Show Notes
Catharine MacKinnon’s Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (1989) challenges two dominant ways of thinking about politics: liberalism, which wants to protect us from the power of the state, and Marxism, which wants to liberate us through the power of the state. What if neither is good enough to emancipate women? Mackinnon explains why patriarchal power permeates all forms of modern politics. David discusses what she thinks we can do about it.
Recommended version to purchase:
Catharine A. MacKinnon, Toward a feminist theory of the state (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).
Going Deeper:
Lorna Finlayson in the LRB on Catharine MacKinnon, feminism, and the law Catharine A. MacKinnon, Sexual harassment of working women: a case of sex discrimination (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979). Drucilla Cornell, ‘Sexual difference, the feminine, and equivalency: a critique of MacKinnon’s Toward a feminist theory of the state’, Yale Law Journal, vol. 100, no. 7, article 12. The NYTimes on Catharine MacKinnon and sexual harassment Catharine Mackinnon for The Atlantic on #MeToo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Talking Politics: HISTORY OF IDEAS
A special episode in which David answers some of the audience's questions about the second series of History of Ideas. From how he chooses which writers and works to talk about, to whether Boris Johnson is the ultimate Benthamite and whether the idea of a pleasure machine isn't - in fact - totally rational. We really enjoyed making these podcasts for people to enjoy during lockdown. To support History of Ideas and Talking Politics, you can become a member by clicking here. For £3 a month, you can enjoy Talking Politics without adverts in the middle of the discussions. Thank you for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Judith Shklar’s Ordinary Vices (1984) made the case that the worst of all the vices is cruelty. But that meant we needed to be more tolerant of some other common human failings, including snobbery, betrayal and hypocrisy. David explores what she had to say about some of the other authors in this series – including Bentham and Nietzsche – and asks what price we should be willing to pay for putting cruelty first among the vices.
Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974) was designed as a rebuttal to Rawls but it was so much more than that. It offered a defence of the minimal state that appealed to the writers of The Sopranos and a vision of utopia that appealed to the founders of Silicon Valley. David explores what Nozick wanted to achieve and identifies the surprising radicalism behind his political minimalism.
John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971) changed the face of modern political philosophy by reinventing the question of what constitutes fairness. From ‘the veil of ignorance’ to ‘reflective equilibrium’ it introduced new ways of thinking about the problem of justice along with new problems for thinking about politics. David discusses Rawls’s influence on what happened next.
Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949) is one of the founding texts of modern feminism and one of the most important books of the twentieth century. It covers everything from ancient myth to modern psychoanalysis to ask what the relations between men and women have in common with other kinds of oppression, from slavery to colonialism. It also offers some radical suggestions for how both women and men can be liberated from their condition.