When Equality Justifies Women's Subjection: Luce Irigaray's Critique of Equality and the Fathers' Rights Movement

2008/10/01 by Serene J. Khader · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Historical Gender and Feminism Studies #Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies #Appeal #Autonomy #Rhetoric #Subject (documents) #Sociology #Gender equality #Gender studies #Strengths and weaknesses #Economic Justice #Movement (music) #Plaintiff #Feminism #Political science #Law #Epistemology #Philosophy #Aesthetics

paper · doi:10.2979/hyp.2008.23.4.48

openalex publication_date 2008/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23

Abstract

The “fathers’ rights” movement represents policies that undermine women's reproductive autonomy as furthering the cause of gender equality. Khader argues that this movement exploits two general weaknesses of equality claims identified by Luce Irigaray. She shows that Irigaray criticizes equality claims for their appeal to a genderneutral universal subject and for their acceptance of our existing symbolic repertoire. This article examines how the plaintiffs’ rhetoric in two contemporary “fathers’ rights” court cases takes advantage of these weaknesses.

Cited by

• Fathers' rights movement [wikipedia]

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