Citizenship and Gender. Suggestions for Making Citizenship More Responsive

Abstract The category of citizenship is presented as gender-neutral and citizens are considered as individuals abstracted from bodiliness and gender roles. Such universalism fosters practices of invisibility of the inequalities hidden in citizenship. For although legally all citizens are equal, they have unequal access to resources, power, and privilege. Gender is also a determining factor in the allocation of rights and responsibilities. The aim of this paper is to show the exclusionary dimension of citizenship contained in the universalist interpretation. To achieve this, a hermeneutic analysis is made of political theory and political thought texts referring to the idea of citizenship. The article consists of two main parts. The first discusses the inclusive and exclusive potential of citizenship as a political community. The second presents feminist theories of citizenship, such as gender-neutral citizenship, gender-differentiated citizenship, and gender-pluralist citizenship. Adding new elements to the definition makes it possible to take into account the differences between people that affect their relationship with the state and to address the transformations that the idea itself is undergoing.