Francesca Cesarano
PhD
Vita-Salute San Raffaele University
A Defense of Patriarchal Bargains
"Patriarchal bargains (PB) are self-interested trade-offs that women make with their communities in circumstances of gendered oppression. (Kandyoti 1988, Narayan 2002) They can be seen as a strategy to optimize an already limited set of life options. However, this form of negotiation appears at times contradictory. Despite being directed at utility maximization, PB normally entail even stricter compliance with gender norms. Therefore, it is debated whether they can be considered attempts to cope with oppression or coincide with mere acquiescence to it. I address two objections to PB. The first claims that PB are not rational because they lead to a false, short-term benefit (Cudd 2006, Superson 2005); the second, articulated by constitutively relational theorists of autonomy, questions their autonomous character. (Oshana 2015, Stoljar 2014, , Mackenzie 2015) In response, I argue that both objections presuppose some background moral assumptions leading to two conflicting sets of worrying consequences for oppressed women. On the one hand, the first purports a substantive conception of rationality that resorts to victim-blaming and ends up prescribing supererogatory acts of resistance, on the other, the second, being grounded on a substantive externalist conception of autonomy, victimizes oppressed women and licenses unwarranted paternalism"