Theories of Equality and Rights

The course will be divided in two parts.

The first teaching unit will focus, in the first part, on a historical-political analysis of femi-nism, understood both as a theoretical concept and as a political movement. Based on criti-cism of social, economic and legal discrimination and the hierarchical subordination of women, and closely linked to the history of women's social and political movements, femi-nism will be examined, as theory and as a movement, by the late 19th century to the pre-sent day. The analysis of the evolution of the movement (the so-called "waves" of femi-nism) and feminist theories demonstrates, in the first instance, the impossibility of identi-fying a singular feminism, and the need to consider feminism as a model of plural theoreti-cal-political reflection (there's no one single feminism, there are many feminisms). From the point of view of politics and representation, the equal ownership of rights obtained in the western universe does not seem to have profoundly changed the relationship between man and woman in the sense of equality. For that reason, in the second part of the teaching unity, philosophical-political analysis will consider the condition of women as one of the main proxies for the quality of a political regime. The democratic model, and its deficien-cies, will be considered as a workroom for critical analysis of the controversial idea of equality and examined from the critical reading of a selection of texts by authors and au-thors particularly representative of political theory that works on equality and inequality.

The second teaching unit will analyze the complex relationship between feminisms and law. In the framework of the equality/difference dichotomy, the main critical approaches that the different currents of feminism have developed towards the instrument of law will be accounted for in a theoretical perspective, and the concept of intersectionality will be introduced. Secondly, (i) starting from a recognition of "queer theories" and an analysis of gender binarism and (ii) in the face of recent illiberal threats to the rights of women and gender and "sexual" minorities, the possibility - and the potential - of a transversal political alliance between feminist movements will be outlined, LGBT+ and queer for the expansion, not the contraction, of the rights of all. Finally, going beyond the theoretical level, to avoid the risk that the dichotomy equality / difference remains on a purely rhetorical level, the areas of legal discipline of the body (sexuality and reproduction) and the family will be taken into consideration, with the aim of highlighting the way in which the law concretely affects bodies, choices, on affective life and on the possibility of fully realizing one's life plans.
The reference texts are the same for attending and non-attending students. However, attending students who choose the paper will be offered further readings for the deepening of the chosen theme.