ABSTRACT
In WWPT and in JGF, Okin fi nds that it is a liberal thinker – Mill and Rawls, respectively – whose work, whatever its shortcomings, holds the most promise for feminist thinking about justice.1 She believes, more generally, that a fuller and more consistent application of liberal values to women’s lives will help to rectify many of the injustices she identifi es. Yet, as Kymlicka observes, “Okin never really defi nes her liberalism” (1991: 92).2 rough a combination of exposition, inference, reconstruction and critical analysis, this chapter explicates the key features of Okin’s feminist liberalism. It proposes that the best way of understanding this at the general level is as a liberalism of shared meanings. She draws her normative concepts from a shared fund of liberal values but goes on to fi ll them in with feminist content. When the particular content she gives to concepts of equal personhood, equality of opportunity, free choice, the full development of individual personality, pluralism and privacy is unpacked, the meaning of Okin’s liberalism becomes less likely to be shared. ese diverging features of her liberalism – its appeal to shared meanings and its innovative content – are conveyed in this chapter’s twin epigraphs.
