Feminist Perspectives on Reproduction and the Family

Historically, few of the philosophers who defended justice in the public political realm argued for just family structures. Instead, most viewed the family as a separate realm that needed to be protected from state intrusion. The private sphere and the public sphere were dichotomized into separate realms with the latter beyond the reach of public action. Where these philosophers did not legitimate private power in the family, they simply ignored it.

John Stuart Mill was a notable exception, arguing in The Subjection of Women, that the inequality of women in the family was incompatible with their equality in the wider social world. Consider, he asks, the consequences of “the self-worship, the unjust self preference” nourished in boys growing up in male dominated households in which “by the mere fact of being born male he is by right the superior of all and every one of an entire half of the human race” (1869, 86–87). How will such boys grow up into men who treat women as equals? Feminist scholarship has continued, extended and deepened this attack on the conception of the family as a private personal realm. Indeed, the idea that “the personal [that is, the family] is political” is the core idea of most contemporary feminism.

1. Why The Family is Subject to Principles of Justice

1.1 The family is a political institution

1.2 The family affects the development of future citizens

1.3 The family constrains or enables women's freedoms

2. How should family structures be evaluated?

2.1 Choice based evaluations

2.2 Equality based evaluations

2.3 The Interests of Children

3. Reproductive Choice

3.1 Abortion

3.2 Commercial Surrogacy

4. Concluding thoughts

Bibliography

Academic Tools

Other Internet Resources

Related Entries