Marilyn Friedman

This highly interdisciplinary volume explores the political and cultural dimensions of citizenship and their relevance to women and gender. Containing essays by leading scholars such as Iris Marion Young, Alison Jaggar, Martha Nussbaum, and Sandra Bartky, it examines the conceptual issues and strategies at play in the feminist quest to give women full citizenship status. The contributors take a fresh look at issues, going beyond conventional critiques, and examining problems in the political and social arrangements, practices, and conditions that diminish women's citizenship in various parts of the world including both Western and undeveloped nations.

Several decades ago, feminists differentiated between the biologically given basis of sex identity (sex) and the socially constructed cultural practices anchored by sex identity (gender). In recent years, many feminists have challenged that distinction, arguing that biological sex is as much a social construct as are the practices comprising gender. I survey two examples from biological studies of sex identity that, by contrast (I maintain), warrant saving the concept of biologically given sex identity. The result is not antithetical to feminism, however, since these studies also suggest that sex identity proliferates beyond the rigid female/male dichotomy. If articulated carefully, this view can avoid metaphysically essentialist baggage while enriching feminist conceptions of sex identity.

Women have historically been prevented from living autonomously by systematic injustice, subordination, and oppression. The lingering effects of these practices have prompted many feminists to view autonomy with suspicion. Here, Marilyn Friedman defends the ideal of feminist autonomy. In her eyes, behavior is autonomous if it accords with the wants, cares, values, or commitments that the actor has reaffirmed and is able to sustain in the face of opposition. By her account, autonomy is socially grounded yet also individualizing and sometimes socially disruptive, qualities that can be ultimately advantageous for women. Friedman applies the concept of autonomy to domains of special interest to women. She defends the importance of autonomy in romantic love, considers how social institutions should respond to women who choose to remain in abusive relationships, and argues that liberal societies should tolerate minority cultural practices that violate women's rights so long as the women in question have chosen autonomously to live according to those practices.