Women's domination as reification: A socialist feminist critique of Habermas's theory of communicative action.

Abstract

This thesis endeavours to articulate a socialist feminist critique of Jurgen Habermas's theory of communicative action through an examination of the conception of domination and the possibilities of emancipation elaborated in this theory. It argues that the example of women's domination in late modern societies reveals shortcomings that significantly challenge Habermas's conception of domination as the systemic and cultural reification of communicatively-structured contexts of everyday life. The thesis locates these lacunae in Habermas's reading of the concept of labour in Hegel and Marx, conducted within the terms of a distinction between labour and interaction. Utilizing the socialist feminist categories of the gender division of labour and of patriarchy, the theory of communicative action is demonstrated to be markedly ambivalent with respect to its capacity to systematically identify forms of women's oppression. Consequently the notion of emancipatory practice as the communicative rationalization of everyday life is likewise constrained.