Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-qc88w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-31T04:20:49.880Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Liberal Feminism, from Law to Art: The Impact of Feminist Jurisprudence on Feminist Aesthetics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

L. Ryan Musgrave
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay explores how early approaches in feminist aesthetics drew on concepts honed in the field of feminist legal theory, especially conceptions of oppression and equality. I argue that by importing these feminist legal concepts, many early feminist accounts of how art is political depended largely on a distinctly liberal version of politics. I offer a critique of liberal feminist aesthetics, indicating ways recent work in the field also turns toward critical feminist aesthetics as an alternative.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 18 , Issue 4: Special Issue: Women, Art, and Aesthetics , Fall Winter 2003 , pp. 214 - 235
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Adorno, Theodor. 1997. Aesthetic theory. Trans. Hullot‐Kentor, Robert. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Armstrong, Isobel. 2000. The radical aesthetic. Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell Press.Google Scholar
Bartlett, Katharine T., and Kennedy, Rosanne eds., 1991. Feminist legal theory: Readings in law and gender. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Barzman, Karen Edis. 1994. Beyond the canon: Feminism, postmodernism, and the history of art. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 52 (3): 327–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Battersby, Christine. 1991. Situating the aesthetic: A feminist defence. In Thinking beyond traditional aesthetics, ed. Benjamin, Andrew and Osborne, Peter. London: Institute of Contemporary Art.Google Scholar
Brand, Peg Zeglin. 1995. Revising the aesthetic‐nonaesthetic distinction. In Feminism and tradition in aesthetics, ed. Brand, Peg Zeglin and Korsmeyer, Carolyn. University Park, Pa.: The Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Brand, Peg Zeglin. ed. 2000. Beauty matters. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Broude, Norma, and Garrard, Mary. 1982. Feminism and art history: Questioning the litany. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Brown, Wendy. 1995. States of injury: Power and freedom in late modernity. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Buchloh, Bemjamin. 2000. Neo‐avantgarde and culture industry: Essays on European and American art from 1955–1975. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Butler, Brian E. 2003. Law as an aesthetic subject. Newsletter of the American Society for Aesthetics 22 (3): 1–3.Google Scholar
Christian, Barbara. 1985. Black feminist criticism: Perspectives on black women writers. New York: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Devereaux, Mary. 1992. The philosophical and political implications of the feminist critique of aesthetic autonomy. In Turning the Century: Feminist theory in the 1990s, ed. Carr, Glynis. Bucknell University Press.Google Scholar
Devereaux, Mary. 1998. Autonomy, feminist critiques of. In The encyclopedia of aesthetics, ed. Kelly, Michael. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dewey, John. 1934. Art as experience. New York: Perigee Books.Google Scholar
Felski, Rita. 1989. Beyond feminist aesthetics: Feminist literature and social change. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Felski, Rita. 1998. Critique of feminist aesthetics. In The encyclopedia of aesthetics, ed. Kelly, Michael. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Florence, Penny, and Foster, Nicola eds., 2000. Differential aesthetics: Art practices, philosophy and feminist understandings. U.K.: Ashgate Publishing.Google Scholar
Freeland, Cynthia. 2001. But is it an? New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gates, Jenry Louis Jr. 1984. Criticism in the jungle. In Black literature and literary theory, ed. Louis Gates, Henry Jr. New York: Methuen Press.Google Scholar
Hooks, Bell. Art on my mind: Visual politics. New York: New Press.Google Scholar
Jaggar, Alison. 1983. Feminist politics and human nature. Savage, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Catharine. 1987. Feminism unmodified: Discourses on life and law. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Catharine. 1993. Only Words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Marcuse, Herbert. 1964. One dimensional man. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Marcuse, Herbert. 1969. Repressive tolerance. In A Critique of Pure Tolerance. Paul Wolff, Robert, Moore, Barrington Jr, and Marcuse, Herbert. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Nochlin, Linda. 1971. Why have there been no great women artists? In Art and sexual politics: Womenapos;s liberation, women artists, and art history, ed. Hess, Thomas and Baker, Elizabeth. New York: MacMillan Publishers.Google Scholar
Oapos;Neill, Maggie, ed. 1999. Adorno, culture, and feminism. London: Sage Press.Google Scholar
Piper, Adrian. 1995. Monologues from “Four intruders plus alarm systems” and “Safe.” In Feminism and tradition in aesthetics, ed. Brand, Peg Zeglin and Korsmeyer, Carolyn. University Park, Pa.: The Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Pollock, Griselda. 1988. Vision and difference: Femininity, feminism and histories of art. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pollock, Griselda, and Parker, Rozsika. 1981. Old mistresses: Women, art, and ideology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sandel, Michael. 1982. Liberalism and the limits of justice. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Silvers, Anita. 1998. Feminism: An overview. In The encyclopedia of aesthetics, ed. Kelly, Michael. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Winterson, Jeanette. 1996. Art objects: Essays in ecstasy and effrontery. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar