Abstract
One of the features of modern Western civilisation is that it lays claim to the concept of individual equality. This does not mean that discrimination and domination have come to an end; only that the legitimation of oppression has become more problematic because the concept of equality identifies oppressive (inhuman) acts as offences against political morality and justice. This seems to apply to all Varieties of violence and domination, with the exception of gender relations. The gender hierarchy has not been fundamentally altered by the equality discourse of modern times. Though there have been changes in women’s situation in the Western world over the last fifteen or twenty years, few changes have been the direct result of this discourse.
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© 1993 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Kulke, C. (1993). Equality and Difference: Approaches to Feminist Theory and Politics. In: de Groot, J., Maynard, M. (eds) Women’s Studies in the 1990s. Women’s Studies at York Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22928-4_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22928-4_7
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