Political theory: concepts and foundations

Justice, Gender, And the Family

Much of what needs to be done to end the inequalities of gender, and to work in the direction of ending gender itself, will also help equalize opportunity from one family to another" (Okin, 17). Therein lies the central message that Okin attempts to convey within her book, Justice, Gender, and the Family. Through her analysis of contemporary theories of justice, and a discussion of the inequalities that are inherent to gender-based marriage and family, Okin claims that socially constructed, and maintained, injustice within the private sphere results in American women being equally repressed within the public sphere. However laudable these intentions and claims may be, Okin ultimately fails to provide the necessary empirical evidence to support and validate her claims. Justice, Gender, and the Family, therefore, emerges as a valuable commentary on present social institutions and a work of commendable moral sentiment, but contributes little to the existing body of academic knowledge on either gender or the family.

Although Okin addresses the wide range of existing theories of justice, such as those promoted by Rawls, Walzer, MacIntyre, and Nozick, and is generally critical of their failure to address gender inequalities, much of the criticism is extremely subjective and lacking in supportive evidence. The major omission from Okin's discussion is the philosophical question of whether the concept of justice has any role to play within the arena of the family, and if so, what form this justice should take. Additionally, despite pointing out the many perceived failings within the present theories of justice, Okin herself fails to put forward any cohesive or viable alternative. Another major drawback within this area of the book is the author's determination to evaluate theories, which have been formulated to deal with society in general, on the basis of their limited application to the area of the family, and more specifically to gender inequalities.

In linking the injustice that exists within the family to the wider societal injustices, Okin concentrates upon gender's role in the creation of an unfair distribution of both power and unpaid labor within the family. However, although she raises many valid and unacceptable areas of continued inequality between males and females, both within the family and within general society, her proposed solution of abolishing gender - which she defines as, "the deeply entrenched institutionalization of sexual difference" (6) - and gender roles does little to attract credibility or academic support for her views. The major difficulty in adopting this unilateral approach to the problem is the almost impossible task of dissecting such a sociologically complex concept as the family into separate issues that can be objectively studied in isolation. Although Okin is correct in pointing out the important role played by gender within the family, she provides no empirical evidence to support the generalized claim that its abolition would have a positive effect upon justice or equality. Justice, Gender, and the Family fails to adequately address the fact that; although there are certain universally accepted effects of gender (shared gender phenomena), which lend themselves to sociological study, the majority of its influences within the family are so specific that they differ from family to family and from culture to culture. There is no existing evidence to support the claim that the abolition of gender and gender roles, even if it were possible, would have any particular effect upon justice within the family.