Susan Moller Okin

Susan Moller Okin was a New Zealand-born feminist political philosopher who taught at Brandeis University and Stanford University. She argued that the great theories of justice, from Plato to John Rawls, had ignored the family, treating it as a private sphere beyond justice. In Justice, Gender, and the Family she showed how gender-structured marriage leaves women economically vulnerable and how unjust families teach children poor lessons about fairness. Her later essay 'Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?' started a wide debate about group rights and gender equality.

Key ideas

• Theories of justice must apply to the family, not stop at the household door.
• The gendered division of labour in marriage makes women vulnerable both within marriage and after divorce.
• Families are the first school of moral development, so just families are needed for just citizens.
• Rawls's original position, applied consistently, would rule out a gender-structured society.
• Group rights for minority cultures can reinforce the subordination of women within those cultures.

Major works

• Justice, Gender, and the Family (1989)
• Women in Western Political Thought (1979)
• Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? (1999)

In the Book corner

• Justice, Gender, and the Family 1989 · Intermediate
  A feminist critique of contemporary theories of justice, which Okin argues have largely ignored the family even though it is where children…

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