Cultural Integrative Feminism: Its Introduction and a New Feminist Critique of John Rawls's Justice as Fairness Framework
Abstract
I aim to make two contributions in this Article. First, I argue that integrative feminism, a relatively new feminist school active in the field of law and socioeconomics, must be synthesized with cultural feminism (which has its roots in the 1980s) to create the novel theory of “cultural-integrative feminism.” The primary goal of “traditional” integrative feminism (associated with Wellesley economist Julie Matthaei) is to create symmetrical relationships where partners share paid labor and unpaid caring labor. Thus, integrative feminists strive to eliminate the gendered division of labor under which women are subordinated. My main criticism of integrative feminism is that the gendered division of labor cannot be eliminated through genders based equally on femininity and masculinity. This is because true symmetrical relationships require partners to manifest a gender based predominantly on characteristics traditionally characterized as female. Such feminine characteristics (for example, the capacity for caring for others and being other-based in general) are celebrated most notably by the cultural feminist school. Therefore, in this Article I synthesize cultural feminism and traditional integrative feminism to form the theory of cultural-integrative feminism; my aim is to wholly eliminate the gendered division of labor through a gender integration which is creative—yet deeply toward the feminine. Second, I use cultural-integrative feminism to modify the framework of John Rawls, a Harvard sociopolitical philosopher who was concerned with the just arrangements of societal institutions. Feminist scholars generally have argued that Rawls does not account for the gendered division of labor in his theory of justice. But, in this Article, I target Rawls’s Liberty Principle as the element of his framework in which the elimination of the gendered division of labor should be addressed. I then modify the Liberty Principle via cultural-integrative feminism.