bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Growing Feminist Debate over the New Reproductive Technologies
Authors: Donchin Anne
Published: October 2010

A critical review of four recent works that reflect current conflicts and tensions among feminists regarding new reproductive technologies: In Search of Parenthood by Judith Lasker and Susan Borg; Ethics and Human Reproduction by Christine Overall; Made to Order, Patricia Spallone and Deborah Steinberg, eds. and Reproductive Technologies: Gender, Motherhood and Medicine, Michelle Stanworth, ed. Their positions are evaluated against the background of growing feminist dialogue about the future of reproduction and the bearing of reproductive innovations on such related issues as racism, sexuality, motherhood and abortion.
Feminist Archeology: Uncovering Women's Philosophical History
Authors: Warren Mary Anne
Published: October 2010

A History of Women Philosophers, Volume I: Ancient Women Philoophers, 600 B.C. - 500 A.D., edited by Mary Ellen Waithe, is an important but somewhat frustrating book. It is filled with tantalizing glimpses into the lives and thoughts of some of our earliest philosophical foremothers. Yet it lacks a clear unifying theme, and the abrupt transitions from one philosopher and period to the next are sometimes disconcerting. The overall effect is not unlike that of viewing an expansive landscape, illuminated only by a few tiny spotlights.
Thinking with the Weight of the Earth: Feminist Contributions to an Epistemology of Concreteness
Authors: Holler Linda
Published: October 2010

This essay proposes a possible direction for feminist epistemology—an embodied rationality that defines the process of knowing as a dialogue with particulars or the “things themselves.” On the grounds that modem reality is marked by abstract projects ofhomo mensura, I argue that the task of postmodernism is to ground cognition in the world by breaking the habit of looking at the world, as if from a distance, and by ceasing to think about the world as if it were composed of a collection of objects-in-general.
Caring and Exploitation
Authors: Houston Barbara
Published: October 2010

It is not wholly clear the extern to which Nel Nodding intends her ethic of caring to be an ethic that stands on its own in competition with others described by ethical theories. I argue that, given this ambiguity, Nodding' ethic of caring is a dangerous ethic because it can abet exploitation. I consider Noddings'responses to this criticism and conclude that the relational ontology of the ethic cannot rescue it from the charges of abetting exploitation.
A Response
Authors: Noddings Nel
Published: October 2010

My response addresses a few technical problems raised by Card—the function of chains in extending caring, a constructivist interpretation of formal relations, a variation of reciprocity—and then concentrates on the major charges of unidirec' tionality and continued exploitation of women. Caring is not construed as an individual virtue that makes continuous demands on one party, but as a relational attribute. An ethic of caring is liberational rather than exploitative because the expectation is that all people, not just women, should act as carers.
Lesbian Angels & Other Matters
Authors: Zita Jacquelyn N.
Published: October 2010

In this commentary on Joyce Trebilcot's “Dyke Methods or Principles for the Discovery/Creation of the Withstanding,” I discuss four areas of difficulty in Trebikot's proposed methods: (1) an overly negative view of “the intention to persuade,” (2) a tendency towards epistemological relativism and loss of cultural authorities, (3) a circularity in defining the proposed methods as dyke methods, and (4) a hint of repressive tolerance towards differences among lesbians by avoidance of painful confrontation involving those differences. Unlike Trebilcot, I make a distinction between the abuse of persuasion and the art of persuasion, re-claiming the latter as a caring and challenging strategy, rather than an invasion of adversarial heteropatriarchal tactics.
A Response to Donald Koch's “Recipes, Cooking and Conflict”
Authors: Heldke Lisa M.
Published: October 2010

This paper addresses Koch's concern about whether a coresponsible theorist can engage in inquiry with a theorist who is “beyond the pale.” On what grounds, he ash, can a coresponsible inquirer argue against one who uses a racist, sexist, or classist model for inquiry? 1 argue that, in such situations, the coresponsible inquirer brings to inquiry both a theoretical framework, or “attitude,” and a set of practical concerns which manifest that attitude.
Comment on Zita's Review of The Science Question in Feminism
Authors: Safford Betty
Published: October 2010

The claim is made that although she undervalues the work in question, Zita poses important questions for feminist philosophers of science. Reference ismade to further evidence supporting Harding's extended argument that science is neither characterized by objectivity nor value-free, and a concern which may have some relationship to Zita's “feminist question of the science question in feminism” is noted.
A Gynecentric Aesthetic
Authors: Cox Renée
Published: October 2010

In the proposed gynecentric aesthetic, which follows the work of Heide Göttner-Abendroth and Alan Lomax, aesthetic activity would function to integrate the individual and society. Intellect, emotion and action would combine to achieve a synthesis of body and spirit. Song and dance would involve the equal expressions of all participants, and aesthetic structures would reflect this egalitarianism. The erotic would be expressed as a vital, positive force, divorced from repression and pornography. The emphasis would be off aesthetic objects to be coveted, hoarded and contemplated, and on dynamic process, fully engaging and socially significant.
Women, Morality, and Fiction
Authors: Robinson Jenefer , Ross Stephanie
Published: October 2010

We apply Carol Gilligaris distinction between a “male” mode of moral reasoning, focussed on justice, and a “female” mode, focussed on caring, to the reading of literature. Martha Nussbaum suggests that certain novels are works of moral philosophy. We argue that what Nussbaum sees as the special ethical contribution of such novels is in fact training in the stereotypically female mode of moral concern. We show this kind of training is appropriate to all readers of these novels, not just to women. Finally, we explore what else is involved in distinctively feminist readings of traditional novels.
Oppression and Victimization; Choice and Responsibility
Authors: Wendell Susan
Published: October 2010

This essay discusses a cluster of problems for feminist theory and practice which concern responsibility and choice under conditions of oppression. I characterize four major perspectives from which situations of oppression or victimization can be seen and questions about choice and responsibility answered: The Perspective of the Oppressor; The Perspective of the Victim; The Perspective of the Responsible Actor; and The Perspective of the Observer/Philosopher. 1 compare their strengths and weaknesses and discuss their compatibility.
Feminist Second Thoughts About Free Agency
Authors: Benson Paul
Published: October 2010

This essay suggests that common themes in recent feminist ethical thought can dislodge the guiding assumptions of traditional theories of free agency and thereby foster an account of freedom which might be more fruitful for feminist discussion of moral and political agency. The essay proposes constructing that account around a condition ofnormative‐competence. It argues that this view permits insight into why women's labor of reclaiming and augmenting their agency is both difficult and possible in a sexist society.
Using Arendt and Heidegger to Consider Feminist Thinking on Women and Reproductive/ Infertility Technologies
Authors: Klawiter Maren
Published: October 2010

Modern technology and gender relations are deeply intertwined. There has yet to emerge, however, a feminist analysis of modem technology as a phenomenon and this has inhibited the development of a consistent feminist response and theory regarding infertility/reproductive technologies. After taking a look at the character of the ongoing debate surrounding reproductive/infertility technologies, this paper considers how the contributions of Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger might add some further insight to the debate and aid in the effort to develop such a feminist framework.
A Response to Lesbian Ethics
Authors: Frye Marilyn
Published: October 2010

Lesbian Ethics seems to address a need for an alternative to heteropatriarchal ethics. That need appears to have two suspect sources: a concept of agency which requires that agents know what is right; and a notion women may have that by being “good” we can escape the degraded status of females and achieve a status of citizeness, or honorary male. Instead of providing such an ethic, the book may show us how to live without it.
Sarah Lucia Hoagland's Lesbian Ethics: Toward New Value And Ablemindism
Authors: Van Kirk Carol
Published: October 2010

Sarah Hoagland suggests that through developing the method of “attending” and the ethics of “autokoenony,” individual integrity and agency will result. While acknowledging the utility of these ideals for many lesbians and wimmin, 1 argue that Hoagland's thesis is, regrettably, not universally applicable.
Some Thoughts on the Contents of Hypatia
Authors: Frances Esther
Published: October 2010

Hypatia, as a journal, seems to adhere to the “party line” of academic philosophy. Is this a hindrance to creative feminist thinking?
Does Hypatia Rock Boats?
Authors: Holmes Helen Bequaert
Published: October 2010

This is a reply to Esther Frances's comment, “Some Thoughts on the Content of Hypatia,” in which she makes specific reference to the special issue on “Feminist Ethics and Medicine” which I edited.
Ecofeminism and the Eating of Animals
Authors: Adams Carol J.
Published: October 2010

In this essay, I will argue that contemporary ecofeminist discourse, while potentially adequate to deal with the issue of animals, is now inadequate because it fails to give consistent conceptual place to the domination of animals as a significant aspect of the domination of nature. I will examine six answers ecofeminists could give for not including animals explicitly in ecofeminist analyses and show how a persistent patriarchal ideology regarding animals as instruments has kept the experience of animals from being fully incorporated within ecofeminism.2
Corporeal Habits: Addressing Essentialism Differently
Authors: Kirby Vicki
Published: October 2010

Feminism could be described as a discourse that negotiates corporeality, what a body is and what a body can do. Nevertheless, the specter of essentialism means that the biological or anatomical body, the body that is commonly understood to be the “real” body, is often excluded from this investigation. The increasingly sterile debate between essentialism and antiessentialism has inadvertently encouraged this somatophobia. I argue that these opposing positions are actually inseparable, sharing a complicitous relationship that produces material effects.
Plastic Actions: Linguistic Strategies and Le Corps lesbien1
Authors: Cope Karin
Published: October 2010

In both her fiction and her essays on writing and feminist theory, Monique Wittig takes up and redeploys traditional themes and genres as well as recent theories of language, literature, and writing in order to force change in and through the dominant categories of thought and language. She has announced her project as one which would “do away with the category of sex” by way of reconfiguring the grammatically and conceptually enforced compulsory heterosexual order. I examine the specific linguistic mechanisms by which Wittig accomplishes this abolition of “sex” and the political/philosophical/ linguistic consequences of her “lesbianization” of language. Throughout, I aim to suggest what the political importance of The Lesbian Body as a diversified and written corpus is.
Aristotle on Necessary Verticality, Body Heat, and Gendered Proper Places in the Polis: A Feminist Critique
Authors: Green Judith M.
Published: October 2010

Feminist critics have charged that Aristotle's mistaken and harmful remarks about women and slaves show inconsistency or bias-driven arbitrariness. However, this analysis shows that these remarks function within a consistent and coherent theoretical corpus. Thus, both Aristotle's hierarchical and dualistic first principles and the methodology on which his entire corpus is based must be unreliable. Moreover, consistency and coherence must be insufficient warrants of theoretical insightfulness. Aristotle's mistakes suggest caveats for feminist philosophical reconstruction.
The Radical Future of Feminist Empiricism
Authors: Tuana Nancy
Published: October 2010

I argue that Nelson's feminist transformation of empiricism provides the basis of a dialogue across three currently competing feminist epistemologies: feminist empiricism, feminist standpoint theories, and postmodern feminism, a dialogue that will result in a dissolution of the apparent tensions between these epistemologies and provide an epistemology with the openness and fluidity needed to embrace the concerns of feminists.
Hildegard of Bingen: A New Twelfth-century Woman Philosopher?
Authors: John Helen J.
Published: October 2010

Three recent publications—Barbara Newman, Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard's Theology of the Feminine; Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, translated by Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop; and Sabina Flanagan, Hildegard of Bingen, 1098–1179: A Visionary Life—provide access in English to Hildegard's vast and complex intellectual achievement. Reviewing these works 1 suggest why Hildegard's thought has only begun to be studied by philosophers, why such study is important, and I propose ways to approach Hildegard's work.
Personal Autonomy or the Deconstructed Subject? A Reply to Hekman
Authors: Meyers Diana T.
Published: October 2010

A response to Susan Hekman's article “Reconstituting the Subject: Feminism, Modernism, and Postmodernism” and to her review of Diana T. Meyers’ book Self, Society, and Personal Choice both of which appeared in Hypatia 6(2).
Mother: The Legal Domestication of Lesbian Existence
Authors: Robson Ruthann
Published: October 2010

The legal category “mother” operates restrictively and punitively to “domesticate” lesbian existence. Our domestication is the reason that we have difficulty thinking beyond the category “mother.” I explore how “mother” is used by both lesbians and nonlesbians within the legal system. In order to ensure lesbian survival on lesbian terms, we must strategize theories that do not preserve the dominant legal paradigm thatcodifies “mother,” even if that category is expanded to include “lesbian mother.”
Jewish Lesbian Writing: A Review Essay
Authors: Scheman Naomi
Published: October 2010

Recent writing by Jewish lesbians is characterized BY challenging and evocative reflection on themes of home and identity, family and choice, tradition and transfor’ mation. This essay is a personal journey through some of this writing. An exploration of the obvious and troubling tensions between lesbian or feminist and Jewish identities leads to the paradoxical but ultimately unsurprising suggestion that lesbian identity and eroticism can provide a route of return to and affirmation of Jewish identity.
Why Lesbian Ethics?
Authors: Hoagland Sarah Lucia
Published: October 2010

This essay is part of a recent version of a talk 1 have given by way of introducing Lesbian Ethics. J mention ways in which lesbian existence creates certain conceptual possibilities that can effect conceptual shifts and transform consciousness.
Lesbian Ethics and the Journal Lesbian Ethics: A Review
Authors: Card Claudia
Published: October 2010

Lesbian Ethics, a U.S. journal of lesbian culture, has offered highly readable philosophical essays, reviews, discussions, and other nonfiction since late 1984 (twelve issues to date). It provides a forum in which the meaning of “lesbian” takes shape from self concepts formed in cooperative interaction and thus lays the groundwork for lesbians becoming publicly recognized as the foremost interpreters of lesbian identity and history.
Blood Relations: Feminist Theory Meets the Uncanny Alien Bug Mother
Authors: Zwinger Lynda
Published: October 2010

This essay addresses the troubling and uncanny figure of Mother in feminist theory, psychoanalytic theory, literary criticism, and real life. Readings of feminist literary criticism and the films Alien and Aliens explore the liminality of Mother and the consequences for feminist thought and practice of the persistent narrative modes (the sentimental and the gothic) locatable in all of these discourses on/of Motherhood.
At the Limits of Discourse: Heterogeneity, Alterity, and the Maternal Body in Kristeva's Thought.
Authors: Ziarek Ewa
Published: October 2010

This essay situates Kristeva's theory of semiotics in the context of the controversial debate about the status of the maternal body in her work. I argue that, if we rethink the opposition between the semiotic and the symbolic as the relation between the trace and the sign, it becomes clear that the maternal semiotic is irreducible either to the prelinguistic plenitude or to the alternative symbolic position. The second part of the essay develops the connection between Kristeva's linguistic theory and the alterity of the maternal body, articulated here as the in-fold of the other and the same.
Headaches or Headless: Who Is Poet Enough?
Authors: Stratton Teri
Published: October 2010

Psychoanalysis has long cited poetry as the expressive vehicle for unconscious production. This article addresses the sexual politics of psychoanalyses conjoining of poetry and the “feminine.” The argument of this text is that the coupling of the “feminine” and the poetic in Lacanian discourse is a metaphorical double cross which most often leaves “woman” at a loss for words.
Disarticulated Voices: Feminism and Philomela
Authors: Marder Elissa
Published: October 2010

By juxtaposing readings of selected feminist critics with a reading of Ovid's account of Philomela's rape and silencing, this essay interrogates the rhetorical, political, and epistemological implications of the feminist “we.” As a political intervention that comes into being as a response to women's oppression, feminism must posit a collective “we.” But this feminist “we” is best understood as an impersonal, performative pronoun whose political force is not derived from a knowable referent.
Piecings from a Second Reader
Authors: Alexander Natalie
Published: October 2010

A new collection of critical essays from bell hooks takes as its theme the deep longing for a critical voice. I explore some motifs that operate across the divergent topics of her essays. She writes of the dangers of commodification, of “reassuring” images, of individualism. I also explore the paths of hooks's uniquely black postmodernism: her critique of various essentialisms, her philosophically important conception of subjectivity, and her beautiful and powerful transformations of multiple discourses.
Corporeal Archetypes and Power: Preliminary Clarifications and Considerations of Sex
Authors: Sheets-Johnstone Maxine
Published: October 2010

An examination of animate form reveals corporeal archetypes that underlie both human sexual behavior and the reigning Western biological paradigm of human sexuality that reworks the archetypes to enforce female oppression. Viewed within the framework of present-day social constructionist theory and Western biology, 1 show how both social constructionist feminists who disavow biology and biologists who reduce human biology to anatomy forget evolution and thereby forego understandings essential to the political liberation of women.
The Pornography/Civil Rights Ordinance v. The BOG: And the Winner Is…?
Authors: Vadas Melinda
Published: October 2010

The Supreme Court dismissed the Pornography/Civil Rights Ordinance as an unconstitutional restriction of speech. The Court's dismissal itself violates the free speech of the proposers of the Ordinance. It is not possible for both pornographers to perform the speech act of making pornography and feminists to perform the speech act of proposing the Ordinance. I show that the speech act of proposing the Ordinance takes First Amendment precedence over the speech act of making pornography.
Thinking About Gender
Authors: Nelson Julie A.
Published: October 2010

I present a way of thinking about gender that I have found helpful in evaluating various proposed feminist projects. By considering gender and value as independent dimensions, relationships of “difference” can be more clearly perceived as involving relationships of lack, of complementarity, or of perversion. I illustrate the use of my gender/value “compass” with applications to questions of self-identity, rationality, and knowledge. This way of thinking about gender allows a conceptualization of feminism that neither erases nor emphasizes gender distinctions.
Philosophy and Feminism: The Case of Susan Bordo
Authors: Bernick Susan E.
Published: October 2010

In this paper I lay out what 1 take to be the crucial insights in Susan Bordo's “Feminist Skepticism and the ‘Maleness’ of Philosophy” and point out some additional difficulties with the skeptical position. I call attention to an ambiguity in the nature or content of the “maleness” of philosophy that Bordo identifies. Finally, I point out that, unlike some feminist skeptics, Bordo never loses sight in her work of women's lived experiences.
Moral Reflection: Beyond Impartial Reason
Authors: Meyers Diana Tietjens
Published: October 2010

This paper considers two accounts of the self that have gained prominence in contemporary feminist psychoanalytic theory and draws out the implications of these views with respect to the problem of moral reflection. I argue that our account of moral reflection will be impoverished unless it mobilizes the capacity to empathize with others and the rhetoric of figurative language. To make my case for this claim, I argue that John Rawls's account of reflective equilibrium suffers from his exclusive reliance on impartial reason.
Justice and Care in Close Relationships
Authors: Udovicki Jasminka
Published: October 2010

The essay examines the impartialist view of justice as the first virtue of all relationships. I argue that in close associations where duties, obligations, and rights of persons are situationally contingent, abstract principles of justice fail to yield a unified moral perspective about what is fair. Solidarity and trust as moral emotions develop more complex moral competencies that go beyond what principles of justice alone require.
The Quest For Certainty In Feminist Thought
Authors: Clark Ann
Published: October 2010

In this paper I argue that the essentialism/antiessentialism debate among feminists is a variety of the idealist/realist split that Dewey addressed in The Quest for Certainty. I attempt to use Dewey's thought to subvert this opposition so that we can remove the feminist discussion from the structure of an idealist/realist either/or.
Julia Kristeva's Feminist Revolutions
Authors: Oliver Kelly
Published: October 2010

Julia Kristeva is known as rejecting feminism, nonetheless her work is useful for feminist theory. I reconsider Kristeva's rejection of feminism and her theories of difference, identity, and maternity, elaborating on Kristeva's contributions to debates over the necessity of identity politics, indicating how Kristeva's theory suggests the cause of and possible solutions to women's oppression in Western culture, and, using Kristeva's theory, setting up a framework for a feminist rethinking of politics and ethics.
Women in Political Thought
Authors: Pringle Helen
Published: October 2010

The argument of this paper is that texts in the history of political thought are rather more loquacious on the question of women than has often been supposed. The argument is developed using examples from Plato's Republic, notably the sections on injustice and tyranny. The paper concludes by suggesting the general implications of its approach for the concerns and style of political theory, particularly as to the importance of understanding symbolic and mythic elements in works of political thought.
Sexual Ethics in the Age of Epidemic
Authors: Young Iris Marion
Published: October 2010

In this essay I follow one argument strand from Linda Singer's Erotic Welfare. How can we have a forward-looking and affirmative ideal of sexual freedom when the AIDS panic has altered the sexual landscape and instigated new justifications for oppressive sexual disciplines? How can we be sexual subjects when processes of commodification and disciplinary practices have constrained sexual expression while proliferating sexual fetishes? These are some of the questions this book formulates, without answering.
Feminist Epistemology: Rethinking the Dualisms of Atomic Knowledge
Authors: Sells Laura
Published: October 2010

Feminist epistemologists who attempt to refigure epistemology must wrestle with a number of dualisms. This essay examines the ways Lorraine Code, Sandra Harding, and Susan Hekman reconceptualize the relationship between self/other, nature/culture, and subject/object as they struggle to reformulate objectivity and knowledge.
Dewey and Feminism: The Affective and Relationships in Dewey's Ethics
Authors: Pappas Gregory Fernando
Published: October 2010

Dewey provides an ethics that is committed to those aspects of experience that have been associated with the “feminine.” In addition to an argument against the devaluation of the affective and of concrete relationships, we also find in Dewey's ethics a thoughtful appreciation of how and why these things are essential to our moral life. In this article I consider the importance of the affective and of relationships in Dewey's ethics and set out aspects of Dewey's ethics that might be useful resources for feminist writers in ethics.
Why We Listen to Lunatics: Antifoundational Theories and Feminist Politics
Authors: Bickford Susan
Published: October 2010

In this essay, I argue that Richard Rorty's version of pragmatism focuses too much on community, and gives insufficient attention to the workings of power and the necessary relation between theory and practice. I then turn briefly to the work of Michel Foucault for a better understanding of power relations. Finally, I argue for the value of learning from a group of writers who connect theory and practice in a way that attends to both community and power relations.
Was George Herbert Mead a Feminist?
Authors: Aboulafia Mitchell
Published: October 2010

George Herbert Mead was a dedicated progressive and internationalist who strove to realize his political convictions through participation in numerous civic organizations in Chicago. These convictions informed and were informed by his approach to philosophy. This article addresses the bonds between Mead's philosophy, social psychology, and his support of women's rights through an analysis of a letter he wrote to his daughter-in-law regarding her plans for a career.
1895 Letter from Harvard Philosophy Department
Authors: Seigfried Charlene Haddock
Published: October 2010

An official letter reporting the unauthorized Ph.D. examination at Harvard University of Mary Whiton Calkins records the anomalous position which women have occupied in philosophy from the beginning.
Rape and Communicative Agency: Reflections in the Lake at L–
Authors: Hengehold Laura
Published: October 2010

Freud's case study of “Dora” ignores indications that her symptoms might have resulted from a fear of rape. Drawing on feminist adaptations of Lacan, this paper suggests that fear of rape may serve as a horizon for women's ability to perceive themselves as efficacious speakers. Freud's failure to recognize this fear may reflect men's unwillingness to acknowledge their own role in rape as well as anxiety over the possibility of losing his own credibility.
“Patriarchy” in Czech Society1
Authors: Havelková Hana
Published: October 2010

1948 and 1989 were turning points in Czech society. In forty years under communism, men and women were equalized by the regime's totalitarianism and egalitarianism. I argue that these forces, as well as concomitant changes in the public and private spheres, dictate that women's situation should not be interpreted in terms of patriarchy. Women's issues and the problem of patriarchy, which under communism seemed irrelevant in Czech society, may now come to the fore because the postcommunist period requires women to undertake an essential rethinking of their identity.
Comment on “Realizing Love and Justice”
Authors: Fox
Published: October 2010

This is a comment on the article “Realizing Love and Justice” by Martha Saunders and Kathleen Martindale that appeared in Hypatia's Fall, 1992 Special Issue on Lesbian Philosophy.
Women and Natural Hierarchy in Aristotle
Authors: Femenías María Luisa
Published: October 2010

In this paper, I examine the frame of reference in Aristotle's Politics within which he makes claims about women and their place in his conception of politics.
Gender and Power
Authors: Hierro Graciela , Marquez Ivan
Published: October 2010

Philosophical feminism is the only coherent philosophy with universal implications that provides a theoretical alternative to patriarchal thought and sociopolitical structures. I distinguish between a patriarchal logic of power and a feminist logic of pleasure that leads to an enlightened ethical hedonism, a pleasure-centered, feminist ethical framework based on a cooperative rather than authoritarian model of social relations.
The One Who Burns Herself for Peace
Authors: Ryan Cheyney
Published: October 2010

Alice Hertz was a woman who, in J965, burned herself in protest against the Vietnam War. 1 first became aware of her through studying the writings of Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and a central figure in the history of nonviolence. In this essay I reflect on how Alice Hertz's action and Dorothy Day's vision of nonviolent commitment can each illuminate the other.
Meditations on National Identity
Authors:   Bat-Ami Bar On
Published: October 2010

This essay is about my coming to awareness of my national identity as a Jeivish'lsraeli while building a friendship with a Palestinian woman, Amal Kawar, and the place of such an awareness in the process of the re-formation of identity. To the extent that it has a conclusion, it is that, at least in the Jewish-Israeli-Palestinian context, a peace that does not reproduce the past necessitates an ethico-politically based self-examination and change.
Unthinkable Fathering: Connecting Incest and Nuclearism
Authors: Caputi Jane
Published: October 2010

The examination of cultural productions with nuclear themes reveals the regular recurrence of the theme of incestuous fatherhood. Connections include a nuclear-father figure, one who threatens dependents while purportedly protecting them; the desecration of the future; the betrayal of trust; insidious long-term effects after initial harm; the shattering of safety; the cult of secrecy, aided by psychological defenses of denial, numbing, and splitting (in both survivor and perpetrator); the violation of life-preservative taboos; and survival.
Woman as Caretaker: An Archetype That Supports Patriarchal Militarism
Authors: Kaplan Laura Duhan
Published: October 2010

Feminist peace theories that find hope for peace in the ideal of the caretaking woman are grounded in patriarchal gender distinctions, fail to challenge adequately the patriarchal dualism that constitutes the self by devaluing the other, and the practice of caretaking about which they speak may be easily co-opted into the service of war. Feminist peace theory should address the devaluation of “others,” in order to undermine this justification and motivation for war.
Feminist Justice and the Pursuit of Peace
Authors: Sterba James P.
Published: October 2010

I argue that the achievement of feminist justice is centrally related to the pursuit of peace, so that those who oppose violence in international arenas must, in consistency, oppose violence against women as well. This requires putting an end to the overt violence against women that takes the distinctive form of rape, battering, sexual harassment, and sexual abuse, and to the structural violence that takes the form of inequalities suffered by women in their families and in the economic arena.
Identity, Knowledge, and Toni Morrison's Beloved: Questions about Understanding Racism
Authors: Babbitt Susan E.
Published: October 2010

In discussing Drucilla Cornell's remarks about Toni Morrison's Beloved, I consider epistemological questions raised by the acquiring of understanding of racism, particularly the deep-rooted racism embodied in social norms and values. I suggest that questions about understanding racism are, in part, questions about personal and political identities and that questions about personal and political identities are often, importantly, epistemological questions.
Abortion Ethics: Rights and Responsibilities
Authors: Porter Elisabeth
Published: October 2010

Abortion considerations require deep reflection on law, convention, social mores, religious norms, family contexts, emotions, and relationships. I have three arguments. First, a liberal “right to choose” framework is inadequate because it is based on individualist notions of rights. Second, reproductive freedoms should be extended to all women. Third, abortion ethics involves a dialectical interplay between rights and responsibilities, and between social, cultural, and particular contexts, and is best understood in terms of moral praxis.
An Immodest Proposal: Foucault, Hysterization, and the “Second Rape”
Authors: Hengehold Laura
Published: October 2010

This article places Foucault's 1977 suggestions regarding the reform of French rape law in the context of ongoing feminist debates as to whether rape should be considered a sex crime or a species of assault. When viewed as a disciplinary matrix with both physical and discursive effects, rape and the rape trial clearly contribute to the “hysterization” of women by cultivating complainants' confessions in order to demonstrate their supposed lack of self-knowledge.
Feminist Philosophy after Twenty Years Between Discrimination and Differentiation: Introductory Reflections
Authors: Gould Carol C.
Published: October 2010

A panel titled Feminist Philosophy after Twenty Years was organized by Carol C. Gould for the session sponsored by the Committee on the Status of Women at the American Philosophical Association's 1993 Eastern Division Meeting, December 30, 1993 in Atlanta, GA. The remarks of the three panelists, Linda Lopez McAiister, Ann Ferguson and Kathy Addelson are printed below.
On the Possibility of Feminist Philosophy
Authors: McAlister Linda Lopez
Published: October 2010

This paper was originally presented as part of a panel entitled “Feminist Philosophy After Twenty Years” at the 1993 meeting of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association (APA). It is a discussion of the conditions that needed to be—and were—present in the United States in the 1970s in order for feminist philosophy to take root and flourish.
The Idea of God in Feminist Philosophy
Authors: Suchocki Marjorie Hewitt
Published: October 2010

The marginal position of women within the Western tradition provides a critical vantage point for feminist redevelopment of the notion of God. Feminists tend to replace the classical categories of substance philosophies traditionally used for God with relational categories often drawn from organic philosophies. They also project the dynamic character of language itself into the discussion of God. This essay focuses on these issues as they are developed by Mary Daly and Rebecca Chopp.
“The Only Diabolical Thing About Women…”: Luce Irigaray on Divinity
Authors: Deutscher Penelope
Published: October 2010

Luce Irigaray's argument that women need a feminine divine is placed in the context of her analyses of the interconnection between man's appropriation of woman as his “negative alter ego” and his identification with the impossible ego ideal represented by the figure of God. As an alternative, the “feminine divine” is conceived as a realm with which women would be continuous. It would allow mediation between humans, and interrupt cannibalizing appropriations of the other.
Selves, Diverse and Divided: Can Feminists Have Diversity without Multiplicity?
Authors: Mullin Amy
Published: October 2010

I explore connections between social divisions and diversity within the self, while striving to differentiate internal diversity and multiplicity. When the person is understood as composite or multiple, she is seen as divided into several distinct agent-like aspects. This view is found in ancient, modem, and postmodern philosophy, psychology, poetry, and lay people's accounts of their experience. I argue for a conception of the self as diverse but not composite or multiple.
Decisions of Identity: Feminist Subjects and Grammars of Sexuality
Authors: Lee-Lampshire Wendy
Published: October 2010

While Sarah Hoagland's conception of a lesbian ethic offers a promising route toward articulating an ethics of resistance, her notion of self in community does not provide a conception of “subject” capable of both embracing political action as fundamental to personal life and explicitly recognizing cultural, ethnic, and sexual multiplicity as central to ethical decision-making. Such a notion can be found, however, in the remarks of later Wittgenstein concerning the “language games” of describing.
Telling Stories: Metaphors of the Human Genome Project
Authors: Rosner Mary , Johnson T. R.
Published: October 2010

Scientists of the Human Genome Project tend to rely on three metaphors to describe their work, each of which implicitly tells much the same story. Whether they claim to interpret the ultimate “book,” to fix a flawed “machine,” or to map a mysterious “wilderness,” they invariably cast the researcher as one who dominates and exploits the Other. This essay, which explores the ways such a story conflicts with feminist values, proposes an alternative.
Joyce Trebilcot: Member of the Ancient and Honorable Society of Outsiders On the Occasion of the Publication of Dyke Ideas and of Her Retirement from Teaching at Washington University in St. Louis
Authors: Card Claudia
Published: October 2010

In 1994, Joyce Trebilcot retired from teaching at Washington University in St. Louis, where she had founded the Women's Studies Program and had been a member of the Philosophy Department since 1970. In the Fall of 1994 I participated on a SWIP conference panel on her book Dyke Ideas (Trebilcot 1994) conference; I used that occasion also to reminisce and place her work in the context of her life as a SWIP activist.1 What follows is adapted from that presentation.
Taking Dependency Seriously: The Family and Medical Leave Act Considered in Light of the Social Organization of Dependency Work and Gender Equality
Authors: Kittay Eva Feder
Published: October 2010

Contemporary industrialized societies have been confronted with the fact and consequences of women's increased participation in paid employment. Whether this increase has resulted from women's desire for equality or from changing economic circumstances, women and men have been faced with a crisis in the organization of work that concerns dependents, that is, those unable to care for themselves. This is labor that has been largely unpaid, often unrecognized, and yet is indispensable to human society.
The Combat Exclusion and the Role of Women in the Military
Authors: Decew Judith Wagner
Published: October 2010

I first discuss reasons for feminists to attend to the role of women in the military, despite past emphasis on antimilitarism. I then focus on the exclusion of women from combat duty, reviewing its sanction by the U.S. Supreme Court and the history of its adoption. I present arguments favoring the exclusion, defending strong replies to each, and demonstrate that reasoning from related cases and feminist analyses of equality explain why exclusion remains entrenched.
Fathers' Rights, Mothers' Wrongs? Reflections on Unwed Fathers' Rights and Sex Equality
Authors: Shanley Mary L.
Published: October 2010

This article examines arguments concerning the right of an unwed biological father to consent to the adoption of his offspring, and to take custody of the child even against the mother's wishes. The understanding of gender-neutrality that supposedly supports many such arguments is false, and risks diminishing women's decision-making authority under the guise of sex equality. Laws governing unwed parent's rights must emphasize the centrality of parental responsibility in establishing parental rights.
“Male-Order” Brides: Immigrant Women, Domestic Violence and Immigration Law
Authors: Narayan Uma
Published: October 2010

This essay analyzes why women whose immigration status is dependent on their marriage face higher risks of domestic violence than women who are citizens and explores the factors that collude to prevent acknowledgment of their greater susceptibility to battering. It criticizes elements of current U.S. immigration policy that are detrimental to the welfare of battered immigrant women, and argues for changes that would make immigration policy more sensitive to their plight.
Sex-Selective Abortion: A Relational Approach
Authors: Weiss Gail
Published: October 2010

A critical application of Ruddick's model of maternal thinking is the best way to grapple with the ethical dilemmas posed by sex-selective abortion which I view as a “moral mistake.” Chief among these is the need to be sensitive to local cultural practices in countries where sex-selective abortion is prevalent, while simultaneously developing consistent international standards to deal with the dangers posed by the use of sex-selective abortion to eliminate female fetuses.
“Je—Luce Irigaray”: A Meeting with Luce Irigaray
Authors: Hirsh Elizabeth , Olson Gary A. , Hirsh Elizabeth , Brulotte Gaëton
Published: October 2010

The authors conducted this interview with Luce Irigaray in her home in Paris in May, 1994.
Toward a New Feminist Liberalism: Okin, Rawls, and Habermas
Authors: Baehr Amy R.
Published: October 2010

While Okin's feminist appropriation of Rawls's theory of justice requires that principles of justice be applied directly to the family, Rawls seems to require only that the family be minimally just. Rawls's recent proposal dulls the critical edge of liberalism by capitulating too much to those holding sexist doctrines. Okin's proposal, however, is insufficiently flexible. An alternative account of the relation of the political and the nonpolitical is offered by Jürgen Habermas.
Antigone's Ghost: Undoing Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit
Authors: Oliver Kelly
Published: October 2010

This essay argues that Hegel's discussion of the family in “The Ethical Order” section of Phenomenology of Spirit undermines the entire project of that text. Hegel's project demands that every element of consciousness be conceptualizable, and yet, woman, an essential unconscious element of consciousness, is in principle unconceptualizable. The end of the essay attempts to relate Hegel's discussion of the family to contemporary discussions of family values.
Human Rights Are Women's Right: Amnesty International and the Family
Authors: Bahar Saba
Published: October 2010

This essay examines why the recent recognition of human rights violations against women, as exemplified by Amnesty International's 1995 report on women, remains bound to the limitations of traditional approaches to human rights. The essay argues that despite Amnesty International's commitment to incorporating violations against women into its activities, it nevertheless upholds questionable assumptions about the gendered subject, gender relations within the family, and the relationship between the family and the state.
Feminist Challenges to the New Familialism: Lifestyle Experimentation and the Freedom of Intimate Association
Authors: Struening Karen
Published: October 2010

The new familialists argue that the decline of the intact two-parent family is responsible for our most pressing social problems and advocate public policies designed to promote family stability and discourage divorce and nonmarital births. This essay defends the freedom of intimate association and argue that family stability, while an important good, must be balanced with other goods such as equality and justice within the family, happiness, and individual self-development.
Feminist Inquiry and the Transformation of the “Public” Sphere in Virginia Held'sFeminist Morality
Authors: Moody-Adams Michele M.
Published: October 2010

Virginia Held's Feminist Morality defends the idea that it is possible to transform the “public” sphere by remaking it on the model of existing “private” relationships such as families. This paper challenges Held's optimism. It is argued that feminist moral inquiry can aid in transforming the public sphere only by showing just how much the allegedly “private” realms of families and personal relationships are shaped—and often misshapen—by public demands and concerns.
A Case for Permitting Altruistic Surrogacy
Authors: Baker Brenda M.
Published: October 2010

Canada's Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies rejects all forms of surrogacy arrangement under the rubric of objecting to commercial surrogacy. Noncommercial surrogacy arrangements, however, can be defended against the commission's objections. They can be viewed as cases of giving a benefit or service to another in a way that expresses benevolence, and establishes a relationship between surrogates and prospective ‘social’ parents that allows mutual understanding and reciprocal personal interaction between them.
Beyond Humanism and Postmodernism: Theorizing a Feminist Practice
Authors: Ahmed Sara
Published: October 2010

The model of feminism as humanist in practice and postmodern in theory is inadequate. Feminist practice and theory directly inform each other to displace both humanist and postmodern conceptions of the subject. An examination of feminism's use of rights discourse suggests that feminist practice questions the humanist conception’ of the subject as a self-identity. Likewise, feminist theory undermines the postmodern emphasis on the constitutive instability and indeterminacy of the subject.
L’écriture limite: Kristeva's Postmodern Feminist Ethics
Authors: Mccance Dawne
Published: October 2010

In this essay, I trace the development of Julia Kristeva's theory and practice of “the subject in procession trial” from her semiotic works of the 1960s to her psychoanalytic writings of the 1970s and 1980s. I read Kristeva's exploration of this “subject in procession trial” as contributing to a postmodern feminist ethics.
Coyote Politics: Trickster Tales and Feminist Futures
Authors: Phelan Shane
Published: October 2010

This essay is a first attempt at thinking through the ways in which Native American Coyote stories can illuminate options for lesbian and feminist politics. I follow the metaphors of trickery and shape-shifting common to the stories and recommend the laughter they evoke as we engage in feminist politics and philosophy.
Deconstructive Strategies and the Movement Against Sexual Violence
Authors: Heberle Renee
Published: October 2010

This essay considers the social effects of the strategy of “speaking out” about sexual violence to transform rape culture. I articulate the paradox that women's identification as victims in the public sphere reinscribes the gendered norms that enable the victimization of women. I suggest we create a more diversified public narrative of sexual violence and sexuality within the context of the movement against sexual violence in order to deconstruct masculinist power in feminine victimization.
Intersecting Memories: Bearing Witness to the 1989 Massacre of Women in Montreal
Authors: Rosenberg Sharon
Published: October 2010

In this essay, I write memory across the public-private divide as a commemorative response to the Massacre of Women at École Polytechnique. Through five layers of remembering, I explore the creation of an analytic space that simultaneously considers traumatized subjectivity, bearing witness, and feminist pedagogy.