Luck and the Gendered Social Structure

Abstract

This article critically examines Ronald Dworkin's theory of equality of resources from a feminist perspective. In particular, it focuses on a specific set of gender issues: the injustice of gender inequality generated by the gender division of labor in the family. Referring to Peter Blau's theory of social structure, I conceptualize the unequal situation of women at work and in the family as being structural. This article contends that Dworkin's theory of equality is found to be problematic when dealing with structural aspects of gender inequality. Dworkin's categorization of "luck'' does not properly take account of the injustice of the gendered social structure over which individual women have no control. This article argues that his hypothetical insurance market does not adequately deal with the disadvantages that women suffer within the gendered social structure, and that his redistributive tax system fails to compensate women for inequalities resulting from effects of the gendered social structure.