"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman" is from:

Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique

Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

In Kymlicka's theory, which kind of group-differentiated right is mainly claimed by national minorities?

The right of exit from the state

Which feminist theory holds that the domination of women and the domination of nature spring from a common patriarchal logic?

Radical feminism in Firestone's technological form

Assertion (A): Kymlicka defends minority rights from within liberalism. Reason (R): For Kymlicka, individual autonomy requires a societal culture that provides a meaningful context of choice. Choose the correct option.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Assertion (A): MacIntyre's After Virtue describes modern moral discourse as fragmented and its disagreements as interminable. Reason (R): MacIntyre defends the Enlightenment project of justifying morality independently of any tradition. Choose the correct option.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Which of the following are associated with liberal feminism? Select all that apply.

J. S. Mill's The Subjection of Women

Western Social and Political Philosophy III: Communitarianism, Multiculturalism and Feminism

The last three items of Unit 8 are critiques and extensions of liberalism. Communitarianism attacks the liberal picture of the self and the claim that principles of right can be universal; the syllabus names Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre and Michael Sandel. Multiculturalism asks what liberal democracies owe to cultural groups; the syllabus names Taylor's politics of recognition and Will Kymlicka's minority rights. Feminism, with the basic concepts of patriarchy, misogyny and gender, and its liberal, socialist, radical and eco-feminist theories, asks how political philosophy has ignored or justified the subordination of women. NET Political Science covers these as ideologies; here the emphasis is on the philosophical arguments.

1. Communitarianism: the critique of the liberal self

Communitarianism emerged in the 1980s largely as a response to Rawls. Its common claim is that liberalism rests on a false picture of the self as prior to and independent of its ends and attachments, and that this picture both misdescribes moral experience and undermines the community on which a free society depends. The communitarians differ among themselves and mostly rejected the label, but three positions are standard.

Three communitarians
Thinker	Main work	Claim
Michael Sandel	Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982)	Rawls presupposes an "unencumbered self", prior to its ends; but we are partly constituted by our communities and attachments (family, nation, people), so the priority of the right over the good cannot be sustained
Alasdair MacIntyre	After Virtue (1981)	Modern moral discourse is fragments of older traditions, and its disagreements are interminable ("emotivist culture"); the virtues make sense only within practices, the narrative unity of a human life and a living tradition, as in the Aristotelian tradition
Charles Taylor	"Atomism" (1979); Sources of the Self (1989)	Liberal "atomism" ignores that the capacities which make rights valuable are developed only in society; the self is dialogical, formed through relations with others and through "strong evaluation" against frameworks of the good

Universalism against particularism: liberals such as Rawls (in A Theory of Justice) and Kant hold that principles of justice should be justifiable from a standpoint abstracted from any particular community, and so apply universally. Communitarians hold that moral reasoning always starts from within a particular tradition and its shared understandings, and Michael Walzer's Spheres of Justice (1983) argues that the just distribution of each good (medical care, office, money) depends on the social meaning that good has in a particular community. Liberals reply that particularism cannot criticise unjust traditions from outside and risks conservatism or relativism.

2. Multiculturalism: Taylor on recognition, Kymlicka on minority rights

Charles Taylor's essay "The Politics of Recognition" (1992) argues that identity is shaped by recognition or its absence, "often by the misrecognition of others", so that non-recognition or misrecognition can inflict real harm, imprisoning people in a reduced mode of being. Modern politics has two forms of recognition in tension. The politics of equal dignity, grounded in Kant, grants everyone the same rights and is difference-blind. The politics of difference asks for recognition of the unique identity of individuals and groups, and may justify special measures to preserve a culture. Taylor's example is Quebec, where laws protecting the French language aim at the survival of a culture for future generations; he defends a liberalism that can accommodate such collective goals while protecting fundamental rights, and a "presumption" of equal worth toward other cultures.

Will Kymlicka's Multicultural Citizenship (1995) gives a liberal theory of minority rights. Individual autonomy, the core liberal value, requires a "societal culture" that provides meaningful options and a context of choice; so members of minority cultures have a liberal interest in the survival of their culture.
Two kinds of minority: national minorities (previously self-governing, territorially concentrated cultures incorporated into a larger state, such as indigenous peoples and the Québécois) and ethnic or polyethnic groups formed by immigration.
Three kinds of group-differentiated rights: self-government rights (mainly for national minorities), polyethnic rights (such as exemptions and public support for cultural practices, mainly for immigrant groups) and special representation rights (guaranteed seats or representation in political institutions).
External protections against internal restrictions: liberals can endorse external protections, which protect a group against the decisions of the larger society, but not internal restrictions, which limit the liberty of the group's own members to question or leave its traditions.

⚠️ Taylor in two roles

Charles Taylor appears twice in the syllabus: as a communitarian critic of the liberal self ("Atomism", Sources of the Self) and as a theorist of multiculturalism ("The Politics of Recognition"). Kymlicka, by contrast, defends minority rights from within liberalism, grounding them in individual autonomy rather than in the value of community as such.

3. Feminism: patriarchy, misogyny and gender

Patriarchy: a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women. Kate Millett's Sexual Politics (1970) extended the term from rule by fathers to the general, institutionalised dominance of men in family, religion, economy and culture, and called the relation between the sexes political because it is one of power.
Misogyny: hatred of, contempt for or prejudice against women. Kate Manne's Down Girl (2017) proposes that misogyny is best understood not as individual men's psychology but as the "law enforcement" branch of patriarchy, the hostile reactions that police and punish women who violate its norms.
Gender: feminists distinguish sex (biological difference) from gender (the social meanings, roles and norms attached to being a woman or a man), a distinction developed in the 1970s (Ann Oakley, Sex, Gender and Society, 1972) and anticipated by Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949): "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." Later theorists such as Judith Butler (Gender Trouble, 1990) argued that gender is performative and questioned the sharp sex-gender divide itself.

4. Theories of feminism: liberal, socialist, radical and eco-feminism

Four theories of feminism
Theory	Diagnosis	Remedy and key figures
Liberal feminism	Women are denied equal rights and opportunities by law and custom; the cause is unequal treatment, not the structure of society as such	Legal and political reform, education, equal rights: Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792), J. S. Mill (The Subjection of Women, 1869), Betty Friedan (The Feminine Mystique, 1963)
Socialist feminism	Women's oppression is bound up with capitalism and the sexual division of labour, including unpaid domestic labour; class and patriarchy reinforce each other	Transforming both economic and family structures: roots in Engels (The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, 1884); Juliet Mitchell, Heidi Hartmann ("dual systems")
Radical feminism	Patriarchy is the most fundamental form of oppression, rooted in control of women's bodies, sexuality and reproduction; "the personal is political"	Transforming the sex-class system itself: Kate Millett, Shulamith Firestone (The Dialectic of Sex, 1970), Catharine MacKinnon, Andrea Dworkin
Eco-feminism	The domination of women and the domination of nature are linked, both products of a patriarchal, dualistic world-view that ranks reason over nature and men over women	Ending both dominations together: Françoise d'Eaubonne coined the term (1974); Carolyn Merchant (The Death of Nature, 1980); Vandana Shiva (Staying Alive, 1988), drawing on the Chipko movement

🎯 Why the schools disagree

The four theories share the aim of ending women's subordination but differ over its root cause, and therefore its cure. Liberal feminism locates the problem in unequal rights and fixes it within liberal institutions; socialist feminism in the economy and the family together; radical feminism in patriarchy as such, including private life; eco-feminism in a wider logic of domination that also harms nature. Critics of liberal feminism say it leaves the public-private divide intact; critics of radical and eco-feminism warn against treating women's nature as fixed.

Key takeaways

Communitarianism: Sandel's "unencumbered self" (1982), MacIntyre's After Virtue (1981: practices, narrative unity, tradition), Taylor's critique of atomism and the dialogical self; universalism against particularism (Walzer's spheres of justice).
Taylor's "The Politics of Recognition" (1992): misrecognition harms; the politics of equal dignity against the politics of difference; Quebec; presumption of equal worth.
Kymlicka (1995): societal culture as context of choice; national minorities and polyethnic groups; self-government, polyethnic and special representation rights; external protections yes, internal restrictions no.
Basic concepts: patriarchy (Millett, 1970), misogyny (Manne's "law enforcement" account, 2017), sex and gender (Beauvoir: "one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman"; Oakley; Butler's performativity).
Liberal (Wollstonecraft, Mill, Friedan), socialist (Engels, Mitchell, Hartmann), radical (Millett, Firestone, MacKinnon; "the personal is political") and eco-feminism (d'Eaubonne, Merchant, Vandana Shiva and Chipko).

Practice questions (10)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

The critique of Rawls's "unencumbered self" is associated with:
1. Ronald Dworkin
2. Robert Nozick
3. Michael Sandel
4. Will Kymlicka
Show answer
Answer: C — Michael Sandel
Sandel's Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982) argues that Rawls presupposes a self prior to its ends. Kymlicka defends liberalism, and Nozick and Dworkin are liberal theorists of justice.
"The Politics of Recognition" (1992), which contrasts the politics of equal dignity with the politics of difference, was written by:
1. Charles Taylor
2. Alasdair MacIntyre
3. Michael Walzer
4. Isaiah Berlin
Show answer
Answer: A — Charles Taylor
Charles Taylor wrote it, using Quebec as his example. MacIntyre wrote After Virtue, Walzer Spheres of Justice and Berlin "Two Concepts of Liberty".
"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman" is from:
1. Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
2. Kate Millett, Sexual Politics
3. Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
4. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
Show answer
Answer: D — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
The sentence opens volume 2 of Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949) and anticipates the sex-gender distinction. Friedan and Wollstonecraft are liberal feminists, and Millett a radical feminist.
In Kymlicka's theory, which kind of group-differentiated right is mainly claimed by national minorities?
1. Polyethnic rights
2. Self-government rights
3. The right of exit from the state
4. Internal restrictions
Show answer
Answer: B — Self-government rights
National minorities, previously self-governing cultures, seek self-government rights. Polyethnic rights are mainly claimed by immigrant groups, and internal restrictions are what Kymlicka's liberalism does not endorse.
Which feminist theory holds that the domination of women and the domination of nature spring from a common patriarchal logic?
1. Socialist feminism
2. Eco-feminism
3. Radical feminism in Firestone's technological form
4. Liberal feminism
Show answer
Answer: B — Eco-feminism
Eco-feminism (d'Eaubonne, Merchant, Shiva) links the two dominations. Firestone, by contrast, looked to reproductive technology to free women from biology, a view eco-feminists criticise.
Assertion (A): Kymlicka defends minority rights from within liberalism. Reason (R): For Kymlicka, individual autonomy requires a societal culture that provides a meaningful context of choice. Choose the correct option.
1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
3. A is true, but R is false
4. A is false, but R is true
Show answer
Answer: A — Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
Both are true and R explains A: because autonomy needs a secure cultural context, liberals committed to autonomy have reason to protect minority cultures, though not to allow internal restrictions on members.
Assertion (A): MacIntyre's After Virtue describes modern moral discourse as fragmented and its disagreements as interminable. Reason (R): MacIntyre defends the Enlightenment project of justifying morality independently of any tradition. Choose the correct option.
1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
3. A is true, but R is false
4. A is false, but R is true
Show answer
Answer: C — A is true, but R is false
A is true: MacIntyre says our moral vocabulary is made of fragments of older traditions, producing an "emotivist culture". R is false: he argues that the Enlightenment project of tradition-independent justification failed, and turns to the Aristotelian tradition of the virtues.
Which of the following are associated with liberal feminism? Select all that apply.
1. J. S. Mill's The Subjection of Women
2. Mary Wollstonecraft
3. Françoise d'Eaubonne
4. Shulamith Firestone
Show answer
Answer: A — J. S. Mill's The Subjection of Women; B — Mary Wollstonecraft
Wollstonecraft and Mill argued for equal rights and education within a liberal framework. Firestone is a radical feminist and d'Eaubonne coined "eco-feminism".
Which of the following are among Kymlicka's three kinds of group-differentiated rights? Select all that apply.
1. Self-government rights
2. Internal restriction rights
3. Polyethnic rights
4. Special representation rights
Show answer
Answer: A — Self-government rights; C — Polyethnic rights; D — Special representation rights
The three are self-government, polyethnic and special representation rights. Internal restrictions are the kind of group claim Kymlicka's liberalism rejects.
In which year did Françoise d'Eaubonne coin the term "eco-feminism"? Type the year.
Numerical answer — type the value.
Show answer
Answer: 1974
Françoise d'Eaubonne coined the word in 1974, in her book Le Féminisme ou la mort (Feminism or Death). Do not type 1980, the year of Carolyn Merchant's The Death of Nature, a later ecofeminist classic.