This article aims to refute the “incompatibility thesis” that nationalism is incompatible with transnational feminist solidarity, as it fosters exclusionary practices, xenophobia, and racism among feminists with conflicting nationalist aspirations. I examine the plausibility of the incompatibility thesis by focusing on the controversy regarding just reparation for Second World War “comfort women,” which is still unresolved. The Korean Council at the center of this controversy, which advocates for the rights of Korean former comfort women, has been criticized for its (...) strident nationalism and held responsible for the stalemate. Consequently, the case of comfort women has been thought to exemplify the incompatibility thesis. I argue against this common feminist perception in three ways: first, those who subscribe to the incompatibility thesis have misinterpreted facts surrounding the issue; second, the Korean Council's nationalism is a version of “polycentric nationalism,” which avoids the problems of essentialist nationalism at the center of feminist concerns; and, third, transnational feminist solidarity is predicated on the idea of oppressed/marginalized women's epistemic privilege and enjoins that feminists respect oppressed/marginalized women's epistemic privilege. To the extent that oppressed/marginalized women's voices are expressed in nationalist terms, I argue that feminists committed to transnational feminist solidarity must accommodate their nationalism. (shrink)

Third World and transnational feminisms have emerged in opposition to white second-wave feminists’ single-pronged analyses of gender oppression that elided Third World women’s multiple and complex oppressions in their various social locations. Consequently, these feminisms share two “Third World feminist” mandates: First, feminist analyses of Third World women’s oppression and resistance should be historically situated; and second, Third World women’s agency and voices should be respected. Despite these shared mandates, they have diverged in their proper domains of investigation, with (...) transnational feminism concentrating on the transnational level and Third World feminism focusing on local and national contexts. Further, their respective positions regarding nation-states and nationalism have been antithetical, as leading transnational feminists have categorically rejected nation-states and nationalism as detrimental to feminism. In recent decades, transnational feminism has become the dominant feminist position on Third World women, overshadowing Third World feminism, and the dismissal of nation-states and nationalism as irrelevant to feminism has become fashionable. Against this current trend, this article argues for the relevance of nation-states and nationalism for transnational feminism and the urgency of reclaiming Third World feminism. (shrink)

Recent decades of women's rights advocacy have produced numerous regional and international agreements for protecting women's security, including a UN convention that affirms the state's responsibility to protect key gender-specific rights, with no exceptions on the basis of culture or religion. At the same time, however, the focus on universal women's rights has enabled influential feminists in the United States to view women's rights in opposition to culture, and most often in opposition to other people's cultures. Not surprisingly, then, feminists (...) across the global South have criticized the universal-women's-rights agenda. This article reviews representative critical responses to universal-women's-rights advocacy. The author argues that, taken collectively, these critical responses do not reject the possibility of cross-cultural feminist advocacy but they do suggest the need for feminists in the United States and Europe to focus less on transferring rights across the obstacles of culture and more on how they can revise and expand their own understanding of women's rights in response to the struggles of other women, many of whom view women's rights as organic to their own cultures and as connected to broader social struggles. (shrink)

This chapter begins by discussing what feminist ethics is and does through examination of a specific example of the spheres into which our lives are separated: the public and the private. After demonstrating how feminist ethicists critique, complicate, and expand the content and experiences of such categories, I characterize the overarching aims of feminist ethics as (1) critical and (2) creative. I then turn to major themes in feminist ethics, exploring four of them in depth: oppression, vulnerability and dependency, relationality, (...) and the nonideal. Having provided an overview of the ethical themes that matter to feminists, I also depict three different varieties of feminist ethics—liberal, care, and transnational—before concluding. (shrink)

What kinds of feminist projects are made possible by (dis)analogising race and gender and/or transing them? The article asserts that an arbitrary separation is enacted when the transgender-transracial question is pulled apart such that an examination of the conceptual prefix that connects the two, i.e. trans, is discarded for an examination of the elements that allow for their separation – race and gender. Rather than affirm a (dis)analogy between race and gender, the article offers two correctives to the feminist discourse (...) around transracialism / the possibility of reading race as malleable. First, I contest the shock value of transracialism by suggesting that a modality of transracial crossing has existed in the feminist imagination in the form of transnational, diasporic crossings that are separate, though not disparate, from transgender crossings. Second, through a glimpse into the history of racial prerequisite cases in early twentieth-century USA, I suggest the necessity of deploying trans analytics to understand the ways in which race has been made unevenly malleable in highly regulated and contested ways for different populations in different historical contexts. Race operated as fluid, flexible terrain accessed and claimed through discourses of citizenship and diaspora with mixed success. Hence, the article offers diaspora and citizenship, rather than the cultural and biological, as key analytics that enable the mapping of trans formations through patterns of migration and movement. (shrink)

This essay is a conversation between two South Asian Muslim sisters both of whom are feminist academics of color, where one immigrated to the United States and the other, a decade apart, to United Kingdom. The aim of this essay is to examine the ways in which white supremacist structures influenced and molded our personal journeys as well as how our narratives are deeply entangled within broader conversations around patriarchy, neo-liberal feminism, and anti-Muslim racism.

Despite the growing attention to oppression and resistance in social and political philosophy as well as ethics, philosophers continue to struggle to describe and appropriately attribute agency under non-ideal circumstances of oppression and structural injustice. This chapter identifies some features of new accounts of non-ideal agency and then examines a particular problem for such theories, what Serene Khader has called the agency dilemma. Under the agency dilemma, attempts to articulate the agency of subjects living under oppression must on the one (...) hand avoid overemphasizing constraints on agency, and thereby producing paternalistic theories that “deny agency” for oppressed subjects, and on the other hand avoid failing to fully appreciate the effects of oppression on agency, thereby missing crucial features of how oppression unjustly shapes a person’s lived possibilities. This chapter traces this dilemma to a preoccupation with ascribing agency, which produces problematic descriptive and political effects for theorizing agency under oppression: what the author calls an asymmetry problem and a disenfranchisement problem. Finally, the chapter proposes that the agency dilemma might be ameliorated if theorists scrutinize more closely how moral, epistemic, and political agency interact and overlap in life under oppression. (shrink)

This chapter discusses several possible reasons why works by women philosophers have traveled significantly less than those written by men, although women’s contributions go back to the start of European history of philosophy. Differentiating between geographic, linguistic, historic and philosophical travels, Tove Pettersen claims that gender is particularly significant with regard to historical and philosophical traveling. As the case of women philosophers clearly demonstrate, gender hampers the circulation of certain texts and inhibit transhistorical exchange of knowledge and ideas. ****** Che (...) chapitre examine plusieurs raisons possibles pour expliquer pourquoi les œuvres de femmes philosophes ont “voyage” beaucoup moins que celle des hommes, bien que la contribution des femmes remonte au début de l´histoire européenne de la philosophie. Distinguant entre plusieurs façons de voyager – géographique, linguistique, historique et philosophique –, Tove Pettersen soutient que le “genre” est un facteur particulièrement significative par rapport au voyage historique et philosophique- Comme le démontre clairement le cas des femmes philosophes, leur genre nuit á la circulation de certains textes ainsi qu’à l’échange transnational du savoir et des idées. (shrink)

some years, the German public has been debating the case of migrant workers receiving German benefits for children living abroad, which has been scandalised as a case of “benefit tourism.” This points to a failure to recognise a striking imbalance between the output of the German welfare state to migrants and the input it receives from migrant domestic workers. In this article I discuss how this input is being rendered invisible or at least underappreciated by sexist, racist, and classist practices (...) of othering. To illustrate the point, I will use examples from two empirical research projects that looked into how families in Germany outsource various forms of reproductive work to both female and male migrants from Eastern Europe. Drawing on the concept of othering developed in feminist and postcolonial literature and their ideas of how priv‐ ileges and disadvantages are interconnected, I will put this example into the context of literature on racism, gender, and care work migration. I show how migrant workers fail to live up to the normative standards of work, family life, and gender relations and norms set by a sedentary society. A complex interaction of supposedly “natural” and “objective” differences between “us” and “them” are at work to justify everyday discrimination against migrants and their institutional exclusion. These processes are also reflected in current political and public debates on the commodification and transnationalisation of care. (shrink)

Why does scholarship on transnational labor regulation (TLR) consistently fails to search for improvements in working conditions, and instead devotes itself to relentless efforts for identifying administrative processes, semantics, and amalgamations of stakeholders? This article critiques TLR from a pro-worker perspective, through the philosophical work of Georg Lukács, and the concepts of reification and commodification. A set of theoretically grounded criteria is developed and these are applied against selected contemporary cases of TLR. In the totality that is capitalism, reification (...) of social relations of production conceals completely the experiences of workers. In TLR, managerialist and process-oriented scholarship is dominant, verifiable outcomes and positive improvements in conditions of employment are not sought, and worse, meaningless procedures are celebrated as positive achievements. (shrink)

Feminism and Tradition in Aesthetics takes a fresh look at the history of aesthetics and at current debates within the philosophy of art by exploring the ways in which gender informs notions of art and creativity, evaluation and interpretation, and concepts of aesthetic value. Multiple intellectual traditions have formed this field, and the discussions herein range from consideration of eighteenth century legacies of ideas about taste, beauty, and sublimity to debates about the relevance of postmodern analyses for feminist aesthetics. (...) Forward by Arthur C. Danto, 20 authors include Paul Mattick, Jr., Caroline Korsmeyer, Timothy Gould, Christine Battersby, Mary Devereaux, bell hooks, REnee Lorraine, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Elizabeth Ann Dobie, Adrian Piper, Anita Silvers, Susan Feagin, Mary D. Garrard, Ellen Handler Spitz, Noel Carroll, Joanne Waugh, Joseph Margolis, Rita Felski, and Hilde Hein, as well as Peg Brand's essay, "Revising the Aesthetic-Nonaesthetic Distinction: The Aesthetic Value of Activist Art.". (shrink)

This article critically examines the feminist movement in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, highlighting the struggles and activism of Juarense women against social injustices, particularly those exacerbated by machismo, the Narco War, and the manufacturing industry. The analysis explores the roots of machismo in Mexican culture, the impact of the maquiladora industry on women's lives, and the rise of feminist activism in response to these challenges. Emphasizing the intersection of gender violence and legal frameworks, the article incorporates feminist legal theory to argue (...) for substantial legal reforms to combat the normalization of machismo and feminicide. It further discusses the resilience and determination of Juarense women, portraying their efforts as part of the broader global feminist movement. (shrink)

This chapter sketches a literary history of writing the colonial interregnum through the comparison of a canonical Dublin text and its filmic adaptation with a canonical Johannesburg text and its filmic adaptation. Njabulo Ndebele’s short story ‘Fools’ (1983) repurposes formal elements from Joyce’s ‘The Dead’ (1914), transposing strategies for representing late colonial Dublin to a Johannesburg township during the height of apartheid in a context of extreme racial domination; beginning with close comparative readings of both stories, my chapter argues that (...) the context in which ‘Fools’ emerges determines the significance of its reappropriation of Joycean formal devices and simultaneously forces a re-reading of Joyce’s flirtation with bourgeois naturalism in ‘The Dead.’ Further, the respective publishing contexts of ‘Fools’ and ‘The Dead’ go on to determine their reception and recirculation, as demonstrated by the diverse histories of the American John Huston’s adaptation of ‘The Dead’ (1984), and Ramadan Suleman’s South African adaptation of ‘Fools’ (1997). In following this circumatlantic history of influence and adaptation from Joyce to Ndebele to Huston to Suleman, across hemispheres and media, I mean to articulate a relationship between modernist form and forms of modernity, particularly as those forms that appear and reappear in the global south over the course of the long twentieth century. Particular attention is paid here to the history of underdevelopment in the global south and how it impinges upon the production and circulation of literary adaptations. (shrink)

This special issue of HYPATIA: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy entitled "Women, Art, and Aesthetics" highlights the expanded range of topics at center stage in feminist philosophical inquiry to date (2003): recontextualizing women artists (essays by Patricia Locke, Eleanor Heartney, and Michelle Meagher), bodies and beauty (Ann J. Cahill, Sheila Lintott, Janell Hobson, Richard Shusterman, Joanna Frueh), art, ethics, politics, law (A. W. Eaton, Amy Mullin, L. Ryan Musgrave, Teresa Winterhalter), and review essays by Estella Lauter and Flo Leibowitz. Annotated (...) bibliography by Joshua Shaw. (shrink)

Structural gaslighting arises when conceptual work functions to obscure the non-accidental connections between structures of oppression and the patterns of harm they produce and license. This paper examines the role that structural gaslighting plays in white feminist methodology and epistemology using Fricker’s (2007) discussion of hermeneutical injustice as an illustration. Fricker’s work produces structural gaslighting through several methods: i) the outright denial of the role that structural oppression plays in producing interpretive harm, ii) the use of single-axis conceptual resources to (...) understand intersectional oppression, and iii) the failure to recognize the legacy of women of color’s epistemic resistance work surrounding the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace. I argue that Fricker’s whitewashed discussion of epistemic resistance to sexual harassment in the United States is a form of structural gaslighting that fails to treat women of color as knowers and exemplifies the strategic forgetting that is a central methodological tactic of white feminism. (shrink)

In “What Makes a Transnational Rule of Law? Understanding the Logos and Values of Human Action in Transnational Law”, Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco explores the possibility—and opportunity—of the existence of a Rule of Law (from now on, RoL) on a transnational level. The aim of this paper is to briefly discuss some points related to various facets of Rodriguez-Blanco’s proposal: the correct question about the RoL and her particular view of human action (section 2); the type of explanation about (...) rules, standards, regulations and principles (section 3); the definitions of RoL, coercion, and freedom (section 4); the parties of the relevant relationship and the notion of transnational law (section 5); and the structure of relevant relationships in national and transnational contexts (section 6). I will try, on the one hand, to show how these points could appear quite problematic and thus seem to undermine the integrity of Rodriguez-Blanco’s proposal, and on the other hand, to offer some suggestions as to how these problems could be solved to strengthen her proposal. With these comments, I will also try to indicate what I think are the most important points that should be considered in any sound discourse or proposal on these subjects. I will then conclude with some final remarks (section 7). (shrink)

This article critically examines the feminist movement in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, highlighting the struggles and activism of Juarense women against social injustices, particularly those exacerbated by machismo, the Narco War, and the manufacturing industry. The analysis explores the roots of machismo in Mexican culture, the impact of the maquiladora industry on women's lives, and the rise of feminist activism in response to these challenges. Emphasizing the intersection of gender violence and legal frameworks, the article incorporates feminist legal theory to argue (...) for substantial legal reforms to combat the normalization of machismo and feminicide. It further discusses the resilience and determination of Juarense women, portraying their efforts as part of the broader global feminist movement. (shrink)

Feminist epistemologies hold that differences in the social locations of inquirers make for epistemic differences, for instance, in the sorts of things that inquirers are justified in believing. In this paper we situate this core idea in feminist epistemologies with respect to debates about social constructivism. We address three questions. First, are feminist epistemologies committed to a form of social constructivism about knowledge? Second, to what extent are they incompatible with traditional epistemological thinking? Third, do the answers to these questions (...) raise serious problems for feminist epistemologies? We argue that some versions of two of the main strands in feminist epistemology – feminist standpoint theory and feminist empiricism – are committed to a form of social constructivism, which requires certain departures from traditional epistemological thinking. But we argue that these departures are less problematic than one might think. Thus, (some) feminist epistemologies provide a plausible way of understanding how (some) knowledge might be socially constructed. (shrink)

In this ethnography of transnational commercial surrogacy In a small clinic In India, the narratives of two sets of womenInvolved In this new form of reproductive travel - the transnational clients and the surrogates themselves - are evaluated. How do these women negotiate the culturally anomalous nature of transnational surrogacy within the unusual setting of India? It Is demonstrated that while both sets of women downplay the economic aspect of surrogacy by drawing on predictable cultural tools like (...) 'gift', 'sisterhood' and 'mission', they use these tools In completely unexpected ways. Previous ethnographies of surrogacy In other parts of the world have revealed that women Involved In surrogacy use these narratives to downplay the contractual nature of their relationship with each other. Ironically, when used In the context of transnational surrogacy 1n India, these narratives further highlight and often reify the Inequalities based on class, race and nationality between the clients and suppliers of reproductive tourism In India. (shrink)

Most Third World feminists consider nationalism as detrimental to feminism. Against this general trend, I argue that “polycentric” nationalism has potentials for advocating feminist causes in the Third World. “Polycentric” nationalism, whose proper goal is the attainment and maintenance of national self-determination, is still relevant in this neocolonial age of capitalist globalization and may serve feminist purposes of promoting the well-being of the majority of Third World women who suffer disproportionately under this system.

The contemporary debate centering round the circumference of feminist discourse has of late been very potent in addressing the issues of certain prejudiced notions in our existing patriarchal structure. This paper is an attempt to show the ongoing paradox existing in the world of feminism which has thoroughly critiqued the patriarchal culture and has naturalized sexual identities, thereby glorifying man’s supremacy and dominion. The patriarchal culture lionized the ideals of brevity, courageousness, and intellect and thought of these as the (...) only special possessions of man in society. The qualities of being submissive, kind and caring in nature is considered to be “ideal” and exclusive qualities of a woman. Even though these qualities are “ideal” to women, they are discarded from being considered as universal in nature and are thought of as insignificant in the mainstream societal structure. These qualities are treated as inferior, and exclusively womanly and hence cannot make their stand in the conventional patriarchal social order. For this reason a dilemmatic situation arises here. My effort is to show that this dilemma cannot be exposed in the sense of gender specific human qualities. (shrink)

This thesis investigates transnational macro-narrative decendancy in violent conflicts and identifies enabling dynamics that facilitate re-framing. To date there has been little focus on processes involved, explicitly narrative descendancy, bridging, resonance building, or grafting, representing a critical knowledge gap. -/- This thesis reviews relevant literature on constructivism and rational choice theory and tests the findings against an empirical case study in Central Sulawesi. The findings demonstrate a mixture of approaches is present, though this is likely due to a range (...) of dynamics unique to the conflict. The results have high relevance to policy makers and academics across security and conflict disciplines. (shrink)

One of the ways in which transnational medical agencies (TMAs) such as Medicins Sans Frontieres aim to increase the access of the global poor to health services is by supplying medical aid to people who need it in developing countries. The moral imperative supporting such work is clear enough, but a variety of factors can make such work difficult. One of those factors is the wrongdoing of other agents and agencies. For as a result of such wrongdoing, the attempt (...) to supply medical aid can sometimes lead to significant negative effects. What should TMAs do in such situations? On one view, TMAs should take account of any negative effects arising from the wrongdoing of others in just the same way in which they take account of negative effects arising more directly from their own actions, or from natural forces. To many people, this view seems wrong. In this paper, I articulate and discuss several different reasons why one might think this. In doing so, I hope to contribute to a debate about the more general question of how TMAs should respond to the wrongdoing of others. (shrink)

In Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, the border city across from El Paso, TX, the intersection of "Machismo” (EntreMundos 2019), micro-machismo (EntreMundos 2019), the manufacturing industry—maquilas—and the Narco War has brought immense suffering to women. The Feminist Movement, born from gender violence intensified by the Narco War and entrenched cultural norms, is a response to these issues. Borderland women have raised their voices through protests on Women's International Day, advocating for legal reforms like nationwide abortion legalization and using social media to spotlight (...) these tragic realities. Despite facing violence and adversity, Juarense women persist in their unwavering pursuit of societal change. This article explores the driving forces behind this uprising and the resilient efforts of Juarez women to instigate meaningful societal shifts in their region. (shrink)

Throughout Iran and various countries, the recent calls of the “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi” (in Persian), “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” (in Kurdish), or “Woman, Life, Freedom” (in English) movement call for change to acknowledge the importance of women. While these feminist protests and demonstrations have been met with brutality, systematic oppression, and internet blackouts within Iran, they have captured significant social media attention and coverage outside the country, especially among the Iranian diaspora and various international organizations. This article, grounded in feminist urban (...) theories of the Global South, analyzes the digital feminist placemaking movement in Iran. As the first counter‐revolution led by women, the movement utilizes digital art, graffiti, and protest movements to embody women’s solidarity groups and sympathy rallies. Our analysis employs various digital research methods, including social media scrutiny and the study of protest illustrations. Analyzing the digital feminist placemaking in Iran will enable us to compare the commonalities, differences, challenges, and opportunities between the minorities and majorities in the world’s countries. The outcomes of this research can help international organizations such as Amnesty International and the United Nations Agency for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (UN Women), as well as policymakers, institutions, academics, and NGOs, to highlight the various ways in which broader public participation could be encouraged in the process of digital feminist insurgent placemaking. (shrink)

Talk of gender identity is at the core of heated current philosophical and political debates. Yet, it is unclear what it means to have one. I examine several ways of understanding this concept in light of core aims of trans writers and activists. Most importantly, the concept should make good trans people’s understanding of their own gender identities and help understand why misgendering is a serious harm and why it is permissible to require information about people’s gender identities in public (...) life. I conclude that none of the available accounts meets these essential criteria, on the assumption that the gender norms of femininity and masculinity are unjustified. But we can, and should, pursue the feminist project without “gender identity”. Such feminism can include trans people because it is possible to account for the specific harm of misgendering without assuming a claim to the recognition of our gender identities. I conclude that we should eliminate the concept of “gender identity.” To understand the phenomena that are putatively captured by “gender identity,” we are better off employing other concepts, such as “sexual dysphoria,” (assigned or aspirational) “gender roles,” and (internalised or endorsed) “gender norms”. These concepts can usefully replace “gender identity” in an individual evaluation of each of the trans people’s claims to inclusion into particular spaces. (shrink)

Feminist philosophy has taken too long to engage seriously with aesthetics and has been even slower in confronting natural beauty in particular. There are various possible reasons for this neglect, including the relative youth of feminist aesthetics, the possibility that feminist philosophy is not relevant to nature aesthetics, the claim that natural beauty is not a serious topic, hesitation among feminists to perpetuate women's associations with beauty and nature, and that the neglect may be merely apparent. Discussing each of these (...) possibilities affords a better understanding of, but none justify the neglect of natural beauty in feminist aesthetics. (shrink)

What can just about any philosophical person who agrees with many goals that are often considered feminist do in response to the problems of the world? Among many other things, they can do philosophy, online, on various social media platforms, to try to help steer the world in better directions, at least a little. -/- Now “doing philosophy” with these goals in mind can mean many different things to different people: there are many different ways to be engaged in “public (...) philosophy.” Here though I’ll briefly describe some what I have been doing for at least a few years, which could be described as a type of “philosophical fact-checking” that basically amounts to this: -/- when people and organizations make importantly problematic claims about philosophical and ethical issues that one has expertise in, provide responses and resources that correct that misinformation. (shrink)

Feminist socially constitutive conceptions of autonomy make the presence of idealized social conditions necessary for autonomy. I argue that such conceptions cannot, when applied under nonideal conditions, play two key feminist theoretical roles for autonomy: the roles of anti-oppressive character ideal and paternalism-limiting concept. Instead, they prescribe action that reinforces oppression. Treated as character ideals, socially constitutive conceptions of autonomy ask agents living under nonideal ones to engage in self-harm or self-subordination. Moreover, conceptions of autonomy that make idealized social conditions (...) a requirement of autonomy yield the conclusion that oppressed agents are appropriate objects of paternalism. (shrink)

In this paper I explore Phyllis Rooney’s 2003 chapter, “Feminist Epistemology and Naturalized Epistemology: An Uneasy Alliance,” taking guidance from her critique of naturalized epistemology in pursuing my own analysis of another uneasy alliance: that between feminist epistemology and social epistemology. Investigating some of the background assumptions at work in prominent conceptions of social epistemology, I consider recent analyses of "epistemic bubbles" to ask how closely such analyses are aligned with ongoing research in feminist epistemology. I argue that critical feminist (...) insights in political philosophy are called for here, especially those that focus on multiple politically salient relationships and also emphasize practices of personal transformation as inseparably bound up with broader movements for social transformation. Insofar as feminist epistemology continues to carry another world in its heart, I argue that it will continue to rest uneasily with any effort to align it with—let alone subsume it within—the still emerging field of social epistemology. (shrink)

Throughout its history the European integration process has not undermined but rather strengthened the autonomy of Member States vis-à-vis wider societal interests in relation to political economy, labour markets and social provisions. Both the ‘golden age nation state’ of the 1960s as well as the considerable transformations of Member State political economies over the past decades, and especially after the euro-crisis, was to a considerable degree orchestrated through transnational, most notably European, arrangements. In both cases the primary objective has (...) been to strengthened state capacities of public power and law against the encroachment of private interests into the state. In spite of this continuity considerable changes can however be observed in the substantial economic policies advanced due to the switch from a Keynesian to a monetarist economic paradigm. It is suggested that the debate on constitutional imbalances between the EU’s economic and social constitutions should be seen in this light. (shrink)

Feminism came to the discipline of philosophical aesthetics rather late--approximately 1990--in spite of advances made much earlier in the 1970s by feminist scholars in related fields such as literary theory, art history, art criticism, and film studies. This essay tracks notions of "tradition" within the history of aesthetics and subsequent feminist challenges to patriarchal traditions and existing philosophical practices. No one unitary feminist approach is sought; rather a multiplicity of feminisms have arisen within aesthetics that have brought new focus (...) to discussions of taste, the (beautiful) body, "art," the concept of genius, everyday aesthetics, the environment (including natural beauty), motherhood, and even bioethics. (shrink)

Feminist aesthetics can be characterized as a critical conceptual framework for analyzing the gender assumptions Western aesthetics, philosophy of the arts and the arts have had and their implications in the categories they have historically employed. It emerged as a result the influence feminism had in the study of gender bias in the artistic production and its reception. Works like Linda Nochlin’s Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? (1971) and Laura Mulvey’s Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975) (...) were fundamental for recognizing the exclusion of women from the history of the great visual artists and how the male gaze is a predominant kind of depiction that satisfies and is designed from a masculine and heterosexual point of view. -/- During the 1970s and 1980s it started the analysis of the male gaze in literature, film and visual arts, but also the women’s artistic production demanding its recognition. However, it was not until the 1990s that philosophical feminist aesthetics was first addressed as an important and necessary area of study with the special issues Feminism and aesthetics (Hein, Korsmeyer 1990) in “Hypatia: a journal of Feminist Philosophy”, and Feminism and traditional aesthetics (Brand, Korsmeyer 1990) in “The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism”. And the first introductory book on the field, Gender and aesthetics: an introduction by Carolyn Korsmeyer (2004) was published during the first decade of the 2000s. -/- Although feminist aesthetics came later than feminist political philosophy, it appeared almost at the same time as feminist perspectives of other philosophical fields, such as epistemology and philosophy of science. Like other feminist approaches to different philosophical domains, there is not a unitary feminist perspective on aesthetics, however, despite the variety of approaches, all implicitly or explicitly demand the recognition of women in its sphere of influence, that is, philosophy and the arts. Nevertheless, contrary to other fields it does not only take contributions from analytic and continental feminism, but also from cultural theory, art history, comparative literature, film theory, psychoanalysis, just to name a few disciplines and theories. Feminist aesthetics’ literature covers a broad range of topics, but the most important are the feminist critique of philosophical aesthetics and the feminist philosophy and theory of the arts. (shrink)

This paper argues that satire constitutes a particularly effective strategy for feminist philosophy through an analysis of Simone de Beauvoir’s account of motherhood. Feminists have grappled at length with how to interpret Beauvoir’s focus on the unpleasantness of pregnancy and challenges of motherhood. In this paper, I suggest a new interpretive strategy. My view is that Beauvoir’s disparaging depiction of motherhood cannot be read by the letter; rather, it is an exercise in satire. By overemphasizing its strangeness and difficulty, Beauvoir (...) dethrones motherhood as the pinnacle of feminine existence, transforming it from women’s only possible destiny into a contingent feature of existence. My underlying contention here is that such feminist satirizing speaks to the aims of feminist philosophy more generally: the satirical subversion of our buried assumptions opens the possibility of imagining the world anew. (shrink)

The ancient Stoics had an uneven track record with regard to women’s standing. On the one hand, they recognized women as fully capable of rationality and virtue. On the other hand, they continued to hold that women’s roles were in the home. These views are consistent, given Stoic value theory, but are unacceptable on liberal feminist grounds. Stoic value theory, given different emphasis on the ethical role of choice, is shown to be capable of satisfying the liberal feminist requirement that (...) autonomy must be respected. In turn, a model for Stoic feminism is proposed. (shrink)

In the realm of pixels and virtual spaces, the art of placemaking transcends physical confines, weaving a digital mosaic of voices and visions. Feminist digital placemaking emerges as a vibrant brushstroke on this canvas, painting online environments with the hues of inclusion, safety, and empowerment. The "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement in Iran, mirrored in the "Year of Hope" digital exhibition, showcases the transformative power of feminist digital placemaking in amplifying voices, knitting solidarity, and challenging oppressive narratives. The "Woman, Life, Freedom" (...) movement, sparked by the tragic demise of Mahsa (Jina) Amini, unfolds like a poignant narrative, with women scripting the chapters of resistance. This movement, a collage of courage and defiance, has found a digital stage in the "Year of Hope" exhibition, where each artwork tells a story, each pixel a testament to the unyielding spirit of Iranian women. (shrink)

In this introductory essay, I describe feminist ethics as a kind of approach to morality that says we ought to pay attention to the facts on the ground and empirical information in order to know whether and how a moral problem is a gendered problem. One of the best accounts of feminist ethics is by Hilde Lindemann, who wrote that feminist ethics aims “to understand, criticize, and correct how gender operates within our moral and social beliefs and practices.” She doesn’t (...) define feminism as a theory about women, and neither do I. The term 'feminist' has more to do with the sources of this approach to ethics than the ultimate goals of such theorists; women were influential and early advocates of the view that sometimes a moral problem is a problem because it is gendered. (shrink)

Religion-based AI chatbots serve religious practitioners by bringing them godly wisdom through technology. These bots reply to spiritual and worldly questions by drawing insights or citing verses from the Quran, the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, the Torah, or other holy books. They answer religious and theological queries by claiming to offer historical contexts and providing guidance and counseling to their users. A criticism of these bots is that they may give inaccurate answers and proliferate bias by propagating homogenized versions of (...) the religions they represent. These “embodied spiritual machines” may likewise bear bias against women, their gender, and their societal roles. This paper crafts a concept intended to address this GPT issue by reimagining, modifying, and implementing a feminist approach to these chatbots. It examines the concepts and designs of these bots and how they address women-related questions. Along with the challenge of bringing gender and diversity-sensitive religious wisdom closer to the people through technology, the paper proposes a re-engineered model of a fair religion-based AI chatbot. (shrink)

For feminists, working in/with the ‘posts’ is, always has been, and must be, a collective and collaborative endeavour. Increasingly, post-inquiry involves taking seriously multiplicities of humans, nonhumans, more-than-and-other-than-humans, multispecies and natureculture entities, including viral, microbial, elemental and atmospheric relationalities. The individual papers in this Special Issue, this editorial, and the Special Issue as a whole attest to this imperative pull to the collective-collaborative in seeking to explore the entangled relations of/between feminisms and the ‘posts’. As a collaborative-collective multiplicity, the Special (...) Issue interrogates what these entangled relations offer for reconfiguring gender and education research, theory, pedagogic practice, activism and praxis. (shrink)

Feminists note an association of arguing with aggression and masculinity and question the necessity of this connection. Arguing also seems to some to identify a central method of philosophical reasoning, and gendered assumptions and standards would pose problems for the discipline. Can feminine modes of reasoning provide an alternative or supplement? Can overarching epistemological standards account for the benefits of different approaches to arguing? These are some of the prospects for argumentation inside and outside of philosophy that feminists consider. -/- (...) The further concern is that the academic study of argumentation – in philosophy and other disciplines – has failed to account for the type of reasoning needed for social justice movements. What resources for addressing these concerns can be found in informal logic and interdisciplinary argumentation theory? Since part of the perceived problem derives from assuming that arguing is a contest, are more collaborative epistemological frameworks better? Can regular politeness or civility hedge against undesirable tendencies of argumentation? Can “critical thinking” pedagogy involving argument educations answer the needs of social justice? (shrink)

‘Feminist logic’ may sound like an impossible, incoherent, or irrelevant project, but it is none of these. We begin by delineating three categories into which projects in feminist logic might fall: philosophical logic, philosophy of logic, and pedagogy. We then defuse two distinct objections to the very idea of feminist logic: the irrelevance argument and the independence argument. Having done so, we turn to a particular kind of project in feminist philosophy of logic: Valerie Plumwood's feminist argument for a relevance (...) logic. Plumwood's work serves as our primary case study as we turn to the project of considering three different ways we might understand her argument and revisionist arguments like it: as a priori theorizing, as ameliorative conceptual engineering, or as instances of anti-exceptionalist approaches to logic. After arguing that the anti-exceptionalist approach seems to provide the most promising means of understanding the kind of project undertaken in a feminist challenge to classical logic, we briefly address the consequences that this might have for logic instruction. Here, we argue for the perhaps unexpected conclusion that feminist programs ought to offer more, not less, instruction in logic for those who take interest. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss two related ideas and cross-reference them, as it were, on the common ground of the Spinozistic text. First, I want to construct a Spinozistic account of domestic violence and a Spinozistic response to such violence. This will involve attempting to explicate the phenomenon (or at least one aspect of it, to be defined) through the terms and conceptual structure of Spinoza's Ethics. Second, I want to discuss a feminist reading (interpretation) of Spinoza, that of Luce (...) Irigaray. The projects work together, as a better Spinozistic account requires a charitable reading of Spinoza to which Irigaray points the way. Irigaray will turn out to be more Spinozistic that Spinoza himself. In addition, the construction of a Spinozistic response to domestic violence will highlight the textual basis of Irigaray’s reading. It is hoped that this will contribute to making Irigaray’s reading accessible to philosophers trained in the analytic tradition. The undercurrent of both discussions will be an attempt to explicate and further what I take to be a shared moral insight in the late twentieth century, namely, that domestic violence, and particularly violence against women as wives and partners, is morally wrong. (shrink)

This brief essay – based partially on remarks made as a member of a "diversity panel" at a recent Florida Philosophical Association meeting and partially on the reception of those remarks – concerns the rhetorical spaces from which one is allowed to speak as a woman in philosophy. I identify two gendered locations from which women are allowed to speak about the diversity problem in philosophy: 1) the happy woman of reason and 2) the unhappy feminist philosopher. Drawing on Marilyn (...) Frye's analysis of the double-bind as a symptom of oppression and Sara Ahmed's reflections on the figure of "the feminist killjoy", I argue that both gendered locales undermine one’s ability to bring about transformative change in the discipline. (shrink)

Urban spaces, often emerging outside formal, recognized boundaries, underscore the pivotal role women play in shaping these environments. Despite the enduring influence of patriarchal and hierarchical structures that render these spaces overtly gendered, it is within these contexts that women’s actions become particularly transformative. Drawing from feminist urban theories of the global south, this paper investigates informal placemaking, feminist urban activism, revolutionary placemaking, online protest movements, and the networks that support women’s solidarity groups. Employing a mixed-methods approach that includes case (...) studies, interviews with activists, and social media analysis, this research focuses on Iran, with a specific emphasis on the recent ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ movement. This study not only highlights how women navigate, contest, and reshape urban spaces through feminist urban activism and informal revolutionary placemaking but also anticipates the broader implications of these actions for urban planning and policy. By analyzing and comparing these case studies, we aim to uncover the commonalities, differences, challenges, and opportunities between informal/formal, state-led/bottom-up, and revolutionary feminist placemaking practices in Iran. The findings of this paper are expected to contribute valuable insights into the dynamics of feminist urbanism and suggest avenues for future research in enhancing the inclusivity and responsiveness of urban spaces to gendered needs and activism. (shrink)

This paper discusses the legal aspects of the activities of transnational corporations. The relevance of the subject matter is determined by the significant impact exerted by transnational corporations on the world economy in general and on the economic situation of the country in which such corporations are registered as a subject of legal form of ownership in particular. Quality functioning of transnational corporations is an effective factor for the formation of sustainable development. This study reveals and determines (...) the relationship between the scale of activity of transnational corporations and their legal status within the framework of both single countries and entire economic communities, the individual subjects of law of which are transnational corporations. The practical significance of this study lies in the possibility of identifying and stating key aspects that play a significant role in assessing the practical activities of transnational corporations in the context of existing legal law with the ability to use the identified patterns in specific legal practice. The results of this study can be of significant practical importance for employees in the field of legal support for the activities of transnational-scale corporations, who are faced with the need to deeply analyse the legal aspects of the activities of these organisations and provide management of such structures with timely, highquality legal recommendations regarding the correction of the activities of these organisations in the context of the existing legal field. (shrink)

Recent feminist critiques of development have questioned some fundamental assumptions of feminist political theory; such critiques have also been successful in subverting long-held assumptions of conventional economic development. Viewed in the context of women’s subordination in third world countries, a redefinition of development must not only be about economic growth, but ensure a redistribution of resources, challenge the gender-based division of labour and also seek to provide for an egalitarian basis in social arrangements. Further, as this article argues, any starting (...) point for feminist critiques of development must also seek to link the end of gender oppression to multiple theories of justice – a justice not juridical but one that recognises the cultural membership of women in the community. (shrink)

Standpoint theory is an explicitly political as well as social epistemology. Its central insight is that epistemic advantage may accrue to those who are oppressed by structures of domination and discounted as knowers. Feminist standpoint theorists hold that gender is one dimension of social differentiation that can make such a difference. In response to two longstanding objections I argue that epistemically consequential standpoints need not be conceptualized in essentialist terms, and that they do not confer automatic or comprehensive epistemic privilege (...) on those who occupy them. Standpoint theory is best construed as conceptual framework for investigating the ways in which socially situated experience and interests make a contingent difference to what we know (well), and to the resources we have for determining which knowledge claims we can trust. I illustrate the advantages of this account in terms of two examples drawn from archaeological sources. (shrink)

While feminist aestheticians have long interrogated gendered, raced, and classed hierarchies in the arts, feminist philosophers still don’t talk much about popular music. Even though Angela Davis and bell hooks have seriously engaged popular music, they are often situated on the margins of philosophy. It is my contention that feminist aesthetics has a lot to offer to the study of popular music, and the case of popular music points feminist aesthetics to some of its own limitations and unasked questions. This (...) essay addresses the paucity of work in feminist philosophy and popular music by applying insights from other areas of feminist aesthetics to questions of popular music, and thereby using feminist aesthetics – specifically, Julia Kristea’s notion of female genius and the genius spectator – to critique itself. (shrink)