A01=Nancy J. Hirschmann
Adoption
Americans
Author_Nancy J. Hirschmann
Burqa
Category=JBSF11
Category=JPA
Category=QDTS
Citizenship
Consideration
Contexts
Criticism
Critique
Domestic violence
Employment
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False consciousness
Femininity
Feminism
Feminism (international relations)
Feminist movement
Funding
Gender role
Gratitude
Harassment
Heterosexism
Housewife
Identity politics
Ideology
Income
Individualism
Institution
Judith Butler
Lesbian
Male privilege
Masculinity
Masculism
Negative liberty
Norm (social)
Obedience (human behavior)
Obstacle
Of Education
On Liberty
Oppression
Patriarchy
Person of color
Philosophy
Political philosophy
Politics
Positive liberty
Postmodernism
Psychological abuse
Public sphere
Racism
Rationality
Requirement
Self-concept
Sexism
Sexual assault
Sexual harassment
Single parent
Slavery
Social constructionism
Social constructivism
Social relation
Social structure
Subjectivity
Taliban
Theory
Unfreedom
Utilitarianism
Violence against women
Welfare
Welfare state
Women in Islam
Writing
Product details
- ISBN 9780691096254
- Weight: 445g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 23 Sep 2002
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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This book reconsiders the dominant Western understandings of freedom through the lens of women's real-life experiences of domestic violence, welfare, and Islamic veiling. Nancy Hirschmann argues that the typical approach to freedom found in political philosophy severely reduces the concept's complexity, which is more fully revealed by taking such practical issues into account. Hirschmann begins by arguing that the dominant Western understanding of freedom does not provide a conceptual vocabulary for accurately characterizing women's experiences. Often, free choice is assumed when women are in fact coerced--as when a battered woman who stays with her abuser out of fear or economic necessity is said to make this choice because it must not be so bad--and coercion is assumed when free choices are made--such as when Westerners assume that all veiled women are oppressed, even though many Islamic women view veiling as an important symbol of cultural identity. Understanding the contexts in which choices arise and are made is central to understanding that freedom is socially constructed through systems of power such as patriarchy, capitalism, and race privilege.
Social norms, practices, and language set the conditions within which choices are made, determine what options are available, and shape our individual subjectivity, desires, and self-understandings. Attending to the ways in which contexts construct us as "subjects" of liberty, Hirschmann argues, provides a firmer empirical and theoretical footing for understanding what freedom means and entails politically, intellectually, and socially.
Nancy J. Hirschmann is Associate Professor in the Political Science Department at University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of "Rethinking Obligation: A Feminist Method for Political Theory" and coeditor of "Revisioning the Political: Feminist Reconstructions of Traditional Concepts in Western Political Theory" and "Women and Welfare: Theory and Practice in the United States and Europe".
