Epäilevä emansipaatio

Sukupuolten yhtäläisten mahdollisuuksien teoreettista tarkastelua

Kirjoittajat

• Adriana Cavarero

Abstrakti

The article discusses the theoretical concepts of equality and sexual difference. The concept of ’equality’ based on natural law is a basic definition of modem doctrine created to break down the old power system which was based on differences. But from the very beginning the concept has had a double meaning: equality is universal, but it concerns only men. The modem Theory of the State was based on the natural equality between men which determined the universal individual in the State and in the market. Women were excluded from the concepts of equality and the individual, and the domestic sphere was excluded from the public sphere. The universality of equality however also takes women into account, but only by assimilation and universalization. In other words, women are equal when they are like men. In the domestic sphere sexual difference is recognized, but women are defined as mothers and care-takers. Cavarero analyses how the Italian Constitution treats differences according to two logic. Firstly the logic of protection is applied to the differences concerning race, language and religion by legislative safeguards which preserve the cultural identity of minority groups. The other logic is applied to the differences determined by personal status and position in a society. In this case, legislation tries to diminish the differences by improvements. Sexual difference is not comparable with other differences, because it is all-encompassing. In the case of sexual differences both logics are used, but the ’culture’ which legislation safeguards is actually the culture of the domestic sphere. Female sexual difference is determined by men in two ways: in the domestic sphere it should be protected, but in the public sphere it should be relinguished. Thus women are not independent subjects. They do not determine themselves, the social order or their culture. Similar possibilities for choice in which equality and difference can live under the same roof is only possible through the feminist strategy of suspicious emancipation. Cavarero suggests that women should play the game of neutral/male equality as long as it is useful for them. At the same time, women have to act together as women everywhere and create a gender-based order, which they themselves have determined on the basis of their own experiences and relationships between women. (The original article has been published in Reti 2, marzo-aprile 1988.)