A Capacious Account of Liberal Feminism

Abstract

This paper presents an account of liberal feminism as a capacious family of doctrines. The account is capacious in the sense that it sweeps in a wide variety of doctrines, including some thought to be challenges to liberal feminism, and allows us to refer to doctrines with more than one label—so we can identify, for example, care-ethical liberal feminism, socially conservative liberal feminism, and liberal socialist feminism. The capacious account also provides a conceptual framework to allow us to think with greater clarity about the scope of liberal feminist claims to justice, and about how that justice is to be secured and sustained. Since there is such variety within the liberal feminist family of doctrines, it makes little sense to criticize or defend liberal feminism simpliciter. The capacious account both requires and makes it possible for us to eschew such talk and focus instead on the particular doctrines we have in mind.

Leadership development programmes: part of the solution or part of the problem of women’s under-representation in leadership?

“…In other words, the creation of preferences is influenced by the individual’s perceptions of available resources and opportunities (Vandekinderen et al , 2018) and may be developed within the boundaries of limited options or unjust arrangements (Nussbaum, 2006). Consequently, when individuals lack the ability to examine their own preferences and imagine life otherwise, it is unlikely that they will make choices that negate the status quo and result in real change (Baehr, 2021). That said, if women do not believe that they will be given the opportunity to progress to and succeed in leadership positions, they are likely to adapt their preferences accordingly.…”

Investigating the relationship between selected organisational factors and women’s skills development aspirations and career progression: A South African case study

“…To date, the feminist agenda in South Africa has been driven mostly by the younger generation of women, who are keen to enforce their social and political rights through their dedication to achieving gender equality (Gouws, 2019). Liberal feminism relies on the ideology of gender equality, democracy, autonomy, justice in all spheres and affirming the intellectual and physical capabilities of women within the workplace (Baehr, 2017;Karim, 2020). Based upon this ideology, Nienaber and Moraka (2016) affirmed that women should have the same social, political, legal and educational rights as men.…”

Substantive Equality and Equal Citizenship1

“…In other work, I suggest several things feminist liberals might mean by substantive equality in various dimensions of social life. 10 First, we might mean by the demand for 'substantive equality' that arrangements must be, and norms must call for arrangements to be, voluntary in the sense of not coerced; that there must be no violence or its threat; and that there must be exit options. Second, we might mean that arrangements and norms must be such that failure to comply with them does not result in serious material deprivationthat is, there must be other real options.…”