Women, Culture, and Development: A Study of Human Capabilities

by Martha C. Nussbaum (Editor)

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

Women, a majority of the world's population, receive only a small proportion of its opportunities and benefits. According to the 1993 UN Human Development Report , there is no country in the world in which women's quality of life is equal to that of men. This examination of women's quality of life addresses questions which have a particular urgency, and aims to describe the basic situation of all women. The contributors confront the issue of cultural relativism, criticizing the approach which, in its desire to respect different cultural traditions, can result in indifference to injustice. Gender justice and women's equality is then proposed in various areas in which quality of life is measured. Like its predecessor, The Quality of Life , this volume encourages the reader to think critically about the central fundamental concepts used in development economics, and suggests major criticisms of current economic approaches from that fundamental viewpoint. In addition to scholars of women's
and gender studies, this work will be of interest to economists, philosophers, political scientists, and sociologists.

Genres: Feminism, Gender

492 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1995

About the author

Martha C. Nussbaum is Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, appointed in the Law School and the Philosophy Department. Among her many awards are the 2018 Berggruen Prize, the 2017 Don M. Randel Award for Humanistic Studies from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the 2016 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy.

Reviews

[C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some really good stuff in here. Liberal theory at its best.

[Paul Crider · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has a really all-star cast of philosophers, each offering a perspective on issues pertaining to the capabilities approach and/or international feminism. Some of the contributions are only indirectly related to the central topic. For example, there are a couple essays that focus on (moral) objectivism (especially Hilary Putnam's and Jonathan Glover's). But objectivism and/or universalism are foundational for the kind of international feminism advanced by the book, so the abstract topic is appropriate. The book is especially valuable for readers interested in the capabilities approach, as the authors hail from diverse philosophical backgrounds (though they are all liberal). It is thus interesting to see commentary on the capabilities approach from Kantian (Onora O'Neill), pragmatist (Ruth Anna Putnam), and discourse ethical (Seyla Benhabib) perspectives instead of just Martha Nussbaum's Aristotelianism. David Crocker's essay, in addition to providing a comprehensive critical overview, helpfully highlights some of the differences between Nussbaum's and Amartya Sen's formulations of the capabilities approach. The book is anchored by a case study by Martha Chen of poor women in Bangladesh which nearly all the essays explicitly reference. And the book is further grounded by ending with four regional perspectives that apply the concepts discussed in the book to the realities of poor women in India, China, Mexico, and Nigeria.