The Nature of Political Theory

128 The Nature of Political Theory

of deconstructed humans could be seen as intrinsically ‘sexless’ or ‘genderless’—
although there are strong views to the contrary (see Pateman 1988). The later addition
by Hobbes of families—fatherly authority and male rulers—is for some feminist
commentators, an unjustified addition to the contract argument. Social contract
theory, unless customs are imported into the argument, provides a medium for talking
abouthumanequality. Socialcontractwriters, suchasLocke, alsoattackeddivineright
and patriarchal theory. A feasible logical extension from criticizing patriarchalism in
political sovereignty, is criticizing patriarchal authority in the family (see Okin 1979:
200). This step was never made by Locke, although it is apotentialimplication of
his argument. The arguments for social contract turn on the idea of separate free,
consenting, and equal individuals,notmales or females. Finally, politics for contract
theory is built upon foundations of reason, not custom or tradition. Again, this
represents apotentialchallenge to the supposed ‘natural order’ of patriarchy. With
some exceptions, most liberal theorists, up to and including Rawls, did not initially
take these potentialities very seriously.
However, some feminists have been deeply critical of what is implicit in the whole
contract perspective. For example, the background to Okin’s conception of liberal
justice theory lies in Carole Pateman’s seminal workThe Sexual Contract(1988). This
latter book argued that the sexual difference and subordination of women are integral
to the fabric of liberal political theory. Seventeenth-century contract theories are seen
as working within a particular conception of the public and private—a distinction that
Pateman considers central to the whole critical feminist project. What we see on the
surface as a contract of equals, in these liberal theorists, is, in reality, a sexual contract
that excludes women (see Pateman 1988: 77ff.). Basically the conception of the public
(and political) and the private are both constructions of patriarchy. Women, qua the
family or domestic realm, are confined to the non-political. Since contracts (qua
contractarianism) are made at the political or public level, women are by definition
ruled out. Further, since freedom, justice and rights, and similar vocabularies, tend to
figure in the public or political realm, women are further excluded. In consequence,
to define the political in this contractarian mode, is an overtly gendered political
act. This is a central theme that feminism wants to address. This, for Pateman,still
remains a subtext in the late twentieth-century justice theories. The whole discipline
of political theory, to the present moment, therefore unwittingly ostracized women.
Okin basically agrees with Pateman’s argument that liberalism’s past is patriarchal.
Women in western thought have been confined by nature to the family, as defined
by patriarchy (Okin 1979). She is also aware that theorists, such as Rawls, embody
similar motifs. However, she does not see Rawls’s liberalism as inherently flawed.
Feminists, for Okin, must still ‘acknowledge the vast debts of feminism to liberalism.
They know that without the liberal tradition, feminism would have had a much
more difficult time emerging’ (Okin 1989: 61). The gist of Okin’s claim is that the
arguments concerning justice and the difference principle can be extended into the
sphere of the family and the domestic realm. Okin regards this as a logical extension
of Rawls’ work. Justiceper seis not a masculine or gendered concept. She thus tries
to develop a conception of liberalism and social justice which is sensitized to gender