Living Contradictions

Despite the assumption many people hold that feminist ethics is simply a dogmatic set of issues on which feminists have already made up their minds, professor Alison Jaggar’s Living with Contradictions: On Marriage, Gender, and Equality is the first book to demonstrate just how rich and complex feminist ethical theory has become. Jaggar begins with one modest assumption: feminism demands an examination of moral issues with a commitment to eliminating women’s oppression. In her anthology, she demonstrates how one can no longer divide social issues into those that are feminist and those that are not. She argues convincingly for the critical value of a feminist perspective on issues such as militarism, environmentalism, and treatment of animals in addition to those normally recognized as gendered issues like abortion rights and affirmative action.