On Civic Friendship : : Including Women in the State / / Sibyl Schwarzenbach.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Columbia University Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Schwarzenbach, Sibyl,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : Columbia University Press, , [2009]; ©2009
• Year of Publication: 2009
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (360 p.)

Women have performed the vast majority of often unpaid friendship labor for centuries. Embodying the freedom, equality, and ideals of the Constitution, civic friendship emerges as a necessary condition for genuine justice. Through a critical examination of social and political relationships from ancient times to today, Sibyl Schwarzenbach develops a truly innovative, feminist theory of the democratic state. Beginning with an analysis of Aristotle's notion of political friendship, Schwarzenbach brings the philosopher's insights to bear on the social and political requirements of the modern state. She elaborates a conception of civic friendship that, with its ethical reproductive praxis, functions differently from male-centered notions of fraternity and, with its female participants, remains fundamentally separate from generalized, male-inflected claims of Marxist solidarity. Schwarzenbach also distinguishes civic friendship from feminist calls for public care, arguing that friendship, unlike care, not only is reciprocal but also seeks to establish and maintain equality. Schwarzenbach concludes with various public institutions-economic, legal, and social-that can promote civic friendship without sacrificing crucial liberties. In fact, women's entrance into the public sphere en masse makes such ideals realistic within a competitive, individualistic society.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- A Paradox of Democracy -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction: Metaphor and Theory Change -- Part I. The Past -- 2. The Forgotten Category of Ethical Reproduction -- 3. The Liberal Production Model -- 4. The Socialist Turn: Missing Faculties -- Part II. The Present -- 5. The Possibility of a Modern Civic Friendship -- 6. Women, Democracy, and the U.S. Constitution -- 7. The State of Feminist Theory -- 8. Looking Outward: Beyond the National Security State -- Notes -- Index