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Our current society is not just. There are too many inequalities between men and women in numerous situations for our society to be considered evenly balanced. Aristotle is one of the many philosophers who defined what a 'just' society would be. According to Aristotle, justice requires treating like cases alike and different cases differently. Presently, men and women are far from being treated alike. Susan Okin and Claudia Card in their respective book and article, Justice Gender and the Family and Against Marriage and Motherhood, argue that changes should be made in our society to create equality.
Susan Okin presents a strong argument against the way women are treated presently. She claims that 'our current gender structure is incompatible with the attainment of social justice, but also that the disappearance of gender is a prerequisite for the complete development of a nonsexist, fully human theory of justice' (Okin, 105). Okin provides a great deal of evidence that women's existing roles are unjust Three cases that illustrate her point are workplace financial inequities, housework responsibilities, and lack of advancement opportunities. She provides recent statistics to back up her argument that there are enormous discriminations against women in the workplace. On page 158 of her book, Okin states that
the 6 percent of all wives who work full-time earn, on average, only 6 percent as much as the average fill-time working husband, and the average wife who works for pay…earns only 4 percent as much, it is therefore not at all surprising that male dominance is far more common that female dominance
Through her example, one can see that women are not being treated fairly in terms of equal pay. If alike cases are meant to be treated alike in Aristotle's proposal of justice, this is a valid point to illustrate that men and women are not being regarded similarly. Another situation where gender plays a major role is the division of housework responsibilities. Okin proves this point in saying, 'in many of the households in which men and women both work full-time…the unequal distribution of housework between husbands and wives leads to gross inequities in the amount and type of work done by each' (Okin, 154). In a situation where both husband and wife are working full-time, the household responsibilities should rightly be equally divided. A third argument that Okin makes is that women are generally geared towards careers that do not provide advancement. She states, 'Regardless of educational achievement, women are far more likely than men to work in administrative support jobs, as a secretary, typist or bookkeeper, for example, which in most cases hold no prospect for advancement' (Okin, 144-145). Okin says that his is because, 'some of the segregation of wage work by sex is attributable to the individual choices that women and men make in the context of their own socialization and with knowledge of the gender structure of the family in particular' (Okin, 145). Our present society conditions women to believe that they can only enter certain fields and have certain types of careers. The conclusion that Okin comes to is that, 'Given these facts about the way power is distributed … it is not difficult to see how the vulnerability of married women…tend to form part of a vicious cycle' (Okin, 15). It is not just that half of our population is encouraged to fit an unfair profile in terms of financial inequalities, housework, and career opportunities.
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Susan Okin and Claudia Card both propose that changes must be made in order for our civilization to be non-discriminatory against women. They both agree that different governmental programs must be altered to produce an impartial society. Card argues that the legal establishment of marriage is so flawed that it should be eradicated. A first problem she sees is, 'that employers and others…often make available only to legally married couples benefits that anyone could be presumed to want, married or not…this is one way people…find themselves economically pressured into marrying' (Card, ). Many things such as insurance, property availability, and even workers compensation are only accessible to people who are legally married. This is another instance where a like case is not treated alike. Other people in relationships, such as lesbians or people who do not believe in the legal definition of marriage, cannot receive benefits that married couples obtain. This is unfair that only those who are legally defined as married can acquire such enhanced arrangements. A second dilemma in marriage that Card observes, 'is that…the consequences of divorce can be so difficult that many who should divorce do not…there are new economic motives to preserve emotionally disastrous unions' (Card, ). If people find that they are not made for one another it should not be so difficult to get legally separated. It is so easy to get married and the government encourages and promotes it, but if two people discover that they do not wish to be married anymore it is financially draining to both of them. It is not right to encourage the combination of two people who may be catastrophic together. A last issue that Card raises on page 100,
is that the legal rights of access that married partners have to each other's persons, property, and lives makes it all but impossible for a spouse to defend herself (or himself), or to be protected against torture, rape, battery, stalking, mayhem, or murder by the other spouse
There are many situations that arise where one person realizes that they do not know someone as well as they thought they did. The legal institution of marriage has loopholes where one partner does not have the rights they had before as single. 'the law does not protect unmarried batterers or tend to preserve the relationships of unmarried lovers in the way that it protects husbands and tends to preserve marriages' (Card, 100). Claudia Card verifies that, in terms of marriage, our culture is not yet just. Susan Okin also provides adjustments that should be must be made in order for women to be treated equally. Three modifications she recommends for an ethical and unbiased society are that the paternity of children should be determined at birth (Okin, 171), if partners are divorced the standard of living in each household should be the same (Okin, 17) and that if one partner works outside the home and the other does not, the salary of the paid spouse should be equally divided to the other (Okin, 180-181). Both Card and Okin claim that if certain changes were made, then a fair society would be reached eventually.
Claudia Card's argument holds more weight, in my opinion. Although Okin provides more broad implementations for society to change, Card's idea would be more effective. It would be a lot harder to require paternity tests at birth, require checks be divvied up for spouses, and to create equal standards of living, than it would be to eliminate the legal institution of marriage. It is a lot more rational to implement one major change that would probably have a lot of positive repercussions than to change many different aspects and implement many regulations that would probably only make life more difficult. Okin did provide valid and persuasive arguments that the current situation is not fair. She also showed examples in which her arguments were well illustrated. Card just proposed a better and more realistic solution. I believe if the legal definition of marriage was abolished than it would have an effect on many of the inequalities women face. First, children would grow up in a situation where both parents had equal power. If the future generation is brought up to view both their parents as alike, it may change some of the societal conditioning that creates unequal opportunities. A second positive influence Card's suggestion may have, is that workers would have uniform access to certain benefits that their employer provides. If the legal establishment of marriage were eradicated, then everyone would have the same opportunities to particular advantages from their jobs. A third possibility that may arise from Card's proposal is that violence may decrease between couples. If marriage was not around in the first place, people could escape more easily from possible detrimental relationships. The fact that divorce is inconveniencing in numerous ways, actually promotes tough and sometimes dangerous situations. In Aristotle's terms, we do not currently live in a just or fair society. Like cases are not treated alike and different cases are not treated differently. Women are not treated like men and married couples are not treated like unmarried couples. In order to create a righteous and moral society, changes must be made. I believe Claudia Card is on the right track to discovering this perfect and equal world.
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