Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T00:43:41.641Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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.

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

Aristotle. 2004. On the generation of animals. Trans. Platt, Arthur. New York: Kessinger Publishing.Google Scholar
Associated Press. 2006. ‘Roe v. Wade for men” suit filed. CBS News online, March 9. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/09/national/main1385124.shtml.Google Scholar
Baby Center. 2005. Single parents by choice–‐male abortion. http://bbs.babycenter.com/board/baby/babyfamily/1395934/thread/2491677.Google Scholar
BBC News. 2006. U.S. men fight child‐support laws. March 9. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4789090.stm.Google Scholar
Burke, Carolyn, Schor, Naomi, and Whitford, Margaret, eds. 1994. Engaging with Irigaray. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Clatterbaugh, Kenneth. 2000. Literature of U.S. men's movements. Signs 25 (3): 883–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, Kristen. 2000. When fathers’ rights are mothers’ duties: The failure of equal protection in Miller v. Albright. Yale Journal 109 (7): 1669–708.Google Scholar
Cornell, Drucilla. 1995. The imaginary domain. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cornell, Drucilla. 1998. At the heart of freedom. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DadsNow. N.d. We must now grant to fathers the same right to be in the family as we have granted women to be in the workplace. http://www.dadsnow.org.Google Scholar
Deutscher, Penelope. 2002. A politics of impossible difference: The later work of Luce Irigaray. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Esenberg, Rick. 2006. A “male abortion” right? Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel online. April 14. http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=415922.Google Scholar
Fathers, and Families, . 2006. Welcome to fathers and families. http://www.fathersand‐families.org/site/index.php.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund. 1965. Femininity. In New introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. Trans. Strachey, James. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Hirsch, Elizabeth, and Olson, Gary A. 1996. Je—Luce Irigaray: A Meeting with Luce Irigaray. Elizabeth Hirsh and Gaëtan Brulotte. Hypatia 10 (2): 93–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. 1985a. Speculum of the other woman. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. 1985b. This sex which is not one. Trans. Porter, Catharine with Burke, Carolyn. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. 1993a. An ethics of sexual difference. Trans. Burke, Carolyn and Gill, Gillian C.Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. 1993b. Je, tu, nous: Toward a culture of difference. Trans. Martin, Alison. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. 1993c. Sexes and genealogies. Trans. Gill, Gillian C.New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. 1994. Thinking the difference. Trans. Montin, Karin. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. 1996. I love to you. Trans. Martin, Alison. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. 2001. Democracy begins between two. Trans. Anderson, Kirsteen. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. 2003. Between East and West. Trans. Pulhacek, Stephen. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Kellmeyer, Steve. 2006. Matt Dubay and eminent domain. Renew America online. March 17. http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/kellmeyer/060317.Google Scholar
Lacan, Jacques. 2007. Ecrits. Trans. Fink, Bruce. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
LeDoeuff, Michéle. 2003. The sex of knowing. Trans. Hamer, Kathryn and Code, Lorraine. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Margolis, Matt. 2002. The illegitimacy of fatherhood. August 20. http://www.mattmargolis.com/blog/archives/2002/08.Google Scholar
National Center for Men. 2006. Press release: Roe vs. Wade … for men. http://nationalcenterformen.org/page7.shtml.Google Scholar
National Fathers’ Resource Center. 2002/2006. Fathers for equal rights. http://www.fathers4kids.com/html/Home.htm.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha C. 2000. Sex and social justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pride, Ray. 1998. Drew romance. Film and TV: Off Camera. http://weeklywire.com/ww/02‐16‐98/chicago_offcamera.html.Google Scholar
Sacks, Glenn, and Thompson, Dianna. 2002. Pennsylvania abortion case raises question of choice for men. http://www.glennsacks.com/pennsylvania_abortion_case.htm.Google Scholar
Scott, Joan W. 1988. Deconstructing equality‐versus‐difference: Or, the uses of poststructuralist theory for feminism. Feminist Studies 14 (1): 32–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shanley, Mary. 1995. Unwed fathers’ rights, adoption, and sex equality: Gender neutrality and the perpetuation of patriarchy. Columbia Law Review 95 (1): 60–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smerconish, Michael. 2002. Whose life is it anyway? August 8. http://www.mastalk.com/daily_news2/08_08_2002.htm.Google Scholar
Venesky, Tom. 2002. Plains (PA) man goes to court in effort to halt abortion. Free Republic. July 30. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/724652/posts.Google Scholar
Wittig, Monique. 1992. The straight mind. New York: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Whitehead, John W. 2006. The human element in abortion politics. The Rutherford Institute. August 12. http://www.rutherford.org/articles_db/commentary.asp?record_id=179.Google Scholar
Young, Cathy. 2003. Aborting equality. Reason online. http://www.reason.com/0304/co.cy.aborting.shtml.Google Scholar