Okin on Justice, Gender, and Family

Author(s): Joshua Cohen

Source: Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Jun., 1992, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Jun., 1992), pp. 263-
286
Published by: Cambridge University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40231781

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CANADIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY 263
Volume 22, Number 2, June 1992, pp. 263 - 286

Okin on Justice, Gender,

and Family
JOSHUA COHEN
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
Cambridge, MA 02139
USA

I Introduction

Susan Okin has written an important book on justice and the family.
Animated by the experiences that contemporary feminism has sought
to articulate, and guided by a principled hostility to the subordination
of women that continues to disgrace American life, she argues that the
current ordering of domestic life in the United States is unjust and that
its alteration ought to be made a matter of public policy.1
Families,2 according to Okin, are not havens in an otherwise heartless
world. Instead the current division of domestic labor marks them as the
centerpiece of a broader system of inequalities between men and women. Justice
condemns those inequalities and commands their remedy through the
transformation of our domestic practices. Because the division of do-
mestic labor is so fundamental to injustice, we need in particular to
'encourage and facilitate' (171) equal sharing by parents in the respon-
sibilities of child-rearing, and in the more quotidian chores that provide
the material foundation of modern domesticity.

1 While the implications of the book are not limited to the United States, Okin does
focus throughout on this case.

2 In the title of her book and throughout, Okin uses the singular 'the family/ 1 do not
think that this is simply a matter of terminology, but rather that it reflects the least
attractive aspects of Okin's substantive position (see below, 281). In any case, given
the diversity of forms of domesticity, I think that it is preferable to use the plural.

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264 Joshua Cohen

Okin's argument for these views is organized around three central

claims:

Egalitarian-Humanist Justice:
The only plausible conceptions of justice are humanist-egalitar-
ian conceptions (chs. 2-5).

Injustice of Gender:
A humanist-egalitarian conception of justice commands the
'minimization of gender' (175).

Family as Linchpin:
Current, gender-structured social arrangements are sustained
crucially by a gender-structured family, in particular by a tradi-
tional division of labor that assigns the work of housekeeping and
child rearing principally to women (chs. 6, 7).4

Drawing the natural implications from these claims, Okin argues that
justice condemns the current division of family labor, and mandates the
sharing of domestic responsibilities. To encourage such sharing, she
proposes a package of policy initiatives including high quality day care;
flex time, parental leaves, mandatory support from absent fathers, equal
legal entitlements to wage and salary income in the case of single earner
households, and a new framework of divorce law designed to equalize
standards of living for postdivorce households (ch. 8). Implementing
these proposals would, she predicts, alter the division of labor in the
household, and so help to create a different world from the one which
we now inhabit: a world in which women would not be disadvantaged
by special domestic 'responsibilities' and in which families would serve
as schools of justice.
In this essay I will explore these views. Much of Okin's view strikes
me as right, and I will indicate points of agreement along the way. Here,
however, I want to emphasize certain difficulties in her defense of an
egalitarian-liberal conception of justice and in the implications that she
draws from it. In particular, Okin is strongly committed both to substan-
tive equality and to choice and diversity. But she is not sufficiently
attentive to familiar sources of tension between egalitarian and liberal

3 Alternative formulations refer to the 'abolition of gender' (104), and 'the disappear-
ance of gender' (105).

4 I take the term 'linchpin' from Okin, 6, 14, 170.

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 Okin on Justice, Gender, and Family 265

commitment, and as a consequence is insufficiently attentive to the ways

that those tensions might be alleviated, either at the level of political
principle or at the level of institutional forms and public policies.
The essay proceeds as follows: I begin (section II) with some relevant
background, contrasting Okin's views with certain other feminist per-
spectives on justice and gender, and highlighting the liberal aspects of
her egalitarianism. Then I turn to the main themes of the paper, first
discussing Okin's defense of an Egalitarian-Humanist conception of
justice (section III) and then examining the case for the Family as
Linchpin thesis (section IV).

II Humanism, Feminism, and Liberalism

The conceptions of justice and gender that underlie Okin's views about
families occupy a significant and controversial location in current femi-
nist debate. To characterize that location I want to indicate three princi-
pal coordinates in that debate.5
First, Okin's ethical conception is uniuersalistic, or, as she puts it,
'humanist.' She does write from a 'feminist perspective' (23), and seeks
to redress the continuing exclusion of women from conventional politi-
cal theory, an exclusion which is commonly achieved through inatten-
tion to domestic order. But her main aim is to develop a genuinely
humanist (i.e., non-sexist) account of justice, and to outline some of the
implications of such an account for current patterns of family life. Thus
she disagrees with the view, advanced by some feminists, that feminism
represents a distinctive and comprehensive outlook on metaphysical,
epistemological, and ethical issues, and with the related contentions that
the very concept of justice, or such notions as rights, equality, abstract
moral personality, and humankind, ought to be rejected as irremediably
misogynist, phallocentric, instrumental for male domination, or tied to
a modern project of suppressing 'difference' (15).
As a corollary to this universalism, Okin is suspicious - politically as
well as intellectually - of the contention that women show a distinctive
form of ethical thought and practice organized exclusively around

5 For the purposes of exposition, I draw sharper lines than closer examination would
reveal. For a recent discussion of critical feminist perspectives that is more attentive
to the range of debate and to the complexities and shadings of alternative views,
see Deborah L. Rhode, 'Feminist Critical Theories/ Stanford Law Review 42 (1990)
617-38.

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266 Joshua Cohen

considerations of care, connection, context, emotion, feeling, intuition,

or particularity.6 She argues, with subtlety, that the distinction between
a concrete morality of care and an abstract morality of principle has been
overdrawn. And, while acknowledging that there may be some de facto,
sex-correlated differences in styles of practical thought and human
engagement, she is particularly skeptical of biological explanations that
trace those differences to the capacities and experiences associated with
child bearing or to the 'multiplicity' of female sexuality.7
Second, the feminism that informs Okin's humanism is undecon-
structed. A recent wave of postmodernist skepticism has criticized ge-
neric - or what are sometimes termed 'essentialisf - understandings
of women and of the conditions faced by women, arguing that such
understandings inevitably confuse the circumstances of white, middle-
class women with those of women generally.8 Rejecting this criticism,
Okin presents women 'without hyphenations.' She holds that there are
certain conditions that women face 'as women' (6), and not simply as
white-women or women-of-color, rich-women or poor-women, and
that the point of feminism is to characterize those conditions and articu-
late those experiences.9
I say that Okin 'rejects' the 'anti-essentialisf view because she does
not argue against it, but only notes some sources of doubt (see 6-7). Still,
as a general matter, Okin's view strikes me as less vulnerable to this line
of criticism than some other generic feminist views because she is not
principally concerned to characterize general features of 'women's ex-
perience of the world,' but rather to indicate certain patterns of constraint,

6 See also her 'Reason and Feeling in Thinking About Justice/ Ethics 99 (1989); and
Thinking Like a Woman/ in Theoretical Perspectives on Sexual Difference, Deborah L.
Rhode, ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press 1990) 145-59.

7 On multiplicity, see Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which Is Not One/ and 'When Our
Lips Speak Together/ in This Sex Which is Not One, trans. Catherine Porter (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press 1985), chs. 2, 11.

8 For recent statements of and explorations of this view, see Elizabeth V. Spelman,
Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought (Boston: Beacon Press
1988); Nancy Fraser and Linda J. Nicholson, 'Social Criticism Without Philosophy:
An Encounter between Feminism and Postmodernism/ in Feminism/Postmodernism,
Linda J. Nicholson, ed. (New York: Routledge 1990), 19-38; and Angela Harris,
'Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory/ Stanford Law Review 42 (1990)
581-616.

9 For a brilliant account of the phenomena that more generic forms of feminism miss,
see Kimberle Crenshaw, 'Beyond Racism and Misogyny: The Case of 2 Live Crew/
Boston Review 16, 6 (1991) 6, 30-3.

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 Okin on Justice, Gender, and Family 267

opportunity, and expectation faced by women generally.10 She could,

however, have responded to the criticism more directly by trying to
show that her proposals for a reordered domesticity do not speak
principally to the special burdens of white, middle-class, professional
women.

Third, Okin is committed to a specifically liberal form

humanism, a commitment that is more fundamental to
some of her formulations might suggest. To appreciate
force of that commitment, consider the recommenda
makes in the area of family policy. Those proposals ar
drawn, and, since a number of her recommendations h
mented outside of the United States, her discussion of t
been aided by examination of cross-national experienc
family policy.11 My purpose here, however, is not to e
sibility of the proposals but to use them to highlight
commitments I am labelling 'liberal/
Assume, then, that Okin is right in her contention t
division of domestic labor serves as the 'linchpin' in a
of unjust inequalities. The strategies for removing th
dressing these inequalities might, then, seem pretty cle
for example, be a mandatory shared-responsibility cla
contracts (perhaps stipulating minimum expectation
shirking could be defined as a form of sex discriminati
empowered to pursue civil remedies for such discrimi
could be a regulatory scheme featuring an agency resp
mulating standards for the division of labor in hou
inspectorate charged with ensuring compliance and
impose fines and penalties for violating standards; or th
benefits to couples (or couples with children) that share
In short, equal sharing, and with it substantive equality
might be advanced by adapting to the special case of th
the familiar range of policy instruments that have been u

10 The point of my qualification ('as a general matter') will becom

below, 281-2). Certain aspects of Okin's view do suffer from overg
these aspects are, I think, inessential to the main line of argumen

11 See, for example, Sheila B. Kammerman and Alfred J. Kahn, C

Benefits and Working Parents: A Study in Comparative Policy (Ne
University Press 1983); for discussion of some policy issues in the
transformations in labor markets, see Feminization of the Labor F
Promises, Jane Jenson, Elisabeth Hagen, and Ceallaigh Reddy, eds.
University Press 1988), esp. Part 3.

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268 Joshua Cohen

the exercise of contractual liberty and thereby to address other funda-

mental issues of injustice.
Okin does not discuss any of these remedies. But it seems clear that
she would find all of them objectionable, and not simply because of the
nightmarish complexities that some of them (e.g., straight command-
and-control regulation) might generate on the enforcement side. None
of the proposals would be clearly objectionable if she dismissed the
conception of the domestic arena as a sphere of private ordering and
held that liberties in the area of family, marriage, and child rearing are
not 'basic' or fundamental to a scheme of ordered liberty. But she does
not. While Okin asserts that a 'fully humanist theory of justice' requires
a 'thorough examination and critique of the public/domestic dichoto-
my7 (111), her examination in fact issues in a highly qualified critique.12
She at least suggests that the liberties associated with family and mar-
riage are basic liberties. And she certainly rejects the view that they
ought to be treated on a par with - i.e., be as easy to regulate as -
contractual liberties in the post-Lochner economy.13 As she puts it, 'Both
the concept of privacy and the existence of a personal sphere of life in
which the state's authority is very limited are essential' (128).
Privacy and a personal sphere of life are (morally) essential because
there are a plurality of reasonable understandings14 of the proper rela-
tions of men and women, including conceptions (some with religious
foundations) which assign principal responsibility in the domestic
sphere to women (see 127-8, 170-5). So it would be morally objectionable
(I will fill out the reasons below) either to impose legal sanctions on those
who choose to act on such conceptions, or to adopt policies that con-
demn or show contempt for such choices or those who make them. In
fact, while Okin states that respect for people with divergent concep-

12 For a contrasting view, see Catharine A. MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the
State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1989), ch. 10.

13 For discussion of Lochner era conceptions of the economy as a sphere of private

ordering, the partial rejection of those conceptions in post-New Deal constitutional
law, and the potential implications of a more comprehensive rejection for contem-
porary conceptions of family and sexual equality, see Cass Sunstein, 'Lochner's
Legacy/ Columbia Law Review 87 (1987) 873-919; and 'Book Review: Feminism and
Legal Theory/ Harvard Law Review 101 (1988) 826-48.

14 Okin does not use the term 'reasonable/ But she does emphasize the plurality of
understandings and she indicates as well that not all understandings need to be
accommodated (see 174-5). I use the term 'reasonable' to cover all the conceptions
that do need to be 'admitted for consideration' (174), and to suggest a rationale for
setting certain views (e.g., extreme traditionalist views) to the side.

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 Okin on Justice, Gender, and Family 269

tions and protection of the choices inspired by those conceptions is one

fundamental value that must be 'balanced' against the fundamental
value of domestic equality (172), she seems in other places to go beyond
mere balancing and to affirm that such respect is a constraint on accept-
able strategies for redressing the unjust division of domestic labor
(174).15
Moved by these concerns about privacy and a personal sphere of life,
Okin avoids regulatory schemes - like those I sketched earlier - that
would mandate domestic sharing or that could in some other way
provoke the reasonable objections of citizens who embrace traditional
understandings of domesticity. Her proposals in areas of family policy
and family law are less directly regulatory. They do not focus on the
division of domestic labor itself, but instead on a set of background
conditions that arguably provide the incentives, opportunities, and
constraints that lead to the current unequal division of domestic respon-
sibility. By changing the background conditions and so altering the
incentives, opportunities, and constraints she hopes to encourage those
who wish to share responsibilities to choose that course, to ensure that
when responsibilities are unequally divided the inequality is genuinely
a matter of choice, and to protect women who do choose inequality from
the abuses to which they are now subject.
Putting the third aspect of Okin's view in a nutshell, then: considera-
tions of choice and diversity - as well as substantive equality - play a
fundamental role in Okin's view. I will return at several points in the
later discussion to these considerations. But now I want to come back to
Okin's main theses, concentrating on the first and third.

Ill The Defense of Egalitarian-Liberalism

Consider first the Egalitarian-Humanist Justice Thesis. Okin's defense

of this thesis consists principally in a series of criticisms 'from a feminist
perspective' (23) of alternatives to an egalitarian conception of justice.
Thus, she argues that the unique virtues of an egalitarian account of

15 In one passage, Okin refers to the difficulties of 'balancing freedom and the effects
of past choices against the needs of justice* (172, my emphasis). Putting the issue of
balancing to the side, this formulation is misleading. Okin's account of justice
emphasizes the importance of finding terms of order that are (roughly speaking)
acceptable from the point of view of each citizen. As a consequence, the need to
accommodate 'freedom' must be counted among the requirements of justice.
Freedom is not a value separate from justice that must be balanced 'against the
needs of justice.'

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270 Joshua Cohen

justice are revealed when we reflect on the plausibility of alternative

views in the light of the elementary but characteristically neglected fact
that woman are 'full human beings to whom a theory of justice must
apply7 (23). Confronted with this fact, the major alternatives to egalitar-
ian liberalism are 'completely demolished' (23) - shown to be defective
beyond remedy - and their apparent plausibility is revealed to be
parasitic on their inattention to the lives of women. Egalitarian liberal-
ism, by contrast, is not similarly undermined.
Okiji argues, more specifically, against three political conceptions:

1. An idealized conception of the family as an arena beyond justice

promises romance but delivers the subordination of women (ch.
2).

2. The view that justice consists in fidelity to traditions or to shared

understandings either mandates the subordination of women to
determinately male traditions, or, in the face of diverse under-
standings, requires nothing at all (ch. 3).

3. The libertarian theory that the command of justice is exhausted by

the requirement of respecting people's property rights in them-
selves (ch. 4) degenerates into a sexually inverted variant on
Robert Rimer's patriarchalism, a 1)1231X6 combination of matri-
archy and slavery7 (75) in which mothers (rather than the fathers
of Rimer's Patriarcha) own their children.

Egalitarian liberalism16 (Rawls's view provides the main example)

fares better. The treatment of women in current formulations of egali-
tarian theories is importantly defective. But the defects are remediable,
since the fundamental egalitarian notions can be interpreted in a way
that genuinely responds to the challenge posed by feminism (ch. 5).
It is not entirely clear what Okin takes to be the generic features of an
egalitarian view. But, extrapolating from her discussion of Rawls's
original position, she appears to hold that such conceptions distinguish
certain central features of people - their powers or potentialities -
from the determinate form in which those potentialities are realized, and
then evaluate the justice of social arrangements by considering whether

16 Okin generally refers to her own views as 'humanisf or 'egalitarian/ While nothing
much turns on terminology, I prefer the term 'egalitarian liberal' because it directly
captures the important role in her view of choice and diversity, as well as substan-
tive equality.

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 Okin on Justice, Gender, and Family 271

those arrangements would be acceptable to each person irrespective of

the particular form in which the potentialities are realized.17 So an
egalitarian conception of justice can accommodate the moral equality of
men and women by acknowledging that sexual difference (like social
position, religion, or race) is not ethically important (that it falls on the
side of determinate realization of basic powers), and by then embodying
that acknowledgement in the requirement that social arrangements be
acceptable to both men and women, given, inter alia, the pluralism of
understandings about the social implications of sexual difference.
Okin's discussion of alternative theories of justice is successful in at
least three ways. She correctly observes that gender neutrality should
not be confused with the facial neutrality achieved by juggling pronouns
(10-13); she forcefully underscores a characteristic pattern of neglect in
contemporary theories of justice (including most egalitarian theories);
and she rightly insists that those theories need to be assessed in light of
(among other things) their implications for gender and family. I should
add that I find her substantive views very congenial. At the same time,
however, I think that her argument in support of an Egalitarian-Human-
ist view is less successful. Here I want to indicate two problems in it,
both of which reflect the fact her defense of that view proceeds largely
by seeking to 'demolish' various alternative conceptions.
In the first place, then, Okin's list of alternatives is not at all exhaustive.
It does not include less liberal forms of egalitarianism that would more
readily regulate the conduct of domestic life; less egalitarian forms of
liberalism that are more suspicious of limits on choice in the name of
substantive equality; utilitarianism, or any other variant of welfarist
consequentialism; and a liberal perfectionism according to which tradi-
tional families are to be condemned because they impose less inde-
pendent and therefore less good lives on women. While Okin does not
discuss any of these views in detail, her arguments do seem to commit
her to rejecting each of them. Since they are closer to Okin's than any of
the positions that she explicitly criticizes, and since her argument for
egalitarian liberalism consists principally in her criticisms of alternatives
to it, it would have helped to make the content, the implications, and the
virtues of her view more vivid if she had considered some of them more
explicitly, indicating points of overlap and sources of disagreement.

17 The notion of acceptability does play a central role in Rawls's theory of justice. But
it appears not to play a similar role in, for example, Dworkin's formulation of
egalitarian liberalism. See his 'Foundations of Liberal Equality/ Tanner Lectures on
Human Values, Vol. II (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press 1991).

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272 Joshua Cohen

For example, as I noted earlier, Okin emphasizes the plurality of

reasonable understandings of the proper relations of men and women,
and the need to find principles that are acceptable to all whose under-
standings are reasonable (174-5). Reflecting this need, she supposes that
an argument for the Injustice of Gender thesis, for example, ought to
proceed by showing that a non-gendered structure is acceptable to
people with a wide range of reasonable views about the proper relations
between men and women, while a gendered structure is not. Contrast
this with a perfectionist argument for the injustice of gender that would
proceed by reference to the value of an autonomously conducted life
and the conflict between a gendered society and autonomy. Okin seems
to reject such an argument because the value of an autonomously
conducted life is, presumably, something about which reasonable peo-
ple might disagree. In addition, her view seems to be at odds with a less
liberal egalitarianism that would criticize Okin's apparent willingness
to accommodate current understandings of sexuality and sex roles.
According to the critic, the subordination of women to men is reflected
in current understandings and will in turn be sustained by agreements
based upon them.18 So the insistence on general agreement among
people with diverse understandings in fact provides an open invitation
for the justification of continued subordination. In view of the inegali-
tarian content of existing conceptions of sexuality and sex roles, a
requirement of general agreement provides much less of a critical lever
than one might have thought.19
Neither perfectionist nor more egalitarian views are, however, 'com-
pletely demolished' when confronted with the fact that women are equal
human beings. So the reasons for rejecting them are uncertain, as,
therefore, are the reasons for embracing Okin's own position.
Second, Okin's criticisms of alternative views are highly uneven, and,
since those criticisms are central to the defense of her view - indeed the
defense consists largely of criticisms of alternatives - the weaknesses
in those criticisms cloud that defense. The most convincing critical
argument is directed against theories that make justice a matter of
fidelity to traditions and shared understandings (see [2.] above). Those

18 See, for example, MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory, esp. parts 2 & 3.

19 The basis for a response to this criticism is suggested by Okin's remark at 174-5
about restricting the range of views that need to be 'admitted for consideration/
For discussion of the role of such restriction in reconciling consensus, diversity, and
substantive equality see my 'Moral Pluralism and Political Consensus,' in The Idea
of Democraqf, David Copp, Jean Hampton, and John Roemer, eds. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press forthcoming).

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 Okin on Justice, Gender, and Family 273

views require that criticisms of current practice proceed by reference to

norms that are rooted in past practice. Once we acknowledge that past
practice was dominated by men, then we see that those views require in
effect that we hold current practice up to norms that reflect male domi-
nance. So the sexism of those views follows more or less immediately.
But neither libertarianism nor the view that the ideal family is beyond
justice are so directly beholden to practices of male domination. So the
arguments about these views need to be more subtle. Unfortunately they
are not.

Consider first the case against libertarianism. Okin focuses mainly on

Nozick's libertarianism, which is organized around the notion that
individuals are fully owners of themselves, having rights to use and
abuse themselves, to exclude others from that use and abuse, to alienate
themselves, and to appropriate all the benefits that they can extract from
others for the use of their powers.20 She does not discuss the more
conventional libertarianism of Hayek or Friedman, which affirms that
individual choice is the supreme value in political argument, and does
not make the same substantial assumptions about self-ownership.21 The
emphasis on Nozick's self-ownership theory is unfortunate. Not only is
choice-based libertarianism a more important and plausible doctrine,22
but also (as I indicated in my discussion of the remedies that she
proposes for domestic inequality) Okin holds that choice of domestic
arrangements is a fundamental value. In view of this liberal aspect of
her egalitarianism, it would have been more clarifying if she had focused
attention on the conventional forms of libertarianism, and indicated
where her views depart from them.
For example, Hayek values choice and diversity, and points out that
the family is commonly (and reasonably) understood to play a signifi-
cant educative role, serving as 'an instrument for the transmission of

20 Nozick discusses the idea of self-ownership in Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York:
Basic Books 1974), 171-2.

21 Okin does briefly mention (87-8) two alternatives to the self-ownership formulation
of libertarianism. One is a Variant of Aristotelianism/ while the other is welfarism
emphasizing the efficiency of market coordination. But she does not discuss vari-
ants of libertarianism which emphasize the supreme value of (negative) liberty.

22 Full self-ownership, in the sense explained in the text, is not a common assumption
in the liberal tradition. Locke, for example, rejected it in favor of the idea that God
owns us, and derived his moral prohibitions against slavery and political absolut-
ism precisely from the restrictions on our self-ownership. Grotius, by contrast, did
think that people own themselves, and so accepted the legitimacy of both slavery
and absolutism.

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274 Joshua Cohen

morals, tastes, and knowledge/ But he claims that its ability to serve that
function depends on the institution of inheritance (though not necessar-
ily unlimited freedom of bequest), with all that that implies for the
inequality of individual starting points in life. In short, Hayek does not
neglect the family, but argues that reasonable forms of domestic order-
ing - in particular, those that transmit moral ideals to the next genera-
tion - will inevitably generate 'substantial inequality/23
Okin, too, values choice and diversity and also emphasizes the role of
families in moral education. But she does not share Hayek's conception
of an intimate link between the intergenerational transfer of morals and
the intergenerational transfer of wealth. An exploration of the differ-
ences from this view about the ties that bind families would have been
more illuminating than the discussion of Nozick's position.
Furthermore, and apart from the relative value of different targets of
criticism, the criticism of Nozick is itself unpersuasive. Okin makes the
extremely strong claim that Nozick's libertarianism is 'reduced to ab-
surdity' once we pay attention to the situation of women and to the facts
of childbirth (75; cf . also 86, 87). Okin arrives at this striking conclusion
by reconstructing Nozick's view (roughly) as follows:24

1. 1 own myself.

2. My mother made me.

3. Making confers ownership. So,

4. My mother owns me. But,

5. 'If I am (already) my mother's property, I cannot claim a

conflicting right to own myself (82). And so,

6. It is not the case that I own myself.

If this reconstruction were right, then it would be misleading to say

that Nozick affirms the ' "matriarchal" mire' (87) represented by (4),
with its inverted Filmerian implications, since he is also committed to
denying (4), that is, denying that my mother owns me. For that denial
is implied by (1), in conjunction with a logical point about full owner-
ship - that if I fully own myself, then my mother cannot also be my

23 See The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press I960), 89-91;
and Law, Legislation, and Liberty, vol. 2, The Mirage of Social Justice (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press 1976), 9-10.

24 The argument that follows is my account of Okin on Nozick. She does not present
such an explicit statement of the difficulties in his views.

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 Okin on Justice, Gender, and Family 275

owner.25 But we would be faced with a genuine 'morass of incoherence

and self-contradiction' (86). So does this argument fairly represent
Nozick's view?
Nozick's self-ownership theory is committed to (1). For the sake of
discussion, lef s accept (2) as stated here, since the qualifications needed
for a correct formulation are irrelevant. Furthermore, (4) follows from
(2) and (3), while (5) registers an implication of a logical point about full
ownership - that two people cannot both be full owners of the same
thing (see n. 25) - and (6) follows from (4) and (5). So if there is a
problematical assumption, it must be (3).
Here we arrive at the crux of Okin's argument. She maintains that (1)
and (3) represent equally fundamental commitments of Nozick's liber-
tarianism. Thus she says that his doctrine is 'clearly premised on the
notion that each person [including me] owns himself (86), and that the
principle that making confers ownership is the 'core of his theory7 (ibid.).
But these commitments, in conjunction with (2) and the innocent (5),
lead his view 'into self-contradiction and absurdity7 (110). Nozick's
failure to notice this does not reflect a want of logical acumen. Instead
it must be that he either neglects the fact that women give birth to
children - and is thus inattentive to (2) - or implicitly assumes that
women have no rights - and thus can be excluded from the scope of
(3). But once we embrace (2) - thus rejecting an embarassingly literal
interpretation of the ideal of the self-made man - and include women
within the scope of (3) - thus recognizing women as 'full human beings
to whom a theory of justice must appl/ - absurdity is just around the
corner.

If Okin were right, we would have a stunningly clear example

proposed method of feminist criticism: to 'completely demolish
simply by requiring that it be extended to men and women.26 B
not think that Okin is right. In fact, the best construal of the argu
that it shows (as Nozick knows27) that (3), as formulated here,
do as a rendering of the connection between making and own
The argument does not show that Nozickian premises imply tha
ers own children, or that his view is straightforwardly inconsisten

25 This is an instance of the same general principle that underlies (5) - that tw
cannot fully own the same thing.

26 There are other styles of feminist criticism, and I am here concerned only
particular approach to criticism advanced by Okin.

27 See Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 287-97, and Okin's remarks at 80.

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276 Joshua Cohen

that a self -ownership theory must impose some restriction on the prin-
ciple that making confers ownership.
Moreover, such a restriction is perfectly natural on Nozick's view, and
not simply an ad hoc maneuver motivated solely by a concern to defend
the theory. For self-ownership is the morally fundamental idea in
Nozick's Ubertarianism.28 It is true that he lacks a plausible explanation
for self-ownership.29 But whatever the explanation may be, he argues
that the postulation of universal rights of self-ownership is necessary in
order to accommodate certain firm intuitions about rights and wrongs
in a pre-institutional state of nature. Given that postulation, however, it
immediately follows that maternity does not confer ownership. For
human beings (by postulation) own themselves. But since they do own
themselves, other people cannot own them - unless, as Nozick permits,
they sell themselves.
Furthermore, Nozick thinks that the moral force of the idea that
making confers ownership - insofar as it has such force - can be
explained in terms of the more fundamental idea of self-ownership (of
which [1 ] is an instance). That is, it is because people own themselves that
when they produce things from materials that they own (or from mate-
rials that are unowned) they normally own the things that result.30 Given
this order of explanation, it is perfectly reasonable to qualify (3) so as to
exclude property based in maternity - as well as other forms of invol-
untary servitude - since that qualification draws on the very moral idea
that the self-ownership theorist appeals to in explaining why making
something typically results in ownership of it. Typically, so the story
goes, when a person makes something from materials that are her own
she owns what she makes in part because her owning it does not detract
from the entitlement of others to themselves. In the case of maternity,
her ownership would so detract. Since self-ownership is fundamental,
it is not surprising that (3) is unacceptable as stated.
In brief, then, the difficulty with Okin's argument is that premise (3)
is not the 'core' of Nozick's theory nor it is as fundamental as (1). On the
contrary, given (2), considerations internal to the fundamental idea of
self-ownership show that (3) needs to be qualified.
I do not intend this dialectical exercise to suggest that Nozick is right
in holding that we need to postulate full self-ownership in order to

28 See Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 172.

29 See ibid., xiv. His discussion of the meaning of life (50-1) is not a plausible
explanation.

30 Ibid., 172

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 Okin on Justice, Gender, and Family 277

account for firm intuitive moral judgments. On the contrary, we can

explain the firm intuitions that motivate Nozick's appeal to self-owner-
ship by supposing more simply that people ought to have control of
certain aspects of their bodies and lives, but without supposing that we
own ourselves, and so, for example, have the right to sell ourselves or
our bodily parts. Rather I mean only to dispute the contention that
Nozick's libertarianism is 'led into a self-contradictory, "matriarchal"
mire' (87) once we pay attention to the situation of women. In fact, once
Nozick's view is understood in the way that I have suggested, Okin
seems to be left without any distinctive objection to it. Furthermore, since
other forms of libertarianism do not rest on the idea of self-ownership,
her objection to Nozick's view would not in any case carry over in any
direct or obvious way to libertarianism generally. But since Okin's
defense of egalitarian-humanism proceeds largely by dismissing vari-
ous alternatives - libertarianism among them - that defense is corre-
spondingly weakened.
Consider next Okin's argument against the view that the ideal family
illustrates a form of association that lies beyond considerations of justice
- a view that she associates with Michael Sandel and Allan Bloom. Her
criticisms of Bloom's dogmatism about 'natural' difference are, I think,
entirely on target. But I find the remarks that she makes in connection
with Sandel's view less compelling.
In her (principal) response to Sandel's view, Okin agrees that there
are forms of association from which we might expect more than justice,
and she seems to regard families as such forms (28-9). But she empha-
sizes that to expect more than justice from an association is not to exempt
the association from the requirements of justice. So in particular the fact
that we sometimes expect more than justice from families does not
displace justice from its position as the first concern in our reflection on
the family.
Here I think that Okin does not really engage the general contention
that an association beyond justice represents a reasonable and attractive
ideal. Because she does not, her rejection of that view as applied to
families in particular is unnecessarily dismissive. It is true that this idea
is commonly abused, and abused in particular by deploying it as a
protective cover for the abuse of wives and children. Against that
background, an unnecessary dismissal is preferable to an unreflective
embrace. Still, I think that Okin's view would have been strengthened
if she had captured what is plausible in the view that ideal families lie
beyond justice while rejecting the offending construals of it.
To be more specific, let's say that an association that lies l>eyond
justice' is an order whose members live what we can now see to be good
and decent lives, but who do not think of one another as independent
subjects, do not suppose that the fact of their independence imposes

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278 Joshua Cohen

normative constraints on their interaction, and do not guide their actions

by abstract principles or abstract representations of one another as moral
persons. In such an association", a conception of justice - and of the
members as independent agents - plays no role in the public culture.
Nor should one be introduced, for it would - so the argument goes -
undercut the more intimate, concrete patterns of mutual concern that
can bind us in the absence of norms of justice, and that serve as part of
the basis of the attractions of the association.
Now it is a substantial thesis (which is not to say an implausible thesis)
that when people do not guide their interactions by reference to consid-
erations of justice, those interactions are inevitably unacceptably op-
pressive.31 But Okin says virtually nothing here in defense of that thesis.
What she offers is simply the dogmatic assertion that it is always better
that an association be regulated by norms of justice (29).
Furthermore, and more importantly for present purposes, the sketch
that I just gave of what it is for an association to lie beyond justice
suggests an interpretation of the idea that families lie beyond justice on
which that idea has some limited force. What is essential to the interpre-
tation is that we distinguish two points of view, each is associated with
distinctive norms, attitudes, and understandings (of oneself and others):
the first is the point of view of a citizen reflecting on the implications of
domestic arrangements for issues of justice and families, while the
second is the point of view of a person as a member of a family.
From the point of view of a citizen, then, we deny that families are
beyond justice. The content of that denial has two components: (i)
recognizing that families are part of the basic structure of society, we
seek to ensure that families are consistent with and supportive elements
of a just scheme; and (ii) in the justification of family law, public policy,
and the surrounding institutions that structure the opportunities of men
and women we proceed from the premise that the adult members of
families are equal and independent citizens, and that children are so in
prospect. In treating them as equal, we reject subordination on the basis
of sex and hold that sexual difference ought not to result in subordina-
tion or in differences of advantage. In treating them as independent, we
deny that marriage 'fuses' two citizens into a single individual.
At the same time, from the point of view of the member of a family,
these same considerations of justice need not provide the terms of
deliberation and choice. Decisions might be informed by a recognition

31 For a recent rejection of this thesis, see Alison M. Jaggar, 'Sexual Difference and
Sexual Equality/ in Theoretical Perspectives on Sexual Difference, Deborah L. Rhode,
ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press 1990) 239-54.

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 Okin on Justice, Gender, and Family 279

that members of a single household have special responsibilities for one

another, by feelings of love and attachment, by a conception of one
another as partners in a common life, and by the intimate knowledge
that comes from close association, but not by the thought: 'We ought to
treat one another as equals, since we all are responsible moral agents/
Thus it might be thought that the ideal family is an egalitarian family,
supportive of a substantively egalitarian society, but in which the egali-
tarianism is animated by concern directed to particular individuals, and
not by a conception of other members as free moral agents.
I should emphasize that I do not see any reason for Okin to disagree
with this view. The first aspect of it embraces the most important
element in her account of the family as a sphere of justice. And I think
that she must agree with some version of the different standpoints view,
since it appears to be required by her account of the pluralism of forms
of family life. But because of the distinction between the two standpoints
- which of course needs considerable elaboration - the view is also
consistent with one natural understanding of the view that interaction
in the family lies beyond justice.
For example, it captures what is plausible in Sandel's sketchy remarks
on this subject, which are focused on the case of an inharmonious family
in which both parents and children 'dutifully if sullenly abide by the two
[Rawlsian] principles of justice/32 Sandel's thought seems to be this: an
implication of the view that justice is fundamental is that families must
adjudicate their differences by reference to the same principles, atti-
tudes, and understandings that would be appropriate to evaluating
constitutional norms. But such adjudication is unattractive - it pro-
duces sullenness, for example. So justice is not fundamental to the ideal
family.
The idea of different standpoints suggests a more discriminating
response to the problem of the sullen family. We can agree that the ideal
family is in one respect beyond justice, since it is plausible that decision-
making in an ideal family would not proceed in terms of a set of abstract
principles designed for constitutional purposes. But given the distinc-
tion between standpoints, we see that accepting this does not commit us
to the view that families are, without qualification, beyond justice. On
the contrary, we can at the same time hold that, in reflecting on the
proper terms of domestic order, citizens need to treat justice as the
fundamental social virtue.

32 Michael Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press 1982), 33

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280 Joshua Cohen

So there does seem to be an aspect of the l>eyond justice' view that is

not 'demolished/ and accommodating it would enhance the force of an
account of domestic ordering suited to an egalitarian political concep-
tion.
In sum, then: Okin's discussion of alternative conceptions of justice
points to a significant defect in contemporary theories of justice. Fur-
thermore, she is right to insist that an acceptable egalitarianism must be
explicitly humanist (i.e., explicitly and not simply verbally non-sexist).
Moreover, her variant of the feminist strategy of criticism has consider-
able force against traditionalist accounts of justice and Bloom's view.
But I do not think that her other arguments for the Egalitarian-Humanist
Justice thesis enhance its plausibility. The strategy of feminist criticism
that Okin deploys is, I think, less powerful than she supposes.

IV Family as Linchpin?

Justice, according to Okin, requires the 'minimization of gender.' Since

a society has a gendered structure when its structure produces different
opportunities for men and women to achieve social advantages, gender
is minimized when basic institutions establish substantive equality of
opportunity for men and women (3).
On the most plausible account of justice, then, current arrangements
are unjust because they violate the norm of substantive equality of
opportunity. According to the Family as Linchpin thesis, the division of
domestic labor bears principal responsibility for this violation. It is this
thesis, then, that connects Okin's concern with humanist justice and the
violation of the principles of humanist justice by current gender rela-
tions with her more specific focus on families.
The argument that the family is the linchpin has two components, and
I will consider them in turn.
First, following Nancy Chodorow's germinal account of the reproduc-
tion of mothering, Okin holds that 'female mothering' generates differ-
ent psyches in men and women. These differences in turn define who
we are, in part because they lie at the heart of regnant understandings
of masculinity and femininity. Thus men resent, fear, and seek to domi-
nate women, and, as a general matter, overvalue independence. By
contrast, the experience of female mothering leads women to value
connectedness and nurturance and so aspire to the role of mother.
Okin emphasizes that, as a consequence of these divergent forms of
identity, the family does not serve its function as school of egalitarian
justice. For the formation of a sense of justice requires that we develop
the capacity to evaluate social arrangements from different points of

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 Okin on Justice, Gender, and Family 281

view. But the development of this capacity is obstructed if fathers do not

share equally with mothers in domestic tasks and childrearing.
I think that the reliance on Chodorow makes for the least compelling
parts of Okin's view, and is associated with certain objectionable aspects
of her treatment of moral development.33 For example, emphasizing the
need to develop a capacity to identify with different points of view, Okin
says that: 'Only children who are equally mothered and fathered can
develop fully the psychological and moral capacities that currently seem
to be unequally distributed between the sexes' (107). In a similar vein,
she emphasizes the importance to moral development of being 'par-
ented equally by adults of both sexes' (100). And, noting the complexity
of a sense of justice, she suggests that the capacities involved in it might
be 'better combined in children of both sexes who are reared by parents
of both sexes' (186). The implications of these remarks for gay and
lesbian parents, and for single parents simply go unmentioned. One can
reasonably expect better from a view whose central aim is to challenge
conventional wisdom about the conduct of domestic life.
Moreover, while Chodorow's Reproduction of Mothering is an impor-
tant and innovative book, it is also a highly speculative argument, that
depends crucially on a very contentious set of psychoanalytic assump-
tions, crystallized in particular in its focus on pre-Oedipal circumstance.
The plausibility and implications of the book are matters of considerable
controversy, not least among feminists.34 Several aspects of that contro-
versy are important for Okin's use of the view. First, Chodorow's
argument has been criticized for making too much of the fact of female
parenting quite apart from any inequalities of power between male and
female parents. In addition, it has been criticized for its inattention to
the fusing of sexuality and power that Catharine MacKinnon refers to
as the 'erotization of dominance and submission,' a phenomenon that
plays no role at all in Okin's discussion of gender.35 And finally, Cho-

33 I am concerned here principally with the use that Okin makes of Chodorow's view,
not with that view itself.

34 For Chodorow's own qualifications, see her Introduction to Feminism and Psycho-
analytic Theory (New Haven: Yale University Press 1989). For discussion of Cho-
dorow's view, see, for example, Roger Gottlieb, 'Mothering and the Reproduction
of Power: Chodorow, Dinnerstein, and Social Theory/ Socialist Review 77 (1984)
93-119; Iris Young, 'Is Male Gender Identity the Cause of Male Domination?' in
Mothering: Essays in Feminist Theory, Joyce Trebilcot, ed. (Totowa: Rowman and
Allanheld 1983) 129-46.

35 In fact, Okin's account of the reproduction of gender focuses mainly on the expec-
tations and identity of women. She does not present a sustained account of the

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282 Joshua Cohen

dorow's view has been criticized for its exclusively pre-Oedipal focus.
What is especially important here is that because of that focus Cho-
dorow's view in fact carries no implications at all about 'proper parent-
ing' for most of a child's life, which, common parental regrets
notwithstanding, is not pre-Oedipal.
So it is a mistake to treat the doctrine of The Reproduction of Mothering
as a premise in an argument which concludes with concerns about the
moral deficiencies of children who are not 'parented equally by adults
of both sexes' - both because the premise is so controversial and
because it does not warrant the conclusion. To be sure, substantive
normative theories always depend on broadly empirical argument
about the causes of injustice, and such argument is never entirely
uncontroversial. But Chodorow's explanation of the reproduction of
mothering is probably more controversial than Okin's account of the
importance of shared domestic responsibility. Okin has an important set
of views about injustice to women, about the implications of taking
seriously the fact that 'women, as well as men ... [are] full human beings
to whom a theory of social justice must apply7 (23), and about the failure
of conventional political theory and contemporary social practice to take
that fact seriously. It is a mistake to present those views as though they
were dependent on a highly speculative and contentious set of psycho-
analytic considerations about moral education.36
The second component of the argument for the family as linchpin
stands independently of the first. Here Okin points to certain more direct
disadvantages for women that flow from the traditional division of
domestic labor. Thus, anticipating their role in the family, women do
not invest in as much human capital as men. Absent that investment,
facing a discriminatory labor market, and so operating at a relative
disadvantage in earning power, they 'decide' to devote more time to
family and less to career than men. With reduced earning power, and
as a consequence limited exit options,37 their leverage in family decisions
is reduced. Through its effects on the structure of opportunities, then,

advantages that flow to men from the gender system - whether sexual or economic
- or of the uses of power to sustain those advantages.

36 I of course do not mean to suggest that a conception of domestic justice can neglect
to consider what is best for children. This is plainly a central issue, but not one that
can safely be addressed by a mechanical application of one speculative piece of
psychology.

37 The attractiveness of exit could be improved by appropriate divorce laws. But as

Okin emphasizes, current divorce law typically reinforces the disadvantages of
women.

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 Okin on Justice, Gender, and Family 283

the gendered family plays the pivotal role in the preservation of a

gendered society.
I am skeptical about the Family as Linchpin thesis. But I do not think
that I disagree with the view that Okin actually presents in her more
detailed discussion of the reproduction of gender, because I think that
the family does not really serve as the linchpin in that discussion. Okin
does think that the traditional division of labor in the family - which,
it should be said, persists in the face of the f eminization of the labor force
- helps to sustain an overall structure of sexual subordination and
differential opportunities for men and women. But (as my sketch in the
last paragraph indicated) the same is true of labor market discrimina-
tion. In fact, Okin cites with approval the work of various feminist
economists (including Sylvia Walby, Heidi Hartmann, and Barbara
Bergmann) who have criticized the Family as Linchpin view, and argued
instead that labor market discrimination is the key to gender - particu-
larly under current conditions of high female rates of labor force partici-
pation (see, for example, 203, n.38). The crucial point in these views is
that the current division of household labor is itself encouraged and
sustained by sex-segregated job classifications and the wage differences
that follow on them. Because of the conditions that women face in the
labor market, it is more costly for men to bear their share of the domestic
burden than it is for women. So a gender structured family is actually
explained by the 'choices' of men and women given the constraints
imposed by the current organization of labor markets.
Okin finds considerable force in both the labor market and domestic
ordering explanations of gender structure (146), and suggests that it is
best to see those explanations as complementary rather than competing.
In particular, she proposes that the labor market and the division of
domestic labor form parts of a single system whose components are
mutually reinforcing (147). But if this 'single system' view is right, then
it is not clear how to understand the contention that The family is the
linchpin of gender, reproducing it from one generation to the nexf (170).
Perhaps the idea is that the division of domestic labor is the linchpin
from the point of view of altering the system of gender because it is more
susceptible to manipulation and so a more suitable entry point for
political action. This certainly conforms to the focus of Okin's construc-
tive proposals, which are almost exclusively aimed at providing incen-
tives for altering the division of domestic labor and the balance of power
in the family. Thus she says virtually nothing about measures that might

38 For a review of debates on these issues, see Sylvia Walby, Theorizing Patriarchy
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1990), chs. 2, 3.

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284 Joshua Cohen

address sex-segmented labor markets or the disadvantages that follow

on them - programs of affirmative action, or comparable worth, or
reform of labor law to facilitate unionization in the public sector and
service sector, or new (non-union) forms of workplace representation,
or protections for part-time employees, who are overwhelming and
increasingly female.39 But to the extent that the single system view is
right and labor market segmentation does carry independent weight in
explaining gender structure, the measures that Okin emphasizes will
have limited results, since segmentation will preserve important incen-
tives to divide domestic labor along traditional lines.
Okin does remark in one place that employers should "be required by
law ... to completely eradicate sex discrimination, including sexual
harassment' (176), and suggests (by the location of the remark) that the
measures that she focuses on are intended to supplement that require-
ment. But this indicates that the gendered family is less the linchpin of
the system of gender, than one essential aspect of it that needs to be
addressed in its own right. If it is, however, then more attention should
have been paid to measures that would address labor market discrimi-
nation (not to mention other conditions that comprise the inequality of
women, such as constraints on reproductive choice).
In short: if the single system view is right, then Okin's discussion of
policy measures neglects an equally essential part of the story about
gender structure. If the measures on which Okin concentrates are suffi-
cient, then she ought to distance herself from the single system concep-
tion.

The first of the alternatives just noted strikes me as the most reason-
able, and the one that would, I think, be most congenial to Okin. But then
it is doubly important that she give more attention to the labor market
side of the system, in view of a feature of her position that I mentioned
in my discussion of the liberal aspect of her egalitarianism. Okin, as I
indicated, proposes to address the imbalances in the domestic division
of labor largely by providing an infrastructure of day care, flex time, and
divided wages, rather than through more direct, regulatory measures.
The ideal is equality through choice (171). But under conditions of labor
market discrimination, the domestic division of labor of 'choice' is likely
to be highly unequal, even in the presence of the conditions that Okin

39 On the persistence of segmentation in the face of a system of family policy that does
much of what Okin proposes, see Mary Ruggie, 'Gender, Work, and Social Progress:
Some Consequences of Interest Aggregation in Sweden/ in Feminization of the Labor
Force, 173-88. On part-time work, see Isabella Bakker, 'Women's Employment in
Comparative Perspective/ in ibid., 16-44.

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 Okin on Justice, Gender, and Family 285

proposes. The institutional and regulatory infrastructure for an egalitar-

ian liberalism is more elaborate than the Family as Linchpin thesis, or
the associated policy recommendations, suggest.

V Conclusion

The remarks I just entered on equality and choice bring me to what are
I think, the basic strengths and limitations of Okin's book. Lying at th
heart of Justice, Gender, and the Family is a political vision of a world in
which three aspects of families come together. In the first place, families
will realize ideals of liberty, as the terms and conditions within familie
are genuinely set by the choices of different men and women moved by
diverse values and understandings. Second, families will embody ideals
of equality, thus encouraging the fuller realization of those ideals in
other arenas of life. Finally, families will shape the understandings and
ideals of children in ways that will school children in the value of justice
and in the importance of acting from that value.
The main idea in Okin's book, then, is that, given appropriate back-
ground conditions, men and women will (on the whole and for the mos
part) chose more egalitarian forms of family life, and that those form
will both promote a gender free society and educate the next generation
about the requirements of justice. Put otherwise, by providing a self-con-
sciously humanist form of egalitarian liberalism, Okin aims to deepen
and extend the claim that an egalitarian order, featuring a broad attach
ment to norms of egalitarian justice, can be achieved by liberal means.
This is an attractive vision and Okin's clear articulation of it represents
an original and valuable contribution to contemporary political thought
But if you had doubts about it before reading this book - because your
egalitarianism is less liberal, or your liberalism less egalitarian, or be-
cause you think that these values commonly conflict - those doubts are
not likely to be quieted either by the arguments it offers in support o
egalitarian liberalism or by the more specific proposals that it makes i
the area of family policy. This is the main weakness in the book.
The seriousness of this limitation, however, needs to be put in per-
spective. Important works of political philosophy often40 contribute less
by the arguments they give than by the questions they ask and the power
of their convictions about the correct answers to them. The grea
strength of Justice, Gender, and the Family lies here: in its sharp challenge

40 Some would say 'always/

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286 Joshua Cohen

to the complacency about issues of gender and the family characteristic

of contemporary theories of justice and in its outline of an egalitarian-
humanist perspective on the address of those issues.41 Political philoso-
phy should not be the same.

Received: January, 1992

41 I would like to thank Larry Blum, Uday Mehta, Cass Sunstein, and Judith Thomson
for their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts.

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