socpol final actually this time Flashcards
1
Q
Contemporary feminism theory
A
- Very diverse in premises and conclusions
- Difficult to discuss when using the traditional left right political spectrum
- Different types: Liberal, Marxist, Radical, Black, Social
- Each theory is grounded in a commitment to ending the oppression, subordination, abuse, and exploitation of women and girls
2
Q
History of Feminism
A
- There’s a long history of discrimination against women that’s embedded in patriarchal norms
- Patriarchal norms sought to rationalize sexism through biology
3
Q
Biological determinism
A
- Attempting to rationalize sexism through biology
- Until very recently, most theories accepted biological determinism
- The idea is that there is a foundation in nature for the inequality we see in society, and for the confinement of women to the family, and for restricting their social and political rights
4
Q
Social construct/Socially constructed
A
- What does it mean to say that something is socially constructed? (Gender as example)
- Gender doesn’t have to have existed or be at all as it is
- Gender, or Gender as it is at present isn’t determined by the nature of things, it’s not inevitable. Sometimes we go further.
- Gender is quite bad as it is. We would be better off if it were done away with or radically transformed
5
Q
Anti-discrimination laws and stuff
A
- We have anti discrimination laws but still have lower paying jobs, feminization of poverty, household labour, increased domestic abuse/assault
- Ex. Gender pay gap
- For every 100 cents a man makes, white women make 82 cents, while black women make 62 cents
- More men in higher paying positions
6
Q
Intersectionality
A
- The intersection between marginalized identities in one person
- Ex. Black feminism (racism and sexism)
7
Q
Male Chauvinism
A
- The belief that men are better than women physically, mentally, etc.
8
Q
Why haven’t efforts to improve the gender inequality situation worked
A
- Lots of legislation is sex-insensitive and fails to recognize that sexism, like racism, is systemic
- Gender inequalities are built into the system (structural, institutional, systemic)
- Physical examples of sexism
- Bathrooms (where gendered bathrooms are located, ex. women’s bathrooms by the secretary/desk while men’s are in the offices.)
- Doesn’t matter if people have good intentions, sexism is structural
- Systemic discrimination
- Women are disadvantaged because the entire society systemically favours men
- The patriarchy
- Our social, economic, political, cultural world was designed by white men with white men’s interests in mind
- Implication
- The absence of arbitrary discrimination is not evidence of the absence of sexual inequality
9
Q
Two meanings of sexism
A
- Attitudinal
- Individual sexist behaviour based on prejudice and misconceptions about women’s superiority
- Systemic discrimination
- embedded in institutions, politics, structural practices, structural practices which embody these sexist norms
- Oppression on the basis of identity was a source of political radicalization
- The absence of sexist behaviours by individuals doesn’t mean the absence of sexism
- Same is true of race
10
Q
Racism (two types. Same as sexism)
A
- Attitudinal
- Racial prejudice and discrimination based on ideas of racial superiority and inferiority. This usually is attributed to bad actors, but also groups and institutions
- Systemic/structural racism
- Racism that is embedded in social norms, economic practices and political and governmental policies
11
Q
Material outcome vs. racial wealth gap
A
- Black people make up recently 13% of the US population and hold less than 3% of the nations wealth. The median family wealth for white people is $171,000, compared with $17,600 for Black people
12
Q
Combahee River Collective- CRC
A
- Black lesbian feminist socialist group from 1974-1980
- According to the CRC, most Black liberation movements (dominated mostly by Black men) opposed abortion rights, for instance and didn’t prioritize women’s issues
- CRC foreshadowed intersectionality in describing the distinct experiences of Black women who were lesbians
- The idea that multiple oppressions can reinforce one another and compound to create new forms of suffering
- The CRC claimed that the second wave of (white) feminism wasn’t addressing their issues such as forced sterilization, wage issues, work place rights
- The CRC connected the exploitative tendency of capitalism to a range of oppressions that kept apart those with the most interest in coming together
13
Q
Identity politics
A
- Misunderstood ideas in contemporary politics, often understood as “representation” and the question of who can speak for whom. Often used as a silencing term, often from those who have something to lose
- politics based on a particular identity, such as ethnicity, race, nationality, religion
- The CRC used identity as a political platform to campaign for political/legal legislation that would help them
14
Q
Equality but more in depth. Basic definition is there, so is encumbered self
A
- The ability to make decisions about one’s life free of social, political, and economic coercion
- Free of racism and structural violence
- Glass ceilings vs sterilization abuse and Black maternal death
- Encumbered self
- the notion that we may be claimed by certain moral ties that can’t be accounted for as duties we owe human beings, or as obligations we’ve chosen, as in through an act of consent.
15
Q
What are the conditions that permits this form of structural violence against women
A
- Socially situated theory
- Where individuals are conceived, not abstraction from relations of social power. But as operating as social types who stand in relations of power to one another
16
Q
What does it mean to do well in relation to women? (human capabilities) VVVVV IMPORTANT
also a thing about gdp in here
A
GDP
- Doesn’t capture how individual citizens fare. Doesn’t consider things like health or education
- We instead need to ask, what is she able to do and to be. That’s not a GDP number
Obstacles
- Should they try to enter the workforce?
- They face intimidation from family, discrimination, harassment, without legal recourse
- Unequal social and political circumstances translates to unequal human capabilities
- Ends in themselves
- In many countries women aren’t treated as having intrinsic value. In other words, they’re not treated as ends of themselves. Instead, women are treated as instruments and as a means to an end
- Poverty, combined with gender inequality, equals acute failure of central human capabilities, which results in leading lives that are less than fully human
- Capabilities approach gives an account of basic constitutional principles that should be respected as a bare minimum of what respect for human dignity requires
- Human capabilities are what people are actually able to do despite their otherwise different conceptions of “the good life”
- Universal: the capabilities in question are key for each and every citizen in each and every nation, and each is to be treated as an end
- Beyond wealth, we need to look at how lives are lived
- The fact that one nation is more prosperous doesn’t tell us what the government has done for women in various social classes, however, resource based approaches are limited, because individuals vary in their abilities to convert resources into functions, hence this imposes serious limitations to treating people as equals
- Central question of human capabilities approach
- What is she actually able to do/be
- Looking at functions, we ask, is this person capable of this or not. We ask not only about personal satisfaction, but about what people do/are in a position to do
17
Q
Citizenship theory
A
- The health and stability of our societies depend not only on the justice of our institutions, but on the qualities and attitudes of its citizens
- Ex. The environment. How much can the state do to protect the environment through various policies, if individuals chose not to recycle
- We need a theory on how to be good citizens
- Old view:
- Citizenship-as-rights. Defined citizenship in terms of rights. Civil, social and political rights, initially just white men, eventually extended to other social groups and classes
- New view: citizenship theory needs to do more than outline passive rights, it needs to encourage active participation
- Characteristics required for responsible democratic citizenship (civic virtues)
18
Q
Virtues (5)
A
- Civic virtues:
- Characteristics required for responsible democratic citizenship
- General Virtues:
- Courage, loyalty, law abidingness
- Social virtues
- Open-mindedness, independence
- Economic virtues
- Work ethic, adaptability to technological changes
- Political virtues
- Capacity to discern and respect rights of others, willingness to engage in public discourse
- The last set of virtues, the political virtues, are what distinguish “citizens” in a democracy from “subjects” in an authoritarian regime
19
Q
Public reasonableness VVVVV IMPORTANT (Vote centric to Talk centric is in here)
A
- The idea that citizens must give a public defense of their views, be they religious, cultural, etc
- Entails being able to defend ones views to others by offering reasons
- Public reasons should be able to be understood and accepted by people of different faiths and cultures
- This is central to a deliberative democracy, an it’s a reflection of the move from “vote centric” to talk centric
- It’s distinctly modern. It recognizes that modern societies are religiously, ethnically, and culturally diverse
- Deliberative democracy is particularity beneficial to minority and marginalized groups
- New picture of citizens, which aren’t as self interested, but as mutually interested
- Active and participatory
- Critical of authority
- Non-dogmatic
- Committed to mutual understanding and benefits
20
Q
Civic republicanism
A
- Really old view
- Political life is superior to the private pleasures of family, neighborhood, and profession, and so should occupy the center of peoples lives
- Political life is intrinsically good
- Problems with this view
- An example of a perfectionism argument, premised on a particular view about what makes lives truly excellent or truly human
21
Q
Deliberative Democracy as an instrumental virtue
A
- Form of democracy where deliberation and conversation is essential to desicion making.
- Again, vote centric to talk centric. Opens people up to other persepectives
- There’s an attempt to realize that most people aren’t interested [in politics], and yet ensure a critical threshold of active citizenship
- This is especially strong in times of crisis. When a society is well functioning, minimal citizenship is all that we can or should require
22
Q
Upholding the virtue of civility (social virtue)
A
- Civility
- Social virtue. Refers to the way we treat non-intimates with whom we come to face to face contact
- Stems from norms of non-discrimination. It’s no longer alright to just not discriminate. There has to be more to it than that.
- Norms of non-discrimination are historically legally enforced only by the state, not private institutions, but that’s changed
- Equal citizenship: We agree that people are denied equality if they’re ignored, or not given good service
- Participation in civil society: We should be open to all members of a democratic society, and norms of non-discrimination won’t get us there. We need more than that
23
Q
Multiculturalism
citizenship as rights and stuff
A
- “Citizenship as rights” is challenged by emphasizing the need to exchange the focus on common rights with greater attention to cultural pluralism and group differentiated rights
- This term has been called Identity politics
- Historically, diversity has been ignored because white men
24
Q
T.H. Marshalls argument
(giving people education/healthcare with citizenship)
A
- Argument for extending citizenship rights to include basic social rights (education, healthcare, etc) was because it would help promote a common feeling of national membership and national identity
- The goal was to include people in a “common culture”
- Providing social rights would help secure loyalty to a civilization that is a common possession
- Also done out of fear of the working class turning to communism
- However the right to education is only the right to education in the national language
- Common citizenship and national integration can still cause minorities to feel marginalized
25
Q
Iris Marion Young on Differentiated Citizenship
national minorities, national intergration, etc.
A
- Members of marginalized groups would be incorporated into the political community, not only as individuals, but also through their groups, and their rights would depend, in part, on their group membership
- “National Minorities” are those who reject the idea of integrating into the common culture, such as Quebecois or Indigenous people
- Other groups accept the idea of national integration, but feel that certain forms of differential treatment are required to achieve this (ex. gay marriage)
- Why don’t these groups stuck with the common social rights demanded by the working class?
- Some claim that it’s the result of self seeking group leaders who encourage feelings of resentment and inequality among groups in order to justify maintaining control over them and receiving government grants. In this view, group elites have an incentive to keep group members in a position of disadvantage
- Clear trend among members of many groups to demand certain forms of differentiated citizenship
- Struggles against the inequalities inherent in this economic hierarchy generate a politics of redistribution
26
Q
Politics of redistribution
A
- We can’t begin to take down social/cultural problems until we dismantle the economic inequalities minorities face
- This is true for racial minorities, but not necessarily true for minorities such as white gay people, specifically gay men.
27
Q
Burqa ban
A
- Banned in Quebec schools, jobs, and parliament, as well as many European countries
- Treat people with equal respect in areas touching on religious belief and observance
28
Q
Unassailable assumption
A
- all beliefs must be based on an unassailable assumption. (foundationalism)
- Any valid belief must be indisputable and reasonable to all regardless of faith or culture in order to be considered valid
- Human beings are equal bearers of human dignity (also this)
29
Q
Consciences and equal respect for conscience
A
- The faculty with which we search for lifes meaning (closely related to human dignity)
- Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right includes freedom to change religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or in private, to manifest religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.
30
Q
Vulnerability
A
- A faculty which can be damaged by basic worldly conditions
31
Q
Very basic definition of Equality
A
To give equal respect to conscience requires tailoring worldly conditions to protect freedom of belief and freedom of practice
32
Q
Accommodationist principle
A
- Where the state isn’t allowed to impose a substantial burden on a persons free exercise of religion without a compelling state interest
- Ex. Not firing someone for refusing to work on a religious holiday
33
Q
Bill 21
A
- The Quebec religious garb ban law
- Secularism
- Civil servants on duty must be neutral or whatever
- Myth of benign neglect
- Citizens and civil servants don’t express cultural commitments
34
Q
Five arguments made about the burqa ban
A
- Security requires that people show their faces and:
- The kind of transparency and reciprocity which is proper to relations between citizens is impeded by covering part of the face
- There are work arounds to this. People aren’t owed someone else’s face. We got by just fine when COVID happened. - The burqa is a symbol of male domination that symbolizes the domination of women
- if we suddenly want to care about women in religious spaces, Christianity/Catholicism are also fucked
- Society’s saturated with symbols of male domination/supremacy that treat women as objects, sex, magazines, plastic surgery, etc - Women only wear it because they’re coerced
- Again, so many other things in society are coercing to women. This is whatever - It should be band cause it’s hot and uncomfortable
- fucking stupid
- All bad arguments. Equal respect for conscience requires us to reject all 5. Because people have the right to do whatever they want.
35
Q
Citizenship
A
- As a shared identity, imposing both rights and duties to support the state (duty to pay taxes, serve in the military) and its political processes (vote, deliberative, etc.)
36
Q
Indigenous decolonization
A
- Challenges some of our deeply held ideas around citizenship as integral to rights, states, and democracy
- For Indigenous people in Canada
- These notions invoke histories of erasure and oppression
37
Q
Truth and Reconciliation commission
A
- In 2015, the committee documented the consequences of the residential school policy, in which the Canadian democratic governments legitimated genocide & human rights abuses against children
- State funded, church-led abuses
- Hideous atrocities, tore families apart, rampant sexual and physical abuse, legacy of destruction (psychological, social, familial) all in the name of “assimilation”
38
Q
Canadian history in relation to Indigenous genocide
A
- Saw Indigenous people as subjects, not citizens
- State oppression of Indigenous people has been justified and encoded into law
- The Indian Act
- Sought to reduce diverse forms of Indigenous culture to “Indian”
- How does a state reconcile with those who have survived, though not unscathed, the assaults of state policy over the course of a couple of centuries? With those people who the state attempted to erase? Either:
- Either accept that the state is legitimate and accommodate Indigenous citizenship
OR - This won’t work. Canadian citizenship is foundationally problematic unless legitimized by Indigenous citizenships, sovereignty, and law
- Non-consultation, no negotiation of what counts as citizenship
39
Q
Indigenous resistance and how to help reconcile
A
- Has been an irritation to (some of) the settler population
- Social justice initiatives and movements pose legal and constitutional challenges
- Primary benefactors of the state, namely settler Canadians, are unable to see, to recognize, to know, the structures of privilege created for them and denied to others
- This privilege makes it hard to see the intergenerational depravities of inadequate housing, water, medical facilities, education, basic care that citizenship should entail
- How to fix this:
- Instead of looking at what makes us the same, pay attention to what makes us different
- DIFFERENTIATED CITIZENSHIP
- Pay attention to differences as a way of inclusion and participation of everyone in full citizenship
40
Q
Reconciliation
A
- Requires engagement with history and public policy, for without empathy, one cannot recognize the awful consequences borne by colonized people
- This still might not work. Would Indigenous communities be “invited” in? By whom? Who has that authority over them?
- Not a group hug, but a robust set of processes which can address the intergenerational consequences of colonialism- then vs now.
41
Q
Indigenous citizenship
A
- Grounded not in rights and duties of membership but practiced in relationship to Indigenous land.
- The state is continuously working to divorce Indigenous people from their lands, violating what John Burrows calls “landed citizenship”
42
Q
Landed Citizenship
A
- A prior claim to a continuing relationship between peoples land, held as a consequence of non-consent to colonialism. Talks about “our land” as if it’s freely shared
- Indigenously: “our births, lives, and deaths on this site have brought us into citizenship with the land.”
- How might citizenship take up this call?
- Take up the TRC calls to action
- UNDRIP
- Includes a right to self determination
- Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty must be recognized as prior to Canadian citizenship and to Canadian sovereignty
- For Indigenous people, the state is the oppressor
43
Q
State legitimacy/illegitimacy
A
- Implies a moral obligation, the right to make binding law/state policy. This implies a political obligation.
- State illegitimacy implies that there’s no binding political obligation
44
Q
Anarchism/Philosophical anarchism
A
- The view that governments are never acceptable or at least that all existing states are illegitimate
- Philosophical anarchism
- Doesn’t take the legitimacy of the state as a ground for eliminating or opposing states. Instead, this illegitimacy removes any strong moral presumption in favour of, obedience to, or compliance with, our own or other existing states.
- Doesn’t take up arms, but thinks or whatever?????
45
Q
10 central human capabilities
A
- Life
- Being able to live to the end of a human life of normal length; not dying prematurely or before one’s life is so reduced as to be not worth living. - Bodily Health.
- Being able to have good health, including reproductive health; to be adequately nourished; to have adequate shelter. - Bodily Integrity.
- Being able to move freely from place to place; to be secure against violent assault, having opportunities for sexual satisfaction and for choice in matters of reproduction. - Senses, Imagination, and Thought.
Being able to use the senses, to imagine, think, and reason. Right to an adequate education. Being able to create works and events of one’s own choice, religious, literary, musical, and so forth. Freedom to create. Being able to have pleasurable experiences, and to avoid non-necessary pain. - Emotions.
- Being able to have attachments to things and people outside ourselves; to love those who love and care for us, to grieve at their absence. Not having one’s emotional development blighted by fear and anxiety. (Supporting this capability means supporting forms of human association that can be shown to be crucial in their development.) - Practical Reason. Being able to form a conception of the good and to engage in critical reflection about the planning of one’s life. (This entails protection for the liberty of conscience.)
- Affiliation
- Being able to live with and toward others, to recognize and show concern for other human beings, to engage in social interaction; to have empathy; to have the capability for both justice and friendship. (Protecting this capability means protecting institutions that constitute and nourish such forms of affiliation, and also protecting the freedom of assembly and political speech.)
- Having self-respect; being able to be treated as a dignified being whose worth is equal to that of others. This entails protections against discrimination on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, caste, ethnicity, or national origin. - Other Species. Being able to live with concern for and in relation to animals, plants, and the world of nature.
- Play. Being able to laugh, to play, to enjoy recreational activities
- Control over one’s Environment
- Political: Being able to participate in political choices that govern one’s life; having the right of political participation, protections of free speech and association.
- Material: Being able to own property (both land and movable goods); having the right to employment on an equal basis with others. Being able to work as a human being, exercising practical reason and entering into meaningful relationships of mutual recognition with other workers.
46
Q
Relations of non dominance
A
- emphasizes the importance of social relationships for freedom and the need to create social environments where everyone is protected from domination.
- There shouldn’t be “superior” identities or social groups. Relationships shouldn’t be based on that.
