How We Free Ourselves: Freedom and Motherhood in Political Philosophy

How We Free Ourselves: Freedom and Motherhood in Political Philosophy

Presenter(s)

Aila Alene Carr-Chellman

Comments

Presentation: 1:40-2:00, Kennedy Union 311

Description

This project will further seek to understand the connections between feminism and other sociophilisophical traditions that explore liberation, such as colonialism, neoliberalism, patriarchy, and misogynoir. De Beauvoir in The Second Sex provides that the existential situation of women is different than that of men. I would add that the material situation of women can contribute to forming the fabric of freedom. Either by nurture or nature, we have a social situation wherein the oppression of people – the control and domination over people of many identities - is necessary for the world to function properly. What alternative story of history, or society, could be told when the structure of our world is no longer patriarchal? Competitive? Dominating? Or rigidly individualistic? The traditions of Marxism, radical feminism, anti-racism, anti-colonialism, and care ethic may hold a few of the answers to this question. My project seeks to draw upon the liberatory traditions of Marxism, anarchism, and feminism to reconsider our contemporary class context through the eyes of women. This project is to understand more deeply how a traditionally masculine project of control and domination perpetuates systemic disconnection, exploitation, and eventually the backwards movement of civilization. In doing so, I seek out the difference between men and women in how we free ourselves, and the pieces of freedom that man’s existential and ethical story has overlooked.

Publication Date

4-17-2024

Project Designation

Honors Thesis

Primary Advisor

David J. Watkins

Primary Advisor's Department

Political Science

Keywords

Stander Symposium, College of Arts and Sciences

Institutional Learning Goals

Critical Evaluation of Our Times; Traditions; Practical Wisdom

How We Free Ourselves: Freedom and Motherhood in Political Philosophy

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