Gender Justice

Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 6 (1):1-25 (2012)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

I propose, defend and illustrate a principle of gender justice meant to capture the nature of a variety of injustices based on gender:A society is gender just only if the costs of a gender-neutral lifestyle are, all other things being equal, lower than, or at most equal to, the costs of gendered lifestyles.The principle is meant to account for the entire range of gender injustice: violence against women, economic and legal discrimination, domestic exploitation, the gendered division of labor and gendered socialization. The sense of “costs” employed is similarly wide. Costs can be material, psychological and social.I defend the principle by appeal to the values at the core of liberal egalitarian justice: equality of access and the good of individual choice. I illustrate my case through a discussion of the injustice of a gendered division of labor. Some feminists doubt that liberal egalitarianism has the theoretical resources to recognize the unjust nature of the gendered division of labor. I argue that it does.If the principle advanced here is correct, then gender injustice is pervasive. At the same, it does not affect only women but also men. Liberal egalitarianism is capable of acknowledging this fact without denying that, overall, gender norms oppress women more than they oppress men: Arguably, women who wish to lead a gender-neutral lifestyle have to pay higher costs that men who wish to do the same.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Gender Justice.Anca Gheaus - 2012 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 6 (2):1-24.
Gender.Anca Gheaus - 2018 - In Serena Olsaretti (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Distributive Justice. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 389-414.
We fight for roses too: time-use and global gender justice.Alison M. Jaggar - 2013 - Journal of Global Ethics 9 (2):115 - 129.
A Prolegomena to Gender Justice.Alexander Schimpf - unknown - Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association:175-186.
Equality-Promoting Parental Leave.Anca Gheaus & Ingrid Robeyns - 2011 - Journal of Social Philosophy 42 (2):173-191.
Dual Labor Market.Andrzej Klimczuk & Magdalena Klimczuk-Kochańska - 2016 - In Nancy Naples, Renee Hoogland, Wickramasinghe C., Wong Maithree & Wai Ching Angela (eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies, 5 Volume Set. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 1--3.

Analytics

Added to PP
2018-11-03

Downloads
62 (#234,653)

6 months
4 (#320,252)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Anca Gheaus
Central European University

Citations of this work

Normative competence, autonomy, and oppression.Ji-Young Lee - 2022 - Feminist Philosophy Quarterly 8 (1).
Philosophical Approaches to Work and Labor.Michael Cholbi - 2022 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
The feminist argument against supporting care.Anca Gheaus - 2020 - Journal of Practical Ethics 8 (1):1-27.
Citizenship, reciprocity, and the gendered division of labor.Gina Schouten - 2017 - Politics, Philosophy and Economics 16 (2):174-209.

View all 10 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Equality of what?Amartya Sen - 1987 - In John Rawls & Sterling M. McMurrin (eds.), Liberty, Equality, and Law: Selected Tanner Lectures on Moral Philosophy. University of Utah Press.
Defending equality of outcome.Anne Phillips - 2004 - Journal of Political Philosophy 12 (1):1–19.

Add more references