Mary Lyndon Shanley

Reflections on Iris Marion Young's Justice and the Politics of Difference

In this brief contribution, we highlight some of the ways Iris Marion Youngs Justice and the Politics of Difference has served as both a touchstone and a challenge to feminist political theorists struggling to deal with the complexities of “equality” and community. We look briefly at three seemingly different cases, showing how Youngs critique of impartiality in this book helps to illuminate what is wrong with the recent Supreme Court decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools vs. Seattle School District No. 1 et al. It also helps us clarify our thinking about how to remedy unequal access to reproductive technologies and shows how the recognition of group difference is an important counterweight to a false universality.

Jean Elshtain on Families and Politics

Jean Elshtains writings on feminism, families, and politics were both profoundly important to the development of feminist theory and, at times, deeply puzzling. Elshtain engaged with central texts of western political thought in ways that enabled and encouraged others to think through what it would mean to take womens lives seriously in all their ambiguity and complexity.