A Critique of the Book The Dominion of Sex by Mahboubeh Paknia and Morteza Mardiha

Feminism is among those concepts that different individuals and groups employ in completely different ways, sometimes in forms that are entirely at odds with one another. One of the realities that fuels this issue is the diversity and plurality of feminisms, which are often forgotten in such general discussions. Sometimes the characteristic of one feminist perspective is extended to all of them, and sometimes their differences are considered insignificant or negligible. Occasionally this is employed as a deliberate strategy. When a conservative wants to make their like-minded audience generally pessimistic about the phenomenon of feminism and its varieties, they refer to one spectrum within the broad range of radical feminism concerning marriage, without mentioning that not all feminists, not all types of feminism, and not even all radical feminists adhere to this view. When a scientistic person wants to convince their science-loving audience that feminist attitudes are undesirable for science, they turn to the statements of postmodern feminists and reproduce their remarks about physics, which demonstrate their ignorance of this science, without referring to the apt and precise remarks of feminists regarding biology and the social sciences.

Alongside these differences and diversities that exist among feminists and feminisms, if we wish to speak of "feminism," several strategies lie before us. One of these strategies, a Wittgensteinian one, is in fact a reference to the concept of "family resemblance"; that is, when there exists a resemblance among certain phenomena similar to the resemblance among family members, we place them in one category. Employing this concept to show what things are called feminism should not be limited merely to this claim; rather, through a precise examination of the types of feminism, it must be demonstrated what exactly this resemblance is and what kind of influence exists among these similar matters (for instance, is there a cause-and-effect relationship among these similar matters, or are they independent of one another and merely similar). In the book *The Dominion of Sex* by Mahboubeh Paknia and Morteza Mardiha, an attempt has instead been made to offer a simple definition of the nature of this phenomenon: "Feminism can be considered a school of thought that emphasizes the human identity and independent value of women and believes in their capability and competence at least equivalent to that of men" (p. 10). A minimal and defensible definition that can also be expressed in other forms. For example, Sally Haslanger and her colleagues, in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry, introduce feminism as movements that "seek justice for women and the end of all forms of sexism." (1) Another claim of the book *The Dominion of Sex*, which could perhaps be said to be the main argument of this book, is also stated on its back cover: "Feminism has been a social movement that, in search of philosophical backing, has turned to various schools of thought. Liberalism in the Age of Enlightenment, Romanticism in the 19th century, Existentialism in the mid-20th century, and the New Left in the sixties and seventies. The present book seeks to explain how feminism has relied on these schools and also to answer the question of to what extent the credibility, efficacy, and durability of various feminist tendencies are proportionate to the credibility, efficacy, and durability of the schools that have served as their philosophical backing."

Feminism did not emerge in a vacuum, and its varieties arose in different historical and socio-political contexts; consequently, the claim that feminism has been influenced by other schools and social phenomena in advancing its justice-seeking goals is not a strange one. However, the claim of this book goes somewhat beyond this mere influence, and it could perhaps be said that this book claims that feminism itself has not had, and does not have, its own philosophical backing, and each type of feminism has turned to philosophical schools to fill this void. Among the four philosophical schools mentioned, the authors have more sympathy for liberalism, and since they consider the strengths and weaknesses of the various types of feminism to be the very strengths and weaknesses of their backing philosophical schools, liberal feminism consequently appears superior to the other four types of feminism in this book.

Just as feminism cannot take shape in a vacuum and is influenced by other phenomena of its time, feminism has also influenced, and continues to influence, other phenomena in society. Although the authors have alluded to this, if the effects of feminism on different philosophical schools were examined more explicitly and specifically, a more realistic picture of the mutual influence between feminism and philosophical schools would be presented. Ridding liberalism of sexism, at least in theory, means enhancing our understanding of freedom and taking a firm, positive step toward freeing the concept of freedom from contradiction, and one of the most important movements that has contributed to this achievement has been feminism. In the field of epistemology, it can also be said that freeing scientific hypotheses and theories from sexism helps us to rid science of one of the most significant instances of ignorance and prejudice (sexism) and to arrive at a more objective science, closer to reality. Feminism has also posed its own philosophical questions, the most important of which is the problematization of the "sex and gender" relationship. We must not forget that with the challenging of the concept of gender by feminists, it is not only women who are liberated from gender stereotypes, but this possibility is made available to everyone. As a very simple example, the gender stereotype that tells girls to wear pink and boys to wear blue—by challenging "wearing pink," the "wearing blue" part is also challenged. Therefore, it can be said that even if feminism's primary focus is on the liberation of women, it has also brought liberation for men.

Regarding liberalism, the authors point to factors that delayed women's freedom and equality. The authors' definition of liberalism is not exactly clear, and they use the term in a general sense. For this reason, some of the points the authors raise do not seem defensible. For example, it is stated that "Liberal ideas, explicitly, had not offered an argument for the monopoly of the concept of the human and his rights to men" (p. 26). Whereas we know that among liberals—in the general sense of liberalism—such beliefs were sometimes explicitly stated. For instance, Kant, in his book *Metaphysics of Morals*, considered women to lack civil personality and for this reason deemed the right to vote meaningless for women. Or, as the authors themselves have pointed out, some, like Rousseau, by emphasizing the concept of the "natural" and "nature," tried to show that the existing condition of women in their era was natural and considered education to be applicable only for boys. Is this not an argument for the monopoly of rights (in this case, the right to education) for men? Given that the dominant view in philosophy is that the distinguishing feature of humans from other animal species is reason, and among the thinkers of this period, there existed the prejudice that women possess less reason than men, it is consequently not strange to state that these philosophers conceived of at least several concepts for the human, a prejudice that is fully manifested in Schopenhauer's remarks in his work titled "On Women": "It is only necessary to look at a woman's appearance to realize that she is not made for any considerable mental or physical work... Women are childish, foolish, and short-sighted; in other words, they are grown-up children their whole lives, something between a child and a man." (2) If the authors defined liberalism more specifically, they could also better clarify their position against such views. Especially since we know that in addition to sexism, racism was also very common among the thinkers of this period. As two examples, Kant considered Black people stupid, deemed any education other than slavery ineffective for them, forbade marriage between Black and White people, and introduced Black people as the lowest race and White people as the highest race. (3) Hegel also believed that "Spirit, it is in the White race that it first reaches unity with itself" (Encyclopedia §393).

The book places great emphasis on the influence of liberalism on the feminism of figures like Mary Wollstonecraft, while giving little attention to other influences she absorbed, some of which were arguably more pronounced. Yet Wollstonecraft herself was religious, and her arguments in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman carry a religious hue. Indeed, the influence of religion on her feminist thought was such that the Cambridge Companion on Wollstonecraft devotes a section to “The Religious Foundations of Wollstonecraft’s Feminism” (4). Attending to such historical points and this kind of influence can also aid in understanding (merely understanding, not necessarily accepting) a phenomenon like “Islamic feminism” in Muslim countries.

Apart from liberalism, three other philosophical schools are discussed in this work: Romanticism, Existentialism, and the New Left. This categorization is, so to speak, “Eurocentric.” It is true that the word feminism is European, but if this means that merely because of this name and the geographical origin of some of its associated concepts, we ignore all the liberatory or egalitarian activities of women in other parts of the world prior to the Enlightenment, feminism will turn into its own antithesis. According to the authors’ definition, “feminism can be considered a school that emphasizes the human identity and independent value of women and believes in their ability and competence at least equal to that of men.” If the book stated more explicitly whether or not it adopts a Eurocentric approach, it would be easier to judge whether the authors’ approach also leads to the negation of other peoples’ achievements. This is a point we must consider regarding the quest for freedom. It is true that we should not present what occurred in other eras and cultures as entirely similar to the quest for freedom in Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment Europe, but on the other hand, since they are not entirely similar to a European phenomenon, we should not negate the liberatory nature of those phenomena either. For instance, the “Zanj Rebellion” (5) occurred centuries before the Enlightenment, but that is no reason to negate or ignore its liberatory nature. Another observation can be made regarding these very categorizations. Firstly, one section of the book is dedicated to radical feminism, and this feminist tendency is introduced as inspired by the New Left, yet “Marxist feminism” is absent as a category in this work. Addressing Marxist feminism in general, and classic feminist works such as Friedrich Engels’s The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, could help us evaluate the authors’ perspective with greater challenge. Moreover, addressing the critiques of socialism and Marxism and their followers by leftist feminists in this section could have provided further evidence that feminism is not merely a consumer of philosophical thought, and the extent and type of mutual influence between Marxism and feminism could have been assessed. (6) Furthermore, placing nineteenth-century anarchism in the second part of the book—that is, Romanticism—is somewhat problematic. The anarchists of the nineteenth century were scientistic and rationalist, to the extent that when Feyerabend wants to speak of the sanctity of science for everyone, he states that even among anarchists like Kropotkin, the ideality of science was accepted. (7) Bakunin, in his book God and the State, also accepts science as the only truth external to humans by virtue of its rationality. Although this does not mean there were no elements of Romanticism in their thought, this categorization, without specifying the sphere of Romanticism’s influence among nineteenth-century anarchists, is somewhat problematic. In these very categorizations made in the book, little reference is made to the political practice of the adherents of different feminisms. This could have allowed us to examine the mutual influence of feminism and emancipation in the realm of practice as well. This is especially relevant because one of the noteworthy claims of this book, presented briefly and in passing, is the mechanism by which liberal feminism and radical feminism act as the two ends of a spectrum, functioning as a carrot and stick, where the radicalism of one end of the spectrum enhances the bargaining power of liberal feminism.

The points raised do not mean that this is not a good book; on the contrary, considering the rather deplorable state of authored books in Persian, it is considered a good book. This book has a specific claim, it poses a problem, and the text engages with many important sources, which is precisely why it is possible to disagree with the book's problem and method. The aim of raising these points is that this critique might help the authors make improvements for future editions of this book. This book is suitable for those interested in feminism, the history of philosophy, and political philosophy.

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(1)   Haslanger, Sally, Tuana, Nancy and O'Connor, Peg, "Topics in Feminism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/feminism-topics/>.

(2)   https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/essays/chapter5.html

(3)   https://www.academia.edu/1802951/Kants_Racism

(4)   Taylor, B. (2002). The religious foundations of Mary Wollstonecraft’s feminism. The Cambridge Companion to Mary Wollstonecraft, 99-118.

(5)   https://www.questia.com/magazine/1G1-76402507/revisiting-the-zanj-and-re-visioning-revolt-complexities

(6)   For an introduction to a book on the relationship between feminism and Marxism, see this text.

(7)   http://zoheirnoaparast.blogspot.co.at/2017/06/blog-post_18.html

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A Critique of the Book The Dominion of Sex by Mahboubeh Paknia and Morteza Mardiha

Critique Author: Zoheir Bagheri Noaparast

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