`The Capabilities Approach', `The Imaginary Domain', and `Asymmetrical Reciprocity': Feminist Perspectives on Equality and Justice

Abstract

In this article the author revisits the question of how feminist theory/theories could address questions regarding universalism, sameness, difference, and the quest for justice. She reconsiders the quest for justice and equality for women and the (im) possibilities of a feminist perspective on justice and a feminist `community'. The three feminist theorists that she discusses are Martha Nussbaum, Drucilla Cornell, and Iris Marion Young. Nussbaum is closer to a liberal defense of universal values – Cornell and Young stand critical of liberalism and focus on sublimity, dignity, and asymmetrical reciprocity. The author supports the perspective of the latter two theorists and applies these perspectives to aspects of South African equality jurisprudence. She also considers critically the extent to which the Draft Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People's Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa breaks with liberal universalism and sameness. To the end she supports a notion of` slowing down' in order to protect women's freedom and dignity, to approach each other with wonder and respect.