Kriedge Chlaire Alba

Hannah Arendt’s works faced criticisms from various feminist thinkers for an alleged gender blindness and conformity to masculine ideologies. However, there are still some thinkers like Nancy Hartsock who argue that Arendt’s political thought is relevant to feminist discourse. This paper aims to provide a feminist re-reading of Arendt’s distinction between the private and public realm by giving emphasis on the space of appearances as the quality that makes the public realm authentic. I argue that Arendt’s notion of space of appearances, together with freedom and human plurality, can be heeded for the feminist discourse as well. To substantiate my claims, this paper shall be divided into three parts. The first is intended to focus on Arendt’s notion of space of appearances as found in her prominent works. The next part focuses on various perspectives of feminist thinkers on Arendt. This is to situate her political thought within the feminist discourses. Lastly, the third section is intended to answer the main question I wish to address in this paper: What is the relevance of the Arendtian notion of space of appearances to the feminist discourse?

Using a fair allocation approach, this paper identifies and examines important concerns arising from the Philippines’ COVID‐19 response while focusing on difficulties encountered by various sectors in gaining fair access to needed societal resources. The effectiveness of different response measures is anchored on addressing inequities that have permeated Philippine society for a long time. Since most measures that are in place as part of the COVID‐19 response are meant to be temporary, these are unable to resolve the inequities that have led to the magnitude of morbidity and mortality associated with the pandemic. These cannot improve the country’s readiness to deal with pandemics and other emergencies in the future.Transition to a new normal recognizes the possibility that other infectious diseases could come and endanger our health security. Our pandemic experiences are proving that having an egalitarian society will serve the interests not only of disadvantaged sectors but also of everybody else, including the privileged. Response measures should thus take the opportunity to promote equity by giving importance to the concerns of the underprivileged and vulnerable while giving preference to initiatives that can be sustained beyond the period of the current pandemic.