (Ethan Nowak) 18. ’laxwalxwashpotamáay súngaan ‘áawq // to be between the blind snake’s teeth’: Indigenous Language Reclamation Between The Fangs Of A (Simulated) Dilemma (Shelbi Meissner) Part 4. Applications / Applied Philosophy of Language 19. Language and free speech (Ishani Maitra and Mary Kate McGowan) 20. Language and ideology (Eric Swanson) 21. Language and legitimation (Robert Simpson) 22. How much gender is too much gender? (Robin Dembroff and Daniel Wodak) 23. On Language and Sexuality: Demisexuals, Polyamorous, Bambi Lesbians, and Other Queers (Esa Diaz-Leon and Saray Ayala-Lopez) 24. The language of mental illness (Renee Jorgensen Bolinger). (shrink)

Women, particularly those in public positions (e.g. journalists, politicians, celebrities, activists) are subject to disproportionate amounts of abuse on social media platforms like Twitter. This abuse occurs in a landscape that those platforms designed, and maintain. Focusing in particular on Twitter, as typical of the kind of platform we’re interested in, we argue that it is the platform not (usually) the individuals who use it, that bears collective responsibility as a corporate agent for misogyny. Social media platforms, however, should not (...) overstep the prevention of misogyny into interference in open political debates. (shrink)

From yoga to the Anthropocene to feminist theory, recent calls to ‘decolonise’ have resulted in a resurgence of the term. This article problematises the language of the decolonial within feminist theory and pedagogy, problematising its rhetoric, particularly in the context of the US. The article considers the romanticised transnational solidarities produced by decolonial rhetoric within feminist theory, asking, among other questions: What are the assumptions underpinning the decolonial project in feminist theory? How might the language of ‘decolonising’ serve to actually (...) de-politicise feminism, while keeping dominant race logics in place? Furthermore, how does decolonial rhetoric in sites such as the US continue to romanticise feminist solidarities while positioning non-US-born women of colour at the pedagogical end of feminist theory? I argue that ‘decolonial’, in its current proliferation, is mainstreamed uncritically while serving as a catachresis within feminist discourse. This article asks feminism to reconsider its ease at an incitement to decolonise as a caution for resisting the call to decolonise as simply another form of multicultural liberalism that masks oppression through imagined transnational solidarities, while calling attention to the homogenous construction of the ‘Global South’ within decolonising discourse. (shrink)

This exciting new Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of the contemporary state of the field in feminist philosophy. The editors' introduction and forty-five essays cover feminist critical engagements with philosophy and adjacent scholarly fields, as well as feminist approaches to current debates and crises across the world. Authors cover topics ranging from the ways in which feminist philosophy attends to other systems of oppression, and the gendered, racialized, and classed assumptions embedded in philosophical concepts, to feminist perspectives on prominent subfields (...) of philosophy. The first section contains chapters that explore feminist philosophical engagement with mainstream and marginalized histories and traditions, while the second section parses feminist philosophy's contributions to numerous philosophical subfields, for example metaphysics and bioethics. A third section explores what feminist philosophy can illuminate about crucial moral and political issues of identity, gender, the body, autonomy, prisons, among numerous others. The Handbook concludes with the field's engagement with other theories and movements, including trans studies, queer theory, critical race, theory, postcolonial theory, and decolonial theory. The volume provides a rigorous but accessible resource for students and scholars who are interested in feminist philosophy, and how feminist philosophers situate their work in relation to the philosophical mainstream and other disciplines. Above all it aims to showcase the rich diversity of subject matter, approach, and method among feminist philosophers. (shrink)

“Seeing is believing!”, or so the old adage goes. Roughly, the idea expressed by the adage is this: one needs to see x before one is willing to believe that x exists. In this chapter, I examine the extent to which it is more apt to say that believing is seeing​. Expanding on the work of feminist epistemologists and critical race scholars, I consider a number of cases in which one needs to believe that x exists before one can see (...) x. I then consider how reframing the relationship between seeing and believing can deepen our understanding of a wide range of social phenomena, ranging from police brutality to sexual harassment. (shrink)

There is growing interest in a category of domestic labour frequently termed ‘emotional labour’. I argue that this labour is, in fact, primarily a form of epistemic labour. I argue that domestic epistemic labour is the target of dual erasure. Firstly, as invisible domestic labour, it is underrecognized and undervalued. Secondly, it is not recognized as epistemic, due to women’s epistemic oppression. ‘Emotional labour’, as a catch-all for feminized labour, perpetuates the dominant ideological conception of emotion as feminine and anti-epistemic. (...) Consequently, popular usage of ‘emotional labour’ attempts to address the first layer of erasure but reinforces the second. (shrink)

Appeal to women’s experience for moral delineation in theological ethics has been perplexed by the issue of cultural diversity and colonialism as raised by postcolonial critique. This paper aims to examine the debates from Third-World feminism and Christian feminism in dealing with difference and solidarity, leading to the call for contextual analysis and related power mappings. Margaret A. Farley’s proposal for sexual ethics in Just Love will then serve as an example to discuss how the search for common morality among (...) cultural diversity may prevent or reinforce colonial agendas and other privileges. (shrink)

In recent years, scholars have identified a political formation that mobilizes the emancipatory energies of feminism in the service of the expansion of the carceral state. ‘Carceral feminism,’ as it has come to be known, is often portrayed by these scholars as a product of feminist-conservative convergence. Here, I argue that the rise of the SlutWalk movement suggests a more complex genealogy for carceral feminism. By situating SlutWalk in the historico-theoretical context of feminism’s sex wars, I reveal the carceral–feminist impulses (...) roiling beneath its progressive ‘sex-positive’ surface. With its tendency to reduce sexual freedom to expressive freedom, valorize conventional forms of femininity and sexuality, and promote a fundamentally carceral paradigm of sexual freedom, the SlutWalk movement, I argue, is descended from anti-censorship/pro-sex feminism, a liberal-feminist hybrid that emerged out of the convergence of sex-radical feminism and liberalism during the sex wars. When viewed in this light, SlutWalk no longer appears as a sign that feminism’s ‘pleasure’ and ‘danger’ factions have negotiated a long-awaited ‘sex-détente.’ Rather, it stands as a testament to the extent to which feminism’s once radical aspirations in the domain of sexual politics have been supplanted by a tepid, heteronormative, and disquietingly carceral liberal project. (shrink)

There is significant disagreement among feminists and liberals about the compatibility between the two doctrines. Political liberalism has come under particular criticism from feminists, who argue that its restricted form of equality is insufficient. In contrast, Lori Watson and Christie Hartley argue that political liberalism can and must be feminist. This article raises three areas of disagreement with Watson and Hartley’s incisive account of feminist political liberalism. First, it argues that an appeal to a comprehensive doctrine can be compatible with (...) respecting others, if that appeal is to the value of equality. Second, it takes issue with Watson and Hartley's defence of religious exemptions to equality law. Third, it argues that political liberalism can be compatible with feminism but that it is not itself adequately feminist. It concludes that political liberalism is not enough for feminists. (shrink)

In this paper we show that being blameworthy for not blaming and being blameworthy for victim blaming are structurally similar. Each involve the two traditional contours of moral responsibility: a knowledge condition and a control condition. But interestingly, in these cases knowledge and control are importantly interrelated. Being in a relationship with another person affords us varying degrees of knowledge about them. This knowledge in turn affords agents in relationships varying degrees of influence over one another. Cases where an agent (...) is especially blameworthy for failing to blame a friend, a close colleague, or a spouse highlight this. The interdependence of these two conditions in interpersonal relationships sheds (partial) light on why victim blaming is morally wrong. We argue that victim blamers suffer from a kind of moral myopia by only focusing on what the victim could do, in virtue of their being in a relationship of some sort with their abuser, to avoid abuse. We focus specifically on cases where such moral myopia is fueled by misogynistic and hierarchical gender schema and scripts. (shrink)

Understanding a normative concept like oppression requires attention to not only its harms but also the causes of those harms. In other words, a complete understanding of such a concept requires a proper causal explanation. This causal explanation can also inform and constrain our moral response to such harms. Therefore, the conceptual explanatory framework that we use to inform our moral diagnosis and our moral response become significant. The first goal of this dissertation is to propose complexity theory as the (...) proper framework for not only explaining a social phenomenon like oppression but also understanding the proper sites for social change. The second goal of this dissertation is to answer three interrelated questions about how we should respond, morally, to a chronic and complex social problem like racial or gender inequality: (1) Why do the current interventions to address these problems fail? (2) Do social movements play any unique role in addressing these problems? (3) What is our individual responsibility to participate in social movements? In response, I argue that the explanatory frameworks that we choose to understand the cause(s) of social problems can be the source of the inadequacy of our intervention. I argue that a proper social and moral intervention needs to capture the complex and dynamic nature of the social world. I also show that changing the explanatory framework allows us to see the unique role social movements play in making effective and sustainable social change possible. Finally, I conclude supporting such movements is a moral imperative. (shrink)

Previous research has shown that women are disproportionately negatively affected by a variety of socio-economic hardships, many of which COVID-19 is making worse. In particular, because of gender roles, and because women’s jobs tend to be given lower priority than men’s (since they are more likely to be part-time, lower-income, and less secure), women assume the obligations of increased caregiving needs at a much higher rate. This unfairly renders women especially susceptible to short- and long-term economic insecurity and decreases in (...) wellbeing. Single-parent households, the majority of which are headed by single mothers, face even greater risks. These vulnerabilities are further compounded along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, class, and geography. Drawing upon the philosophical literature on political responsibility and structural injustice (specifically, the work of Iris Marion Young), I argue that while the state may not have had either foresight into, or control over, the disproportionate effect the pandemic would have on women, it can nonetheless be held responsible for mitigating these effects. In order to do so, it must first recognize the ways in which women have been affected by the outbreak. Specifically, policies must take into account the unpaid labor of care that falls on women. Moreover, given that this labor is particularly vital during a global health pandemic, the state ought to immediately prioritize the value of this work by providing financial stimuli directly to families, requiring employers to provide both sick leave and parental leave for at least as long as schools and daycares are inoperational, and providing subsidized emergency childcare. (shrink)

Compulsive smartphone users’ psyches, today, are increasingly directed away from their bodies and onto their devices. This phenomenon has now entered our global vocabulary as “smartphone zombies,” or what I will call “iZombies.” Given the importance of mind to virtually all conceptions of human identity, these compulsive users could thus be productively understood as a kind of human-machine hybrid entity, the cyborg. Assuming for the sake of argument that this hybridization is at worst axiologically neutral, I will construct a kind (...) of phenomenological psychological profile of the type of cyborg which engages in these patterns of behavior. I follow Judith Butler in seeing this identity as the result of performance practices, which as such can be modified or replaced using other performances. Pursing one such alternative, I compose a dancing critique that “reverse engineers” the choreographies implied by these cyborgs’ survival practices. The upshot of this critique is that their movement patterns do indeed align closely to those of horror cinema’s zombies. I therefore conclude by suggesting a few possible choreographic imperatives to facilitate more enabling ways of being for iZombie cyborgs today. (shrink)

Are words like ‘woman’ or ‘man’ sex terms that we use to talk about biological features of individuals? Are they gender terms that we use to talk about non-biological features e.g. social roles? Contextualists answer both questions affirmatively, arguing that these terms concern biological or non-biological features depending on context. I argue that a recent version of contextualism from Jennifer Saul that Esa Diaz-Leon develops doesn't exhibit the right kind of flexibility to capture our theoretical intuitions or moral and political (...) practices concerning our uses of these words. I then float the view that terms like 'woman' or 'man' are polysemous, arguing that it makes better sense of the significance of some forms of criticisms of mainstream gender ideology. (shrink)

From a radical feminist perspective, gender is a cage. Or to be more precise, it’s two cages. If genders are cages, then surely we want to let people out. Being less constrained in our choices is something we all have reason to want: theorists in recent years have emphasized the importance of the capability to do and be many different things. At the very least, we should want an end to sex-based oppression. But what does this entail, when it comes (...) to gender? In this paper, I’ll compare four ‘transitional pathways’, with a view to considering how each relates to the ultimate end of ending sex-based oppression. Should we open the doors to the cages, so that people can move freely between them, but leave the cages themselves in place?. Should we add more cages?. Should we make the cages bigger, so that people have a lot more room to move around inside them? Or should we dismantle the cages, so there are no more genders at all?. Some of these options are ‘gender revisionist’, others are gender abolitionist. I’ll argue in favour of a gender abolitionist pathway. (shrink)

In this paper we develop a view about the disorientation attached to the process of falling out of love and explain its prudential and moral value. We start with a brief background on theories of love and situate our argument within the views concerned with the lovers’ identities. Namely, love changes who we are. In the context of our paper, we explain this common tenet in the philosophy of love as a change in the lovers’ self-concepts through a process of (...) mutual shaping. This, however, is potentially dangerous for people involved in what we call ‘subsuming relationships’, who give up too much autonomy in the process of mutual shaping. We then move on to show how, through the relation between love and the self-concept, we can explain why the process of falling out of love with someone is so disorientating: when one is falling out of love, one loses an important point of reference for self-understanding. While this disorientating process is typically taken to be harmful to the person experiencing it, we will explain how it can also have moral and prudential value. By re-evaluating who we were in the relationship and who we are now, we can escape from oppressive practices in subsuming relationships. We finish by arguing that this gives us reason to be wary of seeking to re-orient ourselves -or others- too quickly after falling out of love. (shrink)

Casting dirty looks is morally wrong when it encourages gender stereotypes and objectifies the woman looked at. Oglers are to blame for the harm done. And, if an ogler were to merely imagine what he perceives, we would blame him less than for his stare. So, in many such cases, we must be at least partly be blaming the ogler for being in the very perceptual state he is then in—for his male gaze. This line of reasoning goes against ethical (...) orthodoxy, which claims that perception is simply not the kind of thing for which the agents who perceive could be blamed. Against orthodoxy, I argue that the moral relevance of the male gaze implies that perception is the kind of thing for which perceiving agents could be blamed. (shrink)

This dissertation is an investigation into how scientific values may influence the kinds of theories which are investigated, and in turn which theories become ‘mainstream’. I have focussed on psychedelic therapy as a family of theories, and I identified three main reasons as to why psychedelic therapy is somewhat incompatible with the current psychiatric paradigm: (1) the inability to conduct double-blind trials, (2) The inability to isolate one explanatory variable, and (3) The mystical and spiritual dimensions of the mechanisms of (...) action of psychedelic drugs. Because double-blind randomised controlled trials, isolating one explanatory variable, and neurobiological- style explanations of mechanisms of action are seen as an integral part of good psychiatric research, this means that psychedelic therapy is inherently disadvantaged as a research avenue in the current paradigm. These three things also arguably embody scientific values proposed by Kuhn (1977), such as accuracy, simplicity, and consistency. Helen Longino (1995) argues that Kuhn’s values do not simply increase the likelihood of a theory being true, but in some instances serve to perpetuate discriminatory ideologies. She proposes her own list of values as a route to a more equitable science, and by extension, a more equitable society. Interestingly, psychedelic therapy as a theory embodies many, if not all of the values proposed by Longino. This led me to my conclusion that if the psychiatric paradigm were more feminist according to Longino’s criteria, then psychedelic therapy would be considered a “better” theory. It would therefore be easier to conduct research in this area, and psychedelic therapy would have a better chance at becoming a mainstream treatment. (shrink)

This article examines the portrayal of matricentric feminism as well as expounds the issues of mythology and how both informed each other in Umaru Landan and Dexter Lyndersay’s Shaihu Umar. It argues that Fatima’s sojourn in search of her son, Shaihu, is propelled by a will borne out of motherhood and given strength by supernatural forces. The methodological base of the study is qualitative in nature appropriating the concepts of matricentric feminism and mythology as structural scaffoldings while Jacques Derrida’s concept (...) of deconstruction will be used as analytical framework. This concept attempts to challenge the interpretation of a text based on conventional notions of stability of human self, the external world, and of language and meaning. The philosophy of existence of the eponymous character is revealed in the play. The article tries to probe if the matricentric elements exuded by Fatima (Shaihu’s mother) are just a will tied to motherhood or if it is given strength by the metaphysics of presence and the messianic. (shrink)

This article explores the role of second-order anger in the formation of resistant feminist space through the work of María Lugones and Sara Ahmed. I argue that this incommunicative form of anger can operate as a bridge between two senses of resistant spatiality in Lugones, connecting the hangout, which is a collective and transgressive space for alternative sense making, and the cocoon, which is a solitary and germinative space of tense internal transformation. By weaving connections with Ahmed’s concept of feminist (...) fragile sheltering, I demonstrate that the insulating character of second-order anger need not be equated with spatial solitude. Rather, given its orientation toward a future becoming away from oppressed subjectivity, germinative cocooning can be understood as constitutive of collective, feminist, and resistant spaces. I conclude, therefore, that feminist spaces ought to shelter second-order angers and embrace fragility as a condition of resistant transformation. (shrink)

This paper argues that it is not incoherent to think that abortion should be “legal but rare.” The argument draws upon virtue ethics, feminism, critical theory, and the theory of biopolitics to argue that the idea that abortion should be legal but rare is best understood as aiming at the elimination of unwanted pregnancies. Some pro-choice defenders of abortion rights worry that the “legal but rare” idea stigmatizes women who choose abortion. But when this idea is unpacked using the tools (...) of intersectional analysis, biopolitical theory, and virtue ethics it can be understood as pointing toward a transformation of social reality that empowers women. (shrink)

I defend the right to an abortion at any stage of pregnancy by drawing on a Kantian account of consent and innate right. I examine how pregnant women are positioned in moral and legal debates about abortion, and develop a Kanitan account of bodily autonomy in order to pregnant women’s epistemic authority over the experience of pregnancy. Second, I show how Kant's distinction between innate and private right offers an excellent legal framework for embodied rights, including abortion and sexual consent, (...) and I draw on the legal definition of sexual consent in order to show how abortion discourse undermines women's innate right. I then explore Kant’s treatment of the infanticidal mother, and draw out the parallels between this case and contemporary abortion rights in order to develop a distinctly Kantian framework of reproductive rights in non-ideal conditions. Finally, I explore the implications of this non-ideal approach for contemporary abortion discourse, arguing that debates about the legality of abortion should more broadly engage the barbaric conditions of reproductive injustice. (shrink)

In this essay, I draw on Kant’s legal philosophy in order to defend the right to voluntary motherhood by way of abortion at any stage of pregnancy as an essential feature of women’s basic rights. By developing the distinction between innate and acquired right in Kant’s legal philosophy, I argue that the viability standard in US law (as established in Planned Parenthood v. Casey) misunderstands the nature of embodied right. Our body is the site of innate right; it is the (...) means through which we can set and pursue ends in the world. The law, therefore, cannot adjudicate the relationship between the will and the body: it cannot require us to allow our bodies to be used against our will. By comparing unwanted pregnancy to sexual assault, I problematize the notion that consent to pregnancy, like consent to sex, can ever be conclusive. I examine Kant’s own account of unwanted pregnancy, in which he describes mother and child finding themselves “in a state of nature” in order to rethink the status of the fetus in law, and I argue that we should understand the fetus’s right to life as provisional, rather than as enforceable by law. (shrink)

Evânia Reich presents the argument that the veil laws in France—the banning of the full-face coverings in public and the banning of the headscarf in public schools—are consistent with the emancipatory project of French Laïcité. According to this argument, the veils that Muslim women wear are symbols of their oppression, whereas French education seeks to liberate each individual and Laïcité serves as a bulwark against the creeping oppressive influence of religion. Unveiling Muslim women, then, is an act of emancipation. In (...) this essay, I argue that the view of French secularism as an emancipatory project to free women of the oppressive mechanism of the veil is an example of what Marilyn Frye calls the “arrogant eye.” In this essay, I offer an alternative approach on the veil following Frye’s notion of the “loving eye.”. (shrink)

There have been many attempts to define care in terms of the virtues, but meta‐analyses of these attempts are conspicuously absent from the literature. No taxonomies have been offered to situate them within the broader care ethical and virtue theoretical discourses, nor have any substantial discussions of each option's merits and shortcomings. I attempt to fill this lacuna by presenting an analysis of the claim that care is a virtue (what I call the “virtue thesis” about care). I begin by (...) distinguishing weaker and stronger versions of the virtue thesis, arguing that the weaker version is an orthodox view among care ethicists. I then go on to develop a taxonomy of approaches available to care ethicists seeking to flesh out the virtue thesis. The three I identify are analogical approaches, according to which care is analogous to some existing virtue; supplementalist approaches, according to which care is a novel virtue; and cardinalist approaches, according to which care is a cardinal virtue. Following this, I defend the virtue thesis from some foreseeable objections and argue that its most promising version is analogical. (shrink)

Our paper focuses on the philosophical perspective of constructing active caring masculinities agencies in the contemporary feminist discourse. Since contemporary feminisms are not simply anti-essentialist, but more importantly, polyphonic, we believe that it is far more appropriate to talk about ‘masculinities’ as opposed to ‘masculinity’. We are proposing a revised understanding of the self in which the self is not defined primarily in the dichotomous, categorical one-other relationship. We use Paul Ricoeur’s anthropology to describe the self as relational, as well (...) as Joan Tronto’s recent perspective on care which fits well with a Ricoeurian reconstruction of the self. We also engage with Raewyn Connell’s discourse on masculinity and more specifically, hegemonic masculinity. By using ‘caring masculine agencies’ as an alternative to ‘masculinity as reactive anti-femininity’, we are proposing a paradigm shift that hopefully is flexible enough to respect the dynamism inherent to any act of gender-identification. (shrink)

This article discusses the category of foreigner in the context of academia. In the first part I explore this category and its philosophical significance. A quick look at the literature reveals that this category needs more attention in analyses of dimensions of privilege and disadvantage. Foreignness has peculiarities that demarcate it from other categories of identity, and it intersects with them in complicated ways. Devoting more attention to it would enable addressing issues affecting foreigners in academia that go commonly unnoticed. (...) In the second part of the article I argue that current efforts to make academia a more inclusive environment should address the disadvantages that many foreign academics face. I focus on two senses of foreigner: working and living in a country that is not your country of origin, and being a nonnative speaker of the language in which you work. (shrink)

The question of diversity, both with regard to the demographic profile of philosophers as well as the content of philosophical inquiry, has received much attention in recent years. One figure that has gone relatively unnoticed is that of the foreigner. To the extent that philosophers have taken the foreigner as their object of inquiry, they have focused largely on challenges nonnative speakers of English face in a profession conducted predominantly in English. Yet an understanding of the foreigner in terms of (...) the nonnative speaker does not exhaust the conceptual space of the foreigner. This article provides a more nuanced conceptual apparatus that allows for a more precise identification and discussion of other ways in which one can be a foreigner in philosophy. I develop a taxonomy of different conceptions of the foreigner, namely the linguistic, material, cultural, and epistemic foreigner; I discuss the different and specific challenges they face; and I show how foreigners enrich philosophical practice. (shrink)

This article explores projects of art and biology as joyful acts of insurrection. It presents critical and creative perspectives to generate alternative structures of subjec-tivity. These alternative structures gain relevance when intersectional variables of privilege and discrimination as political tools are set in crisis by a postanthropocen-tric awareness. The thesis of this article is that in order to understand and develop postanthropocentric intersectional positions, the microbial posthuman joins thecartographies of the posthuman as a material possibility from microscopic biologicalmatter and philosophical (...) and artistic thought. This microbial posthuman also allows for a reframing in the light of microbiopolitics, a redistribution of pain, life and deathwithin a broader notion of life. (shrink)

Individuals with disabilities face significant challenges, both physically and socially. To claim a disability, therefore, is not something one ought to do lightly. Pregnancy, however, presents a very difficult and interesting case. Pain, discomfort, and inconvenience are often daily aspects of pregnancy, and pregnancy itself can cause physical, as well as social, impediments that can substantially interfere with one's day-to-day work and life. In practice, based on our current laws concerning family leave, ailments brought on by pregnancy can be cited (...) as a temporary disability in certain circumstances. However, the kind of "pregnancyrelated disability" that is built into such leave policies and laws falls short of... (shrink)