SOCI 255 Chapter Notes - Chapter reading: Parental Leave, Feminist Theory, Paternalism
Document Summary
An unprecedented and growing number of women in the. Us are directly dependent on the state for survival. Whether one is dealing with the state, the mafia, parents, police, pimps, etc. the heavy price of institutionalized protection is always a measure of dependence and agreement to abide by the protector"s rules. Paternalism and institutionalized protection are independent parts of the heritage of social contract theory in which natural liberty is traded for the individual and collective security guaranteed by the state. The argument that women require protection by and from men has been critical in legitimating women"s exclusion from some spheres of human endeavour and confinement within others. Given a choice between rationalized, procedural unfreedom on one hand, and deprivation, discrimination and violence on the other, most women might opt to live in a bureaucratized woman over a state of nature plagued with male dominance. Juridical-legislative or liberal dimension of the state encompasses the state"s formal, constitutional aspects.
