Work On Dependency and Vulnerability
In her 2004 book The Autonomy Myth: A Theory of Dependency, Fineman "argues that popular ideology in the United States has become fixated on the myth that citizens are and should be autonomous. Yet the fact that dependency is unavoidable in any society and must be dealt with to sustain the polity, Fineman contends, gives the state the responsibility to support caretaking."
Her 2008 article "The Vulnerable Subject" in the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism develops a theory of vulnerability in order to argue for a more responsive state and a more egalitarian society. The article forms the basis for her 2011 book, also titled The Vulnerable Subject.
Fineman argues:
- "Vulnerability is and should be understood to be universal and constant, inherent in the human condition. The vulnerability approach is an alternative to traditional equal protection analysis; it represents a post-identity inquiry in that it is not focused only on discrimination against defined groups, but concerned with privilege and favor conferred on limited segments of the population by the state and broader society through their institutions. As such, vulnerability analysis concentrates on the institutions and structures our society has and will establish to manage our common vulnerabilities. This approach has the potential to move us beyond the stifling confines of current discrimination-based models toward a more substantive vision of equality."
According to Selberg and Wegerstad,
- "Fundamental to Fineman’s scholarly work is a feminist critique of notions of equality, the liberal subject and prevailing anti-discrimination politics. According to Fineman, the current anti-discrimination doctrine assumes that discrimination is the discoverable and correctable exception to an otherwise just and fair system, characterized by values such as individual liberty and autonomy. Developing her work on dependency, Fineman raises the question: if our bodily fragility, material needs, and the possibility of messy dependency they signify cannot be ignored in life, how can they be absent in our theories about equality, society, politics and law?' Moving beyond gender and other identity categories, Fineman uses the concept of vulnerability to 'define the very meaning of what it means to be human.'"
Read more about this topic: Martha Fineman
Famous quotes containing the words work and/or dependency:
“Mildred Pierce: You look down on me because I work for a living, don’t you? You always have. All right, I work. I cook food and sell it and make a profit on it, which, I might point out, you’re not too proud to share with me.
Monte Beragon: Yes, I take money from you, Mildred. But not enough to make me like kitchens or cooks. They smell of grease.
Mildred Pierce: I don’t notice you shrinking away from a fifty- dollar bill because it smells of grease.”
—Ranald MacDougall (1915–1973)
“For in all the world there are no people so piteous and forlorn as those who are forced to eat the bitter bread of dependency in their old age, and find how steep are the stairs of another man’s house. Wherever they go they know themselves unwelcome. Wherever they are, they feel themselves a burden. There is no humiliation of the spirit they are not forced to endure. Their hearts are scarred all over with the stabs from cruel and callous speeches.”
—Dorothy Dix (1861–1951)