Discovering Feminist Philosophy: Knowledge, Ethics, Politics (Feminist Constructions)
Robin May Schott
Language: English
Pages: 168
ISBN: 0742514552
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Many people believe that gender equality has been achieved. In such a world, why dwell on the dualism between the sexes? Why separate, and therefore marginalize, women's scholarship from scholarship as a whole? In short, why feminist philosophy? Discovering Feminist Philosophy provides an accessible introduction to the central issues in feminist philosophy. At the same time, it answers current objections to feminism, arguing that in today's world it is as compelling as ever to probe the impact of the dualism of the sexes. Therefore, feminist perspectives make a vital contribution to the present and future of philosophy. Author Robin May Schott also contributes an original perspective on feminist ethics, based on her work on war and rape. This unique book is equal parts survey, viewpoint, and scholarship―ideal for anyone seeking to understand the current and future role of feminist philosophy.
argued, although woman does not symbolize for Aquinas an inferior form of rationality, because woman’s meaning is bound up with reproduction, she is “symbolically located outside the actual manifestations of Reason within human life.” Hence, more is at stake in Aquinas’s texts than a “succession of surface misogynist attitudes within philosophical thought. It is not a question simply of the applicability to women of neutrally specified ideas of rationality, but rather of the genderization of the
explicit military strategy. Sexualized violence in wartime is not unique to the civil wars in the former Yugoslavia. There is substantial literature that attends to the ways in which military practices have been used to define masculinity and to express misogynist and homophobic attitudes in military speech and practice. Sara Ruddick, who writes o n maternal thinking and peace politics, describes this militaristic stance as follows: “The ‘monstrous male, loud of voice, hard of fist’ who goes off
behavior rather than others.”70 Feminist Ethics of Conflict - 11 1 Second, one must consider the role of political propaganda. For example, in 1992 a document called “Warning” signed by the Serbian ruling party, the Serbian Socialist Party, the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Serbian Orthodox Church included the claim that “Albanians, Muslims, and Romans [sic],with their high birth rates, are beyond rational and human reproduction.” T h e document called for stimulating the
argued, in ethics one must address the risk of failure-in this case the failure of witnessing. Since false witnessing does in fact occur, can witnessing provide a n adequate model for recovery from trauma? In some situations, victims’ testimony does establish the public forum as a witness to their traumas in a way that affirms the truth of the victims’ experiences, the validity of their identities, and their claim for equal rights. But this approach needs to be complemented by other strategies,
18. See, for example, Catriona Mackenzie and Natalie Stoljar, eds., Relutionul Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency and the Social Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) and Diana Tietjens Meyers, ed., Feminists Rethink the Self (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1997). 19. Beauvoir, Ethics, 72. 20. Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 158. 21. Beauvoir, Ethics, 98. 22. See Margaret A. Simons, Beauvoir and the Second Sex: Feminism, Race, and the Origins of Existentialism (Lanham, Md.: