On the diverse priorities of autonomous women

Bibliographic Data

ID10350313
AuthorsAsha Bhandary (0000-0002-5489-8229, PPR Symposium on Gina Schouten's Liberalism, Neutrality, and the Gendered Division of Labor, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume107
Issue1
Pages264-270
Publication date2023-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8205 • E-ISSN: 1933-1592
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/phpr.13010
OpenAlexW4386093708
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited10

In Liberalism, Neutrality, and the Gendered Division of Labor, Gina Schouten argues that political liberalism can support remedies to the gendered division of labor (henceforth GDL). Schouten defends policy proposals designed to incentivize men's uptake of caregiving responsibility in order to move us beyond the stalled revolution in gender equality, wherein gendered norms endorse and support the perpetuation of gendered caregiving norms, continuing today as “specialization-lite.” The book is a rigorously argued work that explicates the core commitments of political liberalism, attempting to deploy these theoretical resources to obtain a state of affairs she calls “gender egalitarianism.” Despite the lucidity of her argument, one that is as close to a valid argument as one can find in political philosophy, Schouten's justification for her preferred changes to the GDL fails due to the content of its claims about autonomy. More specifically, I will argue that: (1) Schouten's argument about autonomy does not appreciate the complexity with which individuals exercise autonomous capacities in oppressive contexts; (2) role modeling for autonomy is not a homogenous phenomenon; and (3) the nature of the obstacle presented by the gendered division of labor will vary for women in different groups and social positions, and it should not be assumed that an obstacle to the autonomy of white women necessarily poses a greater obstacle to the autonomy of women of color. Let us begin with a brief summary of the way Schouten links a neutral idea of mutual acceptability to comprehensive autonomy. Defined contrastively with comprehensive liberalism, political liberalism claims that the justification of state power cannot rely on the endorsement of comprehensive autonomy, for doing so would simply render liberalism another sectarian doctrine. On Schouten's political liberalism, though, a legitimate use of state power can have a principal aim of promoting comprehensive autonomy as long as the reasons for intervention are mutually acceptable (183). What “mutual acceptability” means here is that political liberalism's reciprocity constraint is satisfied if political interventions can be justified on the basis of “citizenship interests.” Because “citizenship interests” is a normative concept, and mutual acceptability does not amount to real persons offering reasons to one another, the content of “citizenship interests” plays an important role in the argument. These citizenship interests include: “a higher-order interest in protecting that capacity [to form, reflect, and revise their philosophical, religious, or moral outlook on life], which includes an interest in preserving the conditions under which they can revise their conception of the good” (184). The conclusion of this line of argument is that “protecting the capacity for revising one's conception of the good requires ensuring the capacity for comprehensively autonomous reflection and action” (184). Consequently, for Schouten, the normative conception of citizenship interests ultimately justifies “subsidies for the actual enactment of lifestyles that celebrate and enact comprehensive autonomy” (184). If a person is immersed in a lifestyle that discourages developing that capacity, then we can have assurance that she can develop that capacity only if role models of comprehensive autonomy are visible to her. (184) Schouten's view is that the visibility of role models exercising comprehensive autonomy will give us assurance that people will develop a capacity to revise their conception of the good, where the person who is aided by those who are exercising comprehensive autonomy is immersed in a lifestyle that discourages that capacity. The immersion condition is a description of a situation. The role modeling claim asserts a connection between a person who satisfies the immersion condition and the presence and visibility of role models of comprehensive autonomy. Although an “assurance” is weaker than a necessary condition, it nonetheless asserts a strong connection, one that is closer to a guarantee than a mere positive correlation. With her claim about a causal relationship between the presence of role models and the development of the capacity for comprehensively autonomous reflection and action, Schouten's argument moves into the sphere of nonideal theory, where the use of idealizations must be defended. The immersion condition seems to rely on a nearly uniform understanding of relationship between individuals and the social context in which they live, and in doing so, it underrates just how dynamic that relationship can be. In fact, the dynamism of individuals' interactions with their social context, even with oppressive social contexts, is evident in the fact that people in a wide variety of situations exercise their capacities for autonomy. When the dominant construction of a social arrangement oppresses groups of individuals, they often find ways to engage in resistance. However, these forms of resistance may not be understood or recognized by the people occupying the dominant discursive positions. Conditions that are sufficiently hostile to a person's autonomy may free the person from attempting to satisfy dominant institutional expectations, and in this way, the individual may become more autonomous. In these cases, although norms have not changed, the individual gains independence of mind from the expectations of others. Evidence of this phenomenon is present in the fact that women and racially oppressed persons can develop oppositional forms of autonomy and resistance even in the milieu of these oppressive norms (Meyers, 2004, Medina, 2013). Schouten's role modeling claim depends on being able to identify enactments of autonomy (206). However, I am skeptical that autonomous lives have this externally discernible form. Instead, ascertaining whether another person's choices are autonomous depends on knowledge of that person, which will be influenced by your relationship with them, where the relationship also further informs what they want to reveal to you about their reasons for action. For the role modeling claim to hold, there must be a positive connection between the person enacting a comprehensively autonomous lifestyle and others around them. Here again, a relational analysis is needed. Who is autonomous—and the relation between that person and the person who is immersed in the context that discourages autonomy—matters. In a society like the U.S., where race is a significant marker for individual identity and self-understanding, race is a significant sorting factor. For instance, a white man growing up as a Catholic man in Connecticut who later rejects religious belief may not serve as a role model for a Latina girl in California who is considering changing her views about religion, even if his story is made visible through media. Similarly, Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris's seemingly high degree of autonomy may have a minimal role-modeling effect on the autonomy of a white Iowan woman. Even more damaging to the tenability of the role modeling claim, though, is that as possibilities for action expand for non-white persons in white dominant societies, some members of the white racial majority view it as an affront to their autonomy. In addition to race, which is a highly salient category in a number of other societies where liberalism is an endemic tradition, other culturally relevant identity markers will impact whether one person constitutes a role model for another one. Moreover, the role modeling relation is made more complicated because the role modeling relationship cannot be reduced to a match in these identity markers. Instead, individuals can also develop a critical understanding of the social norms and narratives in their society and their place in relationship to them.1 Schouten describes the GDL as a “formidable systemic obstacle” (201), which she defines in the following way: “When the social costs of a particular lifestyle are reasonably perceived as excessive in that they reliably deter those who are otherwise strongly inclined to choose that lifestyle, say that the high costs constitute a ‘formidable systemic obstacle’ (FSO) to the lifestyle. When a formidable systemic obstacle obstructs some way of life, say that the way of life is not a genuinely available option” (201). Schouten's argument about formidable systemic obstacles seems to rely on a claim that these obstacles are in fact significant enough to serve as the basis of state intervention, ranking among the most important obstacles.2 However, interventions through public policy should be assessed comparatively, so that the needs that present the greatest injustice, or that present the greatest harm to the most vulnerable, take priority. Let us assume that the prototypical subjects for Schouten's argument are in a white upper-middle-class dual-income heterosexual couple. The members of this couple make choices that are individually rational (see Cudd, 2006), thereby perpetuating a context of gender inequality. But let us look again at the factors that make it individually rational—they are not merely the metrics of income and quality of care for children, but also, the possibility of fitting a social ideal with significant institutional and social payoffs. The allure of exemplifying an ideal will be more seductive, and thus more difficult to escape, for agents who are closer to the ideal than for those who are more distant from it. This is a phenomenon Schouten misses because, despite identifying the problems as arising from middle class heterosexual couples, she contends that they will be an even greater problem for those who deviate even farther from the ideal. On the contrary, the incentives to conform to the norms of “specialization-lite” are more compelling for white individuals in a white-supremacist or white-dominant society because of the possibility that one can attain maximize benefits and minimize burdens in that society within the formal constraints of fairness. If a realistic assessment of options yields that one will not be in this maximized position in the distribution of benefits and burdens, that person may well choose to innovate outside, around, within, or apart from those dominant constructions of society. Consequently, although the GDL may be experienced as the most salient justice-related, formidable, systemic obstacle for white middle-class working mothers in heterosexual marriages, it may well rank lower for non-white women with similar socio-economic markers who regularly navigate racism.3 The same may be true for non-white men. There are certainly many people of color who claim that there are many other problems that constitute greater formidable systemic obstacles to their autonomy than the GDL. Consequently, Schouten's political liberalism has not established that the GDL meets the threshold for state intervention, which should be based on the priorities of real, diverse, people. The possibility of attaining ideal femininity as a mother, or maternal saint, creates greater pressures for white women to comply, where the notion of the ideal family includes gender roles. In contrast, Black women are subjected to racist controlling images as well as to the effects of racism on men in their communities (Collins, 2000, 72). In response to these pressures, Black women have developed the value of "communalism", defined as a Black feminist principle of investment and involvement in one's community (Omolade, 1986) to overcome male disinvestment in caregiving such that it does not constitute the same type of obstacle in these communities. It is not at all clear to me that white women should not develop an informal response akin to communalism, using their agentic capacities, rather than requiring state intervention. It should be clear now that it is not always, or even usually, the case that an arrangement that is bad for white women will be worse for minority women. For instance, if we are to achieve racial justice in caregiving arrangements, white families will have more caregiving labor to perform when women of color are no longer readily available to be their caregivers as nannies, mammies, and sidekicks. Therefore, although the GDL may be the remaining significant obstacle to comprehensive autonomy for upper-middle class white women, more arguments are needed to establish that it is the most salient concern for many other women.4 My next disagreement with Schouten further explores the connection between comprehensive autonomy and gender egalitarian lifestyles. Schouten claims that individuals will value the genuinely available option to enact gender egalitarian lifestyles in a just politically liberal society (198). Although her argument does not rely upon a claim that the preference for affordable access to gender egalitarianism is in fact widespread, the plausibility of the claim relies on an equivocation about the meaning of gender egalitarianism. According to Schouten, “In a society that protects the two moral powers of citizenship, we must assume that this preference [for gender egalitarian lifestyles] will be widespread” (206). It might be justified to assume that there will be widespread preferences for a form of gender egalitarianism understood more capaciously as a preference for relations grounded in equal respect, but Schouten defines the term gender egalitarian more narrowly, as a “social ideal whereby any differences in social roles between males and females concerning work are not determined or reinforced by social norms or social institutions that promote gendered allocations of work” (15). The definition of "gender egalitarian" Schouten offers articulates a specific goal about social roles and work, and it is too narrow to warrant the general term "gender egalitarian", which should be reserved for its general purpose as relations grounded in equal respect, and acknowledged as multiply realizable. In addition, I am not convinced that Schouten's formulation of political liberalism and the gendered division of labor should set the agenda for state intervention. One reason for my uneasiness with this agenda is that the description of Kathleen Gerson's study in LNG is not sufficient to establish that these changes are indeed a priority for women in different contexts. Although Schouten's argument about the problems with the status quo characterizes the most salient justice-related concern for middle-class white women today, I question whether it fully supports the idea that concerns with specialization-lite are indeed a concern for diverse women, even within the narrow age range specified. The liberal definition of gender egalitarianism would benefit from engagement with additional studies exploring how various women of color define their priorities (see e.g., Moorman, 2020). Indeed, for Schouten's conclusions about the relevance of her claims to hold for all women, we need to know more about Gerson's methodology and her data set. Nonetheless, I applaud Schouten for this empirical engagement, which sets the stage for additional engagement between political philosophers and social scientists on these matters. Although my primary disagreement has to do with the justification for these changes and the account of autonomy upon which they rely, I also have a reservation about the “daddy months” policy Schouten prefers, which makes a mother's increased access to parental leave contingent on the father taking up the leave. Diverse priorities among autonomous women must be explored before moving forward with this policy. A “daddy months” policy making a mother's access to childcare leave dependent on the action of her male partner can make her additionally vulnerable to him. It also requires ascertaining the presence of a male partner. Existing U.S. child welfare policies have long engaged in such evaluations, with the tragic result of disproportionately separating black families Roberts, 2022). I urge that specific policy proposals inspired by Schouten's work must take care to avoid the outcome of greater advantages for those who fit a narrow model of the family defined as heteronormative nuclear families. Furthermore, rates and ramifications of domestic violence perpetrated by males must be considered (Gouws, 2016) because in many cases, it may not be desirable to make a female parent's access to additional leave contingent on the male parent's use of it. Finally, in a racist society, where racism coincides with emasculation of minority men, some minority men and women may choose to continue gendered norms as acts of resistance against racism. Therefore, disagreements about priorities and the meanings of certain multiply specifiable values must accommodate the complexity of intersectional social positions, where race and gender are as significant as class inequality in the core theoretical apparatus employed to explicate justice.5 By articulateing a few disagreements with Schouten's claims about autonomy, I have also shown that the autonomy debate between comprehensive and political liberalisms is ripe for a reconceptualization, one that explores the relational aspects of autonomy cultivation, as well as the fact that people who are disadvantaged by institutions and norms often have strong autonomy capacities.6 Whereas political liberals have employed religious disagreement as a kind of ideal case for disagreement, liberalisms that aim to respect diversity while accounting for the pressing injustices of our time should move beyond that focus to endorse a form of autonomy that does not specify which acts and lifestyles count as autonomous. As liberals, we should revisit our family disputes about autonomy in ways that begin from today's significant debates about the content of feminist agendas, racial privilege, and a normative understanding of entitlements to receive care. Moreover, many of the most animated sources of disagreement in western liberal societies involve negotiations about who can feel at home in public and private spaces (Bhandary, 2020, 180), where these disagreements are not limited to matters of religious freedom. Liberalisms that take up this charge to revisit the role and conception of autonomy may better satisfy the neutrality toward which political liberalism strives by offering procedural specifications without dictating the content of the decisions a person can make autonomously.7 Embedding the possibility that people in a just society will value a variety of different lifestyles, these kinds of autonomy incorporate openness to diverse priorities among women. Consequently, they are therefore better equipped to respectfully manage the normative disagreement that occurs among feminists and within different racial groups. Schouten's rigorous application of political liberalism to the GDL clarifies the limitations of political liberalism. In this regard, and many others, her theory is a vital contribution to debates about the form and content of a contemporary liberalism, one that can guide us in comprehending and addressing the pressing injustices of our time. Due to the clarity of her arguments, which lay bare political liberalism's commitments and its limits, we can now better argue about the proper ways to conceptualize autonomy in liberalism in ways that identify when the concept itself inadvertently privileges a subgroup's interests. In doing so, we can move the doctrine of philosophical liberalism toward more meaningful forms respect for the autonomy of persons, within the theoretical apparatus itself. Thus, Schouten's Liberalism, Neutrality, and the Gendered Division of Labor is an important advance in 21st century philosophical liberalism

Argument (complex analysis · Autonomy · Economics · Egalitarianism · Law and economics · Liberalism · Neutrality · Obstacle · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Sociology · Gender Politics and Representation · Gender Studies · Law · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Social Policy and Reform Studies

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