Engendering Democracy E-Book

Anne Phillips

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 371

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Democracy is the central political issue of our age, yet debates over its nature and goals rarely engage with feminist concerns. Now that women have the right to vote, they are thought to present no special problems of their own. But despite the seemingly gender-neutral categories of individual or citizen, democratic theory and practice continues to privilege the male.

This book reconsiders dominant strands in democratic thinking - focusing on liberal democracy, participatory democracy, and twentieth century versions of civic republicanism - and approaches these from a feminist perspective. Anne Phillips explores the under-representation of women in politics, the crucial relationship between public and private spheres, and the lessons of the contemporary women's movement as an experience in participatory democracy.

Leseprobe

Engendering Democracy

Anne Phillips

Polity Press

Copyright © Anne Phillips 1991

The right of Anne Phillips to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published 1991 by Polity Pressin association with Blackwell Publishers Ltd.Reprinted 1993, 1997, 2005, 2007

Polity Press

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Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN: 978-0-7456-6817-8 (Multi-user ebook)

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Typeset in 10½ on 12 pt Palatino

by Acorn Bookwork, Salisbury

Printed and bound in Great Britain

by Marston Book Services Limited, Oxford

For further information on Polity, visit our website: www.polity.co.uk

For my parents, Margaret and Frederick Phillips

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

1   Feminism and Democracy

2   The Classic Debates

3   The Representation of Women

4   Public Spaces, Private Lives

5   Paradoxes of Participation

6   So What’s Wrong with Liberal Democracy?

References

Index

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book has developed out of years of discussion and debate, and I cannot begin to acknowledge all those who have influenced me. But for their comments on earlier versions, I would like to thank Michèle Barrett, Ciaran Driver, Philip Green, Sophie Watson and Iris Young, none of whom of course should be held in any way responsible for the results. My editor David Held was a great help in pushing me to improve on my first draft. City of London Polytechnic provided me with generous research time for working on this book, for which I am immensely grateful.

1

FEMINISM AND DEMOCRACY

Democracy has existed as either nightmare or dream for as long as political thought. Feminism has been with us a much shorter period, and many commentators place its origins in seventeenth-century Europe. The two traditions have much in common for both deal in notions of equality and both oppose arbitrary power, but they did not develop in tandem: though ideals of equality might be thought to unite them, this has not proved any automatic bond. The ancient Greeks could conceive of democracy without any qualms about excluding both women and slaves; early liberals could talk of human beings as equals without any inkling that they might all expect to vote. The association between equality and democracy is itself a recent affair, and so inevitably is the relationship between feminism and democracy. In 1700, Mary Astell made the now obvious connection when she asked why those who so vehemently rejected the absolute sovereignty of a king nonetheless accepted it as natural in a husband. Being a dedicated royalist, she used the parallel to ironic effect. Ninety years later, the more politically radical Mary Wollstonecraft still knew she would ‘excite laughter, by dropping a hint… that women ought to have representatives, instead of being arbitrarily governed without having any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of government’ (1975:259–60). She pursued the issue no further. Early feminists recognized a link between feminism and democracy, but were preoccupied by more pressing concerns.

It was not till the nineteenth century, when a long history of discussion and writing began to coalesce into an active movement, that women demanded democratic rights for themselves. From this point onwards, the links with the democratic tradition steadily strengthened, though the belief that the two movements were related proved stronger on the feminist side. In our own period, the contemporary women’s movement has forged a particularly powerful connection and, with its determined critique of hierarchy and sustained anti-authoritarianism, turned itself into a virtual testing ground for democracy’s most radical ideals. For this reason, if no other, there is a wealth of experience to explore in the relationship between the two traditions. The democracy of the women’s movement is one part of what this book is about.

But there is more to the relationship than that. It is a central contention in my argument that gender challenges all our political perspectives, forcing us to examine each position and concept afresh. Despite a growing weight of feminist critique, political theory has remained largely impervious to this. In political theory (as in virtually every field of enquiry) there has been a procession of competing traditions; though each age has tended to converge on one as the dominant or ‘orthodox’ approach, this has taken place through wide-ranging discussion and debate. In these controversies, political thinkers draw on a wealth of moral, psychological and historical argument, and might seem to agree on only one thing: whatever else is at stake, gender is irrelevant to the issues and will not affect the arguments on anyone’s side.