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When Equality Justifies Women's Subjection: Luce Irigaray's Critique of Equality and the Fathers’ Rights Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Serene J. Khader
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Abstract

The “fathers’ rights” movement represents policies that undermine women's reproductive autonomy as furthering the cause of gender equality. Khader argues that this movement exploits two general weaknesses of equality claims identified by Luce Irigaray. She shows that Irigaray criticizes equality claims for their appeal to a genderneutral universal subject and for their acceptance of our existing symbolic repertoire. This article examines how the plaintiffs’ rhetoric in two contemporary “fathers’ rights” court cases takes advantage of these weaknesses.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , December 2008 , pp. 48 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 by Hypatia, Inc.

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