The Genderless Capacity to Choose a Life

Martha Nussbaum.
Sex & Social Justice.
Oxford University Press (1999).

"Think what real people usually hold in awe: money, power, success, nice clothes, fancy cars, the dignity of kings, the wealth of corporations, the authority of despots of all sorts--and, perhaps most important of all, the authority of custom and tradition.  Think what real women frequently hold in awe, or at least in fear: the physical power of men, the authority of men in the workplace, the sexual allure of male power, the alleged maleness of the deity, the control males have over work and shelter and food.  The liberal holds none of these things in awe.  She feels reverence for the world, its mystery and its wonder.  And she reveres the capacity of persons to choose and fashion a life.  That capacity has no gender, so the liberal does not revere established distinctions of gender any more than the dazzling equipment of kings.  Some liberal thinkers have in fact revered established distinctions in gender.  But, insofar as they did, they did not follow the vision of liberalism far enough.  It is the vision of a beautiful, rich, and difficult world, in which a community of persons regard one another as free and equal but also as finite and needy--and therefore strive to arrange their relations on terms of justice and liberty.  In a world governed by hierarchies of power and fashion, this is still, as it was from the first, a radical vision, a vision that can and should lead to revolution.  It is always radical to make the demand to see and to be seen as a human rather than as someone's lord or someone's subject.  I believe it is best for women to embrace this vision and make this demand." (79-80)