Sex and Social Justice by Martha C. Nussbaum

Sex and Social Justice Reviews

• 
  Nick Klagge

  For a couple of years now, I've had in my head that I should read something by Martha Nussbaum. I'm not sure where this came from; most likely from reading Brain Pickings. For some reason I finally got around to it now. This book was actually not my first choice--I was more interested to read _The Fragility of Goodness_ and _Upheavals of Thought_--but neither was available at the Brooklyn or NY public libraries. And wow, my third choice is a five star book anyway!
  
  I told my wife that I think Nussbaum should be taught as the culmination of the Core Curriculum at Columbia. She integrates insights from both the philosophical and literary canons, but is not afraid to take a critical view of either.
  
  I knew I would enjoy reading Nussbaum when she talked in her first essay about her "method" as a philosopher. I'm not sure I've ever before seen a philosopher even acknowledge having a "method," rather than presuming to speak from a neutral platform of reason. This was in the context of her critique of cultural relativism, where she nonetheless acknowledges the risk of projecting Western values onto people of other cultures. She says that her method involves spending a lot of time listening to women from developing countries talk about their lives (in her extensive work with UN development programs). In general, she does a remarkable job of supporting her points with arguments drawn from classic literature, philosophy, law, applied development work, and (very occasionally) her own life. This is no glib Malcolm Gladwell-style approach where a writer learns just enough from the real experts to craft a good story. I get the feeling when reading Nussbaum that she would be an intellectual match for the top minds in any one of the fields she draws from.
  
  OK, I haven't even written about the content yet. Although the book was published twenty years ago, many of the issues of "sex and social justice" she addresses are still with us. (Legalization of gay marriage being the main exception.) I won't try to summarize the content here, as there is a lot of it and it is wide-ranging since the book is a collection of essays rather than a unitary whole. Instead, I will list a few of the areas that this book made me think more deeply about or changed my perspective on:
  -The "capabilities approach" to human development, pioneered by Nussbaum and Amartya Sen (which underlies a lot of modern UN development policies). I had a loose understanding of it, but mostly thought it was an impractical approach that non-economists used to score debating points against economists for the simplicity of measures like GDP (without having a better alternative to offer). Her argument in favor of this approach is extremely persuasive and made me revise my opinion of it.
  -The liberal philosophical tradition in general, particularly via Kant, Mill, and Rawls. I had developed a somewhat critical view of the limits of the liberal tradition, which I associated with libertarian and neoliberal views in modern politics. Nussbaum completely made me rethink this view. She does a great job of critiquing liberalism from within, showing where it has not gone far enough by its own lights (for example, focusing on the family as a unit of analysis rather than understanding inequalities across individuals within a family). She has interesting things to say about the social construction of preferences and where we should and should not second-guess individual choices as revealing of their "true" wants and needs. She is, again, not afraid to critique these philosophical giants where she thinks they erred. And she makes it clear how these ideas can be applied to real problems of justice in our current world. Finally, she had a strong critique of Nel Noddings' care ethics, which I reviewed favorably about seven years ago.
  -Her extended discussion of homosexual behavior in ancient Greece was quite interesting and impacted my general perspective on sexuality. She argues quite persuasively (drawing on some other scholars) that, while of course there were both homosexual and heterosexual acts in ancient Greece, that people did not in general view themselves as having a stable and ingrained preference for sexual relations with one sex or the other. (They did divide people up, but along different lines.) She uses this analysis to discourage us from "naturalizing" any of our assumptions about sex and its role in life. (It's amazing, as she notes, that until recently, very little was understood about sexuality in the classical period, as scholars had shied away from it as an "untoward" topic--in many cases there were not even accepted translations of various Greek and Latin terms!) I think I was already persuaded in this way from reading NK Jemisin's "Broken Earth" novels, but it is also great and complementary to see it in philosophical format.
  -The final essay on Woolf's "To The Lighthouse" is extraordinary and made me want to read the book again. My initial response was wow, there's so much I didn't get out of it when I read it in Lit Hum. But of course, that was fourteen years ago (!). Perhaps significantly, I also read this essay just after my 5-year wedding anniversary. In it, Nussbaum discusses some truths about human relationships that I have barely started to understand myself.
  
  I'm really looking forward to reading more of her work!
• 
  ζανλίκ

  [ κυρά Μάρθα, σ' αγαπώ και θέλω να το ξέρεις ]
  
  Δεν νομίζω πως είμαι σε θέση να γράψω μια καλή κριτική γιατί ήμουν πολύ on and off με το συγκεκριμένο, αλλά είμαι σίγουρη πως είναι από τα καλύτερα δείγματα φεμινιστικής γραφής που έχω διαβάσει στη ζωή μου. Η γραφή είναι τόσο smooth χωρίς να προβάλλει ακραιότητες, η επιχειρηματολογία είναι αρκετά πλούσια και σε ορισμένα σημεία ένιωθα πως θα μπορούσα να τα λέω κι εγώ αυτά που γράφει. Και ίσως να τα λέω από εδώ και στο εξής. Γινόταν ολοένα και καλύτερο χωρίς να κουράζει ιδιαίτερα, έφευγε νεράκι σε πολλά σημεία και εξέτασε μια αρκετά ευρεία θεματολογία που θεωρώ πως καλύπτεται παραπάνω από "επαρκώς" και θα έπρεπε να απασχολεί τη σύγχρονη γυναίκα.
  
  Στα πλαίσια του μαθήματος που έπρεπε να το διαβάσω το εξετάσαμε πιο μεμονωμένα, και αν δεν είχα κάτσει να ασχοληθώ μαζί του εκτός μαθήματος μπορεί να είχα και εντελώς άλλη άποψη.
  
  Κάντε μια χάρη στον εαυτό σας και διαβάστε έστω και ένα μικρό κομμάτι από αυτό το βιβλίο. Πιστέψτε με, δεν θα σας απογοητεύσει.
  
  ❤️
• 
  Women's National Book Association of New Orleans

  The Women's National Book Association sent this book to the White House today (March 12) in honor of Women's History Month:
  https://www.wnba-centennial.org/book-...
  
  From the Women's National Book Association's press release:
  
  In this collection of highly readable articles, Nussbaum, a law and ethics professor from the
  University of Chicago, makes a series of compelling arguments about the rights of women and
  homosexuals to be treated with respect for their common humanity. Utilizing statistical data and
  real-life stories to bolster her arguments, Nussbaum shows how local customs, traditions, and
  preconceptions can adversely affect the health and well-being of women across the globe. In her
  view, patriarchal power is at the root of one the most basic injustices, that of sexual oppression.
  She envisions a world in which women, gays, and lesbians are treated as fully realized human
  beings, where sex and sexuality are not seen as justifications for cruelty and abuse.
• 
  Ietrio

  This seems to be the usual Nussbaum navel gazing. Nussbaum doesn't get a good grasp of the concepts with which he juggles, but this isn't an issue, he is a thinker licensed by the Government and that makes him competent anyway.
• 
  Leslie Huitt

  Ethnocentrism
• 
  MB

  This book will change your life. Nussbuam's book deserves a space beside feminist classics such as Beavouir's The Second Sex and Butler's Gender Trouble. Highly highly recommend.
• 
  Madeline

  Things you might be surprised to discover in Martha Nussbaum's Sex and Social Justic:
  
  - a brief reference to
  A Suitable Boy (no, but more philosophers should reference A Suitable Boy);
  - a fairly lengthy and specific discussion of the erotic and sexual activity that took place in ancient Athens (I might mean classical Athens? my grasp of these distinctions is minimal);
  - an explanation of why Proust and Jackie Collins aren't mutually exclusive*;
  - excerpts of questionable aesthetic value from a pornographic novel;
  - an anecdote about Anthony Blunt, as part of a review of Sir Kenneth Dover's memoir - I'm still not sure why this was in here;
  - a discussion of the similarities between prostitution and academia;
  - also, I think at one point she admits to not being into S&M that much, really.
  
  I much preferred the second half of Sex and Social Justice, which was more conceptual and philosophical. The first half tended more toward descriptive/political science, I thought.
  
  Also, there's something weird about her analysis of prostitution. Mostly, she seems to be addressing the common arguments against it, instead of taking a fresh approach. But I think the observation that there are many, many, many unsexy ways in which women are oppressed and constrained is a good one and worth keeping in mind.
  
  * Although: "the real lover of novels ... will not read Judith Krantz in the airport because Proust is unavailable; the real lover of philosophy ... will not choose Alan Watts under any circumstances at all" (348). 1. ILU, Martha Nussbaum. 2. The real lover of novels surely comes prepared with something worth reading.
• 
  Mike

  While in their works Judith Butler attempted to wax poetic on the meanings of gender and Catharine MacKinnon laid down theory on how gender matters to law—and how law could be made to better serve all genders—Nussbaum actually addressed in this book real-world cases as varied as gay rights to prostitution to the lack of agency women have in developing nations. She brings a heavy dose of theory with her and writes powerful, mordant, prose of the issues she tackles in this volume, but her foci are the real-world issues and not just the "meaning" or "theory" of sex and gender.
  
  Somewhat dated now, especially on gay rights since progress has been thankfully made since 1998 when the book was published, this book is still useful to scholars in the areas of feminist, gender and gay studies plus those working on gender-related law.
  
  Any law student (especially those doing an LLM or higher) who is working in depth on MacKinnon needs to read this to see a variety of cases where MacKinnon's concepts might be tested in various ways and get a healthy understanding of the diversity of sociocultural and legal construction of sex and gender the world over.
• 
  Lena Lang

  I really loved this book a lot. I didn't expect to as it appeared at to be a long and cumbersome text. I first started reading it because I thought it my duty to bone up on such a seminal text if I were to call myself a feminist. I continued reading it because each essay captivated me. I wish I could quote it verbatim at people who oppose women's right as well as LGBT rights. I particularly loved the final essay on the love between Mrs and Mr Ramsey. I will definately go back and reread that one.
  
  I also learned what intracrural intercourse was, so that was new. Who knew that in Greek culture it was expected that a male would take a younger male as a lover/apprentice but not have anal intercourse with him lest he be ruined for his later position in society. I certainly didn't.
• 
  Nora

  Adding this to my list of long-ass books that I was overambitious enough to think readable on the amount of time I have! I read about half of it. The author is clearly brilliant and harsh. Sometimes she seemed to engage with arguments that are kind of dumb, and sometimes she would start to get into a really interesting and controversial topic and then suddenly back away saying she didn't have enough space to get into it, and I was like GET INTO IT MARTHA! A lot of the ancient Greek stuff was like, huh? Anyway, I want to come back to this one eventually.
• 
  Rabya

  i don't know how i feel about this book
  i haven't cracked it open yet
  but i should read this
  i really don't agree with the whole take
  of "feminism" in the west
• 
  Liz

  I didn't read much of this and it was overdue. I will possibly read it another time.
• 
  Sam

  An examination of women's issues through an analytical lens.