Toward a Feminist Philosophy of Economics (Economics as Social Theory)

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Yet can it really explain processes of economic change? Economic Evolution explores three of the main approaches within the new institutional economics: After all, we cannot assume that the oppression in question takes the same form in different contexts, and we cannot assume that there is an underlying explanation of the different ways it manifests itself.

2. What is Feminism?

Different groups work to combat different forms of oppression; some groups take oppression against women as women as a primary concern. If there is a basis for cooperation between some subset of these groups in a given context, then finding that basis is an accomplishment, but should not be taken for granted.

An alternative, however, would be to grant that in practice unity among feminists cannot be taken for granted, but to begin with a theoretical common ground among feminist views that does not assume that sexism appears in the same form or for the same reasons in all contexts. We saw above that one promising strategy for distinguishing sexism from racism, classism, and other forms of injustice is to focus on the idea that if an individual is suffering sexist oppression, then an important part of the explanation why she is subject to the injustice is that she is or appears to be a woman.

This includes cases in which women as a group are explicitly targeted by a policy or a practice, but also includes cases where the policy or practice affects women due to a history of sexism, even if they are not explicitly targeted. The commonality among the cases is to be found in the role of gender in the explanation of the injustice rather than the specific form the injustice takes.

Building on this we could unify a broad range of feminist views by seeing them as committed to the very abstract claims that:. Continuing with this intentional openness in the exact nature of the wrong, the question still remains what it means to say that women are subjected to injustice because they are women. On one hand, the claim that someone is oppressed because she is a woman suggests that the best causal explanation of the subordination in question will make reference to her sex: Note, however, that in both sorts of cases the fact that one is or appears to be a woman need not be the only factor relevant in explaining the injustice.

But if the injustice takes a form that, e. For example, the practice of raping Bosnian women was an intersectional injustice: Of course, these two understandings of being oppressed because you are a woman are not incompatible; in fact they typically support one another. In other words, the causal mechanism for sexism often passes through problematic representations of women and gender roles.

In each of the cases of being oppressed as a woman mentioned above, Paula suffers injustice, but a crucial factor in explaining the injustice is that Paula is a member of a particular group, viz. This, we think, is crucial in understanding why sexism and racism, and other -isms are most often understood as kinds of oppression. Oppression is injustice that, first and foremost, concerns groups; individuals are oppressed just in case they are subjected to injustice because of their group membership. On this view, to claim that women as women suffer injustice is to claim that women are oppressed.

Where does this leave us? There are disagreements among feminists about the nature of justice in general and the nature of sexism, in particular, the specific kinds of injustice or wrong women suffer; and the group who should be the primary focus of feminist efforts. Nonetheless, feminists are committed to bringing about social change to end injustice against women, in particular, injustice against women as women.

Feminism brings many things to philosophy including not only a variety of particular moral and political claims, but ways of asking and answering questions, constructive and critical dialogue with mainstream philosophical views and methods, and new topics of inquiry. Feminist philosophers work within all the major traditions of philosophical scholarship including analytic philosophy, American pragmatist philosophy, and Continental philosophy. In short, they are philosophical topics that arise within feminism.

Approaches to feminist philosophy are almost as varied as approaches to philosophy itself, reflecting a variety of beliefs about what kinds of philosophy are both fruitful and meaningful. To spell out such differences, this section of the SEP provides overviews of the following dominant at least in more developed societies approaches to feminist philosophy.

The following are links to essays in this section:. All these approaches share a set of feminist commitments and an overarching criticism of institutions, presuppositions, and practices that have historically favored men over women. Feminist philosophies of most any philosophical orientation will be much more perspectival, historical, contextual, and focused on lived experience than their non-feminist counterparts.

Unlike mainstream philosophers who can seriously consider the philosophical conundrums of brains in a vat, feminist philosophers always start by seeing people as embodied. Feminists have also argued for the reconfiguration of accepted structures and problematics of philosophy. For example, feminists have not only rejected the privileging of epistemological concerns over moral and political concerns common to much of philosophy, they have argued that these two areas of concern are inextricably intertwined.

Part 2 of the entry on analytic feminism lays out other areas of commonality across these various approaches. For one, feminist philosophers generally agree that philosophy is a powerful tool for understanding.

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Claims to universality, feminist philosophers have found, are usually made from a very specific and particular point of view, contrary to their manifest claims. Another orientation that feminist philosophers generally share is a commitment to normativity and social change; they are never content to analyze things just as they are but are instead looking for ways to overcome sexist practices and institutions. Such questioning of the problematic of mainstream approaches to philosophy has often led to feminists using methods and approaches from more than one philosophical tradition.

Even with their common and overlapping orientations, the differences between the various philosophical approaches to feminism are significant, especially in terms of styles of writing, influences, and overall expectations about what philosophy can and should achieve. Analytic feminist philosophy tends to value analysis and argumentation, Continental feminist theory values interpretation and deconstruction, and pragmatist feminism values lived experience and exploration.

They tend to share with Nietzsche the view that truth claims often mask power plays. Yet where Continental and pragmatist are generally wary about notions of truth, analytic feminists tend to argue that the way to.

These differences and intersections play out in the ways that various feminists engage topics of common concern. One key area of intersection noted by Georgia Warnke is the appropriation of psychoanalytic theory, with Anglo-American feminists generally adopting object-relations theories and Continental feminists drawing more on Lacan and contemporary French psychoanalytic theory, though this is already beginning to change entry on intersections between analytic and continental feminism.

Given the importance of psychoanalytic feminism for all three traditions, a separate essay on this approach to feminist theory is included in this section. No topic is more central to feminist philosophy than sex and gender, but even here many variations on the theme flourish. Many will borrow freely from each other and find that other orientations contribute to their own work.

Even the differences over sex and gender add to a larger conversation about the impact of culture and society on bodies, experience, and pathways for change. Philosophers who are feminists have, in their work in traditional fields of study, begun to change those very fields. The Encyclopedia includes a range of entries on how feminist philosophies have intervened in conventional areas of philosophical research, areas in which philosophers often tend to argue that they are operating from a neutral, universal point of view notable exceptions are pragmatism, poststructuralism, and some phenomenology.

Historically, philosophy has claimed that the norm is universal and the feminine is abnormal, that universality is not gendered, but that all things feminine are not universal. Not surprisingly, feminists have pointed out how in fact these supposed neutral enterprises are in fact quite gendered, namely, male gendered.

For example, feminists working on environmental philosophy have uncovered how practices disproportionately affect women, children, and people of color. Liberal feminism has shown how supposed universal truths of liberalism are in fact quite biased and particular. Across the board, in fact, feminist philosophers are uncovering male biases and also pointing to the value of particularity, in general rejecting universality as a norm or goal. Feminist critical attention to philosophical practices has revealed the inadequacy of dominant philosophical tropes.

Philosophy presupposes interpretive tools for understanding our everyday lives; feminist work in articulating additional dimensions of experience and aspects of our practices is invaluable in demonstrating the bias in existing tools, and in the search for better ones. Feminist explanations of sexism and accounts of sexist practices also raise issues that are within the domain of traditional philosophical inquiry. For example, in thinking about care, feminists have asked questions about the nature of the self; in thinking about gender, feminists have asked what the relationship is between the natural and the social; in thinking about sexism in science, feminists have asked what should count as knowledge.

In some such cases mainstream philosophical accounts provide useful tools; in other cases, alternative proposals have seemed more promising. Resources listed below have been chosen to provide only a springboard into the huge amount of feminist material available on the web.

The emphasis here is on general resources useful for doing research in feminist philosophy or interdisciplinary feminist theory, e. The list is incomplete and will be regularly revised and expanded. Further resources on topics in feminism such as popular culture, reproductive rights, sex work, are available within each sub-entry on that topic. Feminist Philosophy First published Thu Jun 28, Approaches to Feminism 4. Interventions in Philosophy 5. Introduction As this entry describes, feminism is both an intellectual commitment and a political movement that seeks justice for women and the end of sexism in all forms.

So, for example, a liberal approach of the kind already mentioned might define feminism rather simplistically here in terms of two claims: Normative Men and women are entitled to equal rights and respect. Descriptive Women are currently disadvantaged with respect to rights and respect, compared with men […in such and such respects and due to such and such conditions…]. In an effort to suggest a schematic account of feminism, Susan James characterizes feminism as follows: For example, bell hooks argues: As Elizabeth Spelman makes the point: Building on this we could unify a broad range of feminist views by seeing them as committed to the very abstract claims that: Approaches to Feminism Feminism brings many things to philosophy including not only a variety of particular moral and political claims, but ways of asking and answering questions, constructive and critical dialogue with mainstream philosophical views and methods, and new topics of inquiry.

The following are links to essays in this section: Analytic Feminism Continental Feminism Pragmatist Feminism Intersections Between Pragmatist and Continental Feminism Intersections Between Analytic and Continental Feminism Psychoanalytic Feminism All these approaches share a set of feminist commitments and an overarching criticism of institutions, presuppositions, and practices that have historically favored men over women.

For one, feminist philosophers generally agree that philosophy is a powerful tool for understanding ourselves and our relations to each other, to our communities, and to the state; to appreciate the extent to which we are counted as knowers and moral agents; [and] to uncover the assumptions and methods of various bodies of knowledge.

Yet where Continental and pragmatist are generally wary about notions of truth, analytic feminists tend to argue that the way to counter sexism and androcentrism is through forming a clear conception of and pursuing truth, logical consistency, objectivity, rationality, justice, and the good.

An evolutionary approach to feminist economics: Two different models of caring

Interventions in Philosophy Philosophers who are feminists have, in their work in traditional fields of study, begun to change those very fields. Entries under the heading of feminist interventions include the following: Topics in Feminism Feminist critical attention to philosophical practices has revealed the inadequacy of dominant philosophical tropes. Bibliography Ahmed, Sara, , Queer Phenomenology: Alanen, Lily and Charlotte Witt eds. Race, Gender, and the Self , New York: Jacqui and Lisa Albrecht eds. Feminist Perspectives on Racism , New York: Women of Color Press.

Haciendo Caras , San Francisco: Essays on Ethics , Cambridge, MA: Barker, Drucilla and Edith Kuiper eds. Reprinted in in her Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression , New York: Baumgardner, Jennifer and Amy Richards, , Manifesta: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Bell, Linda, , Beyond the Margins: Reflections of a Feminist Philosopher , New York: Benhabib, Seyla, , Situating the Self: Journal of Women in Culture and Society , 27 4: Men, Women, and Rape , New York: Butler, Judith, , Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity , New York: Lesbian and Gay Displacement , Oxford: Ethics , 99 2: Philosophical Reflections , Bloomington, IN: Cimitile, Maria, , Returning to Irigaray: State University of New York Press.

Code, Lorraine, , Ecological Thinking: Stanford Law Review , 43 6: The New Press, xiii—xxxii. Crow, Barbara, , Radical Feminism: A Documentary Reader , New York: New York University Press. Reprinted in Herrmann and Stewart Delphy, Christine, , Close to Home: University of Massachusetts Press. Deutscher, Penelope, , Yielding Gender: Feminism, Deconstruction, and the History of Philosophy , London: Random House Crown Publishing. Dykeman, Therese Boos ed.

Echols, Alice, , Daring to Be Bad: University of Minnesota Press. Enloe, Cynthia, , Globalization and Militarism: Farr, Kathryn, , Sex Trafficking: Findlen, Barbara, , Listen Up: Fine, Michelle and Adrienne Asch eds. Essays in Psychology, Culture, and Politics , Philadelphia: Firestone, Shulamith, , The Dialectic of Sex: Folbre, Nancy, , Greed, Lust, and Gender: A History of Economic Ideas , Oxford: Fraser, Nancy, , Unruly Practices: Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie, , Extraordinary Bodies: Garry, Ann, Serene J.

Khader, and Alison Stone eds. Gould, Carol and Marx Wartofsky eds. Power in Knowledge , New York: Grosz, Elizabeth, , Volatile Bodies: Hamington, Maurice, , Embodied Care: University of Illinois Press. Hamington, Maurice and Celia Bardwell-Jones eds. Social Construction and Social Critique , Oxford: Transforming Culture, Society, and Politics , Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Personal, Political, Global , Oxford: Hernandez, Daisy and Bushra Rehman eds. Being Feminist, Doing Feminism. University of Oklahoma Press. Institute for Lesbian Studies. University of Michigan Press. La femme dans les textes de Freud , Paris: Translated as The Enigma of Woman: Cornell University Press, Fictions of a Philosopher , Catherine Porter trans. Stanford University Press, Lloyd, Genevieve, , The Man of Reason: Mackenzie, Catriona and Natalie Stoljar eds.

Feminism, Postmodernism, Environment , New York: A Critical Introduction , New York: McRuer, Robert and Abby Wilkerson eds. A Genealogy , Bloomington, IN: Molyneux, Maxine and Nikki Craske eds. South End Press, pp.

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