Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T08:51:32.690Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Dissident Citizenship: Democratic Theory, Political Courage, and Activist Women

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Abstract

In this essay, I argue that contemporary democratic theory gives insufficient attention to the important contributions dissenting citizens make to democratic life. Guided by the dissident practices of activist women, I devefop a more expansive conception of citizenship that recognizes dissent and an ethic of political courage as vital elements of democratic participation. I illustrate how this perspective on citizenship recasts and rechims women's courageous dissidence by reconsidering the well-known story of Rosa Parks.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ackelsberg, Martha A. 1988. Communities, resistance, and women's activism: Some implications for a democratic polity. In Women and the politics of empowerment. See Bookman and Morgen 1988.Google Scholar
Anzaldúa, Gloria, ed. 1990. Making face, making soul: Haciendo caras. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The human condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Aristotle, . 1962a. Nichomachean ethics. Trans.Ostwald, Martin. Indianapolis: Bobbs‐Merrill.Google Scholar
Aristotle, 1962b. The Politics. Trans.Sinclair, T. A.London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Barber, Benjamin. 1984. Strong democracy: Participatory politics for a new age. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bayard de Vola, Lorraine. 1997. Heroes, martyrs, and modiers: Maternal identity politics in revolutionary Nicaragua. Public lecture at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, February 13.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 1992. Models of public space: Hannah Arendt, the liberal tradition, and Jürgen Habermas. In Habermas and the public sphere. See Calhoun 1992.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla ed. 1996a. Democracy and difference: Contesting the boundaries of the political. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla 1996b. The democratic moment and the problem of difference. In Democracy and difference. See Benhabib 1996a.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla 1996c. Toward a deliberative model of democratic legitimacy. In Democracy and difference. See Benhabib 1996a.Google Scholar
Bickford, Susan. 1996. The dissonance of democracy: Listening, conflict, and citizenship. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Bookman, Ann and Morgen, Sandra, eds. 1988. Women and the politics of empowerment. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Bowles, Samuel and Gintis, Herbert. 1986. Democracy and capitalism: Property, commu' nity, and the contradictions of modern social thought. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Brown, Wendy. 1988. Manhood and politics: A feminist reading in political theory. Totowa, Nj: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Burks, Mary Fair. 1990. Trailblazers: Women in the Montgomery bus boycott. In Women in the civil rights movement. See Crawford et al., 1990.Google Scholar
Calhoun, Craig, ed. 1992. Habermas and the public sphere. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Calvert, Gregory Nevala. 1991. Democracy from the heart: Spiritual values, decentralism, and democratic idealism in the movement of the 1960s. Eugene, OR: Communitas Press.Google Scholar
Carter, April. 1973. Direct action and liberal democracy. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Clark, Septima and Brown, Cynthia Stokes. 1986. Ready from within: Septima Cfork and the civil rights movement. Navarro, CA: Wild Trees Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Jean. 1996. Democracy, difference, and the right of privacy. In Democracy and difference. See Benhabib 1996a.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua. 1989. Deliberation and democratic legitimacy. In The good polity, eds.Hamlin, Alan and Pettit, Philip. New York: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua 1996. Procedure and substance in deliberative democracy. In Democracy and difference. See Benhabib 1996a.Google Scholar
Coole, Diana. 1993. Women in political theory: From ancient misogyny to contemporary feminism, 2d ed. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reiner.Google Scholar
Cooper, Davina. 1995. Power in struggle. Feminism, sexuality, and the state. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Crawford, Curtis. 1973. Civil disobedience: A casebook. New York: Crowell.Google Scholar
Crawford, Vicki L. 1990. Beyond the human self: Grassroots activists in the Mississippi civil rights movement. In Women in the civil rights movement. See Crawford et al., 1990.Google Scholar
Crawford, Vicki L., Rouse, Jacqueline Anne, and Woods, Barbara, eds. 1990. Women in the civil rights movement: Trailbhzers and torchbearers 1941‐1965. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Dill, Bonnie Thornton. 1988. Making your job good yourself: Domestic service and the construction of personal dignity. In Women and the politics of empowerment. See Bookman and Morgen 1988.Google Scholar
Dietz, Mary. 1985. Citizenship with a feminist face: The problem with matetnal thinking. PoliticalTheory 13(1): 1937.Google Scholar
Dietz, Mary 1987. Context is all: Feminism and theories of citizenship. Daedalus 116(4): 124.Google Scholar
Dietz, Mary 1991. Hannah Atendt and feminist politics. In Feminist Interpretations and political theory. See Shanley and Pateman 1991.Google Scholar
Dryzek, John. 1990. Discursive democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781139173810CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dryzek, John 1996a. Democracy in capitalist times: ldeah, limits, and struggles. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dryzek, John 1996b. Political inclusion and the dynamics of democratization. American Political Science Review 90(3): 475–87.10.2307/2082603CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 1978. Tahngrights seriously. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Durr, Virginia Foster. 1985. Outside the magic circle: The autobiography of Virginia Foster.Google Scholar
Durr, , ed. Barnard, Hollinger F. University: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Echols, Alice. 1989. Daring to be bad: Radical feminism in America 1967? 975. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Eley, George. 1992. Nations, publics, and political cultures: Placing Habermas in the nineteenth‐century. In Habermas and the public sphere. See Calhoun 1992.Google Scholar
Elshtain, Jean Bethke. 1981. Public man, private woman. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Elshtain, Jean Bethke 1982a. Antigone's daughters, democracy 2(2): 4659.Google Scholar
Elshtain, Jean Bethke 1982b. Feminism, family and community. Dissent 29(4): 442–49.Google Scholar
Evans, Sara M. 1979. Personal politics: The roots of women's liberation in the civil rights movement and the new left. New York: Vintage Books/Random House.Google Scholar
Evans, Sara M 1993. Women's history and political theory: Toward a feminist approach to public life. In Visible women. See Hewitt and Lebsock 1993.Google Scholar
Evans, Sara M., and Boyte, Harry. 1986. Free spaces: The sources of democratic change in America. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Russell, Gever, Martha, Minh‐ha, Trinh T., and West, Cornel, eds. 1990. Out there: Marginalization and contemporary cultures. New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art and Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fishkin, James. 1991. Deliberative democracy. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Flacks, Richard. 1996. Reviving democratic activism: Thoughts about strategy in a dark time. In Radical democracy. Identity, citizenship, and the state, ed.Trend, David. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fraser, Nancy 1989. Unruly practices: Power, discourse and gender in contemporary social theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Fraser, Nancy 1992. Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. In Habermas and the public sphere. See Calhoun 1992.Google Scholar
Fraser, Nancy 1997. Justice interruptus: Critical reflections on the postsociatist condition. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Frederickson, Mary E. 1993. “Each one is dependent on the other”: Southern church‐women, racial reform, and the process of transformation, 1880‐1940. In Visible women. See Hewitt and Lebsock 1993.Google Scholar
Goldwin, Robert A., ed. 1969. On civil disobedience: American essays, old and new. Chicago: Rand McNally.Google Scholar
Gould, Carol. 1996. Diversity and democracy: Representing difference. In Democracy and difference. See Benhabib 1996a.Google Scholar
Graetz, Robert S. 1991. Montgomery: A white preacher's memoir. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jurgen. 1987. Lifeworld and system: A critique of functionalist reason. Vol. 2 of The theory of communicative action. Boston: Beacon Books.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jurgen 1989. The structural transformation of the public sphere. Trans.Burger, T. and Lawrence, F.Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jurgen 1996. Three normative models of democracy. In Democracy and difference. See Benhabib 1996a.Google Scholar
Hampton, Henry and Fayer, Steve, eds. 1990. Voices of freedom: An oral history of the civil rights movement from the 1950s through the 1980s. New York: Bantam Books.Google Scholar
Hare, A. Paul and Blumberg, Herbert H., eds. 1968. Nonviolent direct action: American cases, social'psychological analyses. Washington, DC: Corpus Books.Google Scholar
Harris, Paul, ed. 1989. Civii disobedience. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Hartsock, Nancy. 1983. Money, sex, and power: Toward a feminist historical materialism. Boston: Northeastern University Press.Google Scholar
Herbst, Susan. 1994. Politics at the margin: Historical studies ofpubL. expression outside the mainstream. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hewitt, Nancy A. and Lebsock, Suzanne, eds. 1993. Visible women: New essays on American activism. Urbana: University of Illinois Ptess.Google Scholar
Hine, Darlene Clark. 1993. The Housewives' League of Detroit: Black women and economic nationalism. In Visible women. See Hewitt and Lebsock 1993.Google Scholar
Homer, . 1974. The Mad. Trans.Fitzgerald, Robert. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Dou‐bleday.Google Scholar
Hooks, Bell. 1989. Talking back: Thinking feminist, thinking block. Boston: South End Press.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Temma. 1982. Female consciousness and collective action: The case of Barcelona, 1910‐1918. Signs 7(3): 545–66.10.1086/493899CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Martin Luther Jr. 1958. Stride toward freedom: The Montgomery story. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers.Google Scholar
King, Martin Luther Jr 1963. Letter from Birmingham jail. In Why we can't wait, Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Mentor/Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Laclau, Ernesto and Mouffe, Chantal. 1985. Hegemony and socialist strategy: Toward a radical democratic politics. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Landes, Joan B. 1996. The performance of citizenship: Democracy, gender, and difference in the French revolution. In Democracy and difference. See Benhabib 1996a.Google Scholar
Lane, Dorothy. 1995 [1967]. The Pentagon, October 1967. Reprinted in Lynd and Lynd 1995.Google Scholar
Langston, Donna. 1990. The women of Highlander. In Women in the civil rights movement. See Crawford et al., 1990.Google Scholar
Larana, Enrique, Johnston, Hank, and Gusfield, Joseph R. 1994. New social movements: From ideology to identity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Laslett, Barbara, Brenner, Johanna, and Arat, Yesim. 1995. Rethinking the political. Gender, resistance, and the state. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lorde, Audre. 1984a. The transformation of silence into language and action. In Sister outsider. Trumansberg, NY: Crossing Press.Google Scholar
Lorde, Audre 1984b. The uses of anger: Women responding to racism. In Sister outsider. Trumansberg, NY: Crossing Press.Google Scholar
Lynd, Staughton, and Lynd, Alice, eds. 1995. Nonviolence in America: A documentary history. Revised ed. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1981. After virtue. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press.Google Scholar
Mahoney, William. 1995 [1961]. In Pursuit of freedom. Liberation (September): 711. Reprinted in Lynd and Lynd 1995.Google Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane. 1980. Beyond adversary democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane 1990. Feminism and democracy. American prospect (Spring): 126–39.Google Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane 1992. A deliberative theory of interest representation. In Thepolitics of interests, ed.Patracca, Mark P.Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane 1996. Using power/fighting power: The polity. In Democracy and difference. See Benhabib 1996a.Google Scholar
Marcus, Sharon. 1992. Fighting bodies, fighting words: A theory and politics of rape prevention. In Feminists theorize the political, eds.Butler, Judith and Scott, Joan W.New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
McAllister, Pam. 1988. You can't Ml the spirit. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers.Google Scholar
McCarthy, Thomas. 1992. Practical discourse: On the relation of morality to politics. In Habermas and the public sphere. See Calhoun 1992.Google Scholar
Morris, Aldon D. and Mueller, Carol McClurg. 1992. Frontiers in social movement theory. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal. 1992a. Democratic citizenship and the political community. In Dimensions ofraacal democracy, ed.Mouffe, . London: Verso.Google Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal 1992b. Democratic politics today. In Dimensions of radical democracy, ed.Mouffe, . London: Verso.Google Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal 1992c. Feminism, citizenship and radical democratic politics. In Feminists theorize the political, ed.Butler, Judith and Scott, Joan. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mueller, Carol. 1990. Ella Baker and the origins of “participatory democracy.” In Women in the civil rights movement. See Crawford et al., 1990.Google Scholar
Nozick, Robert. 1974. Anarchy, state, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Okin, Susan Moller. 1979. Women in western political thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Parks, Rosa. 1956. Audio interview with Sidney Roger. Los Angeles: Pacifica Tape Archive.Google Scholar
Parks, Rosa 1977. Recollections. In My soul is rested, ed.Raines, Howell. New York: Putnam.Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole. 1970. Partidpation and democratic theory. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511720444CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pateman, Carole 1988. The sexual contract. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole 1989. The disorder of women: Democracy, feminism andpolitical theory. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Payne, Charles. 1990. Men led, but women organized: Movement participation of women in the Mississippi delta. In Women in the civilrights movement. See Crawford et al., 1990.Google Scholar
Payne, Charles 1995. I've got the light of freedom: The organizing tradition and the Mississippi freedom struggle. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Plato, . 1990. Laches. Trans.Lamb, W. R. M.Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Plato, 1992. Republic. Trans.Gruber, G. M. A.Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Rachman, Stanley. 1990. Fear and courage. New York: W. H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1971. A theory of justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John 1985. Justice as fairness: Political not metaphysical. Philosophy and Public Affairs 14: 223–51.Google Scholar
Robinson, Jo Ann. 1987. The Montgomery bits boycott and the women who started it. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.Google Scholar
Rosenblum, Nancy L., ed. 1989. LiberaUsm and the moral life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.10.4159/harvard.9780674864443CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roydhouse, Marion W. 1993. Bridging chasms: Community and the southern YWCA. In Visible women. See Hewitt and Lebsock 1993.Google Scholar
Ruddick, Sara. 1980. Maternal thinking. Feminist Studies 6(2): 342–67.10.2307/3177749CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruddick, Sara 1989. Maternal thinking: Toward a politics of peace. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Sandel, Michael. 1982. Liberalism and the limits of justice. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sandel, Michael, ed. 1984. Uberalism and its critics. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Saxonhouse, Arlene W. 1985. Women in the history of political thought: Ancient Greece to Machiaveui. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Nancy. 1995. Women and courage in Greek and Jewish political thought. Paper presented at the American Political Science Association annual meeting, Chicago, September 1‐4.Google Scholar
Scott, James C. 1985. Weapons of the weak: Everyday forms of peasant resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Scott, James C 1990. Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Shanley, Mary Lyndon and Pateman, Carole. 1991. Feminist interpretations andpolitical theory. University Patk: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. 1995 [1962]. SNCC statement of purpose. Reprinted in Lynd and Lynd 1995.Google Scholar
Susser, Ida. 1988. Working‐class women, social protest, and changing ideologies. In Women and the politics of empowerment. See Bookman and Morgen 1988.Google Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney. 1994. Power in movement: Social movements, collective action and politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Verta and Whittier, Nancy E. 1992. Collective identity in social movement communities: Lesbian feminist mobilization. In Frontiers in social movement theory. See Morris and Mueller 1992.Google Scholar
Thompson, Mark. 1994. Long road to freedom: The Advocate history of the gay and lesbian movement. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Thoreau, Henry David. 1989 [1849]. Resistance to civil government. Reprinted in The American intellectual tradition. Vol 1, 1630?865, 2d ed. Eds., Hollinger, David A. and Capper, Charles. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Uttal, Lynet. 1990. Nods that silence. In Making face, making soul: Haciendo caras. See Anzaldua 1990.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael. 1970. Obligations.Essays on disobedience, war, and citizenship. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Weber, David R. 1978. Civil disobedience in America: A documentary history. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
West, Guida and Blumberg, Rhoda Lois. 1990. Women and social protest. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
WETA. 1991. Making sense of the sixties. Part 4: Picking up the pieces. Alexandria, VA: PBS Video.Google Scholar
Yamato, Gloria. 1990. Something about the subject makes it hard to name. In Making face, making soul: Hadendo caras. See Anzaldua 1990.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 1990. Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion 1996. Communication and the other: Beyond deliberative democracy. In Democracy and difference. See Benhabib 1996a.CrossRefGoogle Scholar