|
Book Review |
The Women's Freedom Network Newsletter
July/August, 1999, Vol. 6, Number 4.
Intersecting Voices: Political Philosophy, and Policy by Iris Marion Young Reviewed by Ana Kogel |
F eminism is so often associated with, the equality of women with men-- or the lack thereof--that it's easy to forget that there is a feminism concerned with liberty as well. Such a feminism imagines liberty not only as the achievement of certain rights for women, but as the full flourishing of individuals--all individuals. Iris Marion Young's feminism is concerned not so much with equality, as with this kind of liberty. She sees Justice not as fairness but as liberation, defined in part as the development of the capacities of all individuals. In Young's view the uniqueness, or irreplaceability, of individuals must be both nurtured and defended in ethical, legal, and democratic practices. While Young is a philosopher by training, in *Intersecting Voices: Dilemmas of Gender, Political Philosophy, and Policy she brings a practical perspective to her discussions of marriage, family, and the home, and even to her abstract theorizing on the nature of gender identity. Young addresses the question of whether membership in a biologically--and (more importantly for Young) socially-defined category,-- "women" defines individual identities or not. "I reject a concept of group identity," she writes, "and argue that identity-making is a project that individuals take up in relation to the collective social structures and histories in which they are situated". Being a member of a category called "women" does nothing to define who we individually are. Identity is not handed to us by history or society; it is something we develop as individuals, albeit in the context of history and society. In fact, the awareness of our membership in such an abstract category is depersonalizing-- that is, it robs us of individual uniqueness--because within the category, all individuals are interchangeable. This concern with one's interchangeability with others does not, however, inspire in Young the kind of individualism in which individuals are seen as exclusively responsible for their fates, left to wrestle with their bootstraps. In fact she criticizes such a view as missing the point that the category "women" is defined socially and politically, by economic and cultural constraints. Bootstrap individualism obscures the oppression of individuals in the category that takes place because of their membership in it. Young's concern with the development of individuality itself, and with the flourishing of individuals, leads her to examine those social and economic constraints that prevent such development from taking place.
The theme of interchangeability or replaceability recurs in Young's concern with the role of listening in ethics and in democratic practice. In contrast to an ethic which advocates that we put ourselves in another's shoes, she suggests that listening to the other is more respectful of her unique individual position. She illustrates what can go wrong when we try to imagine what others feel or think with the case of an Oregon state survey about issues pertaining to people with disabilities. In response to survey questions a majority of able-bodied voters expressed the sentiment, baldly put, "I'd rather be dead than crippled." Clearly the physically able, putting themselves in the shoes of the disabled, failed miserably in this case. Yet it resulted in a state proposal not to reimburse the disabled for medical services for which the able would be reimbursed. What policymakers should do in such situations is not imagine what people might think, but ask them, and listen to their answers. The views of real people with disabilities on whether they'd rather be dead or alive, given their disabilities, were irreplaceable. Listening is the only way to respect the uniqueness and irreplaceability of each person.
Young's concern for liberty extends to mothers and the roles that various ideologies enlist them to play in the project of forming suitable citizens, including that of fostering the development of autonomy in their children through devoted nurturance. When William Galston writes in an argument against divorce, that "you are not free to act in ways that will lead your child to impose significant and avoidable burdens on the community," Young doesn't soft-pedal her response: "Consequently, the freedom of parents should be subordinate to the state aim of raising good [independent] citizens." The bitter irony for mothers is that they "should subordinate themselves to and be dependent on men, even if they would rather parent on their own, for the sake of nurturing the independence of their children." The independence that Galston sees as such a key virtue is by definition out of the reach of mothers who must remain financially dependent on men to raise those children who are to grow up independent. When women are charged with the nurturing work that fosters independence in their (male?) children, their own independence is likely to be neglected as a result.
One might extrapolate from Young's views on the role of women in the family that she, like many other feminists, would see the home as a site of oppression and want to drag women out of it, presumably into the public sphere. But Young values the home, and not only as a realm of privacy: she thinks it has a potential political role to play as well. Several feminist theorists--Teresa de Lauretis and Bonnie Honig among them--have come to see the home as a site not so much of oppression as of a kind of privilege, allowing for some a withdrawal from politics. These thinkers argue that at home identities become rigid and fixed, leading to the ossification of selves and roles--exactly the kind of rigidity that feminism challenges. At home one is protected from one's differences with others and can project oneself onto the world without engaging with that world--just as Oregon voters did with regard to disabilities. But Young, drawing on the work of Bell Hooks, argues that home is a site of resistance for those who in the public world are oppressed or exploited. Home is where, in Hooks' thinking, we keep something for ourselves-- in itself an act of resistance for Hooks' African-American grandmothers and great-grandmothers. For those who are oppressed in the public arena, the privacy of the home can be a site in which one's identity is affirmed. At home we remember who we are, and this needn't mean we return to the past or preserve our lives in amber to do so. For Young the home is where we construct who we are as individuals, distinct from the world of "public administration and corporate standardization."
Although Young is deeply concerned with the development of individuality and the flourishing of individuals themselves, she does not focus on these goals at the expense of those less privileged than herself. For her these goals are worthy, if not necessary, for everyone. As a feminist she wants to point out that for women there are special barriers to achieving these goals; but she also would be quick to point out that there are similar barriers for people of color and for those living in poverty (and the latter have the additional burden of increased state surveillance in their lives). Thus, for Young, the full development of individuals is a goal to be achieved in part by critically examining social and economic structures, not by merely stepping back and letting individuals develop "naturally."