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Feminism and Agency

TRACY ISAACS
Published online: 01 Jul 2013.
To cite this article: TRACY ISAACS (2002) Feminism and Agency, Canadian Journal of
Philosophy, 32:sup1, 129-154
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CANADIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Supplementary Volume 28
Feminism and Agency!
TRACY ISAACS
I. Introduction
Given conditions of oppression presupposed by a feminist understand-

ing of social structures, feminist agency is paradoxical. I am going to
understand feminist agency as women's ability to be effective agents
against their own oppression. The paradox of feminist agency arises
because feminist assumptions about women's socialization seem to
entail that women's agency is compromised by sexist oppression. In
particular, women's agency appears to be diminished in ways that
interfere with their capacity for feminist action, that is, action against
sexist oppression.
Feminist philosophers have taken issue with traditional conceptions
of agency, claiming that these conceptions are overly individualistic
and valorize an illusory and unattractive ideal of agents and agency.
If the paradox arises because women do not attain traditional ideals
1 I would like to thank Samantha Brennan for inviting me to participate in this

volume, giving me the opportunity to present the work-in-progress at the
Feminist Moral Philosophy Conference at the University of Western Ontario
in August 2002, and providing helpful comments on earlier drafts. An earlier
version of this paper was also presented at the Society for Analytical Feminism
(SAF) meeting in Chicago in May 2002. Many thanks to Ann Cudd for her
insightful commentary at that session, and to audiences at both the SAF meeting
and the Feminist Moral Philosophy conference. I am grateful for funding for
this project, awarded through the University of Western Ontario's internal Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) research grant
competition.
129
Tracy Isaacs
of independence, control, choice, and free action, then, if we reject the

tradition, we may be able to articulate a preferable ideal of agency. This
alternative may be one that women satisfy. Hence, a feminist reconstrual
of the self could dispel the paradox.
Care-based accounts of agency, introducing the concept of the
relational self, or self-in-relation, offer such a revised notion of the
self. Selves-in-relation are not the independent, atomistic, impartial,
separate individuals so valued in the traditional literature on
responsible moral agency. On this account, our relations to others are

important constituents of our identities, and these relations determine
our responsibilities to them.
I am going to argue that we can dispel the paradox, but not by
introducing the relational self that has become familiar in discussions of
feminist ethics and has come to be associated with the ethics of care. In
my view, the self-in-relation and its focus on responsibilities to particular
others is still far too individualistic to serve feminists well. Just as the
more traditional view of the self focuses too narrowly on individuals,
so the care-based view of the self focuses too narrowly on individuals.
In order to address oppression, we need to take a step away from the
context of individual lives and the roles and responsibilities in them and
to tum to the way these lives fit into patterns of oppressive practices.
In order to do this, I reconceptualize the self-in-relation, emphasizing
relations to other women. This emphasis allows us to recognize
oppressive social structures and to see the potential for collective action
with other women. Overly individualistic or particularistic views of the
self fail to provide a perspective from which to recognize and address
oppressive social structures and therefore fail to address the paradox
of feminist agency.
My paper has the following structure. First, I outline the paradox
of feminist agency and how it arises. Then I introduce the relational
self and care-based agency as a possible solution and explain why it
is unsatisfactory. The core of the paper is my discussion of the self-in-
relation to other women and what it has to offer in terms of feminist
agency. This discussion includes a sketch of an account of collective
agency. The final section of the paper takes up a number of objections
to my view.
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Feminism and Agency
2. How is Women's Agency Impeded?
Let me begin with some elementary assumptions about feminism. As

feminists, we assume that we live in a patriarchal society, that women
are systemically disadvantaged under patriarchy, that this situation of
sexist oppression is unjust, and that action ought to be taken to end it. 2
While systemic disadvantage is obviously complex, patriarchy subordi-
nates women in two basic ways, thereby creating conditions of unjust
inequality. The first is very literal: a patriarchal society offers women

fewer opportunities than it offers men. In particular, women do not
share equally in positions of power. The second way is more subtle: in
our patriarchal society, we are subject to feminine socialization.3 This
socialization encourages us to be passive, dependent, maternal and
nurturing, concerned about others, compromising, unambitious, less
competitive, disproportionately concerned about our physical attrac-
tiveness to men. In essence, it encourages us to accept a subordinate
place in society, and indeed, hardly to recognize it as subordinate.
How do these conditions impede women's agency? Start with
traditional conceptions of agency, despite their being contentious
and problematic in some respects. The moral agent is independent,
impartial, in control, uncoerced, self-determined, self-interested, ideally
rational, and typically an atomistic unit with a range of choices and the
2 Claudia Card, "The Fiestiness of Feminist," in Feminist Ethics, ed. C. Card

(Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1991); Marilyn Frye, The Politics of
Reality (Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1983); Alison}aggar, "Feminist Ethics:
Projects, Problems, Prospects," in Feminist Ethics (op. cit.).
3 Sandra Bartky, Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of

Oppression (New York: Routledge, 1990); Card, "Fiestiness"; N. Hartsock, "The
Feminist Standpoint: Developing a Ground for a Specifically Feminist Historical
Materialism," in Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Meta-
physics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, ed. S. Harding and M. Hintikka
(Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1983); Diana Tietjens Meyers,"Agency," in A Companion to
Feminist Philosophy, Alison}aggar and Iris Marion Young, ed. (Oxford: Blackwell,
2000); Rosemarie Tong, Feminine and Feminist Ethics (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth,
1993).
131
Tracy Isaacs
ability to seek a variety of alternatives. 4 In much of the literature on

agency and responsibility, responsible agents have some or all of these
features. 5 If traditional conceptions of agency have any merit, then these
are the agents capable of effectively acting in the world.
With this understanding of agency in hand, we can see that a
patriarchal social structure impedes women's agency in two ways, and
these mirror the ways in which it subordinates. First, it poses literal
barriers. Women's opportunities are more restricted than men's, so
women's range of action is compromised. Second, feminine socialization

shapes women in ways that make them more likely to be dependent,
not in control of significant parts of their lives, often coerced, at the
mercy of social forces, often primarily concerned with the welfare of
others, and typically in relation. Thus, given mainstream conceptions
of moral agency, women's agency under patriarchy is compromised.
Some have claimed that, in these oppressive social conditions, women's
consciousness is false or colonized in the sense that we participate in
our own subordination.6 And even where we do recognize the situation
as one of subordination and systemic disadvantage, we often feel
powerless to address it. Feminist agency, that is, agency that would
be effective against women's oppression, requires that we be active
participants against our own subordination. The "properly" socialized
woman will lack the ability to take such action to the extent that she
4 John Martin Fischer, "Responsibility and Control," in Moral Responsibility, ed.

John Martin Fischer (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986); Harry Frankfurt,
"Freedom of the Will and the Concept of the Person," Journal of Philosophy 68
(1971): 5-20; Immanuel Kant, Grounding of the Metaphysics ofMorals (1785), trans.
James W. Ellington (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993); John Rawls, A Theory ofJustice
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971); R. Tong, Feminine and Feminist
Ethics.
5 It might strike some people as odd that I have left "autonomous" off of the list,
for many people think of autonomy as a fundamental condition of agency. I have
omitted autonomy because it means such different things to different people and
because it is likely captured by several of the features that I have mentioned.
6 Meyers, "Agency."
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Feminism and Agency
is more concerned with others than herself, lacking control over her
life, and dependent. In the next section, I shall consider an attempt to
re-think ideals of agency by introducing new criteria for responsible
agency?
3. Care-Based Agency
If feminist agency is paradoxical because women's agency appears

compromised, then we may be able to address this paradox by offer-
ing a different account of agency according to which women's agency
is not compromised. Feminists and others have criticized traditional
moral ontology, rejecting the familiar assumptions about agency. It is
not simply that it sets an ideal out of our reach - most ideals are,
but they are still worth striving for. Rather, critics claim that the ideal
of self-directed independence and impartiality is wrong-headed and
ought not be valorized. Thus, some feminist alternatives construe the
7 Susan Sherwin has suggested that feminists should distinguish between agency
and autonomy. She maintains that "agency" involves the exercising of reasonable
choice, but does not take into account oppressive circumstances that circumscribe
the range of choices available. A broadened, more relational account of autonomy
that goes beyond the traditional idea of self-governance would be sensitive to
oppression. I have two reasons for not distinguishing here between agency
and autonomy in the way that Sherwin recommends. First, I have presented
the paradox of feminist agency as stemming from feminist assumptions about
patriarchal oppression. Thus, it does not ignore circumstances of oppression.
And second, I am not concerned so much with the idea of agency as the exercise
of reasonable choice, as with the possibility of feminist agency. I understand
feminist agency to be effective action by women against patriarchal oppression.
Thus, my focus here is quite different from Sherwin's. I have consciously and
explicitly set aside the task of articulating an account of autonomy (see note 5), as
the paradox of feminist agency arises regardless of our conception of autonomy.
See Susan Sherwin's "A Relational Approach to Autonomy in Health Care," in
The Politics of Women's Health: Exploring Agency and Autonomy, Susan Sherwin,
Coordinator (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 33.
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Tracy Isaacs
self not as independent and unconnected, but as essentially in relation

to others. 8
Perhaps the most well-known conception of relational agency is
that which has come to be associated with Carol Gilligan's ethics of
care. 9 In this ethic, the moral agent is aware of her relationships with
others and concerned to keep them intact by appropriately responding
to others' needs as well as her own. 10 Many feminists have wondered
whether this construal of the self should be considered an advance.
The difficulty that they see is that, if we hold up care-based agency as

a normative ideal, we may be encouraging continued participation of
women in our own subordination. 11 This is a familiar objection. 12 The
normative expectation that women ought to be sensitive to the needs
of those around them, the claim that women are essentially selves-in-
relation, the view that women's best bet for expressing responsible
agency is through the lens of care- these features of care-based agency
have made many feminists worry that it is not an adequate response
to women's predicament. One common criticism is that it is women's
caring behavior that keeps them subordinate in the first place, making
them more suited to the domestic sphere and, if they venture out, to
service workY
8 Lawrence Blum, Friendship, Altruism and Morality (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1980); Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born (New York: W. W. Norton, 1979);
Lorraine Code, "Second Persons," in Science, Morality and Feminist Theory, ed.
Marsha Hanen and Kai Neilsen (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1987);
Caroline Whitbeck, "A Different Reality: Feminist Ontology," in Women,
Knowledge and Reality: Explorations in Feminist Philosophy, ed. Ann Garry and
Marilyn Pearsall (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989); see also Catriona Mackenzie
and Natalie Stoljar, eds., Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy,
Agency, and the Social Self(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
9 Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982).
10 Meyers, "Agency."
11 Ibid., 377.
12 Card, "Fiestiness"; Michelle-Moody Adams, "Gender and the Complexity of

Moral Voices," in Feminist Ethics, ed. C. Card; Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born;
R. Tong, Feminist and Feminine Ethics.
13 Marilyn Frye, The Politics of Reality; R. Tong, Feminine and Feminist Ethics.
134
Feminism and Agency
More recently, Margaret Urban Walker has rejected the idea that
"we" need to articulate a conception of moral responsibility, or
responsible moral agency, at all. 14 Talk of "our" conception of moral
responsibility isn't, she thinks, very helpfuJ.l 5 Instead, we need to be
aware of many-faceted "practices of responsibility" and the host of
questions that surround these practices. In particular, she notes the
issue of differential moral recognition, pressing us to ask: How does
the mesh between social positions, identities, and responsibilities work,
and does it work for some and against others? 16 Ultimately, Walker is
advocating a conception of an ethics of responsibilities coming from
a shared understanding. Her conception of the moral agent is, like
Gilligan's, of a self-in-relation; being in relation places certain demands
on the agent. Walker maintains that specific moral claims on us arise
from our contact or relationship to others whose interests are vulnerable
to our actions and choices. 17
A merit of Walker's account is the attention it gives to differential
moral recognition, an issue that lies at the heart of actual circumstances
of oppression. For example, we do not recognize children as fully
developed moral agents, or as equal participants in the moral
community. Since girls are children, those who insist on calling
women "girls" are implicitly denying women's equal participation
in the moral community. Feminist philosophers frequently make the
point that women's experiences are not taken seriously, that women
have historically been silenced. 18 Walker's emphasis on the demands
that being in relation places on moral agents helps to make the point
that it is wrong to accord vulnerable groups differential (lesser) moral
recognition.
Walker says little, however, to address the paradox of feminist agency,
for her view's emphasis on obligations towards vulnerable groups
14 Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics (New

York: Routledge, 1998).
15 Ibid., 96.
16 Ibid., 100.
17 Ibid., 107.
18 Susan Dwyer, "Learning from Experience," in Daring to Be Good: Essays in Feminist
Ethico-Politics, ed. Bat-Ami Bar On and Ann Ferguson (New York: Routledge,
1998); Jaggar, "Feminist Ethics."
135
Tracy Isaacs
appears to put the emancipatory power in the hands of those who

already have it. She does not address issues of agency from the point
of view of the way that the agency of disadvantaged groups appears
compromised by the nature of their oppression. Differential moral
recognition is just one more obstacle that women's moral agency has
to overcome, but women would be helpless to address their situation if
the only way to overcome it were for those to whose choices and actions
women are vulnerable to decide to recognize women as equals.
Walker is quite right that our contact or relationships to vulnerable

others create obligations for us to respond. She is also right that failure
to respond appropriately is a violation of moral duty. However, the
problem with which I am concerned is more practical than that. I am
asking whether women under patriarchy can exercise their agency in
liberatory ways even in the face of continued differential recognition.
I believe that the answer is yes, and that a different conception of the
self-in-relation can assist us in supporting that "yes."
Where responsibility is concerned, we need to do more than
articulate the ways in which dominant groups fail. Gilligan and
Walker both emphasize the way that being in relation to others
generates responsibilities to those others. This emphasis does not help
us to address the issue of agency under oppression. For it does not
explain how women are in a position to act effectively against their own
subordination. How do these views fail in this respect? Gilligan's view
focuses on the moral agent as an individual and offers an alternative
picture of the self according to which relations to others determine one's
responsibilities. Thus, my role as daughter of my parents explains why
I have an obligation of care to them rather than to your equally needy
parents. This picture is too focused on the obligations surrounding
individual relationships to ask broader questions concerning these
obligations, such as: why do I, as daughter, have an obligation of
eldercare that my brother does not have? Or how do we, as a society,
best support individuals who undertake caring roles?19 Walker's view
does take social relations into account, but it is still focused on duties
to more vulnerable others, not really saying what powers of agency
and responsibility the vulnerable others themselves have to address
19 Samantha Brennan suggested this example.
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Feminism and Agency
their own situations. The core idea in her responsibility ethics is that
"specific claims on us arise from our contact or relationships with
others whose interests are vulnerable to our actions and choices. We
are obligated to respond to particular others when circumstances
or ongoing relationships render them especially, conspicuously, or
peculiarly dependent on us." 20
Though views of agency based on care may give us a more promising
picture of women's agency than the tradition, they do not support
feminist agency any better than the tradition does. In the next section, I
outline a different way of thinking about relational selves as a solution
to the paradox of feminist agency.
4. A Different Way of Thinking about the Self-in-Relation
To address the paradox of feminist agency, I propose that we think of

the self-in-relation not in terms of the obligations or responsibilities that
being in relation generate, but rather in terms of the possibilities for
action that being a self-in-relation creates. Notice that the paradox of
feminist agency is most acute when we focus on the impact of feminine
socialization on women's capacities to act against sexist oppression.
This kind of socialization forces us to wonder how can we be free
acting agents when we are socialized in oppressive conditions that
systemically disadvantage us. The difficulty is acute because, though
the conditions are systemic- part of the culture in which we live- the
impact is on the agency of individual selves. I as an individual cannot
develop effective feminist agency because I am oppressed by a social
structure in virtue of being a member of a group that the structure
does not accord adequate recognition and opportunity to. Clearly, an
individual cannot force a shift in cultural conditions by herself. Thus,
a view of agency, whether based in traditional conceptions of choice
and control or in care, will be lacking if it cannot frame problems of
agency in terms of a context that goes beyond the individual. In what
follows, I shall outline and defend an account of the self-in-relation that
emphasizes a less individualistic and particularistic relationship.
20 Urban Walker, Moral Understandings, 107.
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Tracy Isaacs
One of the difficulties facing women as agents is that we continue,

even in our theories of relational selves, to focus on the way that our
relationships with others create obligations to them. Drawing on
my work on collective action, my account focuses instead on seeing
ourselves as part of a group. Through identification with a larger whole,
we can become aware of patterns of oppression and we can become
aware of the potential for acting together to overcome these patterns.
In the next section, I explain the role that seeing ourselves in relation
to other women plays in recognizing oppression.
5. Recognizing Oppression
One of the ways that oppression disadvantages individuals is by making

their subordination invisible. It is invisible for two reasons. One is that
it is seen as the natural order of things rather than as a situation of
injustice, so it is not something that we notice. The other is that we
have a tendency to look at each individual very individually. If I look at
my life and my experiences only in the context of my life, then I do not
see anything that happens to me as part of a pattern of harmful social
practice. Two examples should help to make this point clear. Consider
a female lawyer who consistently gets passed over for promotions. In
every instance, she is given a reason why Joe or Bob or Sam got to be
senior partner instead. It is only when she begins to speak with other
women in her profession that she can start to see that it is not about,
or just about, her own experience. In fact, she is experiencing the glass
ceiling that so many women in her profession and others experience.
Another example is captured in the video The Chilly Climate for Women
Faculty, which presents a series of interviews with women faculty at
the University of Western Ontario, documenting their experiences of
exclusion. 21 One of the things that makes the video so powerful is that
it presents a collection of women's experiences. One female faculty
21 The Chilly Climate for Women Faculty in Colleges and Universities, executive
producers, Western's Caucus on Women's Issues and the President's Standing
Committee on Employment Equity, the University of Western Ontario, producer
Kern Murch Productions, written and directed by Kern Murch, 1991.
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Feminism and Agency
member tells the story of coming to realize that her male colleagues,
who frequently lunched together, never invited her to join them. Taken
in isolation, her colleagues' behavior may just seem rude or thoughtless,
too trivial to be worthy of a complaint. But when seen in the context
of a pattern of exclusion, that omission on the part of her colleagues
gains significance.
These examples help to illustrate how important it is to understand
the experiences of individual women in the broader context of other
women's experiences if we are to recognize patterns of oppressive of

practice. We do not all have to have identical experiences to understand
ourselves as part of a group. Neither traditional theories of agency and
the self nor the self-in-relation of care-based agency are sufficiently
sensitive to the group context. Thus, neither encourages us to identify
or recognize conditions of oppression in our own lives. Recognition of
women as a group, and of ourselves as members of this group, is an
important step in recognizing sexist oppression, for it enables us to see
patterns of wrongful social practice.22 In the next section, I explain how
understanding ourselves in relation to other women helps to dispel the
paradox of feminist agency.
6. Recognizing Action Potential
Seeing ourselves in relation to a group helps to dispel the paradox of

feminist agency by explaining how women can act against their own
oppression. In the literature on collective action and collective respon-
sibility, philosophers spend a great deal of time trying to articulate the
individual's relationship to a group when collective action takes place.
One of the challenges is to find a middle ground in which collectives do
not completely subsume individuals, on the one hand, and individuals
are not the only real agents, on the other hand. Thus, it is necessary to
provide an account of how individuals can come together to perform
22 As Marilyn Frye says, "to recognize a person as oppressed, one has to see that
individual as belonging to a group of a certain sort." Frye, The Politics of Reality,
8.
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Tracy Isaacs
collective acts that captures the collective context without individuals

falling out of the picture. One feature common to diverse views is that
when action is collective, there is a sense of solidarity amongst individu-
als. The individuals think of themselves in the context of "we," not of
individuals in isolation, and not just as a concatenation of "I's." 23
In practical terms, this matters because we can do together what
we cannot do alone. For example, only a group of people can play a
symphony, fight a battle, or march on Parliament Hill. In theoretical
terms, it matters because sorting out the relationship between

individuals and collectives will help us to sort out issues about
individual and collective moral responsibility. In terms of the particular
matter at hand - the paradox of feminist agency - we can see that
acting together can afford us opportunities to address oppression where
acting alone would not.
One of the most important features of effective collective action
is that those acting together be conscious of themselves as acting in
concert to achieve a shared goai.24 At the very least, individuals need
to think of their acts as contributions to a jointly sought outcome with
the awareness that others are doing the same. Individual actions can
take on greater significance when they are seen as part of a collective
effort aimed at the achievement of a joint goal, just as individual
examples of exclusion gain significance when they are recognized as
part of a pattern. For example, in the face of powerful social forces, one
individual's act of resistance -perhaps a woman decides not to wear
make-up in the belief that the beauty industry oppresses and exploits
women- might seem insignificant because her act alone will not bring
about social change. However, understood in a broader context, and
conjoined with similar acts of others in a collective effort, her act is a
23 Michael Bratman, "Shared Intention," Ethics 104 (1993): 97-113; Margaret

Gilbert, "What Is It for Us to Intend?" in Contemporary Action Theory, Vol. 2,
ed. Raimo Tuomela and Ghita Holmstrom (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1997), 65-85;
Christopher Kutz, Complicity: Ethics and Law for a Collective Age (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 2000); Larry May, The Morality of Groups (Notre
Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987); Raimo Tuomela and Karl Miller,
"We-Intentions," Philosophical Studies 53 (1988): 115-37.
24 Ibid.
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Feminism and Agency
contribution to social change, and this increases its significance. When

many women take a stand against the beauty industry, their collective
action will have an impact. Consider a different example from within
our profession: even before the American Philosophical Association
(APA) adopted a policy in 1986 encouraging members to use non-sexist
language, 25 many philosophers adopted personal policies in favor of
non-sexist language, but they were not really acting together. But when
the APA adopted such a policy as an organization, philosophers acted
together, making for a more effective means of achieving a joint goal.

We did this by recognizing that our relationship to other philosophers
afforded us an opportunity for collective action, and by taking
advantage of that opportunity.
Admittedly, this action took place under the rubric of a professional
association. But not all collective action needs to take place in this
organized, codified fashion. Even less organized, social groups, such
as women, can moblize to achieve joint goals - goals for the group
-when individuals begin to see themselves as members of a group,
and to see their acts as contributions to the acts of the whole, in aid of
a jointly sought outcome.
While still emphasizing that we see ourselves in relation, I am urging
that we step back from focusing on our relations to particular others
as the source of our responsibilities and obligations to those others
(though they may be that too). Instead, we should see our relations to
others as a means of recognizing patterns of oppression and as creating
possibilities for collective action against that oppression.
To summarize, I am claiming that our understanding of ourselves as
part of a group has two main advantages over the self-in-relation that
has been the basis of care-based agency. First, it will allow us to identify
patterns of oppression. Second, it will enable us to get past obstacles to
agency that may confront us as individuals. Admittedly what I have so
far presented is just a sketch, but it is sufficient to convey the general
picture that I am trying to paint. I shall now consider and respond to
some possible challenges to what I have so far said.
25 "Guidelines for the Use of Non-Sexist Language," Proceedings and Addresses of

the American Philosophical Association 59 (1986): 471-82.
141
Tracy Isaacs
7. Challenges
The view that I have presented is open to a number of concerns and

challenges, some from feminists, some more general. The first three that
I address take issue with the claim that feminine socialization compro-
mises women's agency. Next, I address a worry about the incentives that
individual women may have not to take the collective perspective that
my view requires them to take. As is the case for many collective action
solutions, the incentive to free ride on the efforts of others may be quite
attractive. I then respond to the concern that my view might entail that
the only way for women to exercise their agency is through collective
action against their oppression. And finally, I address an objection to
my reliance on the concept of "us," i.e., women, as a group. There are
a number of levels on which to question this assumption, but the one
that I am going to address articulates a worry about exclusion. I turn
now to the first objection.
7.1 Men are socialized too
I have claimed that women's agency is in jeopardy because of feminine

socialization. Some might point out, quite rightly, that men are social-
ized too. For example, they are under social pressure to succeed, to be
strong, and to be powerful and in control. There is a high expectation
of rationality placed on men, so it has become a commonplace that they
are less comfortable expressing their emotions and their vulnerability.
If masculine socialization shapes men, then perhaps their agency is
equally compromised, and rather than pointing to a problem facing
only women, I have articulated a general problem for agency, given
the influence of social forces. I agree that men are also socialized, but
they are socialized in ways that promote, rather than hinder, their abil-
ity to act in the world. And they are encouraged to exhibit qualities of
strength and independence that are, as mentioned earlier, more highly
prized than the vulnerability and dependence encouraged in women.
Masculine socialization does not lead to men's oppression. Indeed, as
Marilyn Frye points out, no one was ever oppressed because he was a
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Feminism and Agency
man. 26 Those men who are oppressed are so in virtue of something else,
such as their race, their religion, or their socio-economic class. Thus,
particularly in patriarchal conditions, men's socialization as men does
not leave them badly off in the way that feminine socialization leaves
women badly off. The other point to note is that it is not just agency
that is in question, it is feminist agency, i.e., the ability of women to act
against their own oppression. As noted earlier, we can make a good
case for the claim that the more we try to live up to feminine ideals, the
more we participate in rather than act against our own oppression. This
is a difficulty for care-based agency. Participating in our own oppres-
sion is decidedly unfeminist. Men's socialization does not contribute to
men's oppression. Indeed, it contributes to the patriarchal conditions
that subordinate women. Thus, socialization simpliciter is not the issue.
Socialization that contributes to one's own oppression and impedes one
from addressing that oppression is the issue. And feminine socializa-
tion has that character.
7.2 Am I assuming a traditional account of agency?
Some might object that I am still assuming a traditional account of

agency with conditions of free choice, independence, and control. After
all, the paradox, as I have articulated it, only arises because feminine
socialization impedes women's development in these areas. The care
ethicist would say that what I am taking to be conditions of agency is an
essential part of the problem. 27 As we have seen, by redefining agency
and invoking the self-in-relation theory of the self, the care ethicist
reclaims the value of the caring attitudes of women. Because our con-
nections with others are so integral to our identities, we exercise our
agency when we act in ways that recognize those connections and the
responsibilities that they generate. Given this claim, it might appear to
some that my view does not sufficiently acknowledge that care-based
agency is a revisionist account of responsible agency.
26 Frye, Politics of Reality, 16.

27 Ann Cudd put this point to me in her helpful commentary on an earlier version
of the paper, presented at the Meeting of the Society for Analytical Feminism,
Chicago, April 2002.
143
Tracy Isaacs
To be sure, care-based accounts of agency are revisionist and

constitute attempts to show that the so-called "feminine" virtues are,
indeed, virtues. One of the ways that unequal social structures persist
is by dichotomizing masculine and feminine virtues, and then casting
the feminine virtues as inferior, suitable- if at all- "only" for the
domestic sphere, and so on. Society appears to value reason over
emotion, independence over dependence, impartiality over partiality,
objectivity over subjectivity, justice over care. The valued characteristics
are stereotypically masculine. The less valued characteristics are

stereotypically feminine. Thus, we may understand the care ethicist
as making the case that there is more value in emotion, attachment,
partiality, and subjectivity than is typically acknowledged and that
these can be features of agency. In this respect, care-based accounts of
agency are revisionist, advocating a revaluation of values.
My quarrel with care ethics, however, is that its emphasis on the
moral responsibilities surrounding particular relationships is too
individualistic to serve as an adequate basis for feminist agency, that
is, agency against oppressive circumstances. Redefining conditions for
agency so that "properly" socialized, i.e., feminine, women already
meet them will not help us to address patriarchal oppression. Instead of
enabling women to act in emancipatory ways, women's caring enables
men to maintain dominance. Thus, it is dangerous to hold up care for
and responsibility to others as moral ideals for women.
Furthermore, an overemphasis on responsibilities of care as
generated by individual relationships with particular others fails to
provide a perspective from which to recognize or confront oppression.
In fact, if women are doing exactly as they ought in discharging their
duties of care, and if this range of activities constitutes ideal agency,
then women simply are not oppressed, the properly socialized woman
is well-suited to domestic labor and other activities in the service of
others, and that is just as it should be. No feminist would consent to
the claim that women are not oppressed.
So, am I assuming a traditional account of agency? The answer is
a very qualified "yes." I have claimed that choice, control, freedom
from coercion- all conditions of agency in traditional accounts- are
important features of effective feminist agency. But I am making the
further claim that the tradition is too individualistic. I have claimed
that, in order to be effective against women's oppression, women need
144
Feminism and Agency
to think of themselves in relation to other women. Traditional accounts

of agency, no less than care-based accounts, do not yield a perspective
that encourages this relational view. Thus, I am adding a collective
dimension to the issue of feminist agency, claiming that the only way
of effectively addressing the paradox of feminist agency is for women
to understand themselves as selves-in-relation to other women.
7.3 Am I claiming that women suffer false or "colonized" consciousness?
A different worry about the claim that feminine socialization compro-

mises women's agency is that the charge that women suffer false or
colonized consciousness appears not to allow that women may genu-
inely make certain feminine choices. It suggests that if ever women make
these choices (e.g., the choice to be stay-at-home mothers, the choice
to wear make-up, the choice to be a nurse rather than a doctor), their
consciousness must have been co-opted by patriarchal expectations.
Rosemarie Tong points out that some28 worry that this view can be
divisive because many women will claim that they have freely chosen
pursuits, life plans, or priorities that, as it happens, put them in line
with feminine ideals. 29
Skepticism about the authenticity of such choices may well be divisive
because it will put some women on the defensive. None of us likes to
think that our choices are shaped by forces outside of us. However, the
risks of this skepticism might be a necessary step towards achieving
feminist goals. Failure to question the choice to live in accordance with
feminine ideals will perpetuate women's subordination. This is not to
say that such choice cannot possibly be "authentic" in individual cases.
Perhaps it can. At the same time, it will be difficult, if not impossible,
to establish authenticity in a given case. Here again, I encourage us to
step back and take a broader view. We need to look at patterns. Focusing
28 Such as Jean Grimshaw, "Autonomy and Identity in Feminist Thinking," in

Feminist Perspectives in Philosophy, ed. Morwenna Griffiths and Margaret Whitford
(Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988).
29 R. Tong, Feminine and Feminist Ethics, 59.
145
Tracy Isaacs
on individual lives does not provide us with a broad enough scope to

recognize patterns. If a large majority of women appear freely to choose
to be stay-at-home mothers and wives, dependent for their survival
on an income-earning spouse, or appear to freely choose to leave their
careers when the children are born while their husbands continue to
advance in theirs, we might well want to ask why so many women are
choosing alternatives that leave them worse off than their partners.30 We
need to ask whether women are freely choosing to be members of the
underpaid "pink collar" workforce. We need to ask, as we are starting

to do in the department of philosophy at the University of Western
Ontario, why far fewer women than men choose to pursue philosophy
as a major and into graduate school, and why far fewer women choose
philosophy over other disciplines in the humanities. What factors
contribute to women's opting out of philosophy? While claiming that
some choices that bear out feminine stereotypes bespeak something
like "false consciousness" may well call into question women's agency,
exploring what lies at the root of some of these choices will help us to
discover practices, attitudes, and assumptions that contribute to the
oppression and exclusion of women. We will not be able to respond to
oppressive social practices if we do not press for answers to questions
about why women choose as they do.
If feminine socialization generates a false consciousness that shapes
and constrains women's choices in ways that contribute to continued
exclusion and subordination, we need to examine it regardless of whether
it calls into question our own choices and puts us on the defensive. In
keeping with my claim about the importance of recognizing patterns,
we need to recognize where our own choices and experiences fit into
patterns of choice and the experiences of other women. Taking this
broader look will make it possible to see obstacles that face not just this
woman or that woman, but women more generally. Having recognized
obstacles, patterns of disadvantage, and areas of unjust inequality, we
may be able to address them, not as individuals, but as a group. For
this to work, the group context is essential.
30 For a very interesting discussion of the way that women make choices that leave
them worse off, see Rhona Mahoney's Kidding Ourselves: Breadwinning, Babies,
and Bargaining Power (New York: Basic Books, 1995).
146
Feminism and Agency
7.4 Free-riders
My proposal requires confidence in the possibility of effective collective

action. But, as Ann Cudd has pointed out, "[n]eoclassical economists
refer to 'collective action' as one of their paradigmatic social prob-
lems."31 When it is difficult to determine individual contributions
to collective problems and their collective solutions, and when even
non-participants will benefit, individuals have incentives to "free ride
off the efforts of their fellows," thus hindering the achievement of the
socially desirable outcome. One of the most common occurrences of
free riding is cheating on income tax returns. But as Cudd points out,
arguably, "collective action problems in part account for why women's
oppression is so insidious, and backlash so pervasive." 32 She states:
Individual women often have an incentive to act in ways that reinforce

the stereotypes of women as airheads, as obsessed with fashion and
beauty, as willing to subordinate their desires to those of their husbands
and children. The incentives are set by the social constraints they face:
given the way the world is, women are likely to find an easier route
to relative wealth and power by marrying a wealthy or powerful man
than by seeking wealth and power in their own names. That requires
them to compete with other women for such men, which requires them
to engage in the fashion-beauty complex, and to play the part of the
diminutive, subordinate marriage or sex-partner. 33
Given these incentives, individual women may appear to have little

reason to take seriously their relations to other women in order to
act against oppression. Cudd' s point is that, while recognizing such
connections may be necessary for acting collectively, it is by no means
sufficient. Individual women still have reasons to work within "the
system" rather than to attempt, with other women, to subvert it.
31 Ann Cudd, "Comments on Isaacs," presented at the meeting of the Society for
Analytical Feminism, Chicago (April 2002), 4.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
147
Tracy Isaacs
It is true that there may be incentives to accept a conventional role

even after recognizing that it is subordinate and oppressive. However,
such acceptance is not beyond reproach. It is part of my proposal that
taking a collective view enables us to recognize oppression. Cudd is
correct that recognition alone is not a sufficient condition for action.
Nonetheless, recognition of oppression is recognition of injustice and
provides a moral reason for action. The woman who takes this step
becomes aware of her potential to play a role in addressing systemic
injustice. Free-riding on the efforts of her sisters, or, worse, competing
with them in such a way that their efforts are thwarted, is failing to
fulfill a moral responsibility. My objection to care-based ethics is not
that it generates moral responsibilities and obligations per se, but that
it emphasizes the wrong range of responsibilities and obligations for
dealing with the paradox of feminist agency. My proposal also makes
us aware of certain responsibilities, for once we recognize our situation
of injustice and recognize a means to addressing it, we cannot ignore
our moral obligation to do so without incurring blame.
Some may worry that my response to the free-rider problem blames
the victim because it suggests that those who are disadvantaged by
oppression have, themselves, responsibilities to address it. 34 But women
who choose traditional roles might best be understood as making the
best of a bad situation, and so it might be unfair to impose obligations
on them.
A couple of points are in order here. First, it is not the case that the
imposition of some obligations on members of oppressed groups is the
same as blaming them for their situation of oppression. Such a judgment
would be misplaced. But second, we should note that if some choose to
make the best of a bad situation by fulfilling sexist expectations, then
they do so at the expense of other women (and, arguably, ultimately
at their own expense). Thus, while they are not responsible for the
situation in the first place, they do contribute to the perpetuation and
34 Ann Cudd provides an excellent discussion of blaming the victim and of

the moral duty of the oppressed to resist oppression in her article "Strikes,
Housework, and the Moral Obligation to Resist," Journal of Social Philosophy 29
(1998): 20-36.
148
Feminism and Agency
even strengthening of the oppressive social structures, thus making all

women worse off. 35
Using the example of resisting the expectation to do unpaid
housework, Cudd points out that "failing to refuse strengthens the
hold that patriarchal gender relations has on us all." 36 She goes on to
say that "[s]ince there is a large number of women who do work outside
the home, [a woman] cannot claim that hers would be a useless effort." 37
Arguing that it is appropriate to require women to weigh the harms
incurred by their various alternatives, and that in many cases the harms
of failing to act against oppression are more significant than the potential
sacrifices of acting against it, Cudd concludes that women do have
duties not to reinforce stereotypes that strengthen patriarchal power
structures and, as a result, keep women subordinate.38 Cudd's argument
is compelling because it makes the point that, while the temptation to
free-ride is understandable, the consequences of doing so are not as
innocuous in the case of participation in oppressive practices as might
first appear. It is not the case that the free-rider benefits while leaving no
one worse off. This would be a simple case of taking advantage of the
efforts of others. Instead, the free-rider benefits at others' expense.
Finally, insofar as my proposal is meant to address the paradox
of feminist agency, I have been assuming that it is desirable to be an
effective agent against one's own oppression. The paradox of feminist
agency calls that very possibility into question. In spite of the free-rider
problem, I have argued that women can be effective in this way, even
if some may still choose not to be. Recall that it is important that the
possibility of significant action against oppression cannot simply be
left in the hands of the dominant group, though they also have moral
responsibilities given that they participate in a situation of injustice
about which they could do something. For the purposes of this paper,
however, it matters most that members of oppressed groups be
35 See ibid., 31.

36 Ibid., 33.
37 Ibid., 34.
38 Ibid., 34.
149
Tracy Isaacs
practically and conceptually capable of action. Thus, the existence of

free-riders would not challenge the central point. And while motivation
for acting may be a vexing issue worth addressing, even more significant
is the issue of women's capacity for action against our subordination.
7.5 Are we only agents when we're acting against our oppression?
If solving the paradox of feminist agency requires that we act together

to achieve emancipatory goals that we share with other women, are
we only effective agents when we are acting in this way? 39 The worry
here is that my view suggests that there is no other way for us to exer-
cise our agency. This could then yield a quite demanding account of
agency, insofar as it would suggest that in order to be agents at all,
women need to be engaged in collective action against oppression.
But this does not follow from my view. I am concerned to address the
paradox of feminist agency, that is, agency against social conditions of
sexist oppression and systemic disadvantage. The particular character
of feminine socialization, combined with the social character of oppres-
sion, challenges the possibility of feminist agency. When we think of
ourselves in relation to other women, we can both recognize oppression
and create possibilities for acting together against it. The possibility of
acting together is essential for addressing our own oppression. But this
does not require that the only time we can be effective agents is when
we are acting against our own oppression. It entails that the only time
we can be effective agents against our own oppression is when we're
acting against it. And there seems not to be anything objectionable
about that claim.
7.6 Can we talk about women as a group without excluding?
The final concern that I shall address takes up an issue that some femi-
nists have raised about exclusion within feminist theory. This worry
39 Lisa Tessman put this question to me in the discussion period of my session at

the Feminist Moral Philosophy Conference, August 23-25, 2002, The University
of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada.
150
Feminism and Agency
arises out of an emphasis on the importance of personal experience

and poses a challenge to the view that we, i.e., women, can generalize
about "our" experiences of oppression. Thus, it has been suggested that
we cannot make claims about groups, such as women. Nearly twenty
years ago, Maria Lugones and Elizabeth V. Spelman pointed out that
the sorts of exclusions that feminists talk about get replicated when
feminists generalize about the way "we" have been left out. 40 For just as
male-dominated discourse does not always reflect women's experience
(though it purports to represent all), the voice of some women does

not always reflect or represent the experience of all women. "Woman"
isn't the only category of oppression. If you're also "Hispanic, Black,
Jewish, working class," you cannot separate your experience of being
a woman from your experience of being Hispanic, Black, Jewish, or
working class. And you cannot separate your oppression as a woman
from your oppression as a member of one of these other groups. 41 Mar-
ginalization and exclusion takes place on a number of fronts, none of
which can be neatly cordoned off from the others.
Lugones, for example, notes that "when I say 'we,' I am referring
to Hispanas .... When I say 'you,' I mean not the non-Hispanic but
the white/ Anglo women that I address." 42 She cannot sit comfortably
with what she calls the "white/ Anglo women's discourse" and feels
as excluded by it as, perhaps, the white I Anglo woman feels by the
male discourse of the tradition. She takes issue with the way that "we"
appear to speaking for all women.43
Lugones believes that this kind of theorizing is imperialistic because
the author, in using "we," is speaking for women whose experiences
she does not understand. Lugones is surely correct that no one can
fully understand the position of another. Nonetheless, pursuing her
line of reasoning creates a challenge not just for theory, but, more
40 Maria C. Lugones and Elizabeth V. Spelman, "Have We Got a Theory for You!
Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism and the Demand for 'The Woman's
Voice,"' reprinted in Women and Values: Readings in Recent Feminist Philosophy,
ed. Marilyn Pearsall (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1999).
41 Ibid., 15--16.
42 Ibid., 17.
43 See also Moody-Adams, "Gender and the Complexity of Moral Voices."
151
Tracy Isaacs
seriously, for practice. It hinders theory by challenging the possibility

of generalization, an important feature of most theorizing. Those who
object along these lines understand that, if taken seriously, their point
will force a re-thinking of the way that theory proceeds. In their seminal
paper, Lugones and Spelman outline a variety of ways of doing theory
that will avoid the pitfall of presumption that they believe plagues much
feminist theory. 44 With respect to practice, this line of thinking can lead
to a kind of solipsism that will stand in the way of effective liberatory
action. In emphasizing the difference between us, in focusing on the

uniqueness of each, in highlighting the chasm between our experience
rather than seeking common ground, we cannot come together in
practice. In much the same way as the care-based account of agency,
this way of thinking about our situation is overly individualistic. The
result is an unhappy state of affairs because we cannot mobilize for
collective action against our oppression unless we think of ourselves
as a part of a group that suffers oppression.
In The Politics of Reality, Marilyn Frye says that no one was ever
oppressed because he was a man, whereas women are oppressed in
virtue of being women. 45 It is not the case, of course, that a person
cannot be oppressed on more than one front. But must that take away
from the possibility of joining forces with other women? Now it may be
that women who are also members of other oppressed groups do not
think that it makes sense for them to address the situation of "women"
because doing so neither fully captures nor will fully address the nature
and extent of their oppression. However, the difference between this
situation and the situation of women with respect to exclusion under
patriarchy is that those who exclude under patriarchy do not have
the experience of oppression and systemic disadvantage at all. If we
see ourselves in relation to other women, then we can develop an
understanding of situations different from our own but similar insofar
as they are oppressive. If so, then we can think about how "we" can
tackle those issues. It would be a mistake to think that in order to
address problems of oppression everyone has to have had identical
44 Lugones and Spelman, "Have We Got a Theory for You!"

45 Marilyn Frye, The Politics of Reality, 16.
152
Feminism and Agency
experiences or been disadvantaged in exactly the same ways. In an

obvious sense, no two people will have gone through exactly the same
thing, will experience the world in exactly the same way, or will face
exactly the same obstacles. So while Lugones and Spelman are right
that feminists should not ignore difference- as Claudia Card says, "we
need to be alert to the dangers of becoming what we despise" 46 -we
also need to avoid imposing an impossible standard of identification
that leads to the result that each of us is isolated from others because
of insufficient overlap of experience. A focus on difference can drive

a wedge between us by suggesting that we do not understand and
appreciate others' experiences. The resulting isolation, I have argued,
is antithetical to women's agency, particularly our capacity for feminist
agency against our oppression.
We can come together if we see that recognizing that we all face sexist
oppression gives us a way of understanding people who are oppressed
in different ways. It provides some common ground and also gives a
vantage point from which to see the harms of rendering others invisible
because we have suffered similar harms. Thus, difference does not
have to be divisive. Of course it will be most divisive if it is present but
ignored. It should not, however, be an essential feature or an endpoint.
For effective agency as feminists, we need to find common ground. This
is as much a point about practice as about theory.
8. Conclusion
In summary, I have been discussing the issue of agency under oppres-

sion. In particular, I have wanted to address the paradox of feminist
agency, according to which feminine socialization in patriarchal con-
ditions appears to compromise women's capacity for effective agency
against their own subordination. If this is the case, then not only do
we turn out to be compromised moral agents, but, paradoxically, we
are not well-positioned to act in emancipatory ways.
46 Card, "Feistiness."
153
Tracy Isaacs
While reconceptions of the agent as a self-in-relation take us some

distance towards addressing the issue of women's putative inferiority
as moral agents, they do not really address the issue of how we can
be effective in addressing our own oppression. My conception of the
self-in-relation has a different emphasis from those with which most
feminist ethicists will be familiar. In my view, the relevant relation is
that to other women. Understanding ourselves in this way will achieve
two goals. First, it will enable us to recognize patterns of experience
because we'll be able to see our lives in the context of the lives of other
women. Second, it will create opportunities for us to engage in effective
agency against our circumstances of oppression because we can achieve
more if we act together than if we act as individuals.
154

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Feminism and Agency!

Given conditions of oppression presupposed by a feminist understand-

1 I would like to thank Samantha Brennan for inviting me to participate in this

of independence, control, choice, and free action, then, if we reject the

responsible moral agency. On this account, our relations to others are

2. How is Women's Agency Impeded?

Let me begin with some elementary assumptions about feminism. As

inequality. The first is very literal: a patriarchal society offers women

2 Claudia Card, "The Fiestiness of Feminist," in Feminist Ethics, ed. C. Card

3 Sandra Bartky, Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of

ability to seek a variety of alternatives. 4 In much of the literature on

women's range of action is compromised. Second, feminine socialization

4 John Martin Fischer, "Responsibility and Control," in Moral Responsibility, ed.

If feminist agency is paradoxical because women's agency appears

self not as independent and unconnected, but as essentially in relation

The difficulty that they see is that, if we hold up care-based agency as

12 Card, "Fiestiness"; Michelle-Moody Adams, "Gender and the Complexity of

14 Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics (New

appears to put the emancipatory power in the hands of those who

Walker is quite right that our contact or relationships to vulnerable

19 Samantha Brennan suggested this example.

4. A Different Way of Thinking about the Self-in-Relation

To address the paradox of feminist agency, I propose that we think of

20 Urban Walker, Moral Understandings, 107.

One of the difficulties facing women as agents is that we continue,

to other women plays in recognizing oppression.

One of the ways that oppression disadvantages individuals is by making

women's experiences if we are to recognize patterns of oppressive of

6. Recognizing Action Potential

Seeing ourselves in relation to a group helps to dispel the paradox of

collective acts that captures the collective context without individuals

terms, it matters because sorting out the relationship between

23 Michael Bratman, "Shared Intention," Ethics 104 (1993): 97-113; Margaret

contribution to social change, and this increases its significance. When

together, making for a more effective means of achieving a joint goal.

25 "Guidelines for the Use of Non-Sexist Language," Proceedings and Addresses of

The view that I have presented is open to a number of concerns and

7.1 Men are socialized too

I have claimed that women's agency is in jeopardy because of feminine

7.2 Am I assuming a traditional account of agency?

Some might object that I am still assuming a traditional account of

26 Frye, Politics of Reality, 16.

To be sure, care-based accounts of agency are revisionist and

are stereotypically masculine. The less valued characteristics are

to think of themselves in relation to other women. Traditional accounts

7.3 Am I claiming that women suffer false or "colonized" consciousness?

A different worry about the claim that feminine socialization compro-

28 Such as Jean Grimshaw, "Autonomy and Identity in Feminist Thinking," in

on individual lives does not provide us with a broad enough scope to

underpaid "pink collar" workforce. We need to ask, as we are starting

My proposal requires confidence in the possibility of effective collective

Individual women often have an incentive to act in ways that reinforce

Given these incentives, individual women may appear to have little

It is true that there may be incentives to accept a conventional role

34 Ann Cudd provides an excellent discussion of blaming the victim and of

even strengthening of the oppressive social structures, thus making all

35 See ibid., 31.