Complex Identities

In 1974, Herbert Marcuse claimed that Women's Liberation Movement was the most important and potentially most radical political movement that we have1 because of its double task: on one hand, full social, economic, and cultural equality; on other hand, something even more ambitious and important: re-shaping of society according to a different reality principle than one operating in capitalist world, based on historically labeled female characteristics revolutionary potential of which was beginning in those years to become visible. From that second-wave feminism came a critical thrust, which is still today very profitable-although in recent years a third-wave feminism has appeared, as clearly emerges from work of such authors as Wendy McElroy2 or Nadine Strossen3-bringing a whole range of new disciplines and new approaches to light, articulated around specific gender-related issues. Nonetheless, it is not easy to find a common ground shared by all these new perspectives, making it particularly clear that, today, we should not talk about feminism, rather about different feminisms. In what follows, I will focus on one of these feminist perspectives, social-political tradition reference point of which can be traced back to theoretical constellation of Hegel-Marx-Critical Theory. I will first take into consideration debate between feminist theorists and Jurgen Habermas about his model of communicative rationality, particularly referring to main objections raised through a gender point of view. Second, I will analyze Seyla Benhabib's position, since in her work both perspectives are combined in order to achieve an adequate social theory with strong critical potential. Gender Issues: Criticizing Habermas The most common position towards Habermas within feminist social-political theory is to some extent ambivalent. On one hand, some aspects of Habermas's perspective are seen as still connected to an essentially patriarchal4 and male-oriented underlying point of view; on other hand, main features of communicative rationality are taken to be best approach to rule out these limiting premises. It seems as though many feminist theorists try to use Habermas contra Habermas, i.e., to develop main features of his theory in a way that will leave out all those aspects which could have discriminatory consequences from a gender point of view.5 This is what could be called, using Lisa McLaughlin's words, the feminist project of revising Habermasian public sphere.6 Although not shared by every kind of feminist approach, it is possible to identify basically four main critical objections that have been raised against Habermas's perspective.7 The first critical direction is related to Habermas's position within KohlbergGilligan debate. As is well known, Lawrence Kohlberg proposes a theory of different stages of moral reasoning which puts at highest level of development ability to formulate a moral judgment solely on purely formal, universalistic grounds, excluding from proper moral domain every argument connected with particular contexts. The authentic moral judgment has an universalizable nature, depending only on formal features, it is free from beliefs and values existing in a given society. Carol Gilligan emphasizes gender-discrimination character of Kohlberg's approach: in her view, reference standards he chooses give more relevance to typical male moral reasoning models, based on such concepts as and right, in comparison to other female models, more dependent on ideas of care and responsibility. The female moral point of view is oriented, in Gilligan's view, toward a greater consideration of context, situatedness of individual caught in a web of different relations which call for a particular and specific consideration. Therefore, Gilligan proposes to balance male ethics of justice and its universalistic tendencies with a female ethics of care, more sensible to concrete context situations. …