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Rethinking the Personal and the Political: Feminist Activism and Civic Engagement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Theresa Man Ling Lee
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Abstract

The slogan “the personal is political” captures the distinctive challenge to the public-private divide posed by contemporary feminists. As such, feminist activism is not necessarily congruent with civic engagement, which is predicated on the paradoxical need to both bridge and sustain the public-private divide. Lee argues that rather than subverting the divide, the politics of the personal offers an alternative understanding of civic engagement that aims to reinstate individuals’ dignity and agency.

Type
Democratic Interventions in Feminist Theory
Information
Hypatia , Volume 22 , Issue 4: Special Issue: Democratic Theory , Fall 2007 , pp. 163 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 by Hypatia, Inc.

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