Clergy sexual abuse is both sexual and psychological violence, but it is also a paradigmatic case of spiritual violence that rises to the level of religious trauma. In this paper I argue that the spiritual violence of clergy sexual abuse diminishes, and in some cases may even destroy, a survivor’s capacities for religious faith or other forms of spiritual engagement. I use and illustrate the value of feminist methodology, as developed and advanced by Alison Jaggar, for generating and pursuing philosophical questions about religious experience. Feminist methodology’s sensitivity to theorizing situated subjects who stand to each other in relations of racialized male dominance helps us see the ways in which clergy sexual abuse is gender-based violence in both its causes and effects. It also helps us both ask and answer questions about religious faith in the unjust meantime from the perspective of those who endure spiritually violent faith communities.
{"title":"Religious Faith in the Unjust Meantime: The Spiritual Violence of Clergy Sexual Abuse","authors":"T. Tobin","doi":"10.5206/FPQ/2019.2.7290","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5206/FPQ/2019.2.7290","url":null,"abstract":"Clergy sexual abuse is both sexual and psychological violence, but it is also a paradigmatic case of spiritual violence that rises to the level of religious trauma. In this paper I argue that the spiritual violence of clergy sexual abuse diminishes, and in some cases may even destroy, a survivor’s capacities for religious faith or other forms of spiritual engagement. I use and illustrate the value of feminist methodology, as developed and advanced by Alison Jaggar, for generating and pursuing philosophical questions about religious experience. Feminist methodology’s sensitivity to theorizing situated subjects who stand to each other in relations of racialized male dominance helps us see the ways in which clergy sexual abuse is gender-based violence in both its causes and effects. It also helps us both ask and answer questions about religious faith in the unjust meantime from the perspective of those who endure spiritually violent faith communities.","PeriodicalId":387473,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Philosophy Quarterly","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127147826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Critiques of Western feminists’ attempts to extend claims about gender injustice to the global context highlighted a dilemma facing Western feminists, what I call the global gender justice dilemma. In response to this dilemma, Alison M. Jaggar argues that Western feminists should turn our attention away from trying to resolve it and, instead, toward examination of our own complicity in the processes that produce injustice. I suggest that this kind of approach is helpful in responding to an additional dilemma that confronts the Western feminist, namely the epistemic dilemma. Western feminists can speak for women of the global South and run the risk of distorting those women’s experience and further silencing their voices, or we can refuse to speak and abdicate our responsibilities to address injustice. I argue that we should address this dilemma not by trying to resolve it but by examining our role in the reproduction of epistemically unjust practices. To explain this response, I offer a preliminary account of epistemic injustice as epistemic oppression. I conclude by claiming that our own epistemic complicity in epistemically oppressive social practices is a weighty reason for us to work to transform those practices.
对西方女权主义者试图将性别不公正的主张扩展到全球背景的批评,突显了西方女权主义者面临的一个困境,我称之为全球性别正义困境。针对这一困境,艾莉森·m·贾格尔(Alison M. Jaggar)认为,西方女权主义者应该把我们的注意力从试图解决这个问题上转移开,转而审视我们自己在产生不公正的过程中的同谋。我认为这种方法有助于回应西方女权主义者面临的另一个困境,即认知困境。西方女权主义者可以为全球南方的女性发声,冒着扭曲这些女性经历并进一步压制她们声音的风险,或者我们可以拒绝发声,放弃我们解决不公正问题的责任。我认为,我们不应该试图解决这个困境,而是应该审视我们在再生产认知上不公正的实践中的角色。为了解释这种反应,我将认识论上的不公正作为认识论上的压迫进行了初步阐述。我的结论是,我们在知识压迫性社会实践中的认知同谋是我们努力改变这些实践的重要原因。
{"title":"Global Gender Justice and Epistemic Oppression: A Response to an Epistemic Dilemma","authors":"Corwin Aragon","doi":"10.5206/FPQ/2019.2.7294","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5206/FPQ/2019.2.7294","url":null,"abstract":"Critiques of Western feminists’ attempts to extend claims about gender injustice to the global context highlighted a dilemma facing Western feminists, what I call the global gender justice dilemma. In response to this dilemma, Alison M. Jaggar argues that Western feminists should turn our attention away from trying to resolve it and, instead, toward examination of our own complicity in the processes that produce injustice. I suggest that this kind of approach is helpful in responding to an additional dilemma that confronts the Western feminist, namely the epistemic dilemma. Western feminists can speak for women of the global South and run the risk of distorting those women’s experience and further silencing their voices, or we can refuse to speak and abdicate our responsibilities to address injustice. I argue that we should address this dilemma not by trying to resolve it but by examining our role in the reproduction of epistemically unjust practices. To explain this response, I offer a preliminary account of epistemic injustice as epistemic oppression. I conclude by claiming that our own epistemic complicity in epistemically oppressive social practices is a weighty reason for us to work to transform those practices.","PeriodicalId":387473,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Philosophy Quarterly","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125757301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper morally evaluates the phenomenon Sylvia Chant calls "the feminization of responsibility," wherein women's unrecognized labor subsidizes international development while men retain or increase their power over women. I argue that development policies that feminize responsibility are incompatible with justice in two ways. First, such policies involve Northerners extracting unpaid labor from women in the global South. Northerners are obligated to provide development assistance, but they are transferring the labor of providing it onto women in the global South and expecting them to do it for free. Second, development policies that feminize responsibility increase women's exposure to sexist domination. These two problems are present irrespective of whether policies that feminize responsibility improve women's basic well-being.
{"title":"Global Gender Justice and The Feminization of Responsibility","authors":"Serene J. Khader","doi":"10.5206/FPQ/2019.2.7282","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5206/FPQ/2019.2.7282","url":null,"abstract":"This paper morally evaluates the phenomenon Sylvia Chant calls \"the feminization of responsibility,\" wherein women's unrecognized labor subsidizes international development while men retain or increase their power over women. I argue that development policies that feminize responsibility are incompatible with justice in two ways. First, such policies involve Northerners extracting unpaid labor from women in the global South. Northerners are obligated to provide development assistance, but they are transferring the labor of providing it onto women in the global South and expecting them to do it for free. Second, development policies that feminize responsibility increase women's exposure to sexist domination. These two problems are present irrespective of whether policies that feminize responsibility improve women's basic well-being. \u0000 ","PeriodicalId":387473,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Philosophy Quarterly","volume":"192 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114860914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This introduction by guest-editors Barrett Emerick and Scott Wisor to the special issue reflecting on the work of Alison Jaggar includes summaries of the six anonymously peer-reviewed articles and three invited articles.
{"title":"Introduction to the Special Issue: In the Unjust Meantime","authors":"B. Emerick, Scott Wisor","doi":"10.5206/FPQ/2019.2.8184","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5206/FPQ/2019.2.8184","url":null,"abstract":"This introduction by guest-editors Barrett Emerick and Scott Wisor to the special issue reflecting on the work of Alison Jaggar includes summaries of the six anonymously peer-reviewed articles and three invited articles.","PeriodicalId":387473,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Philosophy Quarterly","volume":"48 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117253928","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this essay, I analyze various ways in which pregnant bodies are rendered consumable. Tracing our preoccupation with pregnancy diets, I argue that a pregnant woman is made responsible for producing a consumable body. Indeed, producing and maintaining a consumable, fetus-friendly body is a responsibility that women carry before, during, and even after pregnancy. The sphere of this responsibility is also ever-expanding: it goes from detoxing the body to disinfecting the household, and even to protecting the environment at large. I examine two conditions that help construct the maternal body as consumable: 1) the invisibility of the consumed body, and 2) the appeal to “nature” as a justification for consumption. As I will show, the default position of women as consumable is reinforced both by erasing the maternal body and by appealing to the “naturalness” of breastfeeding.
{"title":"The Construction of a Consumable Body","authors":"A. Suen","doi":"10.5206/FPQ/2019.1.7311","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5206/FPQ/2019.1.7311","url":null,"abstract":"In this essay, I analyze various ways in which pregnant bodies are rendered consumable. Tracing our preoccupation with pregnancy diets, I argue that a pregnant woman is made responsible for producing a consumable body. Indeed, producing and maintaining a consumable, fetus-friendly body is a responsibility that women carry before, during, and even after pregnancy. The sphere of this responsibility is also ever-expanding: it goes from detoxing the body to disinfecting the household, and even to protecting the environment at large. I examine two conditions that help construct the maternal body as consumable: 1) the invisibility of the consumed body, and 2) the appeal to “nature” as a justification for consumption. As I will show, the default position of women as consumable is reinforced both by erasing the maternal body and by appealing to the “naturalness” of breastfeeding.","PeriodicalId":387473,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Philosophy Quarterly","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125477178","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In “Amelioration and Inclusion: Gender Identity and the Concept of Woman,” Katharine Jenkins argues that Sally Haslanger’s focal analysis of gender problematically excludes nonpassing trans women from the category “woman.” However, Jenkins does not explain why this exclusion contradicts the feminist aims of Haslanger’s account. In this paper, I advance two arguments that suggest that a trans-inclusive account of “woman” is crucial to the aims of feminism. I claim that the aims of feminism are to understand and combat women’s oppression. First, I argue that denial of trans identities reinforces cultural ideas that perpetuate both transphobic violence and sexual violence against women. Consequently, a feminist account of “woman” that fails to respect trans identities indirectly contributes to the oppression of women. Second, I prove that nonpassing trans women are oppressed as women through the internalization of sexual objectification. I then conclude that an account of “woman” that excludes nonpassing trans women cannot successfully advance a complete understanding of women’s oppression.
{"title":"Feminist Aims and a Trans-Inclusive Definition of “Woman”","authors":"Katie Kirkland","doi":"10.5206/FPQ/2019.1.7313","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5206/FPQ/2019.1.7313","url":null,"abstract":"In “Amelioration and Inclusion: Gender Identity and the Concept of Woman,” Katharine Jenkins argues that Sally Haslanger’s focal analysis of gender problematically excludes nonpassing trans women from the category “woman.” However, Jenkins does not explain why this exclusion contradicts the feminist aims of Haslanger’s account. In this paper, I advance two arguments that suggest that a trans-inclusive account of “woman” is crucial to the aims of feminism. I claim that the aims of feminism are to understand and combat women’s oppression. First, I argue that denial of trans identities reinforces cultural ideas that perpetuate both transphobic violence and sexual violence against women. Consequently, a feminist account of “woman” that fails to respect trans identities indirectly contributes to the oppression of women. Second, I prove that nonpassing trans women are oppressed as women through the internalization of sexual objectification. I then conclude that an account of “woman” that excludes nonpassing trans women cannot successfully advance a complete understanding of women’s oppression.","PeriodicalId":387473,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Philosophy Quarterly","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121284976","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article explores the ongoing obsession with the thigh gap ideal in certain pockets of Western societies. A thigh gap is the space some women have between their inner thighs when they stand with their feet together. The thigh gap ideal is flaunted on “thinspo” websites, which compile diet and exercise tips and display pictures of fashion models and “real women” in their efforts to inspire women to become thinner. I aim to identify what is wrong with the thigh gap obsession and to suggest a way to overcome it. I begin by describing the genesis of the obsession. I then argue that the relation women in the grip of this preoccupation have to their bodies is an instance of what I call bodily alienation. Next, I consider responses to the thigh gap phenomenon. I claim that a viable response, besides broadening standards of beauty, lies in pursuing bodily activities for their own sake. I call the view I articulate “sensualism.” I conclude by discussing the merits of an individual response of the type I advocate, in light of the structural character of women’s oppression through standards of beauty.
{"title":"Anatomy of the Thigh Gap","authors":"C. Leboeuf","doi":"10.5206/FPQ/2019.1.7312","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5206/FPQ/2019.1.7312","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the ongoing obsession with the thigh gap ideal in certain pockets of Western societies. A thigh gap is the space some women have between their inner thighs when they stand with their feet together. The thigh gap ideal is flaunted on “thinspo” websites, which compile diet and exercise tips and display pictures of fashion models and “real women” in their efforts to inspire women to become thinner. I aim to identify what is wrong with the thigh gap obsession and to suggest a way to overcome it. I begin by describing the genesis of the obsession. I then argue that the relation women in the grip of this preoccupation have to their bodies is an instance of what I call bodily alienation. Next, I consider responses to the thigh gap phenomenon. I claim that a viable response, besides broadening standards of beauty, lies in pursuing bodily activities for their own sake. I call the view I articulate “sensualism.” I conclude by discussing the merits of an individual response of the type I advocate, in light of the structural character of women’s oppression through standards of beauty.","PeriodicalId":387473,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Philosophy Quarterly","volume":"114 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123614913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction: Epistemic Injustice and Recognition Theory","authors":"P. Giladi, N. McMillan","doi":"10.5206/FPQ/2018.4.6227","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5206/FPQ/2018.4.6227","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction to the special issue ","PeriodicalId":387473,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Philosophy Quarterly","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121612580","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this article I analyse two complaints of white vilification, which are increasingly occurring in Australia. I argue that, though the complainants (and white people generally) are not harmed by such racialized speech, the complainants in fact harm Australians of colour through these utterances. These complaints can both cause and constitute at least two forms of epistemic injustice (willful hermeneutical ignorance and comparative credibility excess). Further, I argue that the complaints are grounded in a dual misrecognition: the complainants misrecognize themselves in their own privileged racial specificity, and they misrecognize others in their own marginal racial specificity. Such misrecognition preserves the cultural imperialism of Australia’s dominant social imaginary—a means of oppression that perpetuates epistemic insensitivity. Bringing this dual misrecognition to light best captures the indignity that is suffered by the victims of the aforementioned epistemic injustices. I argue that it is only when we truly recognize difference in its own terms, shifting the dominant social imaginary, that “mainstream Australians” can do their part in bringing about a just society.
{"title":"Offending White Men: Racial Vilification, Misrecognition, and Epistemic Injustice","authors":"Louise Richardson‑Self","doi":"10.5206/FPQ/2018.4.6234","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5206/FPQ/2018.4.6234","url":null,"abstract":"In this article I analyse two complaints of white vilification, which are increasingly occurring in Australia. I argue that, though the complainants (and white people generally) are not harmed by such racialized speech, the complainants in fact harm Australians of colour through these utterances. These complaints can both cause and constitute at least two forms of epistemic injustice (willful hermeneutical ignorance and comparative credibility excess). Further, I argue that the complaints are grounded in a dual misrecognition: the complainants misrecognize themselves in their own privileged racial specificity, and they misrecognize others in their own marginal racial specificity. Such misrecognition preserves the cultural imperialism of Australia’s dominant social imaginary—a means of oppression that perpetuates epistemic insensitivity. Bringing this dual misrecognition to light best captures the indignity that is suffered by the victims of the aforementioned epistemic injustices. I argue that it is only when we truly recognize difference in its own terms, shifting the dominant social imaginary, that “mainstream Australians” can do their part in bringing about a just society.","PeriodicalId":387473,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Philosophy Quarterly","volume":"91 3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123117543","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
What form must a theory of epistemic injustice take in order to successfully illuminate the epistemic dimensions of struggles that are primarily political? How can such struggles be understood as involving collective struggles for epistemic recognition and self-determination that seek to improve practices of knowledge production and make lives more liveable? In this paper, I argue that currently dominant, Fricker-inspired approaches to theorizing epistemic wrongs and remedies make it difficult, if not impossible, to understand the epistemic dimensions of historic and ongoing political struggles. Recent work in the theory of recognition—particularly the work of critical, feminist, and decolonial theorists—can help to identify and correct the shortcomings of these approaches. I offer a critical appraisal of recent conversation concerning epistemic injustice, focusing on three characteristics of Frickerian frameworks that obscure the epistemic dimensions of political struggles. I propose that a theory of epistemic injustice can better illuminate the epistemic dimensions of such struggles by acknowledging and centering the agency of victims in abusive epistemic relations, by conceptualizing the harms and wrongs of epistemic injustice relationally, and by explaining epistemic injustice as rooted in the oppressive and dysfunctional epistemic norms undergirding actual communities and institutions.
{"title":"Resisting Structural Epistemic Injustice","authors":"Michael D. Doan","doi":"10.5206/FPQ/2018.4.6230","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5206/FPQ/2018.4.6230","url":null,"abstract":"What form must a theory of epistemic injustice take in order to successfully illuminate the epistemic dimensions of struggles that are primarily political? How can such struggles be understood as involving collective struggles for epistemic recognition and self-determination that seek to improve practices of knowledge production and make lives more liveable? In this paper, I argue that currently dominant, Fricker-inspired approaches to theorizing epistemic wrongs and remedies make it difficult, if not impossible, to understand the epistemic dimensions of historic and ongoing political struggles. Recent work in the theory of recognition—particularly the work of critical, feminist, and decolonial theorists—can help to identify and correct the shortcomings of these approaches. I offer a critical appraisal of recent conversation concerning epistemic injustice, focusing on three characteristics of Frickerian frameworks that obscure the epistemic dimensions of political struggles. I propose that a theory of epistemic injustice can better illuminate the epistemic dimensions of such struggles by acknowledging and centering the agency of victims in abusive epistemic relations, by conceptualizing the harms and wrongs of epistemic injustice relationally, and by explaining epistemic injustice as rooted in the oppressive and dysfunctional epistemic norms undergirding actual communities and institutions.","PeriodicalId":387473,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Philosophy Quarterly","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126969438","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}