(DOWNLOAD) "Lisa H. Schwartzman, Challenging Liberalism: Feminism As Political Critique (Book Review)" by Social Theory and Practice # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Lisa H. Schwartzman, Challenging Liberalism: Feminism As Political Critique (Book Review)
- Author : Social Theory and Practice
- Release Date : January 01, 2007
- Genre: Religion & Spirituality,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 194 KB
Description
Lisa H. Schwartzman, Challenging Liberalism: Feminism as Political Critique (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), viii + 210 pp. Feminists are divided over the question of the value of liberalism. Feminists such as Susan Moller Okin and Martha Nussbaum argue that liberal theory has great potential as a foundation for feminist demands. On liberal principles, women ought to be treated on equal terms with men and have the same opportunities and rights. Therefore, whatever is required to achieve that social equality is justified by those principles. Other feminists argue that the abstract nature of liberal theorizing and the individualism that is essential to liberal political theory makes it inappropriate as a basis for feminism. Alison Jaggar and Iris Marion Young argue that liberal conceptions of the individual as a bare rational autonomous self ignore the ways sexual difference structures specific identities and power relations. So liberals fail to notice ways women are oppressed, even where they appear to have rights equal to men's. Lisa Schwartzman's book makes a useful contribution to these ongoing debates. Her nuanced position maintains a critical perspective on many of the uses made of liberal concepts while avoiding total rejection of liberal theory.