Gender Studies: Autonomy What is Autonomy?

Autonomy is both a characteristic of a human subject and a quality that inheres in particular acts or choices. Liberal feminists such as Meyers recognise the need for a closer relationship between the conceptual and the empirical in defining autonomy, and introduce an account of gender socialisation that highlights the interrelatedness of most women's lives.

 Not with standing the dispute among philosophers, most theories of autonomy can be divided into two major categories: those that focus on the independence in acts and agents, and those that focus on the rationality in acts and agents.

 Independence-focused theories of autonomy see agents as being independent from something, and this freedom may be more or less complete.This type of autonomy is a desirable trait, and agents must work hard to achieve it.

 Rationality-focused theories of autonomy describe it as an inherent characteristic of humans, a trait they either possess or lack. This type of autonomy cannot be developed or achieved, and does not depend on being free from the constraints of external factors. It is not a matter of being independent from something, but being internally rational or coherent.

 One of the most influential theories of autonomy, that of Immanuel Kant, is particularly focused on rationality. Many modern political theorists, including John Rawls, are Kantians. Like Kant, their analysis of autonomy is closely linked with rights.

 Theorist Joel Feinberg agrees that autonomy has no single meaning, but attempts to reconcile some of the above ideas. He thinks the most complete account has four aspects: (1) the capacity to self-govern, (2) the actual condition of self-government, (3) an ideal conception of self-government, and (4) the sovereign authority to self-govern. Joel Feinberg, Autonomy, in The Inner Citadel: Essays on Individual Autonomy, ed. John Christman (NY: Oxford University Press, 1989), 28-29.

 In The Theory and Practice of Autonomy, Gerald Dworkin examines various theories of autonomy and finds it has been equated with liberty, selfrule, sovereignty, freedom of the will, dignity, integrity, individuality, independence, responsibility, self-knowledge, self-assertion, critical reflection, freedom from obligation and absence of external causation. Gerald Dworkin, The Theory and Practice of Autonomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988)

There are two issues encircling autonomy: Critique of (certain conceptions of) autonomy as implying self-sufficiency, separation, independence from others Division between procedural and substantive understandings of autonomy

 Autonomy - self-government is at one level central to feminist politics Women as individuals in their own right, not subsumed under fathers or husbands, capable of making their lives in their own way Simone de Beauvoir The Second Sex (1949): women as other, humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being

 Womens individual well-being has far too rarely been taken into account in political and economic planning and measurement. Women have very often been treated as parts of a larger unit, especially the family, and valued primarily for their contribution as reproducers and caregivers rather than as sources of agency and worth in their own right When food is scarce in families, it is frequently women, and especially girls, who get less, who become malnourished and die. When there is an illness and only some children can be taken to the doctor, it is frequently girls who are neglected. When only some children can go to school, it is frequently the girls who are kept at home. (Martha
Nussbaum The Feminist Critique of Liberalism, 63)

Five feminist critiques of autonomy

Symbolic critiques Metaphysical critiques Care critiques Postmodernist critiques Diversity Critiques
(C. Mackenzie and N Stoljar (eds) Relational Autonomy: 2000)
The pathology in thinking of autonomy as a matter of maintaining boundaries against others, or as secured by restricting the remit of public/collective power in this understanding of freedom, we dont become free by participating with others in shaping our lives; we become free by keeping others out from the terrain in which we can make our own decisions

Jennifer Nedelsky (1989)

Symbolic critique: autonomy is represented as selfsufficiency, independence, self-reliance, with one persons autonomy as at threat from others Autonomous man is and should be self-sufficient, independent, and self-reliant, a self-realizing individual who directs his efforts towards maximizing his personal gains. His independence is under constant threat from other (equally self-serving) individuals; hence he devises rules to protect himself from intrusion. Talk of rights, rational self-interest, expedience, and efficiency permeates his moral, social, and political discourse. In short, there has been a gradual alignment of autonomy with individualism. (Lorraine Code What Can She Know? Feminist Theory
and the Construction of Knowledge, Cornel University Press, 1991: 78)

Metaphysical critique:
Theories of autonomy rest on a false conception of the atomistic individual They treat individuals as metaphysically separate, capable of being understood without considering their social location This is bad sociology, bad metaphysics, it fails to understand the ways in which all of us are constituted by our social relations

Care critiques:
Traditional conceptions are masculinist, deriving from the male process of separation from the mother (Nancy Chodorow) they undervalue love, loyalty, friendship, care, connection, the values associated with the more typical female experience women more likely to recognise the centrality of relationships in constituting the self, reflecting both womens care responsibilities and the experience of being defined in and by a relationship to others Nedelsky notes the irony: that women may learn the centrality of relationships in constituting the self through an oppressive experience, through a history of being defined as other, by reference to men but while Nussbaum wants to break this pattern and calls for women to be recognised at last as separate autonomous beings, Nedelsky asks us to rethink our understanding of autonomy increasingly termed a relational understanding of autonomy

Postmodernist critiques
Theories of autonomy assume an agent that is transparent, unified, able to achieve mastery, they assume (Nietzsche) a doer behind the deed Yet Freud suggests that individuals are selfdeluding, opaque to themselves Michel Foucault says that agency is an effect not the cause of shifting configurations of power

Diversity critiques
Each individual has multiple identities
Identities are intersectional ,formed, for example, through intersections of gender, race, class This multiplicity works against simpler notions of an integrated self What happens to conceptions of autonomy if we think of identity as inherently fragmented, shifting, contradictory and incomplete?