Philosophy assignment, due 8/18
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POWERPOINTEXAMPLE_PHIL103.pptxMen, Women, Issues: Identity and Gender
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Epistemology
the theory of knowledge
the investigation of what distinguishes justified
belief from opinion
Self-knowledge
Embodied Epistemology
The knowing subject is also the known object
Epistemic Position
Life experience shapes our capacity to know.
YOUR PERSPECTIVE
One of the first concepts introduced in the course is that of epistemology. This is the the theory of knowledge, and the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion Everyone comes from a particular epistemic position: There are things that they can know, and things that they cannot; phenomena they are sensitive to and others they may not recognize. Life experience shapes our capacity to know. There is Embodied Epistemology – which indicates that the knowing subject is also the known object and the Epistemic Position is your perspective – our life experience shapes our capacity to know.
Even though I am teaching the course, and I've done a lot of reading on the theory of the race, class, gender, etc. I am also limited to a particular epistemic position, and our course emphasizes narrative and the legitimacy of subjective experience. Ideally, we will all teach each other on that level.
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Feminism
John Stuart Mill (Philosopher: On Liberty) – supporter of women’s suffragette movement who addressed the British Parliament in 1866 on The Subjection of Women:
“Under what- ever conditions, and within whatever limits, men are admitted to suf-
frage, there is not a shadow of justification for not admitting women under the same. The majority of women of any class are not likely to differ in political opinion from the majority of men in the same class.”
John Stuart Mill, "The Subjection of Women," in Essays on SexEquality,ed. Alice S. Rossi (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), pp. 184-85.
Mary Wollstonecraft (d. 1797) – Vindication of the Rights of Women
Inspiration – French Revolution
Much of this course has been structured around Feminist theory because that is the first philosophical literature to address these sorts of issues in Western Philosophy. Feminist theory is a fairly new phenomenon. Of course, people have been doing philosophy as long as they have been conscious, and the oldest records of this sort of activity are found in India, Africa, China and the Middle East. There is also evidence of very early, very sophisticated activity among Indigenous populations in the Americas. But three features that were more or less universal in philosophers of the Western Tradition were 1. European 2. Male 3. Wealthy. The Western Tradition traces its roots to ancient Greece, and we will focus on Modern Western Tradition primarily, as it is the one that governs the culture in which we live.
Feminism as we understand it today can be traced back to Mary Wollstonecraft’s pioneering work – The Vindication of the Rights of Women.
A well –known philosopher of the 19th century, also supported a form of women’s rights. He was supporter of women’s suffragette movement who addressed the British Parliament in 1866 on The Subjection of Women:
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Dominance Approach
MacKinnon sees the equality question not as a question of sameness, but as a question of distribution of power, and gender question not as a question of difference but as question of male supremacy and female subordination.
MacKinnon claims that the Difference approach embraces ‘maleness’ as a norm:
‘Concealed is the substantive way in which man has become the measure of all things. Under the sameness standard, women are measured according to our correspondence with man, our equality judged by our proximity to his measure. Under the difference standard, we are measured according to our lack of correspondence with him, our womanhood judged by our distance from his measure… Approaching sex discrimination in this way- as if sex questions are difference questions and equality questions are sameness questions- provides two ways for the law to hold women to male standard and call that sex equality.’
Focus
Sexual Harassment
Rape
Pornography
Focus on violence against women (sexual harassment, rape, domestic violence against women and children, prostitution, pornography), MacKinnon sees appropriation of women’s sexuality by man as central instrument of male dominance.
Sexual Harassment: MacKinnon is responsible for making sexual harassment recognized as a legal category.
Rape: She attacked the element of ‘consent’ (which has traditionally been evaluated from the point of view of rapist rather than form woman’s point of view) as an instrument of male dominance in law.
Pornography: primary means of social construction of sexuality and therefore of men’s domination over women. With Andrea Dworkin, she drafted anti-pornography ordinances in Minneapolis and Indianapolis, which were ultimately found to be unconstitutional. Criticism: Many feminists find that sex and sexual fantasy might be experienced as liberating for some women, and feared that censorship might prove worse for women, and they actively objected to this censorship. Lesbian feminists in particular warned feminist not to base their positions on the experiences of heterosexual women alone.
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References
MacKinnon, C.A. (1987). Difference and dominance: On sex discrimination in Feminism
Unmodified: Discourse on life and law (pp. 32-36), Cambridge: Harvard University Press
Mill, J.A. (1970). The subjection of women in A.S. Rossi (Ed.), Essays on Sex Equality (pp.184-
85), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).
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