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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Men do not want solely the obedience of women; they want their sentiments. All men, except the most brutish, desire to have, in the woman most nearly connected with them, not a forced slave but a willing one, not a slave merely, but a favourite. They have therefore put everything in practice to enslave their minds. The masters of all other slaves rely, for maintaining obedience, on fear; either fear of themselves, or religious fears. The masters of women wanted more than simple obedience, and they turned the whole force of education to effect their purpose. All women are brought up from the very earliest years in the belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men; not self-will, and government by self-control, but submission, and yielding to the control of others. All the moralities tell them that it is the duty of women, and all the current sentimentalities that it is their nature, to live for others; to make complete abnegation of themselves, and to have no life but in their affections.—John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women.
I would like to thank Samantha Brennan for inviting me to contribute this essay and for helpful comments on an earlier version. The essay also profited from audience interaction at the Nineteenth International Social Philosophy Conference at the University of Oregon, July 20, 2002, and at the Conference on Feminist Moral Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario, August 24, 2002.
2 Claudia, Card, “The Fiestiness of Feminist,” in Feminist Ethics, ed. C., Card (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1991);Google ScholarMarilyn, Frye, The Politics of Reality (Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1983);Google ScholarAlison, Jaggar, “Feminist Ethics: Projects, Problems, Prospects,” in Feminist Ethics (op. cit.).Google Scholar
3 Sandra, Bartky, Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression (New York: Routledge, 1990);Google Scholar Card, “Fiestiness”; N., Hartsock, “The Feminist Standpoint: Developing a Ground for a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism,” in Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, ed. S., Harding and M., Hintikka (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1983);Google ScholarDiana Tietjens, Meyers, ”Agency,” in A Companion to Feminist Philosophy, Alison, Jaggar and Iris Marion, Young, ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000);Google ScholarRosemarie, Tong, Feminine and Feminist Ethics (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1993).Google Scholar
4 John Martin, Fischer, “Responsibility and Control,” in Moral Responsibility, ed. John Martin, Fischer (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986);Google ScholarHarry, Frankfurt, “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of the Person,” Journal of Philosophy 68 (1971): 5–20;Google ScholarImmanuel, Kant, Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), trans.Google ScholarJames W., Ellington (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993);Google ScholarJohn, Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971);Google Scholar R. Tong, Feminine and Feminist Ethics.
5 It might strike some people as odd that I have left “autonomous” off of the list, for many people think of autonomy as a fundamental condition of agency. I have omitted autonomy because it means such different things to different people and because it is likely captured by several of the features that I have mentioned.
6 Meyers, “Agency.“
7 Susan Sherwin has suggested that feminists should distinguish between agency and autonomy. She maintains that “agency” involves the exercising of reasonable choice, but does not take into account oppressive circumstances that circumscribe the range of choices available. A broadened, more relational account of autonomy that goes beyond the traditional idea of self-governance would be sensitive to oppression. I have two reasons for not distinguishing here between agency and autonomy in the way that Sherwin recommends. First, I have presented the paradox of feminist agency as stemming from feminist assumptions about patriarchal oppression. Thus, it does not ignore circumstances of oppression. And second, I am not concerned so much with the idea of agency as the exercise of reasonable choice, as with the possibility of feminist agency. I understand feminist agency to be effective action by women against patriarchal oppression. Thus, my focus here is quite different from Sherwin's. I have consciously and explicitly set aside the task of articulating an account of autonomy (see note 5), as the paradox of feminist agency arises regardless of our conception of autonomy. See Susan, Sherwin's “A Relational Approach to Autonomy in Health Care,” in The Politics of Women's Health: Exploring Agency and Autonomy, Susan, Sherwin, Coordinator (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 33.Google Scholar
8 Lawrence, Blum, Friendship, Altruism and Morality (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980);Google ScholarAdrienne, Rich, Of Woman Born (New York: W. W. Norton, 1979);Google ScholarLorraine, Code, “Second Persons,” in Science, Morality and Feminist Theory, ed. Marsha, Hanen and Kai, Neilsen (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1987);Google ScholarCaroline, Whitbeck, “A Different Reality: Feminist Ontology,” in Women, Knowledge and Reality: Explorations in Feminist Philosophy, ed. Ann, Garry and Marilyn, Pearsall (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989);Google Scholar see also Catriona, Mackenzie and Natalie, Stoljar, eds., Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).Google Scholar
9 Carol, Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982).Google Scholar
10 Meyers, “Agency.“
11 Ibid., 377.
12 Card, “Fiestiness”; Michelle-Moody Adams, “Gender and the Complexity of Moral Voices,” in Feminist Ethics, ed. C. Card; Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born; R. Tong, Feminist and Feminine Ethics.
13 Marilyn Frye, The Politics of Reality; R. Tong, Feminine and Feminist Ethics.
14 Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics (New York: Routledge, 1998).
15 Ibid., 96.
16 Ibid., 100.
17 Ibid., 107.
18 Susan, Dwyer, “Learning from Experience,” in Daring to Be Good: Essays in Feminist Ethico-Politics, ed. Bat-Ami Bar, On and Ann, Ferguson (New York: Routledge, 1998);Google Scholar Jaggar, “Feminist Ethics.”
19 Samantha Brennan suggested this example.
20 Urban, Walker, Moral Understandings, 107.Google Scholar
21 The Chilly Climate for Women Faculty in Colleges and Universities, executive producers, Western's Caucus on Women's Issues and the President's Standing Committee on Employment Equity, the University of Western Ontario, producer Kern Murch Productions, written and directed by Kern Murch, 1991.
22 As Marilyn Frye says, “to recognize a person as oppressed, one has to see that individual as belonging to a group of a certain sort.” Frye, The Politics of Reality, 8.
23 Michael, Bratman, “Shared Intention,” Ethics 104 (1993): 97–113;Google ScholarMargaret, Gilbert, “What Is It for Us to Intend?” in Contemporary Action Theory, Vol. 2, ed. Raimo, Tuomela and Ghita, Holmstrom (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1997), 65–85;Google ScholarChristopher, Kutz, Complicity: Ethics and Law for a Collective Age (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000);Google ScholarLarry, May, The Morality of Groups (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987);Google ScholarRaimo, Tuomela and Karl, Miller, “We-Intentions,” Philosophical Studies 53 (1988): 115-37.Google Scholar
24 Ibid.
25 “Guidelines for the Use of Non-Sexist Language,” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 59 (1986): 471-82.
26 Frye, Politics of Reality, 16.
27 Ann Cudd put this point to me in her helpful commentary on an earlier version of the paper, presented at the Meeting of the Society for Analytical Feminism, Chicago, April 2002.
28 Such as Jean, Grimshaw, “Autonomy and Identity in Feminist Thinking,” in Feminist Perspectives in Philosophy, ed. Morwenna, Griffiths and Margaret, Whitford (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988).Google Scholar
29 R., Tong, Feminine and Feminist Ethics, 59.Google Scholar
30 For a very interesting discussion of the way that women make choices that leave them worse off, see Rhona, Mahoney'sKidding Ourselves: Breadwinning, Babies, and Bargaining Power (New York: Basic Books, 1995).Google Scholar
31 Ann, Cudd, “Comments on Isaacs,” presented at the meeting of the Society for Analytical Feminism, Chicago (April 2002), 4.Google Scholar
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 Ann Cudd provides an excellent discussion of blaming the victim and of the moral duty of the oppressed to resist oppression in her article “Strikes, Housework, and the Moral Obligation to Resist,” Journal of Social Philosophy 29 (1998): 20–36.
35 See ibid., 31.
36 Ibid., 33.
37 Ibid., 34.
38 Ibid., 34.
39 Lisa Tessman put this question to me in the discussion period of my session at the Feminist Moral Philosophy Conference, August 23-25, 2002, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada.
40 Maria C., Lugones and Elizabeth V., Spelman, “Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism and the Demand for ‘The Woman's Voice,“’ reprinted in Women and Values: Readings in Recent Feminist Philosophy, ed. Marilyn, Pearsall (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1999).Google Scholar
41 Ibid., 15--16.
42 Ibid., 17.
43 See also Moody-Adams, “Gender and the Complexity of Moral Voices.“
44 Lugones and Spelman, “Have We Got a Theory for You!“
45 Marilyn Frye, The Politics of Reality, 16.
46 Card, “Feistiness.“