Chapter One INTRODUCTION

Chapter One INTRODUCTION A TWENTY-THREE-YEAR OLD, unemployed single mother in West Virginia became pregnant as a result ofdate rape. Due to recent cuts in federal funding, “Meg” had trouble locating an abortion clinic but finally found one four hours away in Charleston. She was told that she was 17 weeks pregnant, and that the clinic performed abortions only up to 16 weeks, so she was referred to a clinic in Cincinnati which would perform an abortion up to 19 1/2 weeks for a cost of $850. When she went there 1 1/2 weeks later, however, she was told that she was actually 21 weeks pregnant and referred to a clinic in Dayton that would perform the abortion for $1,675. She refinanced her car, sold her VCR, borrowed money, and went to Dayton. There she learned that she was a high-risk patient because ofan earlier cesarean delivery and would thereforehave to go to Wichita, where the procedure would cost $2,500. “I just didn’t think I could manage that,” she says. “Now that I know I have to have it, I’m trying to get used to the idea....I’mnotthinking about adoption, because I’ve never understood people having a baby just to give it away. So I’ve been thinking a lot about trying to love this baby the way I love my daughter.”1 Can we say that this woman has freely chosen her role as mother? Susan is beaten by her husband and is admitted to a hospital. This is the second time she has been severely beaten this year. An advocate from the local battered women’s shelter visits her and gives her information about the resources they have, as well as information about pressing charges and prosecuting her husband for assault. Susan is angry at her husband, and very frightened of him, but she is reluctant to press charges with the police because she doesn’t want to put her children through such an ordeal. Her husband, meanwhile, sends her a dozen bouquets oflovely flowers and comes to the hospital with lavish gifts and profuse apologies, declaring his love and promising never to hit her again. The battered- women’s advocate tells her that she should not believe him, that he will do it again, but Susan decides to return to him. She says that he has apolo- gized and that she forgives him; that he is basically a good person and has promised to change; that he loves her and is a good father; that she loves him; that it was partly her fault anyway. Is she free if she returns to her husband? 2 CHAPTER ONE In the novel Mrs. Bridge, the title character is a woman who seems to subordinate herselfcompletely to her husband. She defersto him, is extremely self-deprecating, rarely ventures a political opinion, and has so effectively effaced herself that at the end of the novel, she risks freezing to death while trapped in her car because she won’t yell for help; the implication is that she doesn’t want to disturb anyone and simply waits passively, until her husband gets home to rescue her. She doesn’t appear to be holding these views out offearor coercion. Her husband is somewhat overbearing but not violent; he doesn’t overtly seek to control her, he clearly loves her, and demonstrates his consideration and respect for her in various ways. Is Mrs. Bridge free or not?2 When Greta got married, her husband and she agreed that she would quit her job as a secretary so that they could raise a family. Greta’s mother always worked when she was a child, and Greta has always believed it is better for children to have a full-time mother. She had three kids over the course ofthe next seven years. Shortly afterthe birth ofthe third child, her husband left her. It turns out he was having an affair, but he told Greta that he felt smothered by the routine of their domestic life and all the kids. Although she eventually was able to file for divorce, she was never able to collect child support or win any other financial settlement from her husband, and so she was forced to find a job. But her former secretarial skills were sorely out ofdate, so the only jobs she could obtain were barely above minimum wage. After paying for child care and transportation, she has less money than she would receive on welfare. Greta grew up in a family that always scorned those on public assistance, however; and her mother, who is horrified by the prospect ofher daughter’s becoming “one ofthose welfaremothers,” argues that Greta brought this on herselfby quitting her job when she got married. She will, after all, receive a raise every six months ifshe continues to work. Greta knows that economic security is years away at this rate, and she feels trapped by her situation. Is she trapped, or is her mother right that freedom requires taking respon- sibility for one’s choices? Charlene, a lesbian, is an attorney with an extremely conservative Wall Street firm that has never had a woman partner. Charlene wants very badly to become a partner. Accordingly, she is not open about her sexual- ity. Her lover, Sally, believes this is a mistake, not only tactically, but from the perspective ofpersonal cost as well. Though Charlene declares that their relationship is more important to her than anything, she has become so fearful about colleagues finding out about it that she and Sally have virtually stopped going out of the house together; and the stress is affect- ing not only Charlene’s health but the relationship as well. Sally is begin- ning to contemplate “outing” Charlene. She believes that this would liber- INTRODUCTION 3 ate Charlene from her fears, her anxiety, her extra stress, and save the relationship. Is she right?3 These scenarios are not particularly special or unusual; they are com- mon examples ofthe everyday dilemmas many women (and some men) face. And precisely because of their familiarity, many of us probably have immediate, perhaps even gut-level, reactions to them. For instance, most people would probably say—at least initially—that the pregnant woman is unfree4 and that Sally is wrong. The other stories might give us more pause. It is difficult, for instance, to imagine that a victim of domestic violence really knows what she is doing when she “chooses” to return to her abuser; Greta could not know that her husband would abandon her; and Mrs. Bridge might seem rather hopelessly repressed to many but quite normal to others. I want to suggest, however, that there is really no simple answer to the question offreedomin any ofthese cases. This complexity is partly due to the amazing ambiguity ofthe term “freedom” in its popular usage, not to mention the vast disagreements among political philosophers over the meaning ofthe term, as well as over individual instances of “freedom” and “unfreedom.” But it is also partly due to the fact that the dominant discourse of freedom in philoso- phy and political theory—which founds as well as reflects popular, everyday conceptions—is inadequate to fully encompass this complexity. Moreover, it is a central contention ofthis book that feminism—which many might assume would maintain that the women in all four stories are unfree—highlights both this complexity and this inadequacy. AMASCULINIST THEORY OF FREEDOM? Implicit in these introductory questions is the more fundamental issue of what the term freedom means. This is a central bone of contention among liberty theorists;5 but most, ifnot all, conceptions ofliberty have at their heart the ability ofthe selfto make choices and act on them. The contested terrain, therefore, generally covers differences about what constitutes the process and activity ofchoosing and what constitutes the product, or an “actual” choice. Theorists disagree also on what constitutes a “restraint on” or “barrier to” choice, what prevents certain options from being made available, or what prevents me from taking a particular choice that is normally available. Many ofthese questions—and indeed, much freedom theory—are arguably “semantic” rather than normative; that is, con- cerned with distinguishing freedom from other terms, such as equality, justice, and obligation, or with the features that constitute a “restraint” (as opposed to an “inability”). Subsidiary to and implicit in these debates, however, though often not addressed, is the more normative and political 4 CHAPTER ONE question ofwhat or who the “self”is that makes these choices; in other words, what constitutes the “choosing subject” ofliberty. While definitions and conceptions offreedomcan be quite varied, rang- ing from neo-Hobbesian descriptivist accounts of behavior to the most value-laden prescriptive accounts ofactions, 6 most formulations still di- vide along the lines offered by Isaiah Berlin in his famous 1958 essay “Two Concepts ofLiberty,” of“negative” and “positive” liberty. 7 Ac- cording to Berlin, negative liberty consists in an absence ofexternal con- straints. The individual is free to the extent that she is not restrained by external forces, primarily viewed as law, physical force, and other overt coercion. So, for instance, if I wanted to leave the house but my husband broke my leg to prevent me, he would be restricting my freedom. “By being free in this sense I mean not being interfered with by others. The wider the area of non-interference, the wider my freedom.”8 Berlin’s gen- eral notion that restraints come from outside the self, they are alien to the self, or “other,” is an important basic feature of negative liberty; specifi- cally, other humans’ direct (or, in some cases, indirect) participation “in frustrating my wishes” is the relevant criterion in determining restraint.9 And these “wishes,” or desires, preferences, interests, and needs which I must be able to pursue unimpeded ifI am to be free,are seen as coming from me and from me alone.

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