A01=Joan Wallach Scott
activism
activist
Author_Joan Wallach Scott
Category=JBSF1
Category=JP
Category=NHD
citizen
community
controversial
controversy
crisis
cultural
culture
debate
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eq_bestseller
eq_history
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eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
equality
essentialist
france
french
gender
individual
individuality
law
legal
movement
nation
nationalism
philosophical
philosophy
political
politics
separatist
sex
sexuality
social studies
universal
universalism
womens issues
Product details
- ISBN 9780226741086
- Weight: 312g
- Dimensions: 16 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 01 Dec 2005
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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France today is in the throes of a crisis about whether to represent social differences within its political system and, if so, how. It is a crisis defined by the rhetoric of a universalism that takes the abstract individual to be the representative not only of citizens but also of the nation. In "Parite!" Joan Wallach Scott shows how the requirement for abstraction has led to the exclusion of women from French politics. During the 1990s, le mouvement pour la parite successfully campaigned for women's inclusion in elective office with an argument that is unprecedented in the annals of feminism. The paritaristes insisted that if the abstract individual were thought of as sexed, then sexual difference would no longer be a relevant consideration in politics. Scott insists that this argument was neither essentialist nor separatist; it was not about women's special qualities or interests. Instead, parite was rigorously universalist - and for that reason was both misunderstood and a source of heated debate.
Joan Wallach Scott is professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study. Her most recent book is Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man.
