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296Gay marriage: An american and feminist dilemmaHypatia 22 (1): 39-57. 2007.: Gay marriage highlights a contradiction in American national identity: if gay marriage is supported, the normative status of the heterosexual nuclear family is undermined, while if not, the civil rights of homosexuals are undermined. This essay discusses the feminist dilemma of whether to support gay marriage to promote these individual civil rights or whether to critique marriage as a part of the patriarchal system that oppresses women.
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142Sex war - the debate between radical and libertarian feministsSigns: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (1): 106-112. 1984.
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108Moral Responsibility and Social Change: A New Theory of SelfHypatia 12 (3): 116-141. 1997.The aim of this essay is to rethink classic issues of freedom and moral responsibility in the context of feminist and antiracist theories of male and white domination. If personal identities are socially constructed by gender, race and ethnicity, class and sexual orientation, how are social change and moral responsibility possible? An aspects theory of selfhood and three reinterpretations of identity politics show how individuals are morally responsible and nonessentialist ways to resist social …Read more
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87Motherhood and Sexuality: Some Feminist QuestionsHypatia 1 (2). 1986.This is a review essay that also serves as an introduction to the other essays in the issue. It discusses feminist theory's relation to Freud, feminist ethical questions on motherhood and sexuality, the historical question of how systems of socially constructed sexual desire connect to male dominance, the question of the role of the body in feminist theory, and disputes within feminism on self, gender, agency and power.
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81Feminist Paradigms of Solidarity and JusticePhilosophical Topics 37 (2): 161-177. 2009.This paper develops a new feminist paradigm for global justice that includes several components. I deploy a non-ideal ethics approach based on an argumentabout what principle of justice is possible to act on, given a historical and intersectional feminist analysis of what kind of feminist coalitions are possible in the present period. I claim that the time is ripe for a new progressive feminist Solidarity paradigm of justice that supersedes the classical liberal debates between Libertarian Freed…Read more
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80Northern researchers and service providers espousing modernist theories of development in order to understand and aid countries and peoples of the South ignore their own non-universal starting points of knowledge and their own vested interests. Universal ethics are rejected in favor of situated ethics, while a modified empowerment development model for aiding women in the South based on poststructuralism requires building a bridge identity politics to promote participatory democracy and challeng…Read more
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73Comments on Ofelia Schutte's work in feminist philosophyHypatia 19 (3): 169-181. 2004.: This paper on Ofelia Schutte's work discusses five main themes: gender oppression in the context of Latin American theories of social liberation; normative heterosexuality in Beauvoir and Irigaray; Schutte's analysis of women and capitalist globalization processes; her work on cultural identities; and the possibility of feminist transnational identities. I conclude with a comment on her postcolonial epistemological method in addressing cultural incommensurability and the possibility of a commo…Read more
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70Blood at the Root: Motherhood, Sexuality and Male DominancePandora/Unwin and Hyman. 1989.This book gives a socialist-feminist theory of the origins, persistence and reproduction of male dominance in systems of parenting/motherhood and sexuality. I create the concept of "modes of sex/affective production" which I see as analogous to and intertwined with modes of economic production to reproduce historically different systems of male dominance. I compare my Multi-system socialist-feminist theory to those of Liberal Feminism, Radical feminism, Marxist-feminism, Freudian feminism, a…Read more
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64Cheshire Calhoun's Project of Separating Lesbian Theory from Feminist TheoryHypatia 13 (1). 1998.I support Cheshire Calhoun's argument that there is a distinctive type of sexuality injustice addressed to lesbians and gays, but challenge her definitional strategy regarding the concepts of "lesbian" and "gay" and the "universalistic essentialist" distinction that she draws between patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality. Finally, I take issue with the political implications of her claim that lesbians' and gays' special oppression stems from our exclusion from the legal prerogatives of marri…Read more
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64Dancing with Iris: The Philosophy of Iris Marion Young (edited book)Oup Usa. 2009.Dancing with Iris engages with Iris Marion Young's prolific writings in political theory and in phenomenology. Contributors discuss her work from a variety of disciplines, including philosophy, political science, human rights law, cultural geography and dance studies.
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51Blood at the Root: Motherhood, Sexuality and Male DominancePandora/Unwin & Hyman. 1989.This is a book on feminist theory from a socialist-feminist (materialist feminist) perspective. I categorize existing paradigms of Western feminist theory in the 1980s and contrast them with my own view, which adds to a critique of capitalism inspired by Marxism another system in which male domination persists, which I call the system of "sex-affective production" (inspired but going beyond Freud, Foucault and Deleuze and Guattari). I also discuss motherhood and sexuality using my paradigm pers…Read more
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51Twenty Years of Feminist PhilosophyHypatia 9 (3). 1994.This paper provides an overview of twenty years of feminist philosophy in Northamerica. The professionalization of feminist theory that has occurred through the mainstreaming of feminist philosophy creates a danger of a gap between theory and practice that creates the danger of co-optation. Three stages of feminist philosophizing are outlined, including the radical critique, gender difference and difference/post-modernist stages. The last stage, it is argued, leads to an conceptual impasse about…Read more
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47This unique, timely book of original essays sets the stage for a new materialist feminist debate on the analysis, ethics and politics of love. The contributors raise questions about social power and domination, situating their research in a materialist feminist perspective that investigates love historically, in order to understand changing ideologies, representations and practices. The essays range from studies of particular representations and examples of love - feminist translation, mass medi…Read more
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45Daring to Be Good: Essays in Feminist Ethico-Politics (edited book)Routledge. 1998.This collection challenges the traditional divide between the investigation of ethics is a private concern and politics as a public, group concern
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42No Just War for the EmpireRadical Philosophy Today 4 27-37. 2006.Although international law and the Charter of the United Nations define a doctrine of just war, some critics have argued that the U.S. has become an empire that can no longer be bound by such doctrine. On the contrary, I maintain that we must retain just war doctrine as a normative base from which to critique the U.S. and its preemptive wars against terrorism. Neither the Afghanistan nor the Iraq war has been a just war. By its imperialist intentions and barbarous actions, the U.S. government ha…Read more
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42A Feminist Aspect Theory of the SelfCanadian Journal of Philosophy 17 (sup1): 339-356. 1987.The contemporary Women’s Movement has generated major new theories of the social construction of gender and male power. The feminist attack on the masculinist assumptions of cognitive psychology, psychoanalysis and most of the other academic disciplines has raised questions about some basic assumptions of those fields. For example, feminist economists have questioned the public/private split of much of mainstream economics, that ignores the social necessity of women’s unpaid housework and childc…Read more
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41Gay Marriage: An American and Feminist DilemmaHypatia 22 (1): 39-57. 2007.Gay marriage highlights a contradiction in American national identity: if gay marriage is supported, the normative status of the heterosexual nuclear family is undermined, while if not, the civil rights of homosexuals are undermined. This essay discusses the feminist dilemma of whether to support gay marriage to promote these individual civil rights or whether to critique marriage as a part of the patriarchal system that oppresses women.
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40Multiplicitous Subjectivity and the Problem of AssimilationSouthern Journal of Philosophy 46 (S1): 81-90. 2008.
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40Socialist-Feminist Transitions and VisionsRadical Philosophy Review 21 (1): 177-200. 2018.Socialism from a feminist perspective is not an all or nothing blueprint, but rather a vision of degrees of power/freedom that people in a particular society have in economic, political, social and personal relations. Examples are discussed of societies which are more or less socialist in their class, racial/ethnic, and gender equality, power and freedom. Historical changes in affective economic relations of care, love and affection inform such class, race/ethnic, gender and sexual differences. …Read more
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38The Machinery of Whiteness: Studies in the Structure of Racialization. By Steve Martinot. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010 (review)Hypatia 27 (3): 943-945. 2012.
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31The Global Reach of Our Political Responsibilities (review)Radical Philosophy Review 14 (2): 227-233. 2011.
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29Is Eliminating Gender a Transnational Feminist Solution or a Western Imposition?Radical Philosophy Review 24 (1): 75-84. 2021.
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27Sexual Democracy: Women, Oppression, and RevolutionWestview. 1991.This is a book in feminist theory and social and political philosophy. Many of the chapters are versions of earlier papers published as journal articles and as book chapters. It presents a multi-systems theory of social domination, discussing three main ones: economic class, gender and (social) race. It presents a maerialist feminist theory of gender and sexuality and discusses lesbian identity as well as issues of motherhood.
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26Comments on Ofelia Schutte's Work in Feminist PhilosophyHypatia 19 (3): 169-181. 2004.This paper on Ofelia Schutte's work discusses five main themes: gender oppression in the context of Latin American theories of social liberation; normative heterosexuality in Beauvoir and Irigaray; Schutte's analysis of women and capitalist globalization processes; her work on cultural identities; and the possibility of feminist transnational identities. I conclude with a comment on her postcolonial epistemological method in addressing cultural incommensurability and the possibility of a common …Read more
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23Toward a New SocialismLexington Books. 2006.Toward a New Socialism offers a critical analysis of capitalism's failings and the imminent need for socialism as an alternative form of government. Dr. Richard Schmitt joins with Dr. Anatole Anton to compile a volume of essays exploring the benefits and consequences of a socialist system as an avenue of increased human solidarity and ethical principle
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University of Massachusetts, AmherstRetired faculty
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Amherst, Massachusetts, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Value Theory |
Philosophy, Misc |
Other Academic Areas |
Areas of Interest
Value Theory |
Philosophy, Misc |
Other Academic Areas |