For quite a long period most political theorists have assumed that women are potentially

pervasive of public interest and common good. The sexual differentiation has been presented in
such a way that female sex is considered as source of sexual disorder. Whether Plato, Hegel, or
any contemporary political theorist, women are considered as having private friendly orientation
and have influence in turning away from public good to private inclusiveness. ‘For thousands of
years – and long before birth of liberal individualism-male theorists have asserted that women
are potentially subversive of public interest and common good. Several different, though related,
explanations have been given for these allegations. One charge against women is that they are
source of sexual disorder unless strictly secluded, controlled, in some cases even segregated
almost from men. In addition as far back as classical Greek women were perceived as subversive
of public good because of their orientation towards sphere of private life and their feelings for
those close to them - especially their families’1.

The feminist movement that has evolved has contested these assumptions of political theorists.
The important question that comes up in feminist theory is that “is sexual differentiation
precursor for differences in mental capabilities?”Or “is public sphere which is domain of
common interest and common good exclusive sphere preserved for men?” “Should sexual
difference be used as basis for organization of society in which women is believed to have
inclination for altruism and feeling and thus better suited for private sphere of family, whereas,
men having power of reason are guardians of public interest.” Feminists hold that the division
between public and private is a ‘sexual division’ in which women have been condemned to
private sphere to do activities like child bearing and rearing. “Whereas men can live in both
spheres and, in addition to their public, rational role are able to live “a subjective ethical life on
plane of feeling” within their families, women have only the qualities required of private sphere:
to be imbued with family piety is [their] ethical frame of mind”.2The division is such that women
are discriminated or at receiving end of violence in both spheres. It is male supremacy that has
been legitimized with this dichotomization of public and private spheres of life.

In western tradition, this distinction between public and private dates back to Homeric epics of
ancient Greece.3 The public and private emerged as an ‘impossible balance’ between dying for

1
Susan mollerokin; ‘thinking like women’ in feminism volume 2, by Okin and Mansbridge.
2
Plato; The Laws.
3
Spike Peterson: ‘rereading public and private: The dichotomy that is not one.’

1
city and living for one’s family. In terms of gender, warrior heroes are exclusively male and
women are associated with family/household. Men still had control over affairs of household and
women were important due to their role in religious activities. However the model of public and
private mostly assumed in western social and political philosophy is that of Aristotle. As per
Spike Peterson Aristotle resolves the dilemma by privileging public over private and avoids the
question of war and external affairs.

‘Here the public realm of politics constitutes the highest association, a realm of freedom and
equality, where citizens pursue the good life. This higher realm depends upon but encompasses
the private sphere, which is characterized not by freedom but by necessity, and involves not
equal but naturally hierarchical relationships. In this account, the public sphere of free, equal,
reasoning citizens is masculinized by exclusion of women and feminized characteristics, while
private sphere of contingency, inequality and emotional attachments is feminized by relegation
of women and characteristics of femininity to it………. Not only do we inherit a bounded
domain of citizenship and political power, but we also inherit a subordinated sphere of
naturalized inequality. Or so we assume. What Aristotle intended is the subject of ongoing
debate but he is clear about interdependence of public and private, which is often lost in modern
accounts. This interdependence was both emotional and economic. The public sphere as much as
on cultivation of virtue, love, and emotional attachments as it did in the economic productivity of
oikos (household). 4

Early liberal thought marked by individualism and private property revitalized the distinction and
celebrated the public sphere of equal citizens engaged in rational pursuit of common good.
Though liberals privileged politics they feared state’s coercive power. Public was designated as
realm of political deliberation and site of state domination whereas private was bifurcated into
emerging concept of civil society and traditional family relations – and becomes a site of
freedom from coercive power of state. As per Carole Pateman liberals do not make one but two
distinctions between private and public, prior distinction between private and public and then a
subsequent distinction within public itself. Gendered identities proliferate: masculinist military
and government leaders and equal citizens in the public; free, autonomous individuals in a
musculinized private; feminized dependents and care givers in a private that is marginalized by a

4
ibid

2
discourse preoccupied with freedom and progress for (propertied) men. Ackelsberg and Shanley
note two effects of this framing.5 First the “private” encompasses everything that is not labeled
“political”. Second locating power in the public sphere of state actions and distinguishing it from
a private sphere of voluntary exchange, intimacy and domesticity has the effect of denying the
force of actual power relations in the later spheres. This neglect of power relations and gendered
dichotomization of public and private led liberal theorists to conclude that private sphere of
family is a “just institution”. It is women who are condemned to this private sphere of family - a
sphere in which power relations are inclined in favour of males by invoking natural inequality
between two sexes.

The dichotomy which has been central to liberalism has thus been challenged by feminists
because of its gender bias. The dichotomy between public and private is central to almost two
centuries of feminist writing and political writing and political writing; it is ultimately what
feminist movement is all about.6 Although some feminists treat dichotomy as universal,
transhistorical and transcultural feature of human existence, feminist criticism is primarily
directed at separation and opposition between public and private in liberal theory and practice.

Various strands of feminism- Marxist, Liberal, Postmodern and Conservative feminists- have
criticized this dichotomy in various ways. The chapter focuses on the criticism of two important
liberal feminists –Susan Moller Okin and Carole Pateman. Though Pateman does not consider
herself as liberal feminist but her criticisms are much in line with liberal feminists. The relation
between feminism and liberalism is close as well as complex. The roots of both doctrines lie in
emergence of individualism and none of two is conceivable without some conception of
individual as free and equal beings. ‘But if liberalism and feminism share common origin there
adherents have often opposed for past two hundred years.’ 7 The direction and scope of feminist
criticism of liberal conceptions of public and private have varied greatly in different phases of
feminist movements. An analysis of this is made more complicated because liberalism is
inherently ambiguous about public and private and feminists and liberals disagree where and
why the dividing line is to drawn between two spheres or according to contemporary feminists it
should be drawn at all.
5
Martha A.Acklesberg and Mary L.Shanley, “privacy publicity and power: a feminist rethinking of public - private
distinction,”in Nancy J. Hirschmann and Christine D.Stefano,eds., Revisioning the Political.
6
Carole Pateman, “feminist critiques of public/private dichotomy” in The Disorder of Women by Carole Pateman
7
Ibid..

3
It thus becomes important to realize that in liberal theory; public has had a variety of meanings.
It may mean only the state, or the state and political sphere, or the state, the political and the
economic spheres.8Regardless of how public was defined, what was “private” about those things
who came together were the particular interests they held as individuals separate from general or
universal nature of the public. And regardless of how public was defined, it never included
women and the domestic or family life. Constant through all descriptions of this modern
differentiation, from Locke to Habermas, is the notion that women’s lives in the family are not
marked by newly emerging priorities of rational, self conscious individualism, but exemplified
instead, a natural (and subordinate) particularity. Liberal feminist discourse tends to see this
exclusion as complete, arguing that women must be admitted to the structurally neutral public
order controlled by men from which they have always been barred. But recent discussion by
feminist theorists reveals that the role women and family play in relation to male and public is
more complex. According to Ruth Smith, “women are not just left out of social contract: by
design the contracts are made arrangements of subordination.” The concept of individual “was
constructed,” says historian Geoff Eley, “via a series of oppositions to ‘femininity’ which both
mobilized older conceptions of domesticity and women’s place and rationalized them into formal
claim concerning women’s ‘nature’.

Susan Moller Okin one of the ardent liberal feminists in her book “Justice Gender and family”
while challenging the liberal dichotomy has criticized the mainstream political theorists for the
neglect of traditional, gender structured family. Okin while accepting the feminist slogan “ the
personal is political” aspires for a gender neutral society in which both sexes share the burden
within the family and lead ultimately towards a just humane society.

“They [liberal theorists] have largely bypassed the fact that the society to which there theories
are supposed to pertain is heavily and deeply affected by gender, and faces difficult issue of
justice stemming from its gendered past and present assumptions…… the division of humanity
into two sexes seems to provide an obvious object for such an enquiry, but as we shall see, this

8
Nancy Fraser notes that current feminist discussion has a tendency to “conflate at least three analytically distinct
things; the state, the official economy of paid employment and arenas of public discourse.” Nancy Fraser,
“Rethinking the public sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of actually existing democracy,” in Habermas and the
public sphere, ed. C.Calhoun (Cambridge:MIT Press, 1992)110.

4
does not strike most contemporary theorists of justice and their theories suffer both in relevance
and coherence because of this.”9

What is evident in writings of Susan mollerOkin is that liberal thought takes as fundamental the
dichotomy ‘between public world of political life and market place and the private domestic
worldof family life and personal relations. The dichotomy is then taken as basis for organization
of society in such a way that private sphere of family is mostly considered as just institution
whereas public sphere is the place which is amenable to the theories of justice. The market is the
place for interplay of interests of each individual and hence theories of justice are concerned with
whether, why and how persons should be treated differently. This is done in order to secure basic
livelihood of citizens within that political community. Okin however argues that the dominant
conception of sexual equality fails to confront the real bastion of sexual inequality – the family.
She therefore in her much celebrated book “Gender Justice and Family” concludes, that “the
individual who is basic subject of these theories [of liberal justice] is the male head of a fairly
traditional house hold …….to a large extent contemporary theories of justice, like those of past
are about men with wives at home.” 10 While most contemporary theorists of justice are careful
to avoid sexist language, but, this is false gender neutrality. “ for the care with which now
theorists now employ gender neutral language is not matched by any real intention to change the
condition of women. ‘The result is not only neglect of fundamental issue of justice, but, often
deep incoherence in theory.’11Okin mentions that this neglect of family as an unjust institution is
almost visible in writings of all contemporary theorists of justice. Starting with Rawls, Okin
remarks that Rawls “A Theory of Justice” has great potential to address the issue of justice
within family but still ignored family considering it as a just institution. “He reminds us that he
did, however, “assume that in some form the family is just. It is not at all clear that in Political
Liberalism, he still holds to this assumption, or even to the requirement that families ought to be
thought in terms of justice. In publications between Theory and Political Liberalism, there had
been signs going in both directions. 0n the one hand, Rawls has for some time now indicated
clearly that his theory is intended to include women, by abandoning the “heads of families”
assumption and by adopting consistently gender neutral language, instead of interspersing
references to “men” with those to “persons”. On the other hand, in 1977essay “The basic
9
Susan mollerOkin, “Introduction:Justice and Gender” in Justice Gender and Family by Susan Moller Okin,pp8.
10
Ibid.pp9
11
Will Kymlicka, “rethinking family”, philosophy and public affairs, vol.20, no.1, (winter 1991),pp81.

5
Structure as Subject,” the family is no longer mentioned- though it explicitly had been in Theory-
as a part in basic structure of society, to which principles of justice are to apply. But In the 1978
version of the essay now included in Political Liberalism- this omission is rectified.”12

In part 1 of A Theory of Justice”, Rawls derives and defends two principles of justice- the
principle of equal basic liberty and the “difference principle” combined with the requirement of
fair equality of opportunity. These principles are intended to apply to basic structure of society.
They are to govern the assignment of rights and duties and to regulate the distribution of social
and economic advantages. Whenever the basic institutions have within them differences in
authority, in responsibility or in distribution of resources such as wealth and leisure, the second
principle requires that these differences must be to greatest benefit of least advantaged and must
be attached to positions accessible to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity. The
central tenet of this theory is that justice as fairness characterizes institutions whose members
could hypothetically agreed to their structure and rules from original position.13

But the serious drawback within this theory as per okin is that since those in original position are
the heads or representatives of families, they are not in a position to determine question of justice
within families. The ambiguity is exacerbated by the statement that those free and equal moral
persons in original position who formulate the principles of justice are to be thought of not as
“single individuals” but “heads of families” or “representatives of families.” 14 Rawls says that it
is not necessary to think of the parties as heads of families, but that generally he will do so. 15 He
says of those in original position that “imagining themselves to be fathers, say, they are to
ascertain how much they should set aside for their sons by noting what they will believe
themselves entitled to the claim of their fathers.” 16 As Jane English has pointed out, ‘by making
the parties in Original Position heads of families rather than individuals, Rawls makes the family

12
Susan Moller Okin, “Political Liberalism, Justice and Gender”, Ethics, vol. 105, no.1 pp23-24.
13
Rawls’ specifications for original position are as follows: the parties are rational and mutually disinterested, and
while no limits are placed in the general information available to them, they deliberate behind a “veil of ignorance”
that conceals from them all knowledge of their individual characteristics: No one knows his place in society his
class position or social status, nor does anyone know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities,
his intelligence, strength, and like. Nor do parties know their conceptions of the good or their special psychological
propensities. (A Theory of Justice, p.12).
14
Susan Moller Okin, “Justice as Fairness- For Whom” in Justice Gender and family by Susan Moller Okin,p
15
Ibid.,
16
John Rawls, “fairness to goodness,” Philosophical Review, p.84.

6
opaque to claims of justice.’17 Rawls makes the ‘heads of families’ assumption only in order to
address the problem of justice between generations, and presumably does not intend to be sexist
assumption. Nevertheless, as Okin points out that he is thereby effectively trapped into
public/domestic distinction and with it the conventional mode of thinking in which life within
family and relation between sexes are not properly regarded as part of subject matter of justice.
Secondly throughout ‘A Theory of Justice’, while list of things unknown by a person in original
position includes “his place in society, his class position or social status, his fortune in
distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength and the like……his
conception of good, the particulars his rational plan of life, even the special features of his
psychology.”18 Numerous commentators on theory have made the objection that general facts
about human society are often issues of great contention presumably including the fact that it is
the gender structured both by custom and still in some respects by law, one might think whether
or not they know their sex might matter enough to be mentioned. Perhaps Rawls meant to cover
it by his phrase “and the like” but it is also possible that he did not consider it significant.19

While discussing Rawls, Okin mentions that in Rawls summary of his three psychological laws
of moral development, the fundamental importance of loving parenting for development of sense
of justice is manifest. The three laws Rawls says are not merely principles of association or of
reinforcement …… [But] assert that active sentiments of love and friendship and even sense of
justice arise from manifest intention of other persons to act for good. Because we recognize that
they wish us well, we care for their well being in return. Each of the laws of moral development
as set out by Rawls, depends upon the one before the other and the first assumption of first law is
“given that the family institutions are just…..unlike Kant, with his nameless, but no doubt male
tutor Rawls frankly admits the whole of moral development rests upon the loving ministrations
of those who raise small children from the earliest stages, and on moral character of the
environment in which this takes place. At the foundation of development of sense of justice, then
are the activities and sphere of life that though by no means necessarily so have throughout
history have been predominantly the activity and sphere of women. Rawls however does not
explain the basis of his assumption that family institutions are just. So she comes with the remark
that if the family institutions are not just but, rather a part of feudal and caste societies in which
17
Jane English, “Justice between Generations” philosophical Studies 31, no.2, 1977, p 95.
18
Rawls Theory, p 137.
19
Susan Moller Okin, “Justice as Fairness- For whom,” in Justice Gender and Family by Susan Moller Okin, p 91.

7
roles responsibilities and resources are distributed not in accordance with two principles of
justice but in accordance with innate differences that are imbued with enormous social
significance, then Rawls whole structure of moral development would seem to be built o shaky
ground. Unless the household in which children are first nurtured and see their first examples of
human interaction, are based on equality and reciprocity rather than on dependence and
domination- and later is too often the case – how can whatever love they receive from their
parents make for injustice they see before them in relationship between these same parents.

What then comes out in Okin’s analysis of Rawls is that his neglect of justice within family is
clearly in tension with requirements of his own theory – family justice must be of central
importance for social justice. But inspite of these drawbacks, Okin considers that Rawls theory
of justice has a ppotential for emancipation of women. This is because in it agents in ‘original
position’will reach at the principles that will be just for all. She asserts that if feminists ‘ read
rawls in such a way that those behind veil of ignorance do not know what sex they are, and the
requirement that the family and gender system, as the basic social institutions, are subject to
scrutiny, constructive feminist criticism of these contemporary institutions follows.’20 This she
uses to give the description of a cartoon in which three elderly, robed male justices are depicted
looking down with astonishment at their pregnant bellies; one says to others without further
elaboration “perhaps we would better reconsider that decision”. This illustration as per Okin
graphically demonstrates the importance, in thinking about justice, of a concept Rawls’ original
position, which makes us adopt position of others. Okin believes that the way Rawls presents his
theory of justice reflects both Rawls stress on autonomy and rationality as defining
characteristics of moral subjects and his rigid separation of reason from feeling and refusal to
allow feeling any place in formulation of moral principles.21 This separation of reason and
feeling is one of the manifestations of sexual separation of public and private.

Although Okin faults Rawls for failing to articulate consistently the requirements of justice
within family but her sympathies are (see above) with his notion of justice as fairness. Okin
extends her challenges further to public / domestic dichotomy first by way of ideas of Michael
Walzer and Robert Unger, next by surveying the empirical literature to establish women and
children’s vulnerability under gendered marriage patterns.
20
Ibid.,
21
Susan Moller Okin, “Reason and Feeling in Thinking about Justice,” Ethics 99, January 1989, p.231.

8
Continuing with this framework she criticizes almost all contemporary theorists of justice. For
instance while Michael Walzer’s Sphere of Justice 22 addresses the issue of gender and uses
gender neutral language, his theory fails to address adequately gender justice. Walzer relies on
“shared understandings” as criterion for justice.23Walzer defines shared understandings as the
“social meaning,” or the value that the society as a whole places on good. For instance if as our
society shares the belief that higher education should be allotted on basis of merit, not money
and our concept of what is just will include this belief. Okin describes at length how “shared
understandings”24 do not actually exist, and how most concepts which can be considered
“shared” are really the result of domination by most powerful class or sex.

‘Contrary to Walzer’s theory of shared understandings, in fact oppressors and oppressed …..
Often disagree fundamentally. Oppressors often claim that they, aristocrats or Brahmins or men,
are fully human in ways that serfs or untouchables or women are not…… but what if serfs or
untouchables or women somehow become convinced …. That they are fully human….?’25

If this consciousness raising were to occur, then the “shared understandings” of inferiority would
no longer exist. Although Okin finds Walzer’s theory of justice inadequate she acknowledges
that elements of it remain useful. For example Okin finds Walzer’s overall theory that “separate
spheres have to allow for different inequalities to exist sode by sode only inso far
as….dominance is not created,” useful as a tool to point out the inequities of gender structured
society.26whole Okin partially redeems she directs much harsher criticism towards the view
point expressed by conservative Allan Bloom in The Closing of American mind, which has
received much attention for its suggestion that American Society is collapsing due to its failure
to educate the young elite, but Okin has a different point of contention. Bloom accepts the
injustice of the family as necessary and even argues that “feminism is not founded in nature,”
defying as it does women’s biological destiny. Rather, bloom asserts, men are naturally selfish
and woman are ruing the traditional family and society by becoming more selfish themselves.
22
Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice, 1983.
23
M. Walzer, (rights “follow from shared conceptions of social goods” and “justice is relative to social meanings”),
p 112. In ‘Spheres of Justice’ by Michel Walzer.
24
Okin mentions that since there are no shared understanding of gender in our society, therefore to arrive at just
principles seems to be a rare possibility. The problem is aggravated further because even within ranks of
oppressed (women) there is fundamental disagreement over gender and sex roles.
25
Susan Moller Okin, “whose Traditions, which Understandings”, in Justice Gender and Family by Susan Moller
Okin. p 67.
26
Ibid..p 112.

9
Ultimately Okin attacks Bloom as an aristocrat who never defines the terms he relies on such as
natural order of things, in his attack on egalitarianism.27 Accordingly she dismisses Bloom’s
view as inherently inconsistent with the necessary establishment of the egalitarian family.
Similarily Nozick’s theory completely destructs once women are taken seriously asa human
beings. His theory of acquisition depends on assumption of self ownership, from which he goes
to claim that we own whatever we produce. But he ignores the fact that we all are produced by
our mothers, which completely undermines the assumtion that we own ourselves. The
contradiction lies at the very core of his libertarianism.

Thus okin comes up with the idea that in order to take up the challenge of elimination of ‘heads
of families’ from Rawls theory of justice and to make other theories of justice more humanistic it
becomes necessary to explore and elucidate the problems of dichotomy that has been accepted
fundamental to liberal thought so far; between the “public” world of political life and market
place and “private” domestic world of family life and personal relations. The humanistic theory
of justice cannot be achieved without through examination and critique of public/domestic
dichotomy. In accordance with her critique of this dichotomy Okin accepts the slogan that
“personal is political.” She remarks that this slogan is central message of feminist critiques of
public private dichotomy. It is core idea of most contemporary feminists of different political
leanings and in variety of academic disciplines have revealed and analyzed the multiple
interconnections between women’s domestic roles and their inequality and segregation in work
place and between their socialization in gendered families and psychological aspects of their
oppression. The interconnections thus between domestic and non domestic aspects are deep and
pervasive.28 The public private dichotomy has serious implications for women. It not only
obscures intra household inequalities of resources and power, but it also results in failure to
count a deal of work done by women as work since all that is considered ‘work’ is what is done
for pay in ‘public’ sphere. All of the work that women do in bearing and rearing children,
cleaning and maintaining households, caring for old and sick and contributing in various ways to
men’s work does not count as ‘work’.

27
Okin mentions that most of the time, it is difficult to discern any consistent meaning in Bloom’s references to ‘the
natural’ except that it is whatever preserves the dominance of white male elite and enables its members by
philosophizing, to come to terms with their own morality.
28
Ibid..p. 126-127

10
“This is clearly one of those of instances in which situation of poor women in poor countries is
not qualitatively different from that of most women in rich countries but, ‘rather similar but
worse’ for even more, in some cases far more, of the work done by women (and children) in poor
countries is rendered invisible, not counted, or ‘subsumed under men’s work’. The work of
subsistence farming, tending to animals, domestic crafts (if not for markets), and often arduous
fetching of water and fuel are added to the category unrecognized work of women that already
exists in rich countries.”29

In many countries at least during peace time a women’s dangerous environment is the home she
lives in. So public private dichotomy which leads to the assumption that the rights bearer is the
head of household and that important one of ‘his’ rights is the right to privacy in his person and
family life, places serious obstacles in way of protecting rights of women. The problem is
compounded by both the neglect and denial of power differentials within household and the
assumption that the families operate with a benignity never expected of market place or sphere of
politics.30 The situation of women’s private rights violations is exacerbated by the fact that
‘respecting cultural differences’ has increasingly become a euphemism for restricting or denying
women’s human rights. While taking note of feminist scholars like - Fredman, Charlesworth –
Okin mentions that the relevance and even sanctity of ‘cultural practices’ is most often claimed
when issues of sexuality, marriage, reproduction, inheritance and power over children are
concerned (issues that play a larger part in most woman’s lives than they do in most men’s lives).
And this often in context where tradition and rules of that same culture or religion are not called
in other areas of life. Taking example of India, she explains that partly because of the history of
violent religious intolerance, this distinction is burnt into formal framework of state , the
different religious communities enforce their own personal law. There is no uniform civil code of
family law. This can have grave consequences for women, who are differently (albeit usually,
unfairly) treated in divorce and in custody and inheritance issues depending on which religious
group they belong to.31

Mentioning these various implications that public private dichotomy has for women Okin says
that ignoring this distinction within liberalism does not address injustices that occur within the
29
Susan mollerOkin, “Gender Inequality and Cultural Differences,” Political Theory, p 10-11.
30
Susan Moller Okin, “Feminism, women’s Human Rights, and Cultural Differences”, Hypatia vol.13, no.2, 1998,
p36.
31
Ibid…

11
family. But many liberals will resist, from the very start, the feminist critique of public /private
distinction by arguing that feminists mischaracterize exactly what this distinction is. Brian Barry,
for example, points out that mill did not endorse the view that families belong to ‘private sphere’

…..it is liberals who have been in forefront of efforts to remove the legal disabilities of women,
to take marital rape a punishable offence, to press for more active involvement by the police in
incidents of domestic violence and for prosecution of child abusers, and to insist that parents
should be legally obligated to provide for the education of their children.

Mill is exemplary here. So far from endorsing the notion that families belong to a ‘private
sphere, he argued that they constitute ‘a case where …..[The sentiment of liberty] is altogether
misplaced. A person should be free to do as he likes in his own concerns; but he ought not to be
free to do as he likes in acting for other, under the pretext that the affairs of the other are his own
affairs.32

Even though Mill advocated the cause of women rights or what some feminist call him “first
male feminist”, but as already discussed most of theorists believe the institution of family is a
just one and even when they assume that it is unjust but they seem to ignore it later in their
theories. Though liberalism proceeds with free individualism, but still most of the decisions
concerning women are taken by male heads family. The laws are such which intrude into private
sphere of family much to disadvantage of women. So the situation reaches to such end that
nothing remains personal in strict sense. Okin challenges the dichotomization of liberal thought
in four important ways or in other words she argues that there are four major respects in which
personal is political. These are:

1. Power a distinguishing feature of political, can exist within the family.

2. The domestic sphere itself is result of political decisions.
3. Domestic life is where most of our socialization takes place.
4. The division of labour within most families raises psychological as well as practical
barriers against women in all other spheres.

32
Brian Barry, in Culture and Equality, 2001,P.130-131.

12
The first point emphasizes the fact that power relations can and often do exist within family. But
this power of husband over wife or of parent over children has not been recognized as such
because it has been regarded as natural or it is assumed that in family altruism and harmony of
interests make power an insignificant factor. It is certainly impossible to claim, in face of current
evidence, that family is private and non political because power is an insignificant factor in it. 33
The domestic and personal life cannot be beyond the reach of demands of justice as justice is
primarily concerned with power relations. If, for example, family life is such that a husband can
beat his wife without fear of punishment this would obviously be unjust. All liberals would agree
with this first point. The rights of citizenship should apply to all citizens including women. By
entering into marriage women do not forfeit those rights. So the first way Okin employs the
slogan ‘personal is political’ is likely to be supported by both liberals and feminists.

The second way the personal is political, argues okin, is that the domestic sphere is itself created
by political decisions. The notion that family life is a ‘private sphere’ is a myth.

In innumerable ways, the state determines and enforces the terms of marriage. For hundreds of
years, the common law deprived women of their legal personhood upon marriage. It enforced the
rights of husbands to their wives’ property and even to their wives’ bodies, and made it virtually
impossible for women to divorce or even to live separately from their husbands.34

Okin’sscond point is once again, one that many liberals would and do endorse. As we noted
above, liberals like Barry point out that historically state has unjustly interfered in family life and
that it has been liberals who have been at the forefront of efforts to remove the legal disabilities
against women. It is thus perhaps more accurate to say that Okin’s first two points are more
problematic for communitarians and conservatives. Recalling Walzer’s appeal to shared
meanings it is evident that when such an appeal is made to something like the family, it may
make us blind to structural inequalities of our society that influence and shape the family. By
invoking the slogan ‘personal is political’ Okin encourages to be wary of appeals to tradition, or
so called ‘family values’, as such appeals often ignore the fact that domestic life is itself shaped

33
The evidence she gives is that in 1976 national survey in U.S. it was estimated that between 1.8 and 5.7 million
women are beaten each year in their homes.
34
Susan Moller Okin, “Justice from sphere to sphere: challenging the public /domestic dichotomy”, in Justice
Gender and Family by Susan Moller Okin. p 129-130.

13
by political sphere, so inequalities in the latter can and often are translated into inequalities in the
former.

The debate between liberals and feminists becomes more complicated once we move on to
consider the last two ways in which Okin believes the personal is political. These are claims that
domestic life is where most of our early socialization takes place and that division of labour
within most families raises psychological as well as practical barriers against women in all other
spheres. Okin argues that family is an important formative influence that shapes the gender
selves we become. When girls are brought up, for example, with the expectations that they will
themselves become the primary care giver of children and/or that they are responsible domestic
chores in the home then the existing gender structure is simply reinforced. Okin argues that a just
family is one which is internally regulated by principle of justice. A humanistic conception of
justice is one that seeks genuine quality between men and women in terms of paid and unpaid
work they do, as well as their opportunities and obligations in general.

Many liberals have resisted Okin’s suggestion that they endorse the proposal to apply the
principles of justice internally to the family. Rawls, for example, while arguing that the
principles of justice do impose essential constraints on the family as an institution (for example,
to guarantee basic rights, liberties and fair opportunities), rejects the suggestion that theyu should
apply directly to the internal life of the family. Such a proposal is, argues Rawls, out of place. 35
At some point, he continues, ‘society has to trust the natural affection and goodwill of parents.’ 36
But this suggestion will not ease the concerns of feminists, who would retort that there is no
basis for granting the trust Rawls speaks of. 37 Parents may genuinely love and care for their
children but unwittingly reinforce gender structures by continuing the cycle of gendered
socialization that they were themselves brought up in.

Some critics of Okin seek to undermine her argument by pushing her on issue of what it would
mean to say that family should be regulated by principles of justice. Stephen de Wijze, for
example, argues that Okin’s proposals would violate pluralism as there would be not just one
way of justly arranging family.

35
John Rawls, “A Theory of Justice” p.165

36
Ibid.
37
Colin Farrelly, “Feminism”, in Introduction to contemporary Political Theory by Colin Farrely, 2004 p165.

14
A family may organize the division of labour according to who likes various tasks; one person
loves shopping and cooking while the other prefers bathing, dressing and ferrying children to
their activities. Another family may divide labour according to who is the most competent at
doing the various tasks, while another may divide labour according to who is the most competent
at doing various tasks, while another may decide that a just division is made according to shared
religious beliefs about roles of men and women in the family. In all these examples, the division
of labour within the family is not necessarily equal but each has a plausible sense of justice and
fairness motivating who does what and why.38

But again feminists do not find this liberal response compelling. Firstly the reality is that most
women, even those that work outside the home, do by far the majority of unpaid labour in the
home. Okin estimates ‘that fully employed husbands do, at most, approximately half as much as
their fully employed wives and, some studies show a much greater discrepancy’. Secondly De
Wijze’s appeal to the existing preferences women and men have for dividing domestic labour is
problematic because those very preferences have themselves been shaped by a gendered social
structure. De Wijze’s description of how much men and women decide on dividing domestic
chores presupposes a version of ‘unencumbered self’ that communitarians have criticized.
Consider, for example, De Wijze’s last point, the scenario where a couple decides to divide
domestic chores in accordance with shared religious beliefs about roles of women and men.
According to De Wijze, if these religious roles say that a women should do most (if not all) of
the domestic labour then this is not unfair or unjust because she has ‘voluntarily chosen’ that
end. But if we recognize as communitarians have argued, that we are embedded selves, then we
will not be as quick as De Wijze is to describe this family arrangement as being as ‘plausible
justice’ or ‘fair’39. The women who supposedly consent to talking on the bulk of domestic chores
are simply fulfilling the social roles they have been encouraged (or even compelled) to take on
since birth.

De Wijze’s argument is further undermined once one recognizes that what counts as ‘fair
division’ of paid and unpaid work between men and women will reflect biased judgments about
the worth of paid and unpaid work. As Okin points out, ‘a husband’s income and job prestige are
38
Stephen de Wijze,” The Family and Political Justice- the Case for Political Liberalisms”, journal of ethics, vol.
4,257-81.
39
Colin Farrelly, “Feminism”, in Introduction to contemporary Political Theory by Colin Farrely, 2004 p167.

15
inversely related to his involvement in house hold chores.’ 40 When society places greater value
on paid employment and undervalues unpaid domestic labour, then attitudes will also distort
what constitutes a far division of labour between family members. A husband who brings in
large income and/or has a prestigious job is likely to be judged as doing his fair share (or even
more than his fare share) and thus be exempt from domestic chores. The problem is that gender
inequalities have tainted attitudes concerning the value of the different kinds of work that need to
be done. De Wijze’s appeal to existing attitudes concerning what constitutes a fair division of
work is thus a non starter because it merely reinforces the status quo and thus does not
effectively address the unjust power relationships between men and women.

It is thus evident that Okin’s argument is compelling. But critics charge her that the slogan
‘personal is political’ gives license to totalitarianism as there is no domain which is safe from
state interference. But such a concern presupposes that Okin seeks to completely abolish the
public private distinction which otherwise is not.

Okin thereby concludes her criticism of public private distinction with the remark that ‘the
perception of sharp dichotomy between them depends on view of society from traditional male
perspective that tacitly assumes different natures and roles for men and women. It cannot
therefore be maintained in a truly humanistic theory of justice- one that will for first time,
include all of us.’41

Carole Pateman and the Public/Private distinction:

Carole Pateman has taken the issue of feminism with much in social contract tradition.
Confronting the “hypothetical voluntarism” that plays an extremely important role in liberal
democratic states, she dismantles contract based justifications of representative government. 42

40
Susan Moller Okin, “Vulnerability by marriage”, in Justice Gender and Family by Susan Moller Okin.p 153.

41
Susan Moller Okin,“Justice from Sphere to Sphere: Challenging the Public/Domestic Dichotomy” in Justice
Gender and Family by Susan Moller Okin, P133.
42
Pateman mentions that ‘Hypothetical Voluntarism avoids the standard embarrassment of arguing from actual
consent, and embarrassment is more securely circumvented if only some of the inhabitants of the state of nature
or civil society are included in the category of ‘free and equal individuals’. Voluntarism presupposes that
individuals are rational, that they have, or are able to develop, the moral and intellectual capacities necessary to
enable free commitment to be given.’ But the reality is that none of the classical theorists nor their successors
have incorporated into their on the same footing as men (the consent of women is considered as tacitly given).

16
Her feminist consciousness led her to conclude that “ a distinctly feminist perspective in political
theory provides as searching and as fundamental critique of radical democratic theory as it does
of liberalism, precisely both theories are sexually particular, predicated upon patriarchal
separation of private and public, women and men.” 43 In Sexual Contract, Pateman takes her
critique of contract theory further. The main argument of Pateman or what Mitchel Dean Calls as
“Pateman’s Dilemma”, calls for concentration upon two central motifs in her work, that of
citizenship and division between public and private. Pateman considering the “Mary
Wollstonecrafts Dilemma” mentions that on one hand women demand citizenship which is
conditioned by assuming an identity that is irrevocably male but on the other hand they demand
to have their specific attributes and activities taken into account but only to be condemned to a
less than full citizenship. Indeed Pateman’s own dilemma is that while she will like to argue for a
politics that stresses sexual difference and rejects the strategies of liberal feminism, her theory
gives no reason for superiority of either, indeed her historical analysis, could be used to show
that reformist strategies have been responsible for many twentieth century changes in women’s
position.44

During her early work Pateman, with Marx argues that the concept of political in liberal is a
reification45 resting on fiction of citizenship, meaning that political is abstracted from and stands
over and above the supposed private sphere of freedom, consent and pursuit of individual
interest, the sphere of civil society. Thus the extremely facets of everyday life, such as those
pertaining to paid employment and industrial decision making , are depoliticized and individual
only occasionally ventures uncomfortably out of natural abode of civil society, typically in act of
vote making. In this reification, the political is strangely devalued since it comes to be regarded
as superstructure, the sphere of competition and expression of interests that are constituted in
sphere that is its other, civil society. Political citizenship is a fiction because there can be no
strong sense of active participation in decision making in this reified, devaluated world, and in
any case, the exercise of political judgement does not affect the private, “social” relations

43
Carole Pateman, in “The problem of Political Obligation”.
44
Mitchel Dean, “Pateman’s Dilemma: Women and Citizenship”, Theory and Society, 121-130, 1992.
45
Marx argues that reification is an inherent and necessary characteristic of economic value as it manifests itself
in market trade i.e. inversion in thought between subject and object , or between means and ends, reflects a real
practice where attributes (properties, characteristics, features, powers) which exist only by virtue of social
relationship between people are treated as if they are inherent, natural characteristics of things, or vice versa,
attributes of inanimate things are treated as if they are attributes of human subjects.

17
constitutive of everyday life in civil society. Citizenship is but a political “lion skin” as Marx
said, an uncomfortable costume into which individual must fit only occasionally. Pateman while
criticizing liberal theory highlights how liberal theorists justify political obligation by spurious
apopeals to voluntarist notions of consent and contract. Her critique of liberalism iss based on
textual analysis of classic and contemporary liberal political thinkers. She calls into question the
linear and evolutionary model of citizenship provided by social liberals such as Marshall.46

In this phase of liberal critic Pateman relies on what she calls as “class” conception of public
private distinction, one that identifies this division as a distinction between state and civill
society. Although the civil society is usually assumed to encompass the family and domestic
sphere, its members are conceived as sex neutral individuals. Here civil society is thought to be,
at least a potentially, a universal, egalitarian, and individualistic order. To criticize the reification
of political is to show that civil society requires a further democratization of “private” world of
wage labour in order to fulfill its essential roles. Later while retaining her emphasis on texts of
liberal canon and public private distinction she analyzes what she calls a “patriarchal”
conception of public private dichotomy in which universal ethos of citizenship conceals its roots
in statuses ascribed to men and women due to their respective identification with public and
private spheres. Civil society therefore becomes an ambiguous entity. She mentions that “ they
(Benn and Gauss) note that liberal arguments leave it unclear whether civil society is private or
public but, although they state that in both of their liberal models the family is paradigmatically
private, they fail to pursue the question, why in this case, liberals usually also see civil society as
private.”47 But in class conception it is conceived as a unity. The state stands above the world of
economy and family. In the patriarchal conception, on the other hand, civil society is itself split
into public and private spheres. Here the state and the economy (i.e., the domain of paid
employment) are juxtaposed to that of personal life, home and family. Mainstream political
theory resolves this ambiguity by repressing the patriarchal conception and thus refuses
acknowledgement that the private, domestic sphere has any political significance.

The story of social contract upheld by liberal theorists exemplifies this repression. It is the story
of consensual creation of political authority in form of state, which ensures the rights and
46
Mitchel Dean, “Pateman’s Dilemma: Women and Citizenship”, Theory and Society, 121-130, 1992.
47
Carole Pateman, “Feminist Critiques of the Public/Private Dichotomy” in ‘The Disorder of Woman’ by Carole
Pateman.p.119.

18
security of all the individuals within civil society. Pateman considers this as only one side of
story. In other words liberal and radical political theory remains within a class conception of
public private dichotomy. The story of sexual contract, repressed but hidden in accounts of
contract theorists, is that of the creation of forms of political authority of men over women, of
male sex right.48 It is moreover a form of creation that most classic political theorists (with the
exception of Hobbes) assume reflects a natural, and hence apolitical, relation of subordination
and domination.

But this does not mean that patriarchy is thereby restricted to private sphere. For Pateman, the
public sphere of individual rights and political equality, guaranteed by social contract, is
inextricably intertwined with the private sphere of men’s rights over women, male sex right
guaranteed by sexual contract. The social and sexual contracts are reciprocally necessary parts of
the one story. Patriarchal domination does not simply undermine liberal claims of universal
freedom and equality, it is expressed through them. The rights and liberties of liberal
individualism can only properly understood if they are read as part of dual social – sexual
contract, in which civil individual is revealed as insuperably masculine and defined in opposition
to the marks activities of womanhood. The complete complicity of liberal political theory and the
modernity it announces, in patriarchy, is revealed. ‘For Pateman modernity is not a break, even
provisionally or potentially, with patriarchy, as might be assumed by liberals’ rejection of the
classical patriarchalist arguments of theorists like Robert Filmer.’ 49 Indeed liberal theory clearly
contests the men’s political right as father, or, paternal right, but it upholds and extends men’s
lordship over women, their conjugal or sex right. This is why public – private division is crucial:
the modern, liberal form of politics is a fraternal patriarchy.

Therefore considering the centrality of this dichotomy in feminist thought, Carole Pateman in her
essay “Feminist Critiques of Public/Private Dichotomy” seeks to illustrate (as already
mentioned) patriarchal nature of liberalism most clearly in division between political/public and
non – political. For this patriarchal ordering Pateman in line with Einstein’s argument calls this
dichotomy as ‘ideological’.
48
As per Pateman, most theorists( Locke and Filmer) assume that consent of women is a part of marriage contract,
so will of husband should take place before that of wife in all things of their common concernment, even a sex act
when wife is not willing.
49
Mitchel Dean, “Pateman’s Dilemma: Women and Citizenship”, Theory and Society, 121-130, 1992.

19
 The account bears out Einstein’s claim that ‘the ideology of public and private life’ invariably
presents the division between the public and private life, ….as reflecting the development of the
bourgeois liberal state, not the patriarchal ordering of the bourgeois. The term “ideology” is
appropriate here because the profound ambiguity of the liberal conception of private and public
obscures and mystifies the social reality it helps constitute.50

The dichotomy “obscures the subjection of women to men within an apparently universal
egalitarian order”.51Pateman mentions that both Ben and Gaus’s account of liberal conception of
public and private fail to pursue liberals usually see civil society as private in relation to family.
Moreover both of them do not recognize that liberalism is ‘patriarchal liberalism’ and separation
and opposition of public and private spheres is an unequal opposition between women and men.
Most liberal theorists have exclude women from universal arguments and this exclusion goes
unnoticed because the separation of public and private is presented in liberal theory as if it is
applied to all the individuals in the same way. In other words Pateman claims that in
distinguishing between political and non political acts or spheres of action, liberal theorizers
depoliticize and therefore write off the subordination of women. DOUBTFULPateman’s goal is
therefore to both problematize liberal and other feminist conceptions of public private dichotomy
and to pose an alternative conception, one which recognizes the difference but does not rely upon
a sexual division of labour. She closes her essay “Feminist Critiques of Public/Private
Dichotomy” with hope of a ‘differentiated social order’ within which various dimensions are
distinct but not separate or opposed and which rests on social conception of individuality. It
should include women and men as biologically differentiated but not unequal creatures.

In light of her aspiration of ‘differentiated social order’, it becomes necessary to understand her
conception of various dimensions of differentiated social order. Traditionally the liberal split
between public and private falls along Lockean lines – between the family and the political. The
family is a natural relationship, one based on biological need. Therefore paternal power, a kind
of power exercised in home is not political power. Political power is conventional and can be
exercised over others only through their consent. Obviously, then all those who are capable of
consenting should be political equals. The two spheres of family and political thereby are
50
Carole Pateman, “Feminist Critiques of the Public/Private Dichotomy” in ‘The Disorder of Woman’ by Carole
Pateman.p.119
51
Ibid.

20
simultaneously identified with private and public respectively. Pateman however asserts that
within the division between public and private is also a sexual division. In both first and second
Treatise Locke claims that husbands exercise conjugal authority over his wife, indicating that
differences between men and women are natural. And if they are natural, they are by definition
not political. It is in this way that consent as a universal, becomes one which only applies to men.
However for Pateman the solution to problem, is not so simple as rejecting Lockean claims of
natural difference. It is not difficult (or false) to suggest that while there may be indeed a sphere
of action and space centered around the household, but the difference between two spheres is not
found on natural differences but on convention. There may indeed be a distinction but the
rigidity of it is purely ideological. Pateman thus mentions that once the patriarchal character of
separation is revealed it can be challenged politically. To reveal the patriarchal character of
liberalism becomes necessary because, if left unexamined, the patriarchal character of liberalism
will continue to ensure women’s subordination to men. She mentions that contemporary feminist
critique of public private dichotomy is based on same Lockean view of two categories; domestic
life is as paradigmatically private for feminists as it is in this interpretation of Lockean theory,
but they challenge the Lockean claim that subordination of woman has foundation in nature.

However feminists reject the claim that separation of private and public follows inevitably from
the natural characteristics of sexes. They argue that a proper understanding liberal social life is
possible only when it is accepted that two spheres the domestic (private) and civil society
(public) held to be separate and opposed are inextricably interrelated: they are two sides of single
coin of liberal patriarchalism.52

She with other feminists contests the distinction between the private realm of home and society
by illustrating that the supposedly private household is actually at the center of civil society
rather than separate from it. This can be seen as one meaning for phrase ‘the personal is
political’. She claims that: “discussions of work life, whether by laissez faire liberals or Marxists
always assume that it is always possible to understand economic activity in abstraction from
domestic life. It is forgotten that worker, invariably taken to be man, can appear ready for work
and concentrate on his work free from everyday demands of providing food, only because these
tasks are provided by his wife.” This thereby signifies that domestic sphere of work has direct
52
Ibid.

21
bearing on the public sphere or in other words there is no such autonomy between these two
spheres of life. Feminists have emphasized how personal circumstances are structured by public
factors, by laws about rape and abortion, by status of wife and abuse including unequal
distribution of food and health care.

Pateman remarks that feminist argument is often formulated using the categories of nature and
culture, or personal and political, or morality and power, women and men and male and female.
In nature and culture categorization, human kind attempts to transcend a merely natural existence
so that nature is always seen as of lower order than culture. Culture is identified as creation of
men whereas women’s role of child bearing and rearing places her close to nature. This
subordination of women as per Pateman is accounted by Mary Firestone in her book ‘The
Dialectic of Sex’. As per Firestone the origin of dualism lies in ‘biology itself- procreation’, a
natural or original inequality that is basis of oppression of women and source of male power. In
morality and power separation, liberal theorists often contrast the politicalsphere(the state), the
sphere of power, force and violence, with society the sphere of voluntarism, freedom and
spontaneous regulation. Elshtain53, while blaming suffragists54 for accepting the assumptions of
the doctrine of separate spheres, has conducted her argument in this duality of morality and
power, which is one way of formulating the separation of private and public when this is located
within civil society. The opposition between morality and power then counter poses physical
force and aggression, the natural attributes of manliness, which are seen as exemplified in the
military force of the state, against love and altruism, the natural attributes of womanhood, which
are, paradigmatically, displayed in domestic life where the wife and mother stands as guardians
of morality.55

Restructuring the public private dichotomy:

Okin and “idea of humanitarian liberalism”

53
Elshtain believes that struggle for womanhood suffrage was locked in in the separation and dichotomies of
patriarchal – liberalism, within the duality of morality and power.
54
Women suffragists believed that citizenship would be a means to protect and strengthen women’s special
(private) sphere. They also believed that women are weaker, but more moral and virtuous than men. DuBois on
the other hand believes that suffragists demand for vote did not question women’s peculiar stability for domestic
life but, it constituted a denial that women were naturally fit only for private sphere.
55
Carole Pateman, “Feminist Critiques of the Public/Private Dichotomy” in ‘The Disorder of Woman’ by Carole
Pateman.p.126.

22
Okin mentions that family is the linchpin of gender, reproducing it from one generation to other.
This family is just neither to children nor to women. The unjustness of family becomes more
serious when the family is neglected on the grounds of private institution within liberal
thoughtwhich based on public private distinction. So it becomes necessary to challenge this
public private distinction of liberal theorists. As Chen writes, so long as the policy makers make
the artificial distinction between the farm and the household, between paid and unpaid work,
between productive and domestic work, women would continue to be overlooked. Challenging
the dichotomy will also point attention to inequities that occur within households, various forms
of abuse including unequal distribution of food and healthcare. 56 However Okin believes that to
challenge this dichotomy does not mean to do away with the idea of privacy.

Challenging the dichotomy does not necessarily mean denying the usefulness of concept of
privacy or the value of privacy in human life. Nor does it mean denying that there are any
reasonable distinctions to be made between public and domestic spheres. It does not mean to
many feminists, including myself, a simple or total identification of the personal and political
…….. Both the concept of privacy and the existence of personal sphere of life in which states
authority is very limited are essential. However such a sphere can be just and secure only if its
members are equals and if those who must be temporarily regarded as unequal – the children- are
protected from abuse.57

To okin family can only be just when the institution of gender, which is given the primary
importance for differentiated role between two sexes, is neglected. But, the question is how
should theory of justice deal with family? Okin offers two responses. The short term response is
to “protect the vulnerable”. The marriage contract must be modified to protect those who
subordinate their careers to perform the unpaid work of family. One way to do this is to ensure
that “both partners have equal entitlement to all earnings coming into the household” and, in
cases of divorce, “both post-divorce households should enjoy the same standard of living”. The
long term response aims at the creation of a gender free society: A just future would be one
without gender. In its social structure and practices, one’s sex would have no relevance than

56
Susan Moller Okin, “gender inequality and cultural differences”.
57
Susan Moller Okin,“Justice from Sphere to Sphere: Challenging the Public/Domestic Dichotomy” in Justice
Gender and Family by Susan Moller Okin, P127-128.

23
one’s eye color or the length of one’s toes. No assumptions would be made about ‘male’ and
‘female’ roles; child bearing would be so conceptually separated from child rearing and other
family responsibilities that it would be a cause for surprise, and no little concern, if men and
women were not equally responsible for domestic life or if children were to spend much more
time with one parent than the other”.58 In order to achieve such a society, Okin aspires some
adjustments within liberalism to make it more humane or what she calls as ‘Humanitarian
Liberalism’. This would require fathers to take more responsibility for child care, mothers to
have more sustained labor – force attachment, the provision of high quality day care, and the
redesigning of work place and school schedules so as to accommodate parenting. While we must
protect the vulnerable in existing gender marriages, the ultimate goal is a gender free society;
thus we “must encourage and facilitate the equal sharing by men and women of paid and unpaid
work, or productive and reproductive labour. We must work towards a future in which all will be
likely to choose this mode of life. In order to realize such a society Okin suggests that employers
should make out wage checks equally divided between the earner, and partner who provides all
or most of his or her unpaid domestic services. This would power relations in family by giving
some public recognition to the fact that unpaid work is as important as paid labour. In order to
create order to create a genderless society public policies and law should assume no sexual
differentiation of sexes. More specifically she supports making employers taking necessary
measures to accommodate the reality that workers are also parents. In order to ensure equal
division of parental responsibilities, employers should make parental post birth leave available to
both father and mothers on same grounds. Okin calls “eminently and fairly sensible” a proposal
that would identify paternity of all children of single mothers at the time of birth and would
require the biological fathers to contribute at least $2,000 per year until the children reached
adulthood. She says that this policy reflects “added weight of responsibility given to fatherhood
in a gender – free society.”59 While advocating cause for recognition of women’s human rights
Okin mentions that promoting women’s human rights clearly involves making changes in areasof
life usually considered as private, and “calling for government accountability in these areas
requires considerable reorientation of human rights law”.60
58
Ibid. p171.
59
Ibid. p171.
60
Susan Moller Okin, “Feminism, women’s Human Rights, and Cultural Differences”, Hypatia vol.13, no.2, 1998,
p36.

24
However Okin’s aspiration for gender less society has been criticized by various thinkers at
length. One reason for questioning whether Okin has really offered only internal critique of
liberalism is that abolition of gender system would imply radical interference in individual
liberty and would so be ultimately illiberal. G. A. Cohen argues that Okin fails to understand the
force of more extreme feminist critique of liberalism. Since abolishing the gender system would
involve constraints on personal choice in order to achieve an ideal feminist state, policies that
radically interfere with individual liberty would be inevitable. 61 Okin’s believes that gender
system might have arisen out of biological features of sexual difference which result in
fundamental conflicts between the sexes, and fundamentally different strategies for survival.
She therefore aspires for genderless society in which one can sum that liberalism requires
androgyny62. But, if biological difference implies that androgyny is impossible, and androgyny is
a prerequisite for the complete development of a non sexist, fully human liberal theory of justice,
then it would look as though such theory is impossible. Moreover if liberalism requires the
abolition of gender and sexual difference, it would amount to the abolition of female gender and
its assimilation to the masculine, so much worse for liberalism. 63 Moreover Okin accepts
interference in private sphere in order to prevent the harm of gender stereotyping, by this she
leaves open the possibility that ‘harm principle’64 could be used to force women to stay at home.
The thought that working mothers may harm their children is already being used in Australia to
justify offering tax incentives to stay at home mothers.

Okin mentions of paternity policy for children by their fathers which will be a sought of
additional responsibilities for them. But this aspiration ‘the wrong way to defend sexual equality
in the family and, indeed, is counterproductive for Okin’s own goal of a gender free society.’ 65
This type of paternity policy66 raises the danger that will demand the corresponding rights vis-à-
61
G.A. Cohen, “where the action Is : On the Site of Distributive Justice,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol.26, 1997,
p4.
62
By ‘the difference of gender’ Okin means complete disappearance of all gender stereotypes and differences in
the distribution of the sexes in all occupations.
63
XXXX, “Parity and procedural Justice”, in Essays in philosophy: a biannual journal, Vol.7, No.1, January 2006.
64
Harm principle is defined With respect to Millian private sphere. According to Mill state interference in an
individual’s life is only warranted in order to prevent harm to others.
65
Will Kymlicka, “Rethinking the Family” in xxxxxxx
66
Mary O’ Brien argues that the emphasis on paternity is a way of ensuring male control over reproduction. She
mentions that “world defeat of women” occurred not when private property emerged but when societies learned
that children resulted from men’s insemination, at which point men developed elaborate procedures to ensure
that their paternity was recognized, and to appropriate “their” children.(Politics of reproduction [Routledge and
Kegan Paul]1981).

25
vis “their” child. Fathers have sighted their legal responsibility as grounds for demanding
visitation or custody rights, and have even been granted injunctions against women’s aborting
“their” babies. The begetting of child requires the input of one man and one woman, but to
attach social significance to the fact is surely to make gender socially significant. Most
importantly tying child support to paternity is to reinforce compulsory heterosexuality - it tells
women that socially recognized way of raising a child involves the support and presence of man.
Lastly stressing the case for responsibilities of biological fathers, Okin seems to have ignored the
biological gays.

PATEMAN AND RESTRUCTURING OF PUBLIC PRIVAATE DICHOTOMY:

Pateman in her criticism of liberalism has clearly mentioned that patriarchal character of
liberalism has led to subordination of women both in public places as well in sphere of home.
And if such patriarchal character of liberal state is left unexamined the condition of women will
continue to remain as such. while women are identified with private sphere their public status is
always undermined. As per pateman ‘ this conclusion does not, as is often alleged, deny the
patriarchal assertion that women, not men, bear children; it does deny the patriarchal assertion
that this natural fact entails that only women can rear children’ 67, there by condemning women to
private sphere of caring and rearing children. There is nothing in nature that prevents fathers
from sharing equally in bringing up their children, although there is a great deal in organization
of social and economic life that works against it.68 In order to avoid such discrimination Pateman
hopes for “a social conception of individuality, which includes both women and men as
biologically differentiated but not unequal creatures.” That means that sexual difference should
not be used in organist ion of work in public sphere which results in discrimination against
women mostly. An emphasis on interrelatedness of individual and society, of personal and
political, rather than separation and opposition of two, as per Pateman, can bring about a “truly
general” theory of “social practice”. Pateman mentions that some feminists believe that
alternative to opposition is harmonization and identification (the personal is political; the family
is political).69 Real individuality can come about when divisions between public and private are
67
Carole Pateman, “Feminist Critiques of the Public/Private Dichotomy” in ‘The Disorder of Woman’ by Carole
Pateman.p.135.

68
Ibid.p222.
69
Ibid.p136.

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no longer seen to confer natural differences and no longer depoliticize the subordination of
women. In order for genuine opportunity in terms of effective participation, a number of
resources should be equally distributed. She advocates greater individual control over economic
life to achieve this. Economic democracy for Pateman is a means to equalize the distribution of
resources needed to be an effective political actor.

Pateman believes that equal parenting and equal participation in addition to activities like caring
and rearing, presupposes some radical changes in the public sphere, in organization of
production, in what we mean by ‘work’ and in practice of citizenship. with her early writing,
Pateman advocates increased citizen participation to improve citizenship, to make citizens better
political actors. And workplace democracy is where people can ‘get their feet wet’ in this effort.
Opening up the decision making process in the workplace fro those effected (including women
and marginalized individuals/groups) by its policy decisions is a way of getting at the division
between the political and the social, making the social more political.70

Although bulk of Pateman’s argument is directed against the equality perspective, because of its
focus on contracts as a means for women to achieve equality, she opposes the “difference”
perspective s well. The “difference” perspective celebrates the distinctive views, achievements,
and dispositions which supposedly characterize women, and aims to give them larger social
spaces in which to function. But since women’s difference have been created under conditions of
oppression, the difference perspective in practice affirms characteristics which bear the marks of
adaptation and resignation to oppression, and thereby encourages women to opt out of activities
that challenge men’s domination. Pateman argues that these two apparently exclusive and
exhaustive alternatives are in fact mutually complementary constructions within modern liberal
patriarchal society. The liberal division between public and private spheres of life, legitimized by
social contract theory, is responsible for offering women both alternatives: difference and
subordination in private sphere, and (ostensibly) equality and sameness with men in the public
sphere.71 To escape this unproductive framing of issues, feminist must understood their primary
task to be the elimination of patriarchal oppression of women, which requires the repudiation of
liberal distinction between public and private spheres.

70
Carole Pateman, in Participation and Democratic Theory, Cambridge university press.1970.
71
Carole Pateman, in The Sexual Contract, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press,1988, p.226-227.

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It can hence be said that Pateman nevertheless rejects both liberal and radical feminist attempts
“to show that women possess the capacities men possess and can do what men can do[because]
this only assumes that there is no political significance to the fact that women have one natural
ability that men lack: women are able to give birth”.72 She praises feminists who have
proclaimed that “personal is political” for showing that many of problems women encounter in
their “personal” lives have political causes. However she points out that when such feminists
argue that women’s view is better than man’s, because women are more personal and less public
spirited, gentle rather than aggressive, and emotional than rational, they are perpetuating the
traditional understanding. She ultimately wants to develop a new and differentiated form of
politics (which presupposes a new and different conception of human life) that would enable
women to participate in the public life of the community and still remain women.

Though Pateman does criticize the liberal patriarchy effectively, but she too is criticized for
various reasons. Susan Moller Okin in her review of Pateman’s work 73 mentions that Pateman
does not spell out, beyond a few vague suggestions, what form of political theory or practice
might liberate women and men from the problems of liberal individualism and contractual
relations and might “begin to create a free society in which women are autonomous citizens”.
Pateman does write about the double day of the wage working wife and the assumptions that
structure the workplace to suit the needs of men with wives at home, but it is not clear however,
what she thinks should be done about this. Sometimes she sounds as if nothing can be done, such
as when she writes; “women have not been incorporated into the patriarchal structure of
capitalist employment as ‘workers’; they have been incorporated as women; and how can it be
otherwise when women are not, and cannot be, men”? 74 Pateman does not succeed in
transforming her critiques into an articulation of a positive alternative vision for two reasons.
First, in criticizing Wolin, Locke and the “personalist” feminists, she is not sufficiently clear
about what she personally understands to be “political”. Second and more fundamental, her “root
and branch” opposition to “patriarchal liberalism” prevents her from engaging in any serious
consideration of the difficulties involved in, and possible means of, preserving diversity under
72
Ibid.p44.

73
Susan Moller Okin, in “Feminism, the Individual, and Contract Theory”,A review of Carole Pateman, The Sexual
Contract(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press,1988),”
74
Carole Pateman, in The Sexual Contract, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press,1988, p.142.

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egalitarian conditions. Does everyone have to participate in polity in the same way and to some
extent? If not, what will prevent the differences from becoming hierarchal?

Okin mentions that Freud by no means “insists,” as Pateman says(p.105), that the patricide was
an actual historical event in the case of savage, as compared with the neurotic, for whom it was
only psychic reality or impulse. Second, and most important, Pateman never accounts for the
significant fact that what Freud uses the findings of psychoanalysis to explain is the origin, in
oedipal crime, of the laws of totemism and taboo – in particular the incest taboo.75

Though Pateman has showed that modernity, with its voluntarist notions of individuality, does
not mean a break break with patriarchy. But it cannot be assumed with totality that the concepts
and practices of modern citizenship are necessarily yoked to patriarchy, and are incapable of
being employed in a break with it. The claim of universality of citizenship has provided a crucial
impulse for the social movements of modern times, not withstanding Rosseau’s (and many
others’) prejudice that “that disorder of women” was the greatest threat to the state.

75
Ibid.

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