Article
Relations of Freedom and Law's Relations
Politics & Gender
(2012)
Abstract
One of the most important contributions of feminist theory is the rethinking of core concepts, such as freedom and autonomy. While the inspiration for this rethinking is often the way traditional concepts fail women, the constructive project of reconstruction routinely goes beyond a focus on the particular significance for women—or gender or sexuality. For example, the canon failed to recognize not only the centrality of care work in women's lives but also the underlying issue of dependence as characteristic of human life (MacIntyre 1999). Integrating this dependence into conceptual reformulation has then led to the argument that theories of justice must include the distribution of care work (Kittay 1999) and to the rejection of independence as a key element of autonomy (Nedelsky 2011a). Of course, these reconceptualizations have important consequences for women's lives and for our collective understandings of gender and sexuality. But those important consequences are not the focus of every theoretical contribution.
Disciplines
Publication Date
June 13, 2012
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X12000219
Citation Information
Jennifer Nedelsky. "Relations of Freedom and Law's Relations" Politics & Gender Vol. 8 Iss. 2 (2012) p. 231 - 238 ISSN: 1743-9248 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/jennifer-nedelsky/45/