Dr Sarah Goff

This course is available on the MPhil/PhD in Gender, MSc in Gender, MSc in Gender (Research), MSc in Gender, Development and Globalisation, MSc in Gender, Policy and Inequalities and MSc in Political Theory. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course has a limited number of places (it is controlled access) and demand is typically high. Priority is given to students in the MSc Political Theory programme.

This course covers some of the central debates in contemporary feminist political theory, with a particular emphasis on the legacy and usefulness of liberalism. The course focuses on debates and differences within feminist political theory, rather than justifications for, or defences of, feminist political theory. Among the problems raised are conceptions of the individual and individual autonomy; the relative invisibility of gender issues in mainstream literature on justice and equality; the tendency to conceive of equality in sex-blind terms; the tendency to presume a universally applicable set of norms. We consider the theoretical debates in relation to a number of contemporary political issues. Topics likely to be addressed include: feminism and contract, individualism and autonomy, equality and the politics of difference, marriage and feminist perspectives on trans issues.

This course provides a combination of seminars and lectures totalling 20 hours in the LT. There will be a reading week in LT Week 6.

Students will submit a short formative essay (up to 1500 words) and will be given feedback on this before submitting their assessed coursework.

Simone de Beauvoir (1949) The Second Sex; Susan Moller Okin ‘Forty Acres and a Mule for Women’ Politics, Philosophy & Economics (2005); Carole Pateman (1988) The Sexual Contract; Iris M Young (1990) Justice and the Politics of Difference;  Anne Phillips (1995) The Politics of Presence; Clare Chambers (2017) Against Marriage: An Egalitarian Defence of the Marriage-Free State; Serene Khader (2018) Decolonizing Universalism: Towards a Transnational Feminist Ethic; Talia Mae Bettcher ‘Evil deceivers and make-believers: Transphobic violence and the politics of illusion’ Hypatia (2007).

Essay (100%, 4000 words).