The Disorder of Women: Democracy, Feminism, and Political Theory

by Carole Pateman

Carole Pateman is one of the leading political theorists writing today. This wide-ranging volume brings together for the first time a selection of her work on democratic theory and feminist criticism of mainstream political theory. The volume includes substantial discussions of problems of democracy, citizenship and the welfare state, including the largely unrecognized difficulties surrounding women's participation. The inclusion of essays from both a mainstream and feminist perspective provides concrete examples of the differences between these two approaches to democracy, to questions of consent and political obligation, and to the relationship between the private and public spheres. This scholarly and highly challenging work will be of interest to students and researchers in political theory, political science, women's studies and sociology.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Sociology, Gender, Womens

237 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Carole Pateman is a feminist and political theorist. She is known as a critic of liberal democracy.

Reviews

[Adrian Fanaca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is opening with an essay about women, love and the sense of justice, the title of the first chapter, where the common theme of Carole Pateman and her feminism of the injustice of the traditional social contract of Rousseau, Lock or Hobbes, for example, because of its exclusion of women and the disregard of the unpaid work women do in the household. Moreover, women are expected to be the primary givers of love and care in the family, both towards the husband and the relatives. This is highly problematic and it reinforces the inequalities in the public sphere where men are the main actors and in the private sphere where women are the main actors. Next chapter is called the fraternal social contract, in which Pateman challenges the social contract as an illusory equality of men, being in fact a fraternal pact among men, white men. Next, Carole Pateman tries to challenge the traditional arguments for justifying obedience to the state and challenges the state as a non-gender neutral idea, but rather male oriented. Next, she explores how liberal democratic ideals, such as consent, are often used to rationalise rather than dismantle gendered hierarchies. By revealing the ways consent has been weaponized against women, she calls for a deeper interrogation of its role in sustaining systems of oppression. Pateman notes next how key liberal democratic theorists like Locke and Wolin perpetuate gendered exclusions, even as they advocate for ideals of freedom and equality. By critiquing the idealisation and reification of these structures, she challenges readers to rethink the very foundations of liberal democratic theory and its conceptions of politics. Next, Patemen argues how the public/private dichotomy is central to the perpetuation of gender inequality. Pateman’s feminist critique calls for a radical rethinking of political theory and practice to address the deeply intertwined nature of power, gender, and the division between public and private life. Pateman exposes the gendered biases inherent in political science and democratic theory, for example Almond and Verba's The Civic Culture (1965). Her work challenges theorists to move beyond narrow conceptions of citizenship and participation, advocating for a more inclusive and equitable understanding of democracy. In the end she criticises the welfare state as reinforcing the role of the man as breadwinner and of the woman as dependent on him.
To conclude; Pateman's work here is a critique of the failures of liberal democracy and a call to action for feminist theorists and activists. Pateman’s book challenges us to envision a democracy that is not only formally inclusive but also substantively egalitarian, addressing the structural inequalities that undermine the democratic promise

[Stef Rozitis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is somewhat dated (was written in the 80s) so some of what it says in the present tense is no longer true (which is mostly a good thing).

It's still an extremely useful and interesting analysis of how democracy and patriarchy are intertwined and for feminist reforms to really work we need a deeper shift in what democracy is not just current system and add women (without changing who is responsible for domestic stuff).

It may not be current enough to quite except very carefully...but for anyone who doesn't want to go wading through John Stuart Mill or Locke for themselves, this is a very useful guide to some of the arguments (and flaws in their thinking).