Mary Wollstonecraft, freedom and the enduring power of social domination
| Published date | 01 April 2013 |
| Author | Alan M. S. J. Coffee |
| Date | 01 April 2013 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885111430617 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
European Journal of Political Theory
12(2) 116–135
!The Author(s) 2012
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1474885111430617
ept.sagepub.com
EJPT
Article
Mary Wollstonecraft,
freedom and the enduring
power of social domination
Alan M. S. J. Coffee
University of London, UK
Abstract
Even long after their formal exclusion has come to an end, members of previously
oppressed social groups often continue to face disproportionate restrictions on their
freedom, as the experience of many women over the last century has shown.
Working within in a framework in which freedom is understood as independence
from arbitrary power, Mary Wollstonecraft provides an explanation of why such
domination may persist and offers a model through which it can be addressed.
Republicans rely on processes of rational public deliberation to highlight and
combat oppression. However, where domination is primarily social rather than legal
or political (such as where cultural attitudes, traditions and values exert an arbitrary
and inhibiting force) then this defence against domination is often negated. Prejudice,
she argues, ‘clouds’ people’s ability to reason and skews debate in favour of the
dominant powers, thereby entrenching patterns of subjection. If they are to be inde-
pendent, then, citizens require not only political rights but a platform from which to
add their perspectives and interests to the background social values which govern
political discussion.
Keywords
Feminism, freedom, independence, non-domination, republicanism, voice
Wollstonecraft
Servitude not only debases the individual, but its effects seem to be transmitted to
posterity.
1
Corresponding author:
Alan M. S. J. Coffee, School of Philosophy, Birkbeck College, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HX, UK.
Email: alancoffee@yahoo.co.uk
I
‘In all history’ wrote W. E. B. Du Bois in 1904, more than 40 years after emanci-
pation, ‘slavery has usually been followed by a period of semi-slavery or serfdom.’
2
By this, he meant that the oppressed population is ‘curtailed in personal liberty, is
insecure in life and property, has peculiar difficulty in earning a decent living, has
almost no voice in its own government, does not enjoy adequate educational facil-
ities, and suffers, no matter what its ability or desert, discount, impertinence and
contempt’. More than a century later, many of these barriers to freedom remain in
place. Over a similar period, women, too, have emerged from a position of formal
subjection – from having no political vote or independent representation before the
law, for example, or losing all their property rights upon marriage – to gain a series
of hard-won freedoms and rights though which they have an equal civic status.
Nevertheless, even now many women face a similar range of obstacles to those
listed by Du Bois. The tendency for the aftereffects of slavery to linger on even after
formal equality has been achieved has long been a source of concern for political
theorists preoccupied with the idea of securing the benefits of citizenship for all
members of a political community on equal and fair terms. However, while Du
Bois admitted to being unsure whether this persistence in ‘semi-servitude’ was a
necessary part of the process of gaining freedom or an indication that liberation
had not gone far enough, Mary Wollstonecraft shows clearly that it is the result of
an incomplete emancipation.
The reality of servitude can, of course, take many forms and there are important
differences between the chattel slavery of the American plantations, the historic
subjection of women to male authority, and social exclusion or economic margin-
alization within modern democracies. Within republican political theory, however,
a common principle links all these various forms of oppression and classes them as
‘slavery’ in a particular sense.
3
In each case, the dominated party is understood to
be ruled arbitrarily, by which is meant that they are exposed to a form of control-
ling power in virtue of which others are able to disregard their perspectives and
override their status as persons who act for themselves, sui iuris. For republicans,
then, the idea of slavery connotes not primarily chains or coercion, but a compar-
ative lack of power and status in relation to others.
4
Although everyone in society is
subject to some form of external power, such as being under the law, ‘free’ indi-
viduals are not ruled arbitrarily because they are recognized as independent agents.
They are full members of a political community whose laws are required to repre-
sent their interests. They also have a voice in determining those laws and are able to
contest and challenge interference in their lives that does not meet the conditions of
non-arbitrariness. Under these conditions, free citizens are said to act in their own
right. Those who are designated as ‘slaves’, by contrast, find themselves exposed to
the discretionary, or arbitrary, will of those who may have more power than they.
They are not immune from unwarranted intrusion and have, at best, a limited voice
in determining the terms of their social participation. In this context, the term slave
refers generically to all those who are not treated as agents capable of acting in
Coffee 117
To continue reading
Request your trial