The study examines if methods used by MeToo-movement can be justified as civil disobedience, using contract theories formulated by John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin. The study aims at two things. Firstly, to explore the justification of public accusations in order to give new perspectives on the contemporary debate on the Swedish MeToo-movement. Three cases are examined, all in which profiles names and pictures have been published in media due to accusations of sexual harassments. Secondly, the study aims to examine and evaluate the normative standpoints behind the contractarian approach to civil disobedience from a feminist perspective. By applying feminist critic of contract theory, carried out by Carole Pateman, Susan Moller Okin and Jean Hampton, I hope to contribute to a more sustainable theory on civil disobedience as a tool for fighting structural injustice. The analysis shows that the contractarian way of defining and justifying civil disobedience is founded on assumptions that are unacceptable from a feminist point of view. Amongst other things, I find that Rawls definition of political consciousness ignores the structural subordination and discrimination of women, by paying attention only to the public sphere and its political institutions. As a result of this, although some aspects of the methods used by the MeToo-movement fits in to the contractarian definition of civil disobedience, the theories prove unable to justify our cases. In the conclusion, I argue that the MeToo-movement broadens our understanding of civil disobedience by challenging the boundaries of how injustices are created, defined and remediated.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-384467 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | Hörnell, Lovisa |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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