Feminist theory (Political Science)

About the Course Gender plays a role in structuring political ideas and American politics, whether we recognize it or not. To examine this notion, this course engages feminist theory and primary sources from feminist movements in order to analyze fundamental questions of political life and American history: what is politics? How does power operate? What are possibilities for political change? How has gender shaped American social and political institutions?

Aus feministischer Perspektive ist das Gutachten der Sachverständigenkommission (Gleichstellungsbericht) als ein positiver Schritt in Richtung Geschlechtergleichstellung einzuordnen. Aller-dings zeigen sich aus queer-feministisch interdependenter Perspektive auch gravierende Leerstellen und Einseitigkeiten.
So folgt der Gleichstellungsbericht insgesamt einer Logik der Machbarkeit innerhalb eines zurückgebauten Sozialstaates und forciert das Leitbild eines „Adult Worker Models“. Das Hauptaugenmerk liegt auf den Möglichkeiten der Vereinbarkeit von Familie und Ausbildung/Berufstätigkeit, um die Erwerbsarbeitsbeteilung auch von Frauen in höherem Ausmaß zu ermöglichen. Der Gleichstellungsbericht setzt damit Erwerbsarbeitsbeteiligung und ökonomisches Wachstum als zentrale Maßstäbe für Gleichstellung ein. Diesen Ökonomismus durchbricht der Bericht nur vereinzelt.
Der Bericht arbeitet mit dem Konzept der Verwirklichungschancen und fächert diese breit auf. Dieser theoretisch-konzeptionelle Anspruch bleibt allerdings uneingelöst. Politische Partizipationschancen bleiben ebenso unberücksichtigt wie Selbstbestimmungsmöglichkeiten jenseits des ökonomischen Rahmens. Dabei werden einige aus feministischer Sicht zentrale Fragen vernachlässigt: Welche institutionellen Voraussetzungen braucht Selbstbestimmung neben der Möglichkeit zur eigenständigen Existenzsicherung? Welche Auswirkungen auf Verwirklichungschancen produzieren Interdependenzen sozialer Ungleichheitskategorien wie Klasse, Geschlecht und Herkunft? Welche Rolle spielt die symbolische Ordnung für Gleichstellungspolitik?
Die Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung macht seit geraumer Zeit auf die Verschränkungen von verschiedenen Strukturkategorien (Intersektionalität/Interdependenz) aufmerksam; der Bericht blendet diese allerdings weitgehend aus. Er privilegiert die Verwirklichungschancen von weißen, heterosexuellen, deutschen Subjekten, die in klassischen Familienkonstellationen leben, und ent-wickelt damit gleichstellungspolitische Perspektiven, die dem Pluralismus der deutschen Gesellschaft nicht gerecht werden.
Die Empfehlungen dieser feministischen Expertise zum ersten Gleichstellungsbericht beziehen sich insbesondere auf diesen Punkt: Sie betonen die Notwendigkeit einer interdependenten Analyse gesellschaftlicher Ungleichheitsverhältnisse rund um die Kategorie Geschlecht, sodass sich gleich-stellungspolitische Empfehlungen nicht allein an der Dominanzgesellschaft ausrichten. Nur so können Maßstäbe entwickelt werden, die die Ökonomisierung des Sozialen kritisch zu hinterfragen ermöglichen.

Humanity is on the threshold of recognizing the fundamental error in its view of life and death. Both death as well as active life is necessary to the vital formation of a larger, more essential whole. In this paper, I apply the sociology of knowledge and change as it pertains to death and focus on ways in which we can step outside its traditional frameworks and limitations. I also discuss topics related to death such as birth, aging, sickness, and war, and examine cultural differences in attitudes toward death. I offer varying perspectives including the Buddhist view and from these draw implications and conclusions. I apply the lenses of contemporary social scientists such as Edgar Morin, Kenneth Gergen, Edward Stewart, Milton Bennett, Mary Catherine Bateson, E. Doyle McCarthy, Philip Slater, and Piotr Sztompka. To these I add other relevant passages from the writings and speeches of key thinkers on the topic of death, in particular, Buddhist philosopher, peacebuilder, and educator, Daisaku Ikeda. To construct a more humanistic and sustainable view of life, it is first of all crucial to establish a culture which perceives death in its larger living context as but one cycle in the expansive eternity of life.

Update: 8.15.20: Enclosed is my syllabus and complete set of course notes for the upper division undergraduate seminar I teach on Philosophy and the Communist Manifesto.

All resources are referenced either on the syllabus or in the corresponding course notes.

A set of audio-recording for the course can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DJtkxvoMGlzMRCqFOuFthYAGYXqCCX6l.

Hard to imagine a more important time to teach this course--even if 100% online due to Covid-19.

For the Audio-Recordings that go with the course, please see :

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DJtkxvoMGlzMRCqFOuFthYAGYXqCCX6l

This article argues that feminist theorists should conceive of the life sciences not only as a factual resource but also as a figural resource. It proposes that in shifting our conceptual orientation to biological science from fact to figure, feminists will be able to give theoretical life to scientific findings about the ways in which social environments and material habitats are processes integral to our development, growth, and social and political well-being. The figuration of ourselves as specifically biocultural creatures will enable feminists to gain a stronger theoretical and analytic purchase on the ongoing mutual shaping of the biological and social dimensions of existence. This, in turn, will enable feminists to creatively re-imagine the fields and fora of feminist politics.

“Feminismus” – das ist nicht nur für Männer, sondern auch für einige Frauen immer noch ein bedrohliches Wort, selbst oder gerade in Zeiten von #MeToo. Dabei sind wir auch nach zwölf Jahren mit einer Bundeskanzlerin an der Spitze der Regierung noch längst nicht in der Gleichberechtigung angekommen. Im Gegenteil: Immer noch strukturiert Sexismus unsere tagtäglichen Erfahrungen und unsere Beziehungen.

Kapitelweise wird hier gezeigt, was Sexismus ist und wie er als klebriges Kaugummi von einem Schuh zum anderen getragen wird, was das Problem an sexueller Objektifizierung und männlichem Anspruchsdenken ist, warum auch Männer den Feminismus brauchen und was für einen Feminismus wir eigentlich wollen, und wie sexualisierte Gewalt unsere Beziehungen prägt und uns vor rechtliche Probleme stellt.

Auf theoretischer Basis, aber ohne theoretisierende Sprache, sondern konkret und lebensnah durchleuchtet dieses Buch die Struktur unserer tagtäglichen sozialen Beziehungen aus einem feministischen Blickwinkel und legt den Zusammenhang zwischen diesen sozialen Beziehungen und sexueller Gewalt offen.

Kritischem Denken Raum zu geben – das ist der Anspruch der Femina Politica, der einzigen deutschsprachigen Fachzeitschrift für feministische Politik und Politikwissenschaft. Seit 1997 analysiert und kommentiert die Zeitschrift politikwissenschaftliche und aktuelle politische Themen, berichtet über Forschungsergebnisse und Hochschulpolitik, Projekte und Neuerscheinungen.

Die Femina Politica richtet sich an alle politikwissenschaftlich Interessierten, geschlechterpolitisch Engagierten und feministisch Aktiven.

Alle Beiträge der Femina Politica werden inhaltlich begutachtet und redaktionell betreut. Die Beiträge für den Schwerpunkt unterliegen einem double-blind-Peer-Review-Verfahren.

Features contributions from global leading care scholars
Provides theoretical and applied discussions
Care Ethics and Political Theory brings together new chapters on the nature of care ethics and its implications for politics from some of the most important philosophers working in the field today. Chapters take up long-standing questions about the relationship between care and justice and develop guidelines for the development of a care-based justice theory. Care ethics is further applied to issues such as security, privacy, law, and health care where little work has been previously done. By bringing care ethics into conversation with non-Western and subaltern cultures, the contributing authors further show how care ethics can guide and learn from other traditions. A final set of chapters uses care ethics to challenge dominant moral and political paradigms and offer an alternative foundation for future moral and political theory.

The book as a whole makes the case for care ethics as an equal or superior approach to morality and politics compared with liberalism, luck egalitarianism, libertarianism, the capabilities approach, communitarianism, and other political theories.

The volume includes many of the leading care scholars in the world today engaging in both theoretical and applied discussions of this burgeoning field of study. Ultimately, Care Ethics and Political Theory endeavors to find realistic methods and ways of thinking to create a more caring world.
Readership: Scholars and students interested in Political Science, Political Theory, Political Philosophy, Public Policy, and Ethics

In this Reply, I argue that the Okin/Rawls debate is a debate within ideal theory; so if ideal theory is the problem, Okin’s feminist critique of liberalism will not help. I argue in addition, however, that Rawlsian ideal theory is more helpful than we might think in addressing the threat of illiberal populism to really-existing constitutional democracies, and that before we despair we should up our liberal game.

Se analiza la gestación y consolidación del activismo feminista que ha aglutinado a miles de profesionales de la comunicación en España a raíz de la huelga del 8 de marzo de 2018, unidas a través de la aplicación de mensajería Telegram y por el hashtag #lasperiodistasparamos en la red de microblogging Twitter. Se ha llevado a cabo un análisis del discurso de los 13.163 tweets publicados de febrero a septiembre de 2018 con esa etiqueta. También se ha analizado el contenido de las conversaciones en su canal de Telegram. Se aportan las opiniones formuladas en entrevistas en profundidad a 20 activistas de esta cibercomunidad. A través de una metodología cuantitativa y cualitativa aplicada a categorías extraídas en los discursos, se han observado las causas de este activismo, la eficacia de sus canales de organización y comunicación y las iniciativas derivadas en el espacio urbano. En conclusión, esta pionera concienciación de unidad gremial ha estado motivada por la crisis del capitalismo y por una nueva ola feminista global, tecnológica e intergeneracional. Este activismo de las comunicadoras españolas ha conseguido por primera vez abordar el feminismo desde los grandes medios de masas y ha sumado a la protesta a mujeres de diversas edades, ideologías y profesiones. Además, ha derivado en la constitución de diversas organizaciones y asociaciones de profesionales del periodismo, redes más pequeñas con capacidad de decidir y actuar por el feminismo dentro del espacio urbano en el ámbito autonómico. Especialmente trabajan por la concienciación deontológica por la perspectiva de género en la producción periodística.

Este texto es una intervención en el debate que mantuvieron las teóricas del feminismo Nancy FRaser y Judith Butler. Ese intercambio polémico, que abre una serie de interrogantes en torno a la potencia crítica de la teoría feminista, es aquí abordado desde las implicancias políticas de las refexiones de las autoras para pensar la cuestió de la unidad de la izquierda en la actual coyuntura, y el lugar del feminismo y la teoría quuer en la necesaria transformación política y social. 

Resumo: Partindo-se do exemplo e modelo das discussões sobre gênero da Comissão Econômica para América Latina e Caribe (CEPAL) ressaltando a Décima Conferência Regional, sediada em Quito no ano de 2007 e a Décima Primeira Conferência Regional, sediada em Brasília em 2010, que repercutem a necessidade de se cada vez mais problematizar as desigualdades na região, a pesquisa abordada neste artigo traduz tanto este momento deliberativo, quanto o movimento das demandas feministas democratizantes por mais justiça social em dezoito Estados latino-americanos (Argentina, Brasil, Bolívia, Chile, Colômbia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Equador, Guatemala, Honduras, México, Nicarágua, Panamá, Paraguai, Peru, República
Dominicana, Uruguai e Venezuela). O artigo procura (i) discutir a incompletude de análises sobre as desigualdades sociais que somente visam um único aspecto ou uma única dimensão da justiça social; (ii) mostrar como reiteradamente as críticas feministas deslocam os objetos de análise e demandam outras dimensões para a compreensão sobre a temática; e (iii) apontar como a dimensão política, que traz para o campo do conhecimento político a tematização da justiça social, fornece fundamentos para a mensuração e o entendimento da justiça social através de propostas que enfocam a justiça de gênero e a justiça intragênero. Enfatiza-se a dimensão da política e do político conjugada com a justiça social, além de uma análise crítica da construção de indicadores estatísticos sobre as desigualdades, de maneira geral e aqueles referentes exclusivamente à dimensão de gênero, utilizando-se do Índice de Desenvolvimento Humano, do Gender Gap, do ISOQuito, do Índice de Compromisso Institucional e do Social Institutions and Gender Index. Por fim, discute-se como o “quem” ou os sujeitos do feminismo e a questão conceitual de gênero e feminista repercute na formulação metodológica, além de problematizar a construção dos índices confrontada por dados qualitativos.
Palavras-chave: Justiça Social; Feminismo; Teoria Política Feminista; Gênero;
América Latina

This study questions the " clash of civilizations " thesis. Referring to the cosmopolitanization process as defined by Beck and Sznaider (2010), I analyze the cosmopolitanization of feminism, that is, the gradual recognition of " the others' others " , the women, through the evolution of their political rights—the right to elect and be elected—at a global level. In this context, the descriptive representation of women, their substantive representation, and their voices within civil society in the North and the South highlight the fact that feminism is undergoing a process of cosmopolitanization, albeit in a slow and sporadic way. I present this argument from a postcolonial feminist perspective and base my research on NGOs' data and on data provided by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and UN-Women. First, I analyze the cosmpolitanization process as applied to feminism. Then, following Beck and Sznaider (2010), I describe how this process is articulated 'from above' (top-down cosmopolitanization), referring to electoral data from around the world and to international law. Further, I relate to the cosmopolitanization of feminism 'from below', referring to feminist theories, cyberfeminism and the global civil/feminist society. In conclusion, I discuss the common future of feminism and cosmopolitanism.

***UPDATE: 2015
I am currently adapting the print copy of my book, PUSHING THE LIMITS OF THE COLOR LINE, into an eBook.  Thus, the print copy is currently unavailable.  If you want to be notified when it is available again, then just send me an email at [email protected].***


This analysis is an excerpt from my new book, PUSHING THE LIMITS OF THE COLOR LINE:  MARY McLEOD BETHUNE & THE NEW DEAL. 

See Amazon books, http://tinyurl.com/anmbpqa  and http://www.scribd.com/gy%20williams

***Description of Excerpt***
Bethune's significance to Black America during her time and also to interracial audiences can hardly be illustrated briefly.  But in this analysis I look closely at her political rhetoric, how she influenced the masses during the New Deal era.  Her political activism continues to inspire many people today who have the opportunity to embrace the character of her transformative leadership.

This book is part of a self-publishing project entitled "A Passion for Social Equality." It will include a three-book series (primarily eBooks) based upon my dissertation.  All three books are forthcoming.