Justice, Gender, and Corporations. Outline of a Feminist Political Philosophy of the Corporation

Abstract

Abstract Corporations, as institutions that participate in the creation and perpetuation of gender-based injustices, have been neglected by feminist political philosophers and egalitarians in general. However, since gender-based inequalities within the family, the market, and in democratic participation are interconnected, critically scrutinizing institutions such as corporate organizations appears to be essential in order to achieve gender justice. This is our goal in this paper. In the first part, we look at the (surprising) domination of the ethics of care in the feminist literature on corporations. Since it focuses essentially on the goal of developing virtuous managers, we conclude that this ethics of care is misleading when it comes to thinking about the kinds of relations that characterize corporations and their much needed organizational transformation. In the second part, we attempt to highlight and articulate more explicitly the need for a critical analysis of corporations from the point of view of gender justice. Finally, having shown how purely “distributive” approaches of gender justice are unsatisfactory, we finish by outlining a multidimensional approach to gender (in)justice within and by corporate organizations. We do so by drawing on the insights of distributive, participatory, and relational accounts of equality.