Transnational Cycles of Gendered Vulnerability

Philosophical Topics 37 (2):33-52 (2009)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Across the world, the lives of men and women who are otherwise similarly situated tend to differ from each other systematically. Although gender disparities varywidely within and among regions, women everywhere are disproportionately vulnerable to poverty, abuse and political marginalization. This article proposes thatglobal gender disparities are caused by a network of norms, practices, policies, and institutions that include transnational as well as national elements. These interlaced and interacting factors frequently modify and sometimes even reduce gendered vulnerabilities but their overall effect is to maintain and often intensify them. Women’s vulnerabilities in different areas of life mutually reinforce each other and I follow other authors in referring to such causal feedback loops as cycles of gendered vulnerability. I argue that these cycles now operate on a transnational as well as national scale and I illustrate this by discussing the examples of domestic work and sex work. If global institutional arrangements do indeed contribute to maintaining or intensifying distinctively gendered vulnerabilities, these arrangements deserve criti cal scrutiny from philosophers concerned with global justice.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Leo Strauss on Moses Mendelssohn.Leo Strauss - 2012 - London: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Martin D. Yaffe.
Introduction.Simo Säätelä & Alois Pichler - 2006 - Human Studies 29 (4):443-444.
Introduction. Editors' introduction.Oskari Kuusela & Marie McGinn - 2011 - In Marie McGinn & Oskari Kuusela (eds.), Dialogue and Universalism. Oxford University Press. pp. 10-14.
The Renaissance philosophy of man.Ernst Cassirer - 1948 - Chicago,: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Paul Oskar Kristeller & John Herman Randall.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-01-09

Downloads
38 (#363,694)

6 months
12 (#122,295)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Alison Jaggar
University of Colorado, Boulder

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references