Political Liberalism, Justice, and Gender

Abstract

In 1977, Jane English pointed out that "by making the parties in the original position heads of families rather than individuals, Rawls makes the family opaque to claims of justice." Since then, a number of feminists have written on issues having to do with gender and the family in Rawls's A Theory ofJustice. 1 I argued in two earlier articles, and then in Justice, Gender, and the Family, that the absence of a discussion of justice in families and justice and gender was a significant problem, for reasons both internal and external to the theory.' I also argued, however, that Rawls's theory of justice had very great potential to address these issues. And I have tried to make some suggestions as to what a feminist extension of Rawls's ideas might include. I shall turn to these later in this article. In the introduction to Political Liberalism, Rawls mentions, as one of a number of "major matters" omitted from Theory, "the justice of and in the family." He reminds us that he did, however, "assume that in some form the family is just."3 It is not at all clear that, in Political Liberalism, he still holds to this assumption, or even to the requirement that families ought to be thought of in terms ofjustice. In publications