Individualism, Justice and Feminism  The slogan that “Individual is prior to society” is rather obscure.  Liberal individualism fundamentally stems from Locke’s idea that human being is naturally free, independent and equal.  The main concern of liberal though is how equality and liberty could be secured.  Every idea produces its counter idea.  The slogan of liberal individualism led to communitarian slogan of “society is prior to the individual”.

 This approach rightfully proposes that individuals gain their personalities in the society.  Without society they might not even be human beings.  Society gives individuals a status, a character.  Without existence of the society, individual would mean nothing.  In this sense, individual is naturally not free, even might not be equal.  Atom of the society is family; parents.  Without parents, individual would not exist.

 Without providing safety and security individual, as an infant, would not survive.  Without their teaching, individual would not know how to be a person.  We deny it or not, individual is naturally attached to the society.  There is a natural moral bond between individual and society.  An extreme liberal individualist basically holds 4 views: A view about the nature of political philosophy, a view about political values, a view about the nature of the ideal political society, and a view about the foundation of rights and duties.

 The first one argues that the task of political philosophy is to devise principles of justice; to create something akin to ideal legislation.  Rights and duties are allocated by rules that are firm and respectful of basic rights of individuals.  The second one argues that freedom and equality of individuals are of paramount importance.  They ought not to just devise the rights, but also they ought to protect freedom and equality of individuals.  The point is that these rights and their protection will produce happiness, which is utilitarian in essence.

 Though, utilitarians do not have to be liberal individualists.  The third one argues that, (this is an idea of extreme individualists) there should be priority or primacy of justice.  Society must be just. Justice is the “first virtue” of social and political institutions.  The last one argues that these first 3 arguments can be fulfilled and understood by action.  Rights, duties and responsibilities should show themselves in the action of created system.  Communitarians object the notion that political philosophy should provide pure abstract justice but to generate a vision of good society.

 They say, the main duty of the justice is to provide rich and concrete accounts of what makes a society flourish.  Certain conservatives on the other hand do not think that political philosophy has any task at all.  British philosopher F.H. Bradly argues that individual’s personality is so deeply penetrated by social, cultural and racial inheritances that it makes barely someone as an individual at all.  Someone’s duties and responsibilities are given by society, relationships induce new roles.  Those roles give an individual his or her place in a certain society.

 We are product of our relationships in some sense.  In the web of these relationships, giving your heart the liberty whatever it wants to do it does, the result will be disastrous.  It is conceivable that some of the rights and duties are determined by the individual, but some are definitely not.  What is fundamentally wrong with liberal individualism is it offers a false picture of human nature and social relations.  There is a misleading and even damaging vision of it in terms of what political philosophy can achieve.  This vision of extreme individualism will lead societies to disaster.

 We have seen some of its signs.  Many political groups maintain their attack on the idea of liberal individualism.  Conservatives, communitarians, socialists, and environmentalists all pick out elements of extreme liberal individualism as objection of their attacks.  One of the products of liberal individualism is feminist movement.

Rights of Women  The women movement or feminism had started with rightful arguments.  Women have been treated unfairly in many aspects.  This situation combined with liberal individualist thought triggered the feminist movement.  A movement that asks for equal treatment of women with men.  The historical subordination of women is truly remarkable.  There are many examples of double standard in treatments against women.

 British women were denied the right to vote until the early part of last century.  A woman’s property would be her husband’s upon her marriage.  There were two payment systems in Britain: one for man and one for women.  The lower pay would be for woman.  So, there was gender discrimination in Britain and some other western countries.  Woman was subordinate.

 Still women are paid less then what men are paid.  In Britain, by 2005, women in full time work earned 18 percent less than what men earned, this was even worse in part-time jobs: 40 percent.  But, some feminist argue that asking to have same rights for women might not be adequate enough since women are different biologically and psychologically.  They should have their own rights to protect them.  We have to admit that women have their superiority and men have their superiorities.  These should not be considered as weaknesses.

 It is proven that men need to take more calories than women in daily life.  Women give birth to child while men cannot.  Women’s movements, feminists, believe that discrimination is based on gander and it differs from society to society.  It is constructed by the society and it can be deconstructed.  There are barriers before the women in the work place.  Woman is left between developing a career and childbearing.  Childbearing coincides with a stage of time that promotion in her career is likely to take place.

 Maternity leave is an important problem for employer.  Considering other biological features that woman has, it might not be attractive to hire a woman for the work and pay the same as man.  Feminist objection to this is the perception that a society has, which is to consider childbearing a women thing to do.  And the other perception that workers have wives at home.  So, feminists challenge the situation and perception in which maternity leave is considered necessary.  They argue that after the birth, biological necessity is no longer an issue and the father of the child has the same responsibility in taking care of the newborn.

 Maternity leave should be replaced with the concept of “Parental Leave”.  The fact of mater is that woman is left between two choices in modern times: work place and family.  On the one side take care of the house chore, on the other side work at the job.  A “double day” for a woman.  Research shows that the husband of a working wife contribute to house chore 2 minutes more than the husband of housewife.  This is hardly a help for the working woman.

 Government policies are helpful to make the situation of working mothers better.  Parental leave law is one of these kinds.  Feminists argue that there is a need for “affirmative action” policies to favor the working women.  At the end, feminism is a social-justice-searching movement.