The Relationship between Liberalism and Gender Equality Park, Soyeon

The Relationship between Liberalism and Gender Equality

Author 1 Full Name : Park, Soyeon

(Last Name, First Name)

School Name : Korean Minjok Leadership Academy

Abstract:

In The Feminist Critique of Liberalism, Nussbaum elucidates the affiliation between liberalism and feminism; for the sake of argument, liberalism should be understood as a strong belief in liberty and equality, while gender equality is an aftermath that naturally follows liberalism. Nussbaum refers to liberalism in Mill and Rawl’s tradition. She argues that the treatment of humans in liberalism must respect and promote liberty and must respect the equality of people as rational beings with individual choices. Nussbaum advocates equal opportunity, maintained by Rawl’s A Theory of Justice; Rawls attempts to reconcile freedom and equality. Furthermore, John Stuart Mill’s view on liberty and The Subjection of Women further supports the affiliation between liberalism and gender equality. Each of these ideas supporting the affinity between liberalism and gender equality encompasses certain objections. However, the liberalism and gender equality that Nussbaum, Rawls, and Mill argue renders the objections ineffective, thereby affirming “the relationship between liberalism and gender equality” as a relatively stronger and a more satisfactory argument. The research will first state the arguments for the affiliation of liberalism and gender equality, then their possible objections, followed by how the objections ultimately fail.

Keywords: Liberty, Equality, Gender, Liberalism, Rawls, Mill, Nussbaum

In The Feminist Critique of Liberalism, Nussbaum elucidates the affiliation between liberalism and feminism; for the sake of argument, liberalism should be understood as a strong belief in liberty and equality, while gender equality is an aftermath that naturally follows liberalism. Nussbaum refers to liberalism in Mill and Rawl’s tradition. She argues that the treatment of humans in liberalism must respect and promote the liberty and must respect the equality of people as rational beings with individual choices. Nussbaum advocates equal opportunity, maintained by Rawl’s A Theory of Justice; Rawls attempts to reconcile freedom and equality. Furthermore, John Stuart Mill’s view on liberty and The Subjection of Women further supports the affiliation between liberalism and gender equality. Each of these ideas supporting the affinity between liberalism and gender equality encompasses certain objections. However, the liberalism and gender equality that Nussbaum, Rawls, and Mill argue renders the objections ineffective, thereby affirming “the relationship between liberalism and gender equality” as a relatively stronger and a more satisfactory argument. This paper will first state the arguments for the affiliation of liberalism and gender equality, then their possible objections, followed by how the objections ultimately fail.

Mill’s view on liberty, as mentioned in On Liberty, addresses that the individual’s freedom is bound to the harm of others. One of his main arguments, the harm principle, proposes that an individual’s actions are free, provided that these actions do not harm the bystanders. If the action involves only the perpetuator and his or her own wellbeing, then the society has no right to intervene; however, individuals should not do serious damage to themselves or their property, for no one exists in isolation, harm done to oneself, and damaging the property affects the bystanders. Rooted in his view on liberty, Mill also argues for the affiliation of gender equality; under Mill’s view of liberalism, there should be no gender inequality. As mentioned in the lecture regarding The Subjection of Women, he especially views gender inequality as a “hindrance in human improvement”; gender inequality constrains liberty, which is a benefit in its own right. Mill would thus argue against gender inequality and propose that liberalism should ensure the existence of gender equality.

In arguing for gender equality, Mill takes a different approach from inductive evidence and logical reasoning, and relies more on intuition. A potential objection to Mill’s argument may be that intuitions can explain what people commonly think of as concepts at least; however, understanding concepts cannot comprehensively explain reality. For instance, even if people had a clear and comprehensive concept on tooth fairies, it wouldn’t necessarily suggest that tooth fairies exist. In the same logic, even if people think that there is gender inequality and agree on the concept of gender inequality, it wouldn’t necessarily mean that there is gender inequality in the society. Hence, liberalism cannot “ensure the existence of gender equality,” unless it can prove that gender inequality violates the liberalist principles. Moreover, the harm principle would forbid the society to intervene to guarantee gender equality, since the existence of gender inequality cannot be proven.

Many of concepts that people have a general consensus upon, however, are based on intuitions. People should not abide by certain concepts just because intuitions are limited in proving in proving the existence of concepts. For instance, freedom and love are a paragons of

concepts based on intuitions. Nevertheless, people abide concepts such as love and freedom, through a conglomeration of people’s intuition and general consensus of on what the concepts should comprise of. If concepts were ignored were ignored on the grounds that they cannot be proven, there would be no progress; in the same logic, just because gender inequality cannot be proven, people wouldn’t “pretend” to not to know about it is and violate women’s liberty. Thus, ensuring gender equality does not violate the harm principle, within the understanding that people have about gender inequality, since gender inequality constrains women’s liberty; liberty is a benefit in its own right.

In A Theory of Justice, Rawls attempts to reconcile freedom and equality; he argues for justice as fairness. He uses the distributive justice to develop his argument and appeals to the social contract. Justice as fairness is offered to cooperate with others, but also increase the benefits and reduce the burdens of cooperation; in it, people are neither altruists nor egoists. Also, human beings are rational in Rawl’s argument. Rawls argues, people should have a “principle of equal basic liberties” that ensure assets of liberal freedom. He also argues that people have the right obtain and manipulate based on their self sufficiency and moral capacity. However, people also want to live a worthwhile life with adequate freedom, wherever they end up. Thus, Rawls promotes the difference principle, which ensures that inequalities benefit the worst-off in the society. Hence, Rawl’s view of liberalism does not discriminate between males and females; rather, it enhances gender equality.

As mentioned in class discussion regarding Rawl’s criticism by Nozick, a potential objection to this argument is that the original position idea begs the question against the entitlement theories. That is, the argument assumes as a premise the conclusion it is arguing for. Thus, the argument offers no progress. Does it follow that result A is just if the situation in which A arrived is just?

In response, when Rawl sets up his argument, theory of justice was intended to describe basic structure of society. Hence, the objection regarding “begging the question” misses the point. Under the veil of ignorance, people do not know how they are entitled to their possessions. Moreover, behind the veil of ignorance, people are not asked to be just, but are asked what they want. Hence, the outcome must be a conglomeration of what people want. Rational people would not argue against their wellbeing; gender inequality should not exist, in Rawlsian liberalism. Thus, what is just is indeed a result of a society based on a just structure.

The basic idea that Nussbaum gives is that liberalism can accommodate feminism, by reconciling liberalism with the radical versions of feminism. According to Nussbaum, assets of liberalism include values such as autonomy, rights, dignity, and self respect; she believes that feminism share these values that improved women’s lives.

Radical feminists however, reject the affiliation of gender equality and liberalism on three grounds. First of all, extreme individualism in liberalism violates feminine values, which are socially oriented; feminists also believe that liberalism relies too much on self sufficiency, which promotes male dominant traditions.

Nussbaum, however, points to the fact that the radical feminists cannot distinguish the difference between individualism and self-sufficiency; individualism doesn’t imply self sufficiency. The radical feminists also fail to recognize that self sufficiency is a good thing for women; if female were to take the “consistently individualistic” liberalist view it would indeed be beneficial for women because they were brought up to be bound by the family. As the society has become more liberal, the role of self sufficiency has allowed the women to break the gender stereotype and acquire a new status in the society. For this reason, emphasis on individual responsibility and self-sufficiency is good for women. Furthermore, this sort of individual responsibility is not necessarily linked to extreme individualism; feminists only look at the “sterile strands” of liberalism.

Radical feminists’ second objection to the affinity between liberalism and feminism involves liberalism’s abstraction versus reality. The abstract view of rights does not consider adequately the concrete facts of tradition, history and individual differences.

Liberalism has helped to reduce abuse of women in family situations due to its emphasis on personal rights in the abstract, which help women by extending rights into domains not previously included. The same case maybe observed in Mill’s argument regarding intuition. Moreover, Liberalism has traditionally been developed through historical disadvantages. Hence, concrete reality is not ignored in the liberal tradition. Liberalism’s emphasis on abstraction, dignity and self respect has helped the subjugation of women.

Lastly, the radical feminists argue that liberalism is too rational, which ignores emotional attachments and puts too much emphasis on traditionally male virtues. Rationality, however, can benefit women as much as it constrains them. As shown in Rawl’s argument, rationality can give women equality. After all, liberalism should be understood as a strong belief in liberty and equality, while gender equality is an aftermath that naturally follows liberalism.

Bibliography

[1] Mill, John Stuart. 1859. On liberty. London: John W. Parker and Son, West Strand.

[2] Mill, John Stuart. 1869. The subjection of women. London: Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer.

[3] Nussbaum, Martha C. 1997. The Feminist Critique of Liberalism. [Lawrence, Kan.]: Dept. of

Philosophy, University of Kansas.

[4] Rawls, John. 2005. A Theory of Justice. London, England: Belknap Press.