Introducción
Nannerl O. Keohane & Frances McCall Rosenbluth
T his issue of Dædalus focuses on women in the world today: in politics, el
economía, and society more broadly. Its publication at the centennial of
the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution cele-
brates victory in the battle for suffrage everywhere.
Winning the right to vote was a significant step in the effort to achieve equali-
ty for women. Yet the achievement of economic self-sufficiency is equally impor-
tante. And as the burgeoning #MeToo movement reminds us, freeing women from
the threat of sexual harassment and abuse is another crucial goal.
Mary Wollstonecraft struck a recognizably modern tone in her 1792 trabajar
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman when she wrote that women’s dependence on
men for sustenance and survival degrades their character. “You can’t expect vir-
tue from women until they are to some extent independent of men; en efecto, tú
can’t expect the strength of natural affection that would make them good wives
and good mothers. While they absolutely depend on their husbands, they will be
cunning, significar, and selfish.”1
Virginia Woolf made a similar argument more than a century later in A Room
of One’s Own, concluding that financial dependence on men has meant that the
great majority of women can be neither creative nor secure. “Women have had
less intellectual freedom than the sons of Athenian slaves. . . . That is why I have
laid so much stress on money and a room of one’s own.”2 No one should be sur-
prised when a woman who has no economic resources of her own adapts to the
man’s world in ways that reflect not her nature, but her need.
In some parts of the world, women still occupy profoundly subservient posi-
tions across political, económico, and social domains. Women in many countries
have secured the right to vote. But suffrage alone does not bring access to political
power on equal terms with men, economic equality remains elusive everywhere,
and much remains to be done to protect women from sexual harassment and as-
sault. This volume, por lo tanto, is not only a celebration, but also an invitation to
further reflection, and a call to action.
The path forward is illuminated by the many successes of the past. This collec-
tion offers assessments–some cool-headed, some passionate–of the remaining
6
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
4
9
1
6
1
8
3
1
6
8
2
d
a
mi
d
_
mi
_
0
1
7
7
0
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
© 2020 por la Academia Americana de las Artes & Sciences Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Internacional (CC POR 4.0) licencia https://doi.org/10.1162/DAED_e_01770
obstacles to equality and points a way toward workable solutions. The essays tap
deep stores of insight from academic researchers and from practitioners who ex-
perience every day what it is to be a woman in today’s world, or understand these
dilemmas as sympathetic male observers. The kaleidoscopic picture offered in
these pages reflects the complexities of context, but the overall message is clear:
the striking progress of our forebears offers hope for the rest of the journey.
O f the many societal changes of the second half of the twentieth century,
few were as profound in their implications as the changing role of wom-
en. To understand how quickly that change occurred, we need only look
through two earlier volumes of this journal. There have been only two issues of
Dædalus in its sixty-five-year history on topics pertaining to the situation of women:
one in 1964 and the second in 1987.3 The difference in the themes, tono, contenido,
and contributors for these two issues, compiled only two decades apart, is a suc-
cinct account of the impact of second-wave feminism.
“The Woman in America,” published in spring 1964, focused on the challenges
and new opportunities of juggling career and marriage, the patterns of women’s
lives in the home and the workplace, and the distinctive psychology of women.
The most prominent authors were male social scientists. The concepts of power
and politics were effectively absent.
Fast forward to 1987, and we are in a completely different world. “Learning
About Women: Gender, Política, and Power” centered not on “the woman” but
women, recognizing that not all women are alike. Most of the authors were dis-
tinguished female social scientists and historians. Several of the essays are specif-
ically about political themes, including conversations with Elizabeth Holtzman
and Shirley Williams, prominent political leaders in New York City and the Unit-
ed Kingdom.
Carl Degler, the only author other than Jill K. Conway to contribute to both
volumes, wrote the concluding essay, entitled “On Rereading ‘The Woman in
America,’” for the 1987 issue. He had earlier emphasized the absence of any guid-
ing principles that would reflect goals and commitments held by women. Como
he admitted in 1987, he had been completely wrong about this: what he called
“ideology”–such as the beliefs and commitments of second-wave feminists–
was just not yet visible in 1964.4
The one exception to Degler’s generalization was Alice Rossi’s 1964 essay en-
titled, with a nod to Jonathan Swift, “Equality Between the Sexes: An Immodest
Proposal.” This essay was widely cited and included in many syllabi for courses in
women’s studies in the succeeding decades. Rossi found “practically no feminist
spark left among American women.” There were “few Noras in contemporary so-
ciety” because women seem to “have deluded themselves that the doll’s house is
large enough to find complete personal fulfillment within it.” Rossi’s argument
7
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
4
9
1
6
1
8
3
1
6
8
2
d
a
mi
d
_
mi
_
0
1
7
7
0
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
149 (1) Winter 2020Nannerl O. Keohane & Frances McCall Rosenbluth
is more radical than Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, published a year earli-
er in 1963. Rossi’s major thesis, so familiar now, was then rarely voiced: “that we
need to reassert the claim to sex equality and to search for the means by which it
can be achieved.”5
Rossi’s definition of sex equality was “a socially androgynous conception of
the roles of men and women, in which they are equal and similar in such spheres
as intellectual, artistic, political and occupational interests and participation,
complementary only in spheres dictated by physiological differences between the
sexes.” She continues: “An androgynous conception of sex role means that each
sex will cultivate some of the characteristics usually associated with the other in
traditional sex role definitions. This means that tenderness and expressiveness
should be cultivated in boys and socially approved in men,” and that “achieve-
ment need, workmanship and constructive aggression should be cultivated in
girls and that a female of any age would be similarly free to express these qual-
ities.” Rossi describes this goal as “the enlargement of the common ground on
which men and women base their lives together by chancing the social definitions
of approved characteristics and behavior for both sexes.”6
An author making the same point today might use the term “gender.” In the
early 1960s, sin embargo, the concept of gender was characterized by Talcott Parsons’s
views of the biological bases of the divisions of labor in society, not associated
with cultural roles. Por 1987, it was received wisdom that gender is a cultural, rath-
er than a biological, fenómeno. Gender patterns were viewed as fluid, chang-
ing over time.
The introduction to the 1987 volumen, written by Jill K. Conway, Susan C. Bour-
que, and Joan W. Scott, focuses specifically on this topic. The work of gender is
“the production of culturally appropriate forms of male and female behavior,"
mediated by the various institutions of any society. The authors emphasize that
“gender systems–regardless of historical time period–are binary systems that
oppose male to female, masculine to feminine, usually not on an equal basis but in
hierarchical order.”7
Such a rigidly binary understanding of sex and gender stands in stark contrast
to the concept of gender today. The fluidity that authors noted in 1987 has become
much more pervasive, effacing the binary divisions between the sexes that have
dominated human understanding for millennia. Notions of transgender identity,
bisexuality, and other variations on the binary theme would have been alien to the
autores (and almost all readers) of both volumes.
Several of the essays in this volume, and especially Anne Marie Goetz’s, en-
clude thoughtful discussions of gender, but the prominence of gender fluidity in
2020 has led us not to use the word in the title of this volume. An issue of Dædalus
on the theme of “gender” would be fascinating; but this is not that volume. Nuestro
interest is in the situation of women in the world today, and we are not concerned
8
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
4
9
1
6
1
8
3
1
6
8
2
d
a
mi
d
_
mi
_
0
1
7
7
0
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesIntroduction
with how any individual has come to the self-understanding and presentation of
self as female. We are more interested in what has come to be known as “intersec-
nacionalidad,” the ways in which differences among human beings–including race,
etnicidad, class, and sexual identification–both divide and unite women in all so-
cieties today.8
It is a blot on the history of women’s suffrage in the United States that the most
prominent leaders of the effort failed to fight for minority women and men. Estafa-
fronted with racism in the electorate and fearing that Southern states would re-
fuse to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment, White suffragists retreated from pro-
moting equality for Black Americans. The contributions of eloquent and dedicat-
ed Black suffragists including Frances Ellen Watkins Parker, Mary Church Terrell,
and Mary Ann Shadd Cary were ignored or downplayed by White leaders such
as Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman Catt.9 This betrayal meant that Black
people would have to wait until the civil rights movement of the 1960s for an ex-
plicit recognition that Jim Crow violated political equality for Black Americans
as effectively as the absence of women’s voting rights had excluded women from
política.
Racism is deep in America, and it motivates public unwillingness to invest in
education, salud, and welfare in minority neighborhoods. But underinvestment
is a vicious cycle that underpins continuing, long-term, and pernicious statisti-
cal discrimination against minorities in America. The pattern is well documented
in employment: identical resumes with minority-sounding names are routinely
given lower marks by potential employers.10 This parallels discrimination against
prospective women applicants for many kinds of jobs.11
Employers may assume that minorities are poorly educated, and many are, de-
ten because of fiscal neglect. Even individuals who transcend bad circumstanc-
es often face a wall of prejudice. Statistical discrimination, in which people judge
individuals based on population averages, produces widespread implicit bias.12
The legacies of racism as well as sexism continue to afflict minority women to-
día, and thus they face a “double bind.” Severe statistical discrimination against
Black men and mass incarceration of Black fathers has often left Black women to
support their families. Black women entered the workforce earlier and in far larg-
er numbers than their White counterparts, although typically in low-paying jobs
such as housecleaning and childcare.13
The concept of intersectionality includes class as well as race, género, and sex-
ual identity. Another blot on the history of feminism, as Dara Strolovitch and
others have pointed out, is the sustained blindness of privileged women in many
countries to the women with fewer economic advantages who care for the chil-
dren of the more privileged, cleaning their houses and doing other domestic du-
ties so that their employers can do the professional work they have chosen.14 The
“consciousness raising” that was the signature activity of second-wave feminism
9
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
4
9
1
6
1
8
3
1
6
8
2
d
a
mi
d
_
mi
_
0
1
7
7
0
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
149 (1) Winter 2020Nannerl O. Keohane & Frances McCall Rosenbluth
did not include raising our consciousness about class cleavages. And as the split in
the leadership of the Women’s March organization attests, the impact of race re-
mains a significant challenge to the women’s movement in the United States to-
day.15 Much remains to be done in both these areas before we can wholeheartedly
celebrate progress in the movement for equality.
T he essays in this collection address four themes: political participation,
economic equality, changing social norms, and the path forward. As Dawn
Teele points out in “Women & the Vote,” the centrality of the act of vot-
ing in democratic governments means that women were not fully citizens in any
democracy until the mid-nineteenth century. The struggle for suffrage around the
world sparked what has been called the “first wave” of the modern feminist move-
mento. The leadership of committed activists in the struggle for suffrage is a prime
example of the power of women focused on the pursuit of a specific goal, a pesar de
the delays in granting the vote provide evidence of the stubborn obstacles. Cru-
cialmente, the suffragists built bridges to powerful men who were committed to their
cause or saw ways to benefit from women allies in pursuing their own goals.
Teele reminds us of the tensions between the more radical women leaders, en-
cluding Emmeline Pankhurst in the United Kingdom and Alice Paul in the United
Estados, and the more cautious leaders, such as Millicent Fawcett and Carrie Chap-
man Catt. Both sides contributed to achieving the goal, not in direct collabora-
tion but in the neat convergence of their strategies: the demands of radical wom-
en made the pleas of the centrists seem reasonable by comparison. As Teele notes,
there are lessons here for the continuing struggle for equality: rights for women
do not automatically emerge but must be fought for and preserved.
The fight for suffrage was carried out not only to give women the vote, pero
also to make it possible to stand for political office. Further obstacles must be sur-
mounted before women have an equal share in representative government. Como
Joan Scott put it in her 1987 essay in Dædalus, referring to gender and race, "El
difficulties experienced by the bearers of these marks of difference indicate that
access is more than a matter of ‘getting through the door.’”16 Kira Sanbonmatsu
in her contribution to this volume, “Women’s Underrepresentation in the U.S.
Congreso,” discusses the current situation of women officeholders in the United
Estados. Even though American women have voted at a higher rate than men for
four decades and held the majority of seats in city councils and statewide offices in
some areas, men still outnumber women significantly in the posts with the great-
est power and prestige.
Sanbonmatsu identifies three types of factors that help explain this persistent
gap in office-holding: social and psychological; political; and racial. Under the
first heading, age-old stereotypes that associate leadership with masculinity and
emphasize the traditional sexual division of labor continue to stand as obstacles.
10
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
4
9
1
6
1
8
3
1
6
8
2
d
a
mi
d
_
mi
_
0
1
7
7
0
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesIntroduction
Sin embargo, once a woman decides to run for statewide office or Congress, she is
about as likely as a male candidate to succeed. Persuading more women to stand
for office is thus a crucial goal.
The striking increase in the number of women candidates for office in the 2018
A NOSOTROS. midterm elections and the continuing efforts to influence local, estado, y no-
tional politics have been disproportionately within the Democratic Party. Qué-
ever their party affiliation, racial prejudice and stereotypes mean that Black and
Latina women face an especially daunting challenge in being elected. Sin embargo, como
Sanbonmatsu points out, given their position at the intersection of two major cat-
egories–race and gender–minority women can sometimes hope to build broad-
er coalitions than those available to White women or Black men.
Despite the uptick in 2018, solo 24 percent of the members of the U.S. Estafa-
gress today are female, comparado con 30 a 50 percent in Western Europe, y
even more in female parliamentary majorities in Rwanda, Cuba, and Bolivia. El
proportional representation systems of Europe are conducive to gender parity be-
cause parties rather than individuals compete for office. Por el contrario, women are
at a comparative disadvantage in weak party systems such as in the United States,
where it is consequential to lose seniority on account of child-rearing and to pos-
sess weaker fundraising networks on account of lower-wage jobs.17
Rafaela Dancygier’s essay, “Another Progressive’s Dilemma: Inmigración,
the Radical Right & Threats to Gender Equality,” offers a striking demonstration
of the gap between left- and right-wing parties in support for women’s interests.
Radical right-wing parties in Europe are in most cases dominated by men, incluso
though several prominent women head such organizations. Male leaders, partícipe-
ularly in parties appealing to Muslim voters, support policies that preserve tradi-
tional gender roles. Dancygier demonstrates that in this situation, left-wing par-
ties that would like to show cosmopolitan values by putting ethnically diverse
candidates on the ballot risk undermining another set of progressive values: those
in support of gender equality.
Traditional right-wing parties rarely advance women as candidates for office.
Dancygier shows that, where voter mobilization and turnout matter for parties’
electoral success, the consequences are dire for women of minority groups with
patriarchal norms. Party leaders steer clear of nominating women from these
groups for party lists because they must rely on powerful community leaders, Alabama-
most always men, to get out the vote.
Susan Chira offers a vivid account of the surge of women’s political activism in
the United States following the 2016 election, in what she calls “Donald Trump’s
Gift to Feminism: The Resistance.” The intensive organizing, protesting, and re-
cruiting of women candidates in the two years following Trump’s election paved
the way for the record-shattering participation of women in 2018. Although many
leaders of this effort identified as Democrats, women of both parties, incluido
11
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
4
9
1
6
1
8
3
1
6
8
2
d
a
mi
d
_
mi
_
0
1
7
7
0
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
149 (1) Winter 2020Nannerl O. Keohane & Frances McCall Rosenbluth
record numbers of women of color, were mobilized to back the cause. Nonethe-
menos, partisan lines held strong for those Republican women who enthusiastically
supported Trump.
As Chira points out, all women do not define their self-interest, or their polit-
ical priorities, in the same ways. This was clear in the 1920s, when newly enfran-
chised women did not vote as a group for what might be interpreted as “the in-
terests of women.” Women who might be expected to bond around experienc-
ing harassment or discrimination in the workplace may give a higher priority to
other aspects of their identities based on race, class, sexual identity, or religious
affiliation.
Chira discusses some of the ways in which women wield power once they ob-
tain it. As she puts it: “Nancy Pelosi has offered a master class in the patient ac-
quisition and exuberant flexing of power.” Yet the stereotypes have not been
dissolved: the run-up to the 2020 A NOSOTROS. presidential election, with unprecedent-
ed numbers of women candidates, has revived the familiar dilemmas about how
women running for office are described and assessed.
One of the most striking developments of the past few years has been the
#MeToo movement, prompted in part by revulsion to Trump’s misogynistic state-
mentos. Chira–and, in another essay in this volume, Anita Jivani–reminds us that
the movement had been launched a decade earlier by a Black woman, Tarana
Burke, although it was a tweet by Alyssa Milano that generated immediate, mass
exposure. The “outing” of abusive men and visibility accorded to stories of sexu-
al assault have been unprecedented, and the reverberations have been profound.
Several of the essays in this issue allude to the movement and its consequences.
The motivating energies of the #MeToo movement were foreshadowed in Feb-
ruary 1990, when the Des Moines Register published a series of pathbreaking arti-
cles on rape. The crucial decision by the editor, Geneva Overholser, was to list
the woman’s name. Instead of remaining silent and hiding her identity, as rape
victims had traditionally done, Nancy Ziegenmeyer wanted her story of sexual
assault told in detail and wanted that story to be broadly heard. The story also
showed the terrible effects of the rape on the man convicted of the crime, a Black
resident of Ziegenmeyer’s town with a wife and two small children, sentenced to a
long term in prison. Jane Shorer’s series entitled “It Couldn’t Happen to Me: Uno
Woman’s Story” won a Pulitzer Prize for the Register.
The #MeToo movement has had several unintended consequences. Some men
are now reluctant to mentor women, lest their actions be misinterpreted; otros
use the movement as a convenient excuse for failing to support women employ-
ees. Either case makes it more difficult for women to receive a promotion. Hombres
are sometimes wrongly identified as perpetrators of assault and suffer the con-
sequences. Women who step forward, from Anita Hill to Christine Blasey Ford,
may be broadly vilified and attacked. Even more basic, the norms of the #MeToo
12
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
4
9
1
6
1
8
3
1
6
8
2
d
a
mi
d
_
mi
_
0
1
7
7
0
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesIntroduction
movement can lead women to identify themselves as victims rather than promote
a sense of empowerment and agency to find allies and fight back.
Sin embargo, the advantages of the movement are also clear: women suffering
from abuse and assault are more willing to name themselves and their accusers
and receive support from other women around the world. Workplace organiza-
tions engage in training to make employees more conscious of the dimensions of
sexual harassment and assault. And thoughtful men ponder the messages con-
veyed by the movement and reflect on behavior that may hurt women, comportamiento
that a man may have taken for granted in the world around him.
T he hard-fought victory for suffrage is surely worth celebrating. But equal-
ity at the ballot box did not translate into equality for women in the work-
lugar. Black women confront pervasive prejudice; all women deal with so-
cial expectations that “a woman’s place is in the home.” Women who choose to
work outside the home face significant barriers in many professions.
Neoclassical economists argue that discrimination against women will gradu-
ally disappear because it is inefficient to recruit and promote a mediocre man rath-
er than a highly qualified woman.18 This argument ignores a familiar set of calcu-
lations that work in the opposite direction. When a young woman launches a ca-
reer, employers as well as family members often expect that she will give highest
priority to family and take time off when a child is born. A whole cascade of self-
enforcing incentives follows from this initial actuarially based expectation, affecting
an individual woman’s prospects regardless of whether she plans to have children.
Parents may not invest in their daughter’s professional readiness. Accepting
for herself the appropriateness of the traditional roles, a young woman may low-
er her sights for employment or a career. The cycle of statistical discrimination is
reinforced: employers would be right, on average, in placing their bets on hiring
and promoting men. Ambitious and professionally committed young women are
thus at a significant disadvantage in many fields compared with men of compara-
ble ambition and training.
Not all women (or men) want to work outside the home. Especially where the
option is a low-wage job requiring rote performance rather than the challenges of
a profession, a parent may choose to take care of young children and find challeng-
es and opportunities in the home, rather than the workplace. Sin embargo, given the
falling marriage rates and frequency of divorce, a woman caring for children who
lacks job training or experience may face serious economic hardship. Multiple al-
ternative patterns that would make it possible for each family to choose its own
distinctive course are unavailable.
One obvious solution would be the widespread availability of high-quality, af-
fordable childcare. Other policies associated with more employment opportu-
nities for women include flexible hours, maternity and paternity leave, y el
13
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
4
9
1
6
1
8
3
1
6
8
2
d
a
mi
d
_
mi
_
0
1
7
7
0
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
149 (1) Winter 2020Nannerl O. Keohane & Frances McCall Rosenbluth
ability to work from home. Yet the situation is more complex than it may at first
appear. Legislation requiring firms to offer parental leave, without paying the costs
of replacement labor for those taking the leave, potentially saddles firms with a
big bill for hiring and promoting women, as long as women are more likely to take
leave. Unless the government covers these costs, this kind of policy amounts to an
“unfunded mandate” that reduces firms’ motivation to hire women. It is impor-
tant to consider the unintended consequences of well-meaning policies.
Torben Iversen, Frances McCall Rosenbluth, and Øyvind Skorge illustrate
this problem of unintended consequences in their essay “The Dilemma of Gen-
der Equality: How Labor Market Regulation Divides Women by Class.” Men are
generally expected to be able to work long hours and be available for assignments
nights and weekends. And given that productivity in management roles–unlike
productivity in some lower-wage jobs–is positively correlated with the hours you
devote to the job, working long hours is one good way of showing that you are
ready for the rigors of management. Yet these long hours disadvantage any wom-
un (or man) who has significant responsibilities in the home. Limiting working
hours is therefore generally seen as a good way to level the playing field for women.
Paradójicamente, sin embargo, heavily regulated labor markets in Europe that impose
restrictions on hours worked yield a smaller share of women in top management
positions than less regulated economies such as the United States’. Such regula-
tions do support women workers in lower-wage jobs, assuring them a better in-
come and a limit on the hours they are expected to work. But the same restrictions
make it more difficult for a woman to signal how productive she is capable of be-
En g. Although ambitious men are limited in the same way, they do not face the
powerful stereotypes that many employers use in determining how valuable an
employee will be. Men can signal their readiness for management in other ways,
whereas for a woman, disadvantaged from the start in expectations about her like-
ly future performance, there are few ways as effective as working longer hours to
demonstrate her value to her employer.
This finding goes a long way toward explaining the surprising fact that there
are lower proportions of women in management positions in the private sector in
Scandinavia than there are in the United States, although the same Nordic coun-
tries have more women in political leadership positions and women there fare
better in lower-wage jobs. Class is therefore relevant to this analysis as one form
of intersectionality.
Jamila Michener and Margaret Brower show how race factors heavily into eco-
nomic inequality in the United States in their contribution “What’s Policy Got to
Do with It? Carrera, Gender & Economic Inequality in the United States.” Like Iver-
sen, Rosenbluth, and Skorge, they focus on the impact of public policies. Well-
designed public policies can improve the situation of disadvantaged groups;
but such groups may be further disadvantaged by other policies that favor some
14
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
4
9
1
6
1
8
3
1
6
8
2
d
a
mi
d
_
mi
_
0
1
7
7
0
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesIntroduction
sectors of society over others. The concept of intersectionality grounds this analy-
hermana, showing the interlocking effects of race, etnicidad, class, y género.
Michener and Brower remind us that the Social Security program initially ex-
cluded nine out of ten African American women because domestic and agricul-
tural workers were not covered by the policies. Similarmente, the provisions and im-
plementation of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, a crucial
part of the U.S. social safety net, have yielded systematic racial disparity. Michen-
er and Brower also show how the restructuring of the U.S. economy between 1970
and the 1990s disproportionately disadvantaged young Black women in both in-
dustrial and white-collar jobs. Policies such as disability insurance or unemploy-
ment compensation may affect Black, Latina, and White women differently be-
cause of other circumstances in their lives.
The essay by Sara Lowes, “Kinship Structure & Women: Evidence from Eco-
nomics,” demonstrates the importance of economics to the status of women in a
very different context: matrilineal and patrilineal societies in the Democratic Re-
public of Congo today. She shows how these two different forms of kinship have
markedly different implications for women, even in ethnic groups in close geo-
graphical proximity that share similar economic situations.
Women in ethnic groups structured so that property and family identity are
traced through the female line remain close to the menfolk in their family of ori-
gin. Brothers and uncles are important potential allies and supporters, whereas a
woman in a patrilineal kin group is absorbed into her husband’s extended fami-
ly. Lowes shows how this difference leads to significant disparities in the attitudes
and behaviors of women in the two different systems. Women in patrilineal sys-
tems choose to compete less than men in a research setting. But in matrilineal sys-
tems, women are as likely to choose competition or take risky gambles as men.
Lowes finds that women in matrilineal structures have more self-confidence
and generally report being happier than those in patrilineal societies. They are more
likely to believe that women should have some autonomy in decision-making;
they are less likely to believe domestic violence is justified, and experience less
de ello. Women in matrilineal societies are more likely to participate in politics and
invest in their children. Lowes shows how cultural practices such as payment of
bride-price and location of residence can help explain these disparities.
Anita Jivani shifts our focus to the future of women workers in the United
Estados. In “Gender Lens to the Future of Work,” Jivani explores the likely impact
on women of technological shifts that will shape the future of work. As she notes,
women now graduate from college at higher rates than men, yet men are more
likely to be hired into promising jobs and are much more likely to be recruited into
management positions down the line. The fact that women are much less like-
ly than men to be educated in the STEM disciplines becomes a particular liabili-
ty in an age in which technological skills are central in a growing number of fields.
15
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
4
9
1
6
1
8
3
1
6
8
2
d
a
mi
d
_
mi
_
0
1
7
7
0
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
149 (1) Winter 2020Nannerl O. Keohane & Frances McCall Rosenbluth
Jivani discusses various kinds of retraining and “upskilling” provided by com-
panies these days, as well as the ways in which computer science and engineer-
ing can be made more appealing to girls and young women in high school and
college. As she points out, sin embargo, if retraining is provided “offline” so that it
requires time after work or extra hours, this becomes yet another burden on work-
ing women. The service and caretaking sectors, comprising mainly female work-
ers and not requiring much in the way of technological skills, are growing today.
But such jobs usually pay less, have less status in society, and offer fewer opportu-
nities for advancement than those stemming from new technologies.
Jivani’s argument parallels that of Iversen, Rosenbluth, and Skorge in show-
ing how job flexibility can be a two-edged sword in terms of the advancement of
women. Por un lado, the opportunity provided by innovative technologies
to work from home or to set one’s own hours can be very valuable for women (o
hombres) juggling career and family. But the unpredictability of contingent work ar-
rangements or the gig economy in financial outcomes, job security, and the reli-
ability of work schedules for planning one’s time may make things harder for such
workers. And the lack of “face time” may make the work less rewarding by remov-
ing stimulating contacts with colleagues and reduce opportunities for promotion
and selection into management.
T he social norms that order and channel our lives are changing, aunque
slowly and unevenly. As Mala Htun and Francesca Jensenius recount in
“Fighting Violence Against Women: Laws, Norms & Challenges Ahead,"
women in societies across history and cultures remain vulnerable to diverse
forms of physical threat including rape, intimate partner violence, sex traffick-
En g, honor killings, and genital mutilation. Htun and Jensenius show how such
behavior has been taken for granted in many societies and demonstrate the im-
portance of tackling this profound problem as a violation of fundamental human
rights.
As a result of reenvisioning violence against women in terms of rights in the
1960s and 1970s, laws have been passed in many societies that subject such be-
haviors to criminal penalties. Enforcing the laws and expanding the number of
countries where such laws are in effect has been an uphill battle. The prevalence
of violence against women reflects and reinforces women’s subordinate status.
Yet pushing hard to eliminate this behavior with heavy penalties can lead to a
backlash, including underreporting and concerns about violating other human
rights. As Htun and Jensenius make clear, the goal should be to find an appropri-
ate balance.
In “The New Competition in Multilateral Norm-Setting: Transnational Fem-
inists & the Illiberal Backlash,” Anne Marie Goetz extends the topic of mul-
tinational norm-setting from human rights to feminist norms in other areas
16
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
4
9
1
6
1
8
3
1
6
8
2
d
a
mi
d
_
mi
_
0
1
7
7
0
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesIntroduction
including the structure of the family, caregiving, and the broadened understand-
ing of the concept of gender. She notes that progress can easily be reversed through
“norm-spoiling” by conservative leaders and activists opposed to changes in the
traditional status of women. As Goetz points out, domestic political developments
based on either religious or market fundamentalism can turn states that have his-
torically been supportive of women’s advancement into norm-spoilers, incluir-
ing the United States, Brasil, some East European states, and Turkey. Others–
Australia, New Zealand, the Nordic countries, most of the European Union, y
South Africa–continue to be strong allies. International feminists today are also
cultivating emerging champions, especially some smaller states in Africa and Lat-
in America.
Progress in validating norms that support women reached a high point in the
Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, but has receded since.
Goetz discusses several tensions in international feminism in dealing with this sit-
uation and specifically calls out the pitfalls of a policy that identifies women as vic-
tims. Through a set of interviews with international feminist activists, she docu-
ments the evolution of strategies for the next steps of the work in 2020 and beyond,
reminding us that although the United Nations has uniquely important convening
fuerza, other kinds of multinational organizations devoted to improving the status
of women can bring interested groups together and set significant goals.
We might hope that women in rich democracies, and especially those in lead-
ership positions in those countries, have created a new environment that pro-
tects women from assault. The evidence is not so sanguine, as Olle Folke, Johanna
Rickne, Seiki Tanaka, and Yasuka Tateishi find in “Sexual Harassment of Women
Leaders.” Drawing on surveys of women in the workplace in Sweden, Japón, y
the United States, the authors show that women’s risk of harassment grows dra-
matically with the share of men in an occupation. Women entering male-dom-
inated professions and workplaces are significantly more likely to face sexu-
al harassment than in professions that employ more women. This increase may
in part be probabilistic in the sense that a larger number of male coworkers in-
creases the likelihood that some will be opportunistic harassers. It may also be
that male-dominated workplaces are more prone toward a toxic culture of nega-
tive masculinity.
Folke, Rickne, Tanaka, and Tateishi turn up an even more startling and coun-
terintuitive finding. In all three countries, female managers are more likely to suf-
fer harassment than female workers. This is surprising because corporate leader-
ship should, one might think, confer the power to report and thereby deter harass-
mento. En cambio, the authors find that many women leaders are disinclined to report
harassment for fear that their competence will be judged negatively if they do so.
Climbing the corporate ladder does not confer immunity from harassment; it in-
creases its likelihood in relatively gender-equal Sweden, as well as in the United
17
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
4
9
1
6
1
8
3
1
6
8
2
d
a
mi
d
_
mi
_
0
1
7
7
0
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
149 (1) Winter 2020Nannerl O. Keohane & Frances McCall Rosenbluth
States and Japan. This is grim evidence of the extent and severity of obstacles lying
in the path of women who launch ambitious careers in the world of men.
Also slow to change are norms about parenting and the requirements of care-
donación. Opportunities for women in management are becoming more available
in many sectors, despite problems such as those identified in these essays; todavía
the expectations for parenting have also become more demanding, especially in
middle- and upper-middle-class households. Several professions have become
more “greedy,” requiring those who hold such jobs to work very long hours and
be available to clients whenever they are needed. Al mismo tiempo, super-parent-
ing is also on the ascendancy.
In urban communities in the United States today, it is uncommon for children
to play after school in the neighborhood with their friends; en cambio, someone
(usually the mom) is expected to drive the kids to soccer, music lessons, baseball,
or ballet several afternoons a week. For middle- to upper-class families, the pro-
cess of preparing for college admission is increasingly competitive, fueling a per-
ception that excelling in sports and other activities will help a student get into one
of the most selective institutions. Como resultado, it has become even more difficult for
today’s young families to balance work and family life.
In her essay on “Cooperation & Conflict in the Patriarchal Labyrinth,” Nancy
Folbre argues that the establishment of gender-neutral laws can never, by itself,
achieve gender equality. Contestation and bargaining are essential aspects of the
struggle for equality. But women will always be at a disadvantage in such bargain-
ing because of their greater commitment to reproduction, in the broadest sense of
“the creation and maintenance of human capabilities.” Therefore, only the estab-
lishment of new institutions to replace those bequeathed to us by centuries of pa-
triarchy can do the job.
Folbre uses the ancient term “labyrinth” to describe the patriarchal structures
that channel and constrain the activities of women, as Alice Eagly and Linda Carli
do in Through the Labyrinth: The Truth about How Women Become Leaders (2007).19
Folbre defines institutions as rules-based practices that encompass a large propor-
tion of the settings in which humans engage in social activity. She sees capital-
ismo, Por ejemplo, as a “particular class-based institutional structure.” Her main
interests are in the distributional aspects of these institutions, allocating goods
and services to some members of society and not to others. She focuses partic-
ularly on caregiving, an essential human activity disproportionately carried out
by women. This includes not only childcare, but also care for elderly parents and
partners who become ill or disabled. As Folbre notes, “both patriarchal and cap-
italist institutional structures enable people in general and men in particular to
free ride on caregivers.”
In such settings, partnerships with men offer women many economic and oth-
er benefits. Sin embargo, these partnerships may also constrain a woman’s ability to
18
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
4
9
1
6
1
8
3
1
6
8
2
d
a
mi
d
_
mi
_
0
1
7
7
0
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesIntroduction
bargain for different arrangements and seek rewards outside the home. Norms
that institutionalize such relationships favor those already in an advantaged po-
sition and reinforce inequality. Folbre discusses some of the broader implications
of women’s larger role in caregiving, including a different perspective on welfare
provisions, which helps explain the gender gap in political preferences.
Folbre’s argument points to the importance of building new structures to re-
place the age-old patriarchal labyrinth. But how can we accomplish this? The in-
stitutions that structure our lives are accretions of deeply embedded assump-
tions and practices. Norms and institutions are notoriously resistant to deliberate
cambiar, yet innovations are surely required if women are to proceed further along
the path toward equality with men.
Feminist theorists and activists have wrestled with this difficulty across cen-
turies. Audre Lorde famously articulated the dilemma with her warning that “the
master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”20 In the same spirit,
many radical feminists have asserted that the instruments for social change now
ready to hand–theorizing, political reform, coalition-building, revolution–are
all part of patriarchy’s toolkit and spoiled for the purpose of advancing the equali-
ty of women by their past use in contexts heavily dominated by men. Where, entonces,
will we find tools to reconstruct a world of institutions structured by patriarchy to
make it more commodious and welcoming for women as well as men?
T he authors in this issue of Dædalus proceed from the assumption that our
goal should not be to “dismantle the master’s house” of patriarchy, even if
such a thing were possible, but instead to renovate and open up that struc-
ture to create new pathways for women. Not all tools are spoiled by their past use,
and many familiar strategies and practices for social change are valuable in the
work for women’s equality or can be made so with little alteration.
Taking the next steps toward equality for women will require removing stub-
born impediments to the ability of women throughout the world to define and
pursue a better life for themselves and their families. Men of course face obstacles
también; it is a rare human being who can state and then achieve a set of life goals in an
unimpeded fashion. But as this set of essays has shown, women face an additional
set of obstacles that are distinctive to our sex.
How can these obstacles be tackled and removed as we work to advance the
condition and prospects of all human beings? Many factors need to come togeth-
er to make such a venture possible. In the final section of this volume, we consid-
er three such factors.
Primero, a theoretical task: we need a clearer understanding of what “equality”
means in this context to get a better sense of what is worth striving for. Through-
out this volume, we have implicitly assumed that equality is a “good thing” and
that it is appropriate that women should come closer to it. But what does this
19
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
4
9
1
6
1
8
3
1
6
8
2
d
a
mi
d
_
mi
_
0
1
7
7
0
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
149 (1) Winter 2020Nannerl O. Keohane & Frances McCall Rosenbluth
significar, conceptually? Equality has for millennia been a fraught concept in polit-
ical philosophy and practice, often posed as a value to be achieved for humanity,
but notoriously defined in many different ways.
Catharine MacKinnon’s essay “Equality” unpacks one of the most familiar
definitions of this term, that offered by Aristotle: formal equality means treating
likes alike, and unlikes unalike.21 The dilemma has always been to figure out in
what respects two objects are alike or unalike, and then what counts as “like treat-
ment.” MacKinnon points out that women throughout history have been “un-
like” men in multiple ways, most obviously in reproductive capacities and organs.
With biology as background, applying the Aristotelian definition brands women
as “unlike” men and therefore appropriately treated in dissimilar ways. And in
practice this has meant treating females as inferior to males.
MacKinnon documents some of the settings in which women have been denied
social privileges by this “unlikeness,” including being prevented from undertaking
certain kinds of work, or routinely paid less than men for doing the same job. Ella
also explores how the definition plays out in laws concerning sexual harassment.
“Women can be impoverished, stigmatized, violated with impunity, and otherwise
disadvantaged and still be considered treated equally” under the Aristotelian ru-
bric, because of our “unlikeness.” Regarding women as “different from men” easi-
ly transforms women into the “other” and makes maleness the norm.
The root of the problem, as MacKinnon makes clear, is that this way of struc-
turing the world has meant that “the core meaning of inequality” is “not differ-
ence, but hierarchy.” One way to avoid this outcome is to reject Aristotle’s defini-
ción. There are multiple definitions on offer, including “equality of opportunity”
and equality of respect or dignity.22 Alternatively, we might retain Aristotle’s defi-
nition but interpret the meaning of “likeness” more broadly and emphasize that
women, like men, are human beings, and we should therefore be treated “alike”
in fundamental ways. This leads to the human rights framework discussed in the
earlier section.
MacKinnon provides a valuable alternative to the Aristotelian notion of for-
mal equality with the concept of “substantive equality,” articulated in her essays
and speeches, and now formulated into legal systems in Canada and elsewhere.23
One important consequence of her recasting of the concept is that sexual harass-
ment law can more effectively address hierarchically imposed sexuality. This al-
lows us to address “the vicious social imperative to exchange sex for survival, o
its possibility,” whether this occurs in workplace expectations of sexual favors in
return for employment or promotion, or in its most glaring form, prostitution.
Having defined what we mean by equality, we must determine the best way to
approach the goal. Collaboration with like-minded men is one crucial part of the
trabajar. The most radical versions of second-wave feminism saw men as the ene-
mi, stereotyping all males as threats to the safety and personal development of
20
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
4
9
1
6
1
8
3
1
6
8
2
d
a
mi
d
_
mi
_
0
1
7
7
0
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesIntroduction
women. More reasoned and purposeful instances of feminism involve male femi-
nists as advocates and costrategists. This was the approach of the first-wave fem-
inism of the suffrage movement; it has consistently been chosen by most second-
wave feminists as well.
Debora Spar argues that it needs to be our strategy today. “Good Fellows: Men’s
Role & Reason in the Fight for Gender Equality” brings to our attention some of
the male theorists who have argued for a broader understanding of the “nature”
of women and activities appropriate for female individuals. Several ignored or un-
dermined these claims in other parts of their work, including John Locke and Fred-
erick Engels. Sin embargo, their occasional insights imply that they “understood
women’s standing as a necessary component of a just political order.”
Spar discusses arguments that explain why men should work for equality be-
tween the sexes. One set focuses on issues that interest men. Including wom-
en in the workplace has demonstrably improved performance in numerous set-
tings: greater economic opportunities for women lead to greater prosperity for
todo. Women today have far more power to control their own reproductive activ-
ities than has ever been true before, weakening substantially the age-old link be-
tween sex and procreation. Men who want children will need to relate to women
in different terms, investing more in their happiness and prosperity than would
often have been true in the past.
There are also arguments for including men based on the needs and ambitions
of women, who are still a distinct minority in most situations where power lies. En
order to get a seat at the table, struggling from the sidelines will only carry us so
far. We need to form alliances with well-intentioned, well-placed men.
Spar offers several suggestions for how men may work as effective allies: aprender-
ing what sexual harassment is and how to stop it, calling out those who engage
in sexual violence or assault. Men can also sponsor women around them in the
workplace, investing in them as colleagues. They can support policies that iden-
tify parenting as gender-neutral and affirm their own commitments to their fam-
ilies. This will involve recasting the traditional division of labor so that men take
on more of the household chores.
Like Alice Rossi’s essay in 1964, Spar’s is a radical vision, arguing for a funda-
mental “reformulation” of the way gender roles are developed and conceived, no
just rejiggering what we are doing now or expanding the size of the pie. And as she
notas, such a transformation cannot be carried on by women alone. To make this
posible, we all need to reenvision masculinity, learning more about the distinc-
tive issues men face in our society, and how their identities and roles are changing.
The final essay in the collection explores a third factor we must keep in mind:
female leadership and our deliberate use of power to attain our goals. Nannerl
Keohane’s essay on “Women, Fuerza & Leadership” notes that there are more
women in positions of significant leadership today than would ever have been
21
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
4
9
1
6
1
8
3
1
6
8
2
d
a
mi
d
_
mi
_
0
1
7
7
0
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
149 (1) Winter 2020Nannerl O. Keohane & Frances McCall Rosenbluth
true in the past. She identifies factors that help explain how this has happened in
the past half-century or so, addresses some of the obstacles to further advance-
mento, and concludes with a brief look at the future that we might envision.
As Keohane points out, despite “the stubborn linkage between leadership and
maleness,” women have often proved capable of wielding power and authority in
those few auspicious settings that have allowed for female leadership. She iden-
tifies several developments since the late nineteenth century that have made it
possible for many more women to be leaders. Yet as this issue of Dædalus demon-
strates, quite a few obstacles still impede a woman’s path. These include primary
responsibility for childcare and homemaking; the paucity of family-friendly pol-
icies that would make it easier to combine career and family; gender stereotypes
perpetuated in much of popular culture; and in some parts of the world, continu-
ing practices that deny women education or opportunities outside the home.
Some observers question whether women are in fact ambitious for positions
of authority and power. Keohane considers evidence that shows that few women
are anxious to hold such posts, preferring to support male leaders or work behind
the scenes. But there is ample evidence on the other side of this debate, algunos de
it documented in this volume. In any case, we cannot know “whether women are
‘naturally’ interested in top leadership posts until women everywhere can attain
such positions without making personal and family sacrifices radically dispropor-
tionate to those faced by men.” She concludes her essay by reflecting on the his-
toric tensions between feminism and power, and how these might be transcended
by creative feminist theorizing and shrewd, strategic activism.
Quoting one of the great feminist theorists and activists, Simone de Beauvoir,
Keohane reminds us that it is very hard to anticipate clearly things we have not
seen; we should be wary “lest our lack of imagination impoverish the future.”24
Beauvoir was convinced that we can be optimistic about the prospects for “the
free woman” who is “just being born.” Although “women’s possibilities” have in
the past too often “been stifled and lost to humanity,” it is in the interest of all of
us that each woman should be “left to take her own chances” and forge her own
path.25 This ringing peroration might serve as a watchword for our volume.
about the authors
Nannerl O. Keohane, miembro de la Academia Americana desde 1991, is a political
philosopher and university administrator who served as President of Wellesley Col-
lege and Duke University. She currently is affiliated with the University Center for
Human Values at Princeton University and is a Visiting Scholar at the McCoy Fam-
ily Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford University. Her books include Philosophy
22
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
4
9
1
6
1
8
3
1
6
8
2
d
a
mi
d
_
mi
_
0
1
7
7
0
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesIntroduction
and the State in France: The Renaissance to the Enlightenment (1980), Higher Ground:
Ethics and Leadership in the Modern University (2006), and Thinking about Leadership
(2010). She is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Academy.
Frances McCall Rosenbluth, miembro de la Academia Americana desde 2007, es
the Damon Wells Professor of Political Science at Yale University. She is the author
of Responsible Parties: Saving Democracy from Itself (with Ian Shapiro, 2018), Forged
Through Fire: Military Conflict and the Democratic Bargain (with John Ferejohn, 2017),
and Women, Work, and Politics: The Political Economy of Gender Inequality (with Tor-
ben Iversen, 2010). She is a member of the Council of the American Academy.
notas finales
1 Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, ed. Eileen Hunt Botting (Nuevo
Haven, Conexión.: Prensa de la Universidad de Yale, 2014), 171.
2 Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (Orlando: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1981), 108.
3 See Dædalus 93 (2) (Primavera 1964), “The Woman in America”; and Dædalus 116 (4) (Caer
1987), “Learning about Women: Gender, Política, and Power.”
4 Carl Degler, “On Rereading ‘The Woman in America,’” Dædalus 116 (4) (Caer 1987): 202.
5 Alice Rossi, “Equality Between the Sexes: An Immodest Proposal,Dédalo 93 (2) (Primavera
1964): 608.
6 Ibídem.
7 Jill K. Conway, Susan C. Bourque, and Joan W. Scott, "Introducción: The Concept of Gen-
der,Dédalo 116 (4) (Caer 1987): xxiii, xxix.
8 Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Femi-
nist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,"
University of Chicago Legal Forum 1 (1989).
9 Brent Staples, “When the Suffrage Movement Sold Out,"El New York Times, Febrero 3,
2019.
10 Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, “Are Emily and Greg More Employable
Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination,” Amer-
ican Economic Review 94 (4) (2004): 991–1013.
11 Corrine Moss-Rascusin, John Dovidio, Victoria Brescoll, et al., “Science Faculty’s Subtle
Gender Biases Favor Male Students,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109
(41) (2012): 16474–16479.
12 George Akerlof, “The Economics of Caste and of the Rat Race and Other Woeful Tales,"
La revista trimestral de economía 90 (4) (Noviembre 1976): 599–617; Daniel Kahneman,
Thinking, Fast and Slow (Nueva York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011); and Mahzarin Ba-
naji and Anthony Greenwald, Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People (Nueva York: Dela-
corte Press, 2013).
13 Claudia D. Goldin, “The Role of World War II in the Rise of Women’s Employment,” The
Revisión económica estadounidense 81 (4) (1991): 741–756.
14 Dara Strolovitch, “Do Interest Groups Represent the Disadvantaged? Advocacy at the
Intersections of Race, Clase, and Gender,” Journal of Politics 68 (2006): 893–908.
23
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
4
9
1
6
1
8
3
1
6
8
2
d
a
mi
d
_
mi
_
0
1
7
7
0
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
149 (1) Winter 2020Nannerl O. Keohane & Frances McCall Rosenbluth
15 Ver, Por ejemplo, Farah Stockman, “Three Leaders of Women’s March Step Down after
Controversies,"El New York Times, Septiembre 16, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/
2019/09/16/us/womens-march-anti-semitism.html.
16 Joan Wallach Scott, “History and Difference,Dédalo 116 (4) (Caer 1987): 94.
17 Torben Iversen and Frances Rosenbluth, Women, Work and Politics (nuevo refugio, Conexión.:
Prensa de la Universidad de Yale, 2010).
18 Gary Becker, The Economics of Discrimination (chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1967).
19 Alice H. Eagly and Linda L. Carli, Through the Labyrinth: The Truth about How Women Be-
come Leaders (Cambridge, Masa.: Harvard Business Review Press, 2007).
20 Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” com-
ments at “The Personal and the Political” panel of The Second Sex, Thirty Years Later: A
Commemorative Conference on Feminist Theory, Septiembre 29, 1979, New York Uni-
versity, Nueva York, as printed in Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Au-
dre Lorde (berkeley: Crossing Press, 2007), 110–114.
21 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Equality,” first published March 27, 2001, sub-
stantively revised June 27, 2007, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/.
22 Louis P. Pojman and Robert Westmoreland, Igualdad: Selected Readings (Nueva York: Ox-
prensa de la Universidad de Ford, 1997).
23 For more on substantive equality, see Catharine A. MacKinnon, “Substantive Equality:
A Perspective,” Minnesota Law Review 96 (1) (2011).
24 Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. y ed. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-
Chevallier (Nueva York: Random House, 2011), 765.
25 Ibídem., 751.
24
yo
D
oh
w
norte
oh
a
d
mi
d
F
r
oh
metro
h
t
t
pag
:
/
/
d
i
r
mi
C
t
.
metro
i
t
.
/
mi
d
tu
d
a
mi
d
a
r
t
i
C
mi
–
pag
d
/
yo
F
/
/
/
/
/
1
4
9
1
6
1
8
3
1
6
8
2
d
a
mi
d
_
mi
_
0
1
7
7
0
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesIntroduction
Descargar PDF