© Radical Philosophy Review Volume 17 number 2 (2014): 499–502
DOI: 10.5840/radphilrev201417219
And Justice for All?
Margaret A. McLaren
Under Review:
Alison Jaggar, ed. Gender and Global Justice. Cam-
bridge: Polity Press, 2014. Pp. 223. $24.95, paper-
back. ISBN: 978-0-7456-6377.
A
welcome addition to the spate of literature addressing gender and
globalization, Gender and Global Justice, addresses a wide range of is-
sues under the rubric of global justice. Topics include: transnational
cycles of gendered vulnerability, the role of collectivities as agents of global
justice, migrant care work and migration, mental health, sexual violence,
taxation, and the resource curse. Organized around the theme of global jus-
tice and gender, this collection includes both new and established voices.
Simply put, the overall thesis of the book is that gender matters for discus-
sions of global justice, and that it matters in a number of ways. As noted by
Alison Jaggar in the introduction, philosophers addressing issues of gender
and global justice challenge the domain, subjects, and objects of traditional
approaches to global justice. Recognizing the significance of gender for dis-
cussions of global justice requires us to include not only public institutions
and individuals, but also households and families as relevant domains for
global justice. Correlatively, the subjects of global justice are not only in-
dividuals modeled on the rational man, but also include gendered collec-
tivities that span national borders. And, objects of global justice include the
“transnational organization of caretaking contributions and responsibili-
ties” (13).
In her chapter “The Moral Harm of Migrant Carework: Realizing a Glob-
al Right to Care,” Eva Feder Kittay argues that the right to care is seriously
undermined by the background conditions of global inequality. Noting that