There are different types of violence which intersect in occurrences of sexist violence. This article, while granting that structural and symbolic violence are intertwined in a synergic relationship, focuses its attention on structural violence with three purposes in mind: first, to situate reflections made on sexist violence within the framework of epochal changes at the social, economic and political levels; secondly, to investigate in this new context if they are only reproduced, or if they reconfigure the same gender-sex orderings and patterns of inequality and violence that they trigger and legitimize; and, thirdly, to explore the ways in which contemporary socio-political transformations that undermine the functionality of institutions are having an impact on rising sexist violence trends today. Finally, based on the social and subjective changes that have come about in the face of adverse conditions produced through the insertion of social agents, progress is being made toward a differentiation of the forms of occurrence and functionality of sexist violence. In short, the purpose is to develop more specific approaches that will allow us to understand the scourge of sexist violence in our day and contribute to designing intervention strategies.

Feminists have long argued that emotions have a rightful place in politics. Anger, specifically, is often said to play a crucial role in alerting people to oppression and motivating resistance. The task of this paper is to elaborate these claims and to outline a conception of the political value of anger. In doing so, I argue against the view that anger is valuable only if and because it expresses a sound moral judgment. Instead, we should see rage, in the first place, as simply a response to having one's practical aims in the world thwarted—there need be nothing moral or righteous about this feeling for it to have political potential. Second, unlike those who highlight anger's connection with love or claims for equal dignity, I emphasize its tendency towards aggression. With this non-moralized conception of anger in hand, we can see how rage reveals practical problems in a way that can spur on a dialectical process of political articulation and organized action. The resulting standpoint from which one can articulate and resist one's oppression based on one's rage is not inherent in the experience of anger—rather, it needs to be seen as a political achievement in itself.

This paper reflects on representations of the convergence of Islam and feminism in light of the recent uprising of Iranian women. Most of the existing literature discussing Muslim women’s rights are locked in a dichotomy of approaches, one being prejudicial and the other apologetic. The prejudicial approach is a (neo-)Orientalist one. It understands Muslim societies as backward and their redemption in abandoning Islam and following the lead of the “West.” The apologetic approach is a multiculturalist one, advocating most prominently by academic feminists based in Europe and United States. In trying to reclaim agency for Muslim women, this approach denies real oppressions happening in Muslim societies, and as a result of Islamic practices. Inspired by Iranian women’s fight for freedom, this paper challenges the aforementioned dichotomy, and instead calls for a third approach that begins with, and responds to, the lived experiences of women living in Muslim societies.

This article examines the figure of the female intellectual exemplified in Anna Maria van Schurman, as she is portrayed in the catalogues of learned women. The aim is to demonstrate the dramatic and unexpected changes that this persona undergoes during the eighteenth century. The article challenges the common misconception that gender roles progress throughout history towards an ideal of freedom and equality. Instead, I argue that we see a regression in the eighteenth century where the ideal of female intellectuality transforms from focusing on gender-neutral virtues such as academic skill and learnedness to emphasizing traditionally feminine traits like modesty, piety, and domesticity. The first part of the article introduces the genre of catalogues of learned women, focusing on the German context. The main part presents an in-depth analysis of the biographical entries on van Schurman, juxtaposing the early eighteenth-century portrayals with entries from the turn of the nineteenth century. The purpose of this analysis is to illustrate the radical discursive changes concerning women intellectuals by using van Schurman as case study. Finally, the last part of the article will be dedicated to a discussion of historical conceptualizations of womanhood, exploring why the gender narrative changed in the early modern period.

Catcalls have been said to insult, intimidate, and silence their targets. The harms that catcalls inflict on individuals are reason enough to condemn them. This paper argues that they also inflict a type of structural harm by subordinating their targets. Catcalling initiates an unwanted conversation where none should exist. This brings the rules and norms governing conversations to bear in such a way that the catcall assigns their target a “subordinate discourse role.” This not only constrains the behavior of the target here and now, but also influences the norms governing future conversations. Catcalls are then not only bad because of the effects on their target, but also because of their pernicious contribution to the wider normative landscape.

According to the Laozi one of the ways to cultivate and grasp Dao is through “remaining female” and “nourishing the mother.” The term mother is used in reference to the beginning of all existence—“the mother of all under heaven,” “the mother of all existences.” The mother is both an active force of generation and the concreteness of the generated beings. In this sense, the feminine attribute of motherhood is a living embodiment of Dao. In the world of myriad phenomena, the mother provides a location of interaction between “absence” and “presence,” between wu and you. In this paper, I suggest an analysis of the metaphor of mother and other “feminine roles” in early Daoist thought through a textual examination of the Laozi. Considering the intellectual background in Warring States period China in which the common understanding of the universe and all phenomena is revealed through the interactions of correlative and complementary forces, the esteem of one over the other—the feminine over the male, the mother over father—is outstanding and deserves serious investigation. The question is what can we learn from the feminine, what can femininity teach us about the world, its generation, and even political practice?

What would birth be like in a feminist world? In this essay, I explore this question, asking what feminist freedom means in relation to birthing. Engaging in an imaginative inquiry that is rooted in respect for plurality, I explore the multifaceted dimensions of what we, as feminists, are fighting for in relation to birth. Building on a diverse array of feminist theories and philosophies of freedom (including the work of Simone de Beauvoir, Drucilla Cornell, and Marilyn Frye) and inspired by the work of Iris Marion Young on the five faces of oppression, I outline five faces of birthing freedom, namely: (1) freedom from oppression, (2) freedom to labor, (3) freedom to be-in-relation, (4) freedom from violence, and (5) freedom to imagine. I argue that these faces are all necessary conditions for the realization of birthing freedom. At the same time, the five faces of birth freedom that I outline here are only provisional and are grounded in my specific standpoint. My approach recognizes plurality and is not meant to be exhaustive but rather hopes to spark imaginings, invite extensions and revisions, and initiate conversations.

Building on Linda Martín Alcoff's analysis of subversive speech in Rape and resistance, Lori Gruen's account of entangled empathy, and what Susan Brison calls the remaking of self in Aftermath: Violence and the remaking of a self, we introduce subversive listening as a way to resist obstacles to empathetic listening after sexual violence. Specifically, we identify and aim to interrupt five overextended frameworks (legal, medical, academic, fixing, and identifying) that commonly obstruct empathetic listening. To demonstrate the practical value of our work, we conclude by showing how a reader might avoid these overextensions when engaging with V's (formerly Eve Ensler) The apology.

In this article, I discuss some ways in which my experience, as a sexual assault survivor, has often been disregarded. It was disregarded when it occurred, by a crowd of people who watched. It has also been disregarded, however, in certain sorts of conversations—that occur within feminist communities—about sexual violence. The latter forms of disregard stem from the fact that I am male, and so do not fit many peoples’ preconceptions about survivors of sexual assault. After discussing these different forms of disregard and how they relate, I raise some difficult questions concerning whether, and how, conversations about sexual violence should make room for experiences like mine. In closing, I propose tentative, schematic answers to those questions.

The need for gender recognition is widespread, even when hypervisibility and other effects of trans antagonism make that need dangerous for trans people. This reason partially accounts for why, in trans critique, recognition is a dirty word. As a political aim, and to some extent as a moral norm, trans critiques encourage dropping recognition. On the other hand, social philosophers often view recognition as a solution to misrecognition and take recognition to be a remedy for injustice. In my view, recognition should neither be dropped nor held as a foundational norm for trans emancipation. First, I present three ways trans recognition is ambivalent. Second, evaluating Axel Honneth's observations about the entwinement of recognition and domination, I argue that recognition is an ambivalent norm for trans critique and struggle. Third, I propose studying trans recognitive practices (rather than recognition in abstract) and I illuminate what might set trans/t4t recognition acts apart from their cis-grounded analogues, centering the roles of the body and space/place as resources of trans/t4t recognitive practices, and how such practices focus on the subject's change and becoming over their identification.

Obstetric violence is a structural form of gender, medical, and sexual violence perpetrated by health providers and institutions during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. It can produce physical, psychological, and symbolic harm to pregnant/birthing people and their families. Obstetric violence results from structural conditions in the technocratic model of birth and the acceptance of biomedicine as the authoritative knowledge in health care. This phenomenon produces patients’ loss of autonomy and capacity to provide informed consent, which increases their vulnerability to unjustified medical procedures, resulting in negative birth experiences. In this paper, I argue that individual autonomy is necessary but not sufficient for legitimately consenting to obstetric care and preventing violence. The liberal framework of individual autonomy often ignores that childbirth is a social event where multiple individuals and cultural factors influence the consent process. Consequently, I discuss the role of relational autonomy in obstetric decision-making and describe some structural barriers that negatively intervene in this process. Finally, I propose that doulas and midwives can help nurture autonomy and caregiving skills in obstetric patients and health providers. This strategy protects the informed consent process, prevents obstetric violence, and can be effective in recentering childbirth in pregnant people and their families.

Without females included in the ranks of political founder, Hannah Arendt's theory of political beginning looks dangerously romanticized. Arendt's founder is someone who rises to the challenge of their times, diverting history and renewing public spirit in the process. But despite a methodology that called for recovering the “rich and strange” from the past Arendt does not address the female founders that populate the myths and traditions she cites as instructive. These figures exemplify the unsettling forces and relationality she associates with beginning, but they also signal the high cost of action for the marginalized, including the difficulty some actors face in being recognized at all. If, as she suggests, the founder's persona provides an avenue of recall for the perplexing experience of beginning, then female founders support this recall magnificently while adding a tragic and troubling note that Arendt omits. Their reintroduction into her theory of political beginning takes the shine off her otherwise heroized and happy account.

Comparative studies have identified “Antigone's sisters” across the globe, excepting for Southeast Asia. Yet in Vietnam, there exists Kiều, the protagonist in Nguyễn Du's The Tale of Kiều, whose cultural significance is comparable to Antigone. What insights can be gained about feminist political power by comparing Antigone to Kiều? Proposing a shift in focus on Kiều and Antigone's love from the questions of who and why to how, the paper argues that their love shares three fundamental commonalities related to their living conditions, actions, and choices. First, they are women who live a life full of love in worlds where love is forbidden. Secondly, they are women who practice love during dark times. And third, they choose to love in unconventional ways, and in doing so, they engender possibilities, particularly in terms of contemplating the interplay between life, death, and freedom. This analysis demonstrates a multiplicity of women's love and the experiences that possess a transcultural dimension, one that signals a type of harmony in the resistance of war through love. Therefore, Antigone and Kiều represent a different direction of a feminist world-building project—that of constructing a world through love.

We advance a novel approach to gender inclusive language, showing how it can be used in perinatal and postnatal care. Existing attempts to use language inclusive of trans and non-binary parents have faced objections, prompting calls to use trans-exclusionary “sexed” language as a default (Gribble et al. 2022). We show that these objections attach only to some unsatisfactory attempts at inclusive language. We articulate the moral and communicative goals at stake, and then work through a range of examples to show that no single linguistic strategy can meet these goals in all contexts. A pluralistic approach is needed. Our pluralistic approach draws on gender neutral, gender additive, and second-person locutions, as well as taking advantage of the possibility for multiple targeted communications. Moreover, this pluralistic approach highlights the gaps in research and understanding needed to ensure substantively inclusive care in future.

As we theorize about philosophy of language that bears on social and political issues, it is worth revisiting the methodological question of how we as theorists rely on our philosophical and linguistic intuitions, and what assumptions underlie our justification of such a reliance. Two threads in the philosophical literature are relevant to this question: the discussion of situatedness in feminist epistemology and the debate about philosophical expertise and philosophical intuitions. I argue that philosophers examining social and political philosophy of language should be careful—perhaps more careful than we have been—when we rely on our intuitions to draw conclusions about socially significant language, such as racist, sexist, homophobic, and other derogatory speech. I don’t claim we should give up relying on our intuitions. Instead, I argue that we should be more explicit that our intuitions are limited, and open to the possibility that they might not align with the intuitions of those who have more experience with the kinds of speech we are analyzing. As a result, we might find that the conclusions we draw from our intuitions have to be revised or qualified.

Much of the existing philosophical literature on BDSM focuses on questions about the ethics of BDSM. But there is an underlying question here regarding the nature of BDSM, one which remains largely unaddressed. In this paper, I take that metaphysical question to be prior to the normative one. In other words: it will be important to have a clear view of what BDSM is before we go on to evaluate it. Accordingly, this is a paper about the nature of BDSM and BDSM activities: what they are like, what makes them unique, and the ways in which these activities might be valuable. Here, I work from the philosophical literature on games to analyze structured erotic encounters (or “scenes”) in BDSM. In the first half of the paper, I argue that BDSM scenes are games, and that understanding them in this way yields important insights into the roles of agency, autonomy, and value in BDSM. In the second half of the paper, I map points of connection between this view of scenes-as-games and the existing literature on BDSM in sexual ethics, in order to illuminate the ways in which a moral evaluation of BDSM scenes might proceed from this analysis.

When philosophers consider factors compromising autonomy in consent, they often focus solely on the consent-giver's agential capacities, overlooking the impact of the consent-receiver's conduct on the consensual character of the activity. In this paper, I argue that valid consent requires justified trust in the consent-receiver to act only within the scope of consent. I call this the Trust Condition (TC), drawing on Katherine Hawley's commitment account of trust. TC constitutes a belief that the consent-receiver is capable and willing to act as we expect from them. If such trust is not warranted, I argue, consent lacks the appropriate normative grounds. After establishing TC, I explore its application in the sexual arena, asserting that, due to the non-contractual dimensions of sexual activity—such as the dynamic nature of sexual desires and the absence of external factors effectively binding sexual partners to the terms of consent—trust is warranted in sexual consent by means of care. I define care as a special sensitivity and attention toward the partner's will and discuss how this approach leads to safer intimate relationships in practice.

Should citizens have equal say regarding the running of society? Following the principles of democracy, and most of political philosophy: yes (at least at a fundamental level, thus allowing for representatives and the like). Indeed, comparing the main alternative seemingly supports this intuition. Epistocracy would instead give power just to the most epistemically competent. Testing citizens’ political and economic knowledge looks likely to disproportionately disempower marginalized groups, making the position seem like a non-starter and democracy the clear winner. Nevertheless, this paper argues against giving citizens equal say, or at least, it offers the strongest possible motivation for this position. In particular, I introduce the progressive case for epistocracy, and what I term standpoint epistocracy. This account refigures the relevant notion of political competence such that it is not the most privileged classes who would likely constitute our epistocracy, but rather, the least. The resulting picture considerably improves on traditional versions of epistocracy and also democracy.

Porphyry wrote an interpretation of a passage from the Odyssey under the title On the Cave of the Nymphs; this passage talks about a cave sacred to the water nymphs, which has two gates. Inside the cave, there are stone amphoras where bees store honey; stone looms where sea-purple clothes are woven, and a spring from where water flows ceaselessly. Porphyry interpreted this cave as a symbol of the cosmos; however, caves represent the womb of a goddess in the matriarchal tradition. In this paper, I aim to show how patriarchal transition takes place in Porphyry's interpretation of seeing caves as a symbol of the cosmos. From a philosophical perspective, I will also show that Porphyry attributes to the noetic principle a qualification which puts matter into form, while he sees matter as the source of ignorance, an attitude that is compatible to the feminist critique of reason in which rationality is associated with masculinity rather than femininity.