The South African Constitution requires men to be feminist

The South African Constitution requires men to be feminist Can a man be a feminist? If so, what would it mean? I want to participate in a dialogue between women and men on how to accommodate women's moral concerns. I propose that the fundamental values of justice embodied in the South African constitutional democracy require men to be feminist. These values provide the best safeguard of the important interests and values of both women and men. Men who accept these values can support the main concerns of feminism. The implications of the argument in this article range from public issues to the most private aspects of marriage. Feminism has firmly established itself as a philosophy of liberation with a strong impact on politics through the women’s movement. The impact of the women’s movement through the transformation of societies, institutions, and individuals is of such enormous scope that Naomi Wolf is correct in calling it the “most successful and least bloody revolution in human history” (Wolf, 1993:63). However, this revolution is far from over. Feminism still demands serious attention for its diversity of social analyses and normative evaluations of institutions, practices, con­ ventions, and habits. Can a man be a feminist? If so, what would it mean? Could it mean that a man simply agrees with the feminist critique of male domination and oppression of women in its various guises? Perhaps a feminist man would be one who changes his behaviour towards women so as to remove any semblance of dominating, oppressive, or discriminatory behaviour towards women. A feminist man might even feel so much guilt about his sexist behaviour in the past that he wholly accepts feminist views without critical questioning or normative evaluation. Koers 65(4) 2000:507-540 507 The South African Constitution requires men to be feminist In this article I want to argue that the South African Constitution requires men to be feminist. The fundamental values of the Constitution are as follows. The core values of the South African Constitution are equality, freedom, accountability or justification, and openness. The values of the redress of past injustices and an improved quality of life, or the fair distribution of wealth, are also important focuses of the new democratic constitution. These values were developed in relation to South Africa’s unjust past and this can be explained as follows (see RSA Const., 1996: Preamble). Equality stands against political institutions and actions that treated some citizens as being secondand third-class citizens. Discrimination on the basis of arbitrary characteristics such as race is rejected in the new South Africa. Freedom is the value guarding against political institutions and actions that denied black people the standard liberties of modem democracies in the past. A specific example is someone’s right to freedom and security. This right explicitly rejects detention without trial, torture of any kind, and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. The right to freedom and security of the person stamps such degrading practices that were perpetrated in the past as unlawful. Accountability and justification are responses to the authoritarian style of government in the past. Never again should a government be allowed to make decisions without having to account for those decisions to its citizens. Government officials and their bureaucratic agents will have to justify their policies and actions to the citizens of South Africa to minimize the risk of repeating the abuse of power in the past. Closely associated with accountability is the value of openness. The evil planned behind closed doors and executed in secret by government agents of the apartheid state against citizens was horrifying. Through insisting on an open democracy and openness of governmental action, South Africans intend to avoid the abuse of political power enabled through a lack of public scrutiny. The redress of past injustices is another fundamental value underlying South Africa’s new constitution. South Africans have chosen to repair the damage created by apartheid as far as possible. The reparation of the damage of apartheid to the life opportunities of black people will be brought about by affirmative action. Property illegitimately appropriated by the apartheid government must either be returned or be compen­ sated. Closely associated with the redress of past injustices is the value of fair distribution of wealth. New governmental policies specify compre­ hensive state intervention to focus human and financial resources to alleviate massive poverty directly related to apartheid society’s neglect 508 Koers 65(4) 2000:507-540

Accountability and justification are responses to the authoritarian style of governm ent in the past.Never again should a governm ent be allowed to make decisions w ithout having to account for those decisions to its citizens.Governm ent officials and their bureaucratic agents will have to justify their policies and actions to the citizens o f South Africa to minimize the risk of repeating the abuse of power in the past.
Closely associated with accountability is the value of openness.The evil planned behind closed doors and executed in secret by governm ent agents of the apartheid state against citizens was horrifying.Through insisting on an open dem ocracy and openness of governmental action, South Africans intend to avoid the abuse of political power enabled through a lack of public scrutiny.
The redress of past injustices is another fundam ental value underlying South A frica's new constitution.South Africans have chosen to repair the dam age created by apartheid as far as possible.The reparation of the dam age of apartheid to the life opportunities o f black people will be brought about by affirm ative action.Property illegitim ately appropriated by the apartheid governm ent must either be returned or be com pen sated.Closely associated with the redress of past injustices is the value of fair distribution of wealth.New governm ental policies specify com pre hensive state intervention to focus human and financial resources to alleviate m assive poverty directly related to apartheid society's neglect of black people.These policies found general acceptance and are strengthened by the ANC governm ent's use of the private initiative of individuals, comm unities and companies in addressing these issues.The com m itm ent to improve the quality of life of poor people is so strong that socio-econom ic rights were included in the Constitution of 1996 to bind the governm ent to the goal of alleviating poverty.Some aspects of the public conception of justice for South Africa are still unclear, controversial, or not yet publicly debated.These undecided aspects provide opportunity for moral debate and political strategy to influence the direction taken.Part of the conception of justice contained in modern liberal democracies, like South Africa, is guaranteed oppor tunities for citizens to take part in revising and extending this conception.Feminists are exploiting these opportunities to work out what would be more just policies and laws for women and how men ought to behave more justly toward women.Attem pts at modifying or extending a conception of justice through debate, argument, m obilization of support, and public dem onstrations are ways of peaceful resolution of conflict.
Lasting peace in South Africa will only be possible when the country is fully transform ed into a just society.This transform ation implies two things.Justice requires looking back in time to undo or compensate for the injustice of the past.Justice further requires looking forward in time to establish just institutions and policies.The issues involved in the transform ation of past injustice toward women into future peace between the sexes will now be outlined.
If it is true that the South African Constitution requires men to be feminist, what does it imply?A feminist man is one with good reason to accept many aspects o f fem inist critique of male domination and oppression that manifest in all spheres of life.Such acceptance must be guided by a dialogue between women and men on a satisfactory shared inter pretation o f the fundamental values of justice operative in the South African constitutional democracy.In this article I explore some feminist writings with the aim of form ulating a normative ideal for men in their relations to women that integrates the main objectives o f the feminist critique of patriarchy with the values of justice underlying the South African Constitution.I intend to show that the South African Constitution has implications for men's relations with women that reach beyond the public sphere into the privacy of the household and even the bedroom shared by m arriage partners.

Men ought to take all kinds of injustice seriously
W hy should South African men take feminism seriously?There are a few simple reasons.One reason is that men should take the injustices of sexism at least as seriously as any other com parable injustice in their society.Especially men who have experienced the injustice of racial oppression under apartheid ought to be sensitive to the remaining form s of the oppression of women.Moral consistency requires it.However, men might have to take feminism more seriously than other comparable form s o f injustice.W hy? One reason is that the injustices of sexism can affect some of the significant wom en in their lives.If one accepts that one has stronger moral obligations to the most significant people that form part of one's everyday life, then men ought to take the injustice o f sexism very seriously.The special women in m en's lives are at risk o f becoming victims of the injustices of sexism.If they love their mothers, lovers, wives, sisters, and daughters, or have good friends, acquaintances, or colleagues who are female, men them selves might become secondary victim s of the trauma one o f these wom en might suffer when becoming a victim o f one or more of the injustices of sexism.Another reason for taking sexism seriously is that men them selves might be responsible for injustices of sexism toward wom en in their everyday lives.They thus have to check w hether they violate the w arranted claims o f injustice expressed by fem inism and are thus m orally responsible for harming other people.

Women suffer from serious injustices
W hat kinds o f injustices drive fem inist concerns?Are these concerns substantial enough to warrant serious male attention, or are women merely being squeam ish?The best way to present the underlying concerns o f fem inism is to show how many o f w om en's most im portant human rights -embodied in the South African Constitution -are violated by men.The rights in question are the rights to life, bodily integrity, recognition, liberty, and equality.W ith the exception of rights to have basic needs fulfilled, all the fundam ental rights o f scores of wom en are violated by a large percentage o f men.Som e detail is needed to sufficiently explain this point.The rights referred to in the following sections are those found in the Bill of Rights of the South African Constitution (RSA Const., 1996).

Violation of rights to b o d ily in te g rity
The first series of human rights violations experienced by women can broadly be categorised as violations of their rights to life and rights to bodily integrity.Som e w om en's right to life are violated by their male partners (RSA Const., 1996: Art. 11).Husbands and boyfriends are re sponsible for 50% of all women murdered in South Africa, while in the USA the figure is 33% (cf.Sterba, 1998:89).Many more women have their right to bodily integrity violated as well as their right to be free from all form s of violence (RSA Const., 1996: Art. 12, par. [1], [2]).One in six South African women are assaulted in their homes by their male partners.In Soweto one in three of the women attending medical clinics have been assaulted by their male partners.In the USA researchers estimate that 50% o f all women are assaulted by their male partners at some or other time in their lives.Assault on women often lead to serious injuries like broken bones or burn wounds.
Rape as sexual violence violates not only the right to be free from all form s o f violence and the right to bodily integrity, but also a w om an's right to security in and control over her body (RSA Const., 1996: Art. 12, par.[2] b).In South Africa 50 481 women reported to the SA Police Services in 1997 that they were raped.Of these cases 43% of the perpetrators were charged in court resulting in convictions in 8 .1% of the cases.Of all reported rape cases 91.9% of the alleged perpetrators got away.In one study of 544 victims o f rape, researchers found that 87% percent of the victims were physically threatened with either knives or guns.The perpetrators were known to their victim s in 39% of the cases and in 52% o f the cases the rape took place in either the victim 's or the perpetrator's home.Perhaps Andrea Dworkin's (1988) comm ent that "every woman walking alone is a target" must be modified to "every woman alone in the presence of one or men is a target".The plural here refers to the common occurrence o f gang rapes in South Africa as well as in the USA.In the USA approximately 43% of rapes are committed by two or more men.
If rape is defined as sexual intercourse w ithout the consent of the partner, then sexual abuse of children often comes close to being classified as rape.Many men abuse both their positions of power in households and their intimate family relationships to violate the bodies and minds of young girls.Through their abuse men devastatingly harm these girls.Andrea Dworkin (1988:140) describes the psychological harm as follows: "Her whole system of reality, her whole capacity to form attachments, her whole capacity to understand the meaning of self respect, is destroyed by someone she loves".Men sexually abusing young girls in their trust violate the rights o f those girls as children to be protected against maltreatment, neglect, abuse or degradation (RSA Const., 1996: Art. 28, par.[1] d).They also violate their rights as children not to be required or permitted to provide services that are inappropriate for a person of that child's age (RSA Const., 1996: Art. 28, par. [1] f (i)).They furtherm ore violate the children's rights that their well-being, physical or mental health or spiritual, moral or social developm ent should not be placed at risk (RSA Const., 1996: Art. 28, par. [1] All the different m anifestations of violence against women with their associated set o f legitimating ideas form one of the main targets of feminism.The seriousness of this issue is underlined by Andrea Dworkin (1988:175) when she says that "crim es o f violence against women are human rights violations that occur on a massive, alm ost unimaginable scale".James Sterba's com m ent on these Am erican statistics of violence against wom en is disturbing.W hat this shows, he says, is that "the condition o f women in our society is actually that of being subordinate to men by force" (Sterba, 1998:90).It seem s no different in South Africa.W hat makes these violations o f w om en's rights not to be subject to any kind of violence particularly worrying is that a w om an's home has often been called the most dangerous place w here she can be.A form er Surgeon-General of the USA, Antonia Novello, said that "the home is actually a more dangerous place for the Am erican woman than the city streets" (quoted in Sterba, 1998:89).This seems true for many South African women too.No w onder that fem inists have investigated and criticized -in the m inutest detail -the dynam ics of the household and the legitimating ideas of household practices.

The violation o f dignity
Many women suffer a second series o f rights violations simply because they are women.In this series the main issue concerns the appropriate recognition of their equal worth and dignity as human beings (see RSA Const., 1996: Preamble, Art. 1, 10).Several issues spring to mind.Men often use language to belittle and degrade women.Calling women names, e.g."chicks", making rem arks on their physical appearance, and telling jokes stereotyping certain kinds of wom en are obvious examples.Sexual harassment, which was recognized and named only in the late 1970s (Sterba, 1998:93), has developed into a serious issue that has become outlawed, especially in the workplace.W om en experience sexual harassm ent as hum iliating, while they feel "demeaned and devalued" (Sterba, 1998:93).
Sexual harassm ent -defined as sexual attention forced on women through men in positions of power over them -shows a strong link to men viewing wom en as sex objects and treating them as if they were nothing more than sexual bodies designed to serve men's gratification.W olf (1993:210) argues that sexual attention in the context of unequal power often turns a sexual gaze into som ething that objectifies, belittles, or denigrates women.In relations of equality a sexual gaze can be respectful and express admiration.Anita M. Superson (1993:51) inter prets the message o f a catcall as follows: "a catcall says not [merely] that the perpetrator likes the w om an's body but that he thinks women are at least primarily sex objects and he ... gets to rate them according to how much pleasure they give him ".Through offensive language, unwelcome sexual attention, and perceptions of women as sexual playthings w om en's inherent dignity is violated, as well as their rights to have their dignity respected and protected (RSA Const., 1996: Art. 10).Their rights not to be treated in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way are violated too (RSA Const., 1996: Art. 12, par.[1] e).Ann Ferguson (1997:67) states it plainly, "men treat women as inferiors".When strong wom en act contrary to this ascribed role o f being inferior to men, many experience what Patricia Hill Collins (1997:165) says, i.e. that "aggressive, strong women are penalized".

Violations of rights to liberty
A third series of rights of women that men often violate are rights to liberty.These violations mostly occur within marriage and the family.Many men try to control the movements of their partners or daughters.Some men coerce their partners into submission through short tempers, aggression, insults, or prolonged periods of silence resulting from refusals to discuss shared interests.In many relationships women with stronger personalities are bullied into submission by partners whose feelings of inferiority and beliefs in male superiority cannot allow women to be strong or independent.Through these actions men are violating w om en's rights to the full and equal enjoym ent of all rights and freedoms (RSA Const., 1996: Art. 9, par. [1] [2]).

Violations of the right to equality
The fourth series of rights of women frequently violated by men are rights to equality.Many stark inequalities between men and women provided the impetus that started the fem inist movement.Unequal citizenship rights that excluded women from all form s of political participation were rectified in the first part of the twentieth century in W estern countries.Unequal opportunities for education and em ploym ent are still being remedied in most countries.Unequal pay for work of comparable worth still exists, albeit far less than in the past.
W om en's struggle for equality is far from over.Two issues prove particularly difficult to solve.One issue is m en's persistent attitude of superiority.Men everywhere see them selves as the most im portant part of society and they tend to define humanity in term s of their own image.Nancy J. Chodorow (1997:37) describes this tendency as follows, "men have come to define maleness as that which is basically human, and to define women as not-m en".The result is that men often treat women as if they cannot make worthwhile contributions, especially in areas tradi tionally considered to belong to men.Thus, in business, sport, politics, or science, women are often still judged not to be equal partners o f simitar competence.Uma Narayan (1997:175) articulates the experience of women that "their speech is often ignored or treated with condescension by their male colleagues".
A second persistent site of w om en's inequality is the household.Two related issues prove to be problematic.One concerns decision-making.W omen often experience that they are not equal partners in making decisions about im portant m atters in the household.W hatever role they get in making decisions is assigned to them by their male partner.The male partner's power to do so mostly arise from cultural values about male superiority or the male as provider, more abundant financial means, or greater physical power and the threat o f violence.As a result women still have to do the bulk of housework, regardless of their tiresom e in volvem ent in raising children or their long hours in pursuit of a career as professional.Adding insult to injury is that m ost men look down on housework as som ething below them that would violate their dignity if they had to be known to do it.For this reason Andrea Dworkin (1988:121) observes that "housework is stigmatized as w om an's w ork".
Through m en's unfounded attitudes of male superiority and fem ale in feriority and the unequal division o f household decision-m aking and duties, they violate the central thrust o f the South African Constitution of treating people equally.Two im portant rights o f women are at issue here.One is that wom en have the right to equal dignity (RSA Const., 1996: Art. 10).The other right states that neither the state nor any person may discrim inate unfairly against anyone on the grounds of, inter alia, gender, sex, pregnancy or marital status (RSA Const., 1996: Art. 9, par.
It would be a serious m istake to suggest that all wom en experience the same violations o f their rights.W om en's experiences o f men differ from country to country, but even within the same local com m unity or village wom en can have different experiences of men, depending on the men in their lives.The diversity o f w om en's experiences in South Africaranging from multiple, strong form s of sexism to not even noticing sexism -suggest that men have diverse attitudes and actions towards women as well.Some men treat wom en with proper respect, others treat them with utter disrespect.Nevertheless, there are strong patterns in many societies -South Africa included -o f wom en suffering wide-ranging human rights abuses that w arrant serious investigation, strong protest, and clear rejection.

Feminism fights to implement an improved conception of justice
Feminism is a good example of a social m ovem ent operative in many countries that wants to eliminate the injustices discussed in the previous section through redefining ideals o f justice and giving those ideals new content.W hat are the shared contents o f fem inist m ovements in different countries?The fem inist movement articulates a vision of society that would liberate women from their oppression and enable them to live a richer and more rewarding life.To reach the dream of a transformed society, feminists are trying to turn many issues into m atters of justice, i.e., they w ant to bring private m atters into the public arena as issues to be debated publicly, evaluated normatively, and decided collectively.I want to show how the central values embodied in the South African Constitution support some of the fundam ental ideals articulated by the fem inist movement.
To make w om en's issues matters o f justice feminists are trying to convince women that many o f their frustrating problems, relationship difficulties, and emotional suffering are not naturally given with roles they simply and unavoidably have to fulfil by divine decree or according to the natural order.Their frustrations, difficulties, and sufferings result from contingent social arrangem ents and the values embodied in society by the active work of dom inant male elites.W om en's blindness to seeing these injustices are removed by making them aware that their inferior position in society does not result from unalterable social conditions, fixed natural roles, and true ideas (cf.Okin, 1989:5-6).Rather, their injustices were made by humans and are maintained by men -and women -who arbitrarily define roles for women, and justify those social arrangem ents through ideas that exclude independent female perspec tives.
Feminism aims to create widespread awareness that many social problems and household conditions that are detrimental to women are matters of justice that call for remedy through public, collective action (Benhabib, 1992:109).This aim implies that fem inism wants to break decisively with any conception of justice that excludes the household from being morally scrutinized by a conception of justice.The scope of justice is relentlessly extended by feminists to deal with any issue of public interest, provided it can be judged by public morality and be remedied by collective human action.Feminists thus w ant to make the well-being of individuals, such as a battered wife or a raped woman, matters o f justice, despite the supposed privacy o f the sphere of family life where these form s of violence often occur.No harm to a wom an's life, no violation of a wom an's dignity, no constraint on a w om an's development, nor any hindrance to a w om an's self-determination should be withdrawn from critical testing in term s of the public moral values embodied in a public conception of justice, as expressed in the dem ocratic constitution of South Africa.

The target of injustice fem inism aims at
W hat exactly is the target o f injustice that feminism aims at?The target of fem inists is sexism, the cause of their experience of suffering system atic social injustice as a result o f their sex (c f Richards, 1994:21 27).Sexism m anifests itself as a network o f ideas, attitudes, choices, decisions, actions, habits, practices, and institutions that privilege men and disadvantage women.Sexism enables men to dom inate wom en by depriving wom en of legitimate opportunities for making their own decisions.Sexism also empowers men to oppress wom en by depriving them o f opportunities and spaces for developm ent and growth.Sexism exploits w om en's group identity through ideas that legitimize m en's domination and oppression of w om en (Wolf, 1994:76).Ideas such as the natural roles of wom en as mothers and wives, w om en's lesser rationality, women as the w eaker sex, and w om en's supposedly emotional nature have been used throughout history to justify inferior positions and dis respectful treatm ent to women.
Feminism tries to provide diagnoses and explanations o f sexism (Benhabib, 1992:152).Sim one de Beauvoir (1997:9) said it simply: feminists w ant to know how it is "that this world has always belonged to the m en?" Feminists want to pinpoint w hat they reject about sexism in all its m inutest details.They assign responsibility for the m anifestations of sexism by pointing out how sexism arose and how it has been m ain tained.Today the focus is on the persistent tenacity o f certain sexist practices and the last vestiges o f sexist ideas and behaviour.Through anticipatory-utopian critique fem inists are articulating ideals of how society can be changed to rem ove the injustices women suffer from (Benhabib, 1992:152).In general, fem inism wants to m ake itself super fluous by ridding society o f sexism -it does not have the aim to privilege women at the cost o f men (cf. Richards, 1994:25).However, the com prehensive network of sexism infiltrated all nooks and crannies o f society and thus its eradication takes tim e and effort To determ ine what m ust be done to elim inate sexism com pletely is an ongoing process.To find appropriate strategies for protest and to set agendas for transform ation to create a society w here male and female would experience liberty and equality o f com parable worth -as promised by the Preamble of the South African Constitution -have proven to be a much bigger and more com plex task than m ost people initially thought

The struggle aginst sexism
The struggle against sexism has a particularly difficult nature.Put in war metaphors, both the enemies and the sites of battle make the struggle against sexism difficult.One kind o f enemy that feminism fights is sexist men.Not all men are sexist.For some women, however, the enemy is a father, a brother, a lover, a husband, or a friend.Andrea Dworkin (1988: 184) articulates this experience, "the enemy is family ... he is so cruel and so arrogant and so intimate and so close ...".Another kind o f enemy is just as difficult to fight.This enemy is the one within -the sexist ideas and life-styles that a woman grew up with, that is difficult to get rid of if they played a strong role in her form ative years.This enemy is often the cause of women them selves reinforcing sexist ideas and practices.
The sites of battle also make the struggle against sexism difficult.The sites where sexism must be fought could be found in any part of human life, whether in economy, politics, education, religion, marriage, or sport.
Elaine Rapping (1994:17) form ulates the complexities of the battle against sexism as follows, "ideological shifts ... take place ... in small, contradictory, m ultitudinous battles over a variety o f issues in a maze of intertextual, contested sites".Thus, feminists must be aware of all possible places and persons where the battle against sexism have not yet been won, while simultaneously being aware where the battle needs not to be fought anymore.The fem inist struggle for gender justice does not consist o f one decisive battle, but rather of numerous battles of different sizes and a multitude o f sm aller fights for territory by both individuals and groups.
Many battles and fights have already been won, while quite a few still needs to be fought.W om en are not -and never were -mere victims of male domination.Throughout history there are exam ples of women "whose thought and action do not mesh with an image of downtrodden subordination" (Elshtain, 1981:226).Andrea Dworkin (1988:183) coun ters the idea o f women as mere victim s of sexism and celebrates the victories women -as agents responsible for their own destiny -have already won when she says, ... women resist; women fight back; women organize; women are brave; women go up to male power and stop it in its tracks; women fight institutions of male dominance and weaken them; women retaliate against rapists ...; women infiltrate male systems of power; women change laws ...; women provide secret refuge for battered women ...; sometimes women kill; women sue to stop sex discrimination; women claim more and more public space ...; feminists go at male power where it is most dangerous ...; feminists keep thinking, writing, talking, organizing, marching, demonstrating ...

How should men respond to the feminist movement?
Men comm itted to the central values of the South African Constitution should take the fem inist m ovem ent seriously and respond positively to the fundam ental aim of fem inists to elim inate all kinds of injustices that w om en suffer from.These women suffering injustice might be a m an's female partner, his daughter, his mother, his friend, or his colleague.Can a man show respect and loving care towards those who share his bed, his genes, his friendship, his work, and his interests if he does not take their experiences of suffering injustice seriously?Perhaps he can show loving care and respect while ignoring and perhaps even contributing to the injustices of the wom en in his life.However, that respect and loving care will be disfigured and eroded by the injustice contained in them.G radually the loving care and respect will lose credibility and value if persistent requests for understanding and support in the struggle against injustice are ignored.
Men, as citizens of a modern constitutional dem ocracy like South Africa, experience continually mounting pressures from wom en as their fellow citizens to support their struggle against sexism.In term s of the South African dem ocratic constitution, wom en are defined as citizens of equal dignity who have a com prehensive set o f rights to equality and liberty.To insist on treatm ent as free and equal citizens and to demand to jointly work out the details and implications o f such treatm ent in all spheres of life seem a reasonable request.To refuse such a request from any citizen who wish to have nothing more than those rights already assigned to them in a dem ocratic constitution rather seem s unreasonable.
Men, as human beings guided in part by moral values, ought to judge the elimination o f injustices -that can sometimes cause grievous bodily harm and even death -as a priority.South African men that take moral values seriously ought to have a com m itm ent to m inimize rem ediable suffering and to ensure equitable treatm ent o f all persons, as expressed in the aspirations o f the Pream ble o f the South African Constitution.They ought to have a fallibilist attitude o f recognizing the possibilities that their insight into moral values and their awareness o f how others experience their society m ight be flawed.Furthermore, they ought to be open to com plaints from aggrieved citizens and be prepared to discuss the feelings o f dissatisfaction and being wronged that some people ex perience.If not, they are m orally insensitive and dem ocratically nonresponsive, thus violating the fundam ental values o f the South African constitutional democracy.
If men have moral obligations to respond positively to feminism, what should they do?Men should be prepared to acknowledge any aspect of their behaviour in their private or public lives that violate the fundamental values of a modern constitutional democracy.They should be prepared to engage feminists in dialogue about w hat feminists perceive to be wrong and unjust in terms of shared dem ocratic values or creative extensions thereof.Once men have been convinced of an injustice of sexism, they must be willing to modify their personal behaviour and to make any institutional changes required to eradicate that kind of injustice.
The process of being challenged that some of your actions are sexist and thus humiliate and harm women, m ight be uncomfortable for some men.They might resist seeing the point of feminists, as they realize that acknowledging guilt might make them lose face or could cost them privileges and comforts they currently enjoy.Some men might thus decide to change only when forced to do so.This is an option for male response to feminism.Men following this option thus only react to fem inist pressure and then only grudgingly and unwillingly.To such men Andrea Dworkin (1988:163) issues a simple challenge, "W hy are you so slow to understand the simplest things?... Simply that wom en are human to the degree and quality that you are".

The proactive option of responding to feminism
There is another option o f how men can respond to the challenge of feminism.This option is voluntary and proactive.It is driven by a fresh interpretation of the fundam ental values of the South African Consti tution.In this case men discover women as equal partners in a moral quest to reinterpret the fundam ental political values of their society and to creatively explore the im plications for ensuring liberty and equality that satisfies everyone.In this case men are willing to listen to the most stringent fem inist criticism and to take such criticism seriously by responding in earnest with high quality arguments.Such men will be prepared to investigate the past with feminists to determ ine the harm done to women and to explore ways o f undoing or remedying at least some of those harms.They will also be willing to deal with the conse quences of injustices of the past that detrim entally affect women in the present.
This willingness to deal with the harms and consequences of past sexist injustices presuppose that such men are open to have their limited horizons on gender relations modified and expanded.Through prolonged interaction and dialogue their horizons might m eaningfully fuse with the horizons of feminists.To reach a fusion of horizons would need neverending conversations and dialogues between men and women -in local settings o f households to the national setting of Parliament and even to the global settings of international organizations like the United Nationsand in settings everywhere in between.
In the rest o f this article I w ant to propose one exam ple o f reacting to the fem inist challenge in term s of the proactive option.The question that will guide my exploration is as follows.W hat can men committed to the liberal-dem ocratic values of the South African Constitution do to accom m odate the legitim ate concerns of fem inists?I will present four things that men can do.They are as follows.Men m ust make specific assum p tions about gender roles; they m ust extend the scope of justice to the household; they must develop good judgem ent of individuals; and they m ust com m unicate through genuine dialogue.I will conclude by illustra ting how these changes can transform relationships by using the marriage relationship as example.

Assumptions about gender roles
Men willing to take feminism seriously would have to m ake the assum ption that social roles are not divinely ordained or naturally given, but are made by human beings interacting in comm unities.If South African citizens are granted rights like freedom of expression, religion, conscience, thought, and opinion, as well as rights to freedom of movement, freedom of association, freedom to choose a profession, and freedom to participate in linguistic and cultural com m unities o f choice, then socially prescribed or divinely ordained roles for women can hardly be imagined.Sim one de Beauvoir (1997) rejects the idea that gender roles are natural.Rather, she says, "in human society nothing is natural" and a w om an is thus a "product elaborated by civilization" (De Beauvoir, 1997:10).Gender is seen as a social construction that entails far more than mere biological sex.For De Beauvoir (quoted in Butler, 1997:82) "one is not born a woman, but, rather, becomes one".Gender as social construction suggests that men and wom en do not have fixed natures that will inevitably m anifest them selves.W om en and men can define themselves, create their own gender, make who they are, and specify who they w ant to become -this much at least the liberties contained in the South African Constitution allow them.
The freedom o f self-creation through which people have open possibilities to negotiate new life-styles to express their gender and their individuality take place within strong constraints.There are biological differences that can affect conceptions of gender.A person's genetic make-up sim ilarly places constraints on w hat is possible for people to become.Perhaps even more im portant is Karen J. W arren's (1997:377) remark that "hum ans are properly understood in term s of networks or webs o f historical and concrete relationships".Relations of power from H P.P. Lótter the sphere o f the household to the larger social sphere can significantly constrain people's options to widen their conceptions of what possibilities they can explore to redefine their ideas of gender.
Feminists have exposed the ways that conceptions of gender have been moulded within the contours, limits, and power structures of patriarchal societies These exposures are the beginnings of an awareness that gender is a social construction that can be modified and changed through social and political struggle and protest.Feminists thus want to create space for women to be able to experim ent with conceptions of gender and to creatively redefine conceptions of who they are and what they would w ant to be.W omen must have the freedom -granted by the South African Constitution -to choose for them selves whatever characteristics and virtues they find attractive to add to their existing portfolio.Men must not prescribe a gender role with fixed traits to them that places women in the strait jacket of having to be a "lady", for example.
Feminists have become aware of the ways that people are affected by full participation in all social spheres and different kinds of activities.Ann Ferguson (1997:77) articulated this awareness as follows, "aspects of our selves are developed by participating in social practices which insist on certain skills and values".For women who had m any such activities denied and opportunities closed to them in the past, it has become an exciting exploration to discover how they might develop and change.
Developm ent and change presuppose that people do not stay the same.
That women -and their conceptions of gender -can thus change significantly throughout their lives has become accepted.Ferguson (1997:77) says that "one's sense o f self and one's core values may change at different times and in different contexts".

Justice and the household
If the various liberties women have, in term s o f many different rights embodied in the South African Constitution, allow them to define their own roles through acts of self-creation, w hat would be the impact on the households women share with male partners?This issue needs further exploration.If one assumes that when people make claim s for justice, they do so with the intention to secure for them selves treatm ent that recognises them as human beings or to gain access to conditions under which they can enjoy the fullest life possible for, and worthy of, human beings (Frankena, 1962:21, 26;Rossouw, 1995:7), then fem inism 's claim to broaden the scope of justice makes a lot of sense.Ideals of justice in modern constitutional dem ocracies motivated fem inists to imaginatively conceptualize their society as more "liberating and enabling" and to evaluate current injustices in the light of such imaginary visions (Young, 1990:35).Fem inists have also reformulated some ideals of justice and given them new content, enabling women to revise their evaluations of the capacity o f their society to provide them adequate space to live worthy lives, appropriately reflecting their human dignity.
Rawls (1971:5) points out that aspects o f a conception of justice are always in dispute.Part of such disputes are attem pts to apply currently accepted norms and rules of justice to new groups of people or new areas of human interaction.Fem inists imaginatively apply the require m ents for treating citizens as free and equal to the many com plexities of the injustices they classify as sexist.Another aspect o f the ever-present disputes about justice in a society is claims for the imaginative discovery and creative developm ent of new ideas of justice that intend to make citizens aware of injustices previously not noticed.To qualify as new ideas of justice, these ideas must gain general acceptance in society and be reasonably coherent with existing, w ell-established ideas o f justice.
An exam ple o f that is the way in which fem inists insist that the household must become a m atter of justice as well.

A redefinition of the private and the public
The argum ents for subjecting the household to critical scrutiny in term s of justice are all variants o f a plea for a redefinition of the boundary between the private and the public.Feminists reject a spatial definition of the private and the public that would define the household and what happens behinds its doors and curtains as private.They want to open up certain aspects o f private lives for public investigation, debate, and evaluation.Fem inists do not w ant to do away with the distinction between public and private, as both are necessary for flourishing human life (cf.Elshtain, 1981:322;Pateman, 1989:134).They certainly do not w ant total state intrusion into the lives of individuals.However, they do want to open up specific areas o f private lives w here men dom inate and oppress w om en to bring these issues into view, m ake them public knowledge, and subject them to collective decision-m aking.Thus, w hat is private may im ply one of the following aspects: something not to be observed by others, something not to become knowledge available to all interested persons, and som ething that no other persons or institutions other than the person involved have decision-m aking power.These three m eanings of private do not necessarily always overlap.
When fem inists argue that the personal should be made political, or the private be m ade public, they obviously do not w ant to make intimate sexual acts available for public observation, but they do want to make phenomena like marital rape public knowledge and to be declared acts that are illegal so that their perpetrators can be prosecuted in court.They furtherm ore want to invite public values -those embodied in the South African Constitution like liberty, equality, and human dignity -in through the household door (cf.Benhabib, 1992:13) to influence even their private sexual acts with their partners so that both partners can act as equals in deeply satisfying reciprocal relationships.

Normative evaluation
Alison Jaggar (1997) argues in favour o f treating the household as a matter that must be m orally scrutinized in terms of a public conception of justice.She notes that many household issues have been judged to be natural or biologically determined and thus not subject to the dictates of a conception of justice.She judges this assumption of naturalness or biological determ ination to be what Stuart Hampshire calls a fallacy of false fixity.This fallacy consists of a representation of particular social arrangem ents as being unalterable or unavoidable features of human life, as they are natural or biologically determ ined and thus cannot be changed or made otherwise through deliberate, conscious human action (Hampshire, 1989:59).Feminists have shown that many aspects of household life are socially constructed and therefore these assumptions have been proven false.In this light the distinction between a public sphere subject to principles o f justice and a private sphere subject only to the values, power, and whims o f dom inant males "comes to seem philosophically arbitrary, without reason" (Jaggar, 1997:53).
Feminists have succeeded in making several aspects of household life open to normative evaluation in term s of justice.In the light of this evaluation the household emerged as a "site o f male power, a power that in its more benign aspects got women working excessively long hours for minimal reward, and in its worst could expose them to physical and sexual abuse" (Phillips, 1991:102).This qualifies as imaginative new applications of existing ideas of justice, that are reasonably coherent with existing, well-established ideas o f justice.W hat qualifies as matters of justice are issues that can be judged in term s of public morality, are rem ediable by collective human action, and are of public interest.Public interest does not only mean matters that concern a broader public.The well-being of individuals, negatively affected by acts like violence against women, sexual abuse of children, or marital rape, can become public concerns, regardless of the privacy of family life w here they take place.The South African Constitution expresses a strong concern about the well-being and dignity of citizens.To protect them from serious harm might force aspects of private, household life open to public inspection and control, like laws on dom estic violence, marital rape, and child abuse have already indicated.
As a result o f the fem inist struggle to subject households to normative evaluation in term s of a conception o f justice based on collective de cision-making, Linda J. Nicholson (1997:140) says "the contemporary fam ily has become a very public institution".Feminists have focused a lot of attention on the justice o f household life.Two reasons drive their interest in household justice.One is that household life constitutes a very important part o f human life w here many tim e-consum ing duties and responsibilities are distributed.This distribution drastically affects the opportunities for human developm ent and fulfilm ent available to women o f all ages (Okin, 1989:16).Phillips (1991:102) judges that women under patriarchy suffered not only from the pressures and constraints that denied them opportunities for participation in public activities.Male dom inance and oppression created female subordination and submission which made the private, personal sphere for wom en "as devastatingly destructive o f our human developm ent as anything that governments could do".
If other aspects o f human life are regulated by public conceptions of justice and fairness, why should the household be withdrawn from moral evaluation?Susan M oller Okin (1989:14) states one reason for the significance o f a just fam ily as: "the family m ust be just if we are to have a just society".This requirem ent is needed because the family is at the "root of the moral developm ent of individuals" and an "essential founda tion" of a ju st society (Okin, 1989:17).The fam ily has this role because it provides children with form ative experiences of how adults interact with each other and with children.A dult interaction can model justice and reciprocity, dom ination and m anipulation, or unequal altruism and one sided self-sacrifice (Okin, 1989:17).The dom inating model in a fam ily strongly influences children's ideas about how adults ought to treat one another in a dem ocracy.If South Africans w ant to establish a deeply rooted human rights culture, adult interaction everywhere must model dem ocratic values to children.
A consistent regard for justice in all spheres o f life thus m andates the inclusion o f the household in its scope.The role o f the household in shaping the values and character o f children gives a secondary reason for the urgency of fem inists to exam ine the justice of household life, the primary reason being the unjust division o f burdens.

Im plem enting dem ocratic values in households
Values, attitudes, and behaviour learnt in the household are taken along into public life.For this reason ensuring appropriate implem entation of values like liberty and equality in the household will strengthen South A frica's constitutional democracy.Implementing dem ocratic values in households, in the sense of imposing such values through third parties, might prove to be difficult.Women should rather be enabled to insist on being treated as dem ocratic citizens with equal dignity and be empowered to claim or enforce their legitimate rights whenever those are threatened by their partners (cf.Phillips, 1991:111, 119).Government officials should step in only when serious, harmful violations of human rights occur (cf.Walzer, 1983:232).

Appropriately judging individuals
Men interact with many different women in all spheres o f life, not only with their partners in households.How should they relate to the individual women they encounter in everyday life?W omen have a unique position in society.W om en as a group do not have the problems o f minority groups whose group identities are not recognized by dom inant majorities.On the contrary, Susan W olf (1994:76) argues, women have been recognized as a distinct group and their separate identity has been exploited by men to justify oppressing and dom inating them.Women have also suffered from demeaning stereotypes which dismissed their personal qualities and competencies beforehand.For these reasons feminists are sensitive about appropriate recognition o f w om en's dignity and worth as human beings -a sensitivity fully backed up by the strong em phasis on equal dignity for all citizens in the South African Con stitution.Appropriate recognition can mean different things, depending on the context.It seems, though, as if a broad distinction between two issues will satisfy fem inist -and most possibly anybody else'sconcerns.This distinction is between w hat Seyla Benhabib (1992) calls treating others as the generalized other and treating them as a concrete, specific other.

Awareness of the uniqueness of a person
Treating individuals as the generalized other implies according them equal respect and dignity as is due every human on the grounds of being a citizen of the South African constitutional democracy.Every woman thus also have rights to equal liberties, equal treatment, equal partici pation, equal opportunities, and equal consideration of her interests.W hat equality exactly means in various contexts needs to be jointly determ ined by all citizens and specified in rights, duties, laws, and policies.
Within the broad moral fram ework of treating others as the generalized other, there are sufficient spaces for treating others as specific, concrete others.The broad fram ework sets the minimum requirem ents for treating others who are encountered personally within a person's everyday life.In addition to the recognition of the general characteristics o f a person's humanity, a person's concrete, specific characteristics are recognized and responded to.Treating people according to stereotypes is out.
Various form s o f discrim ination are rejected by the South African Constitution, including discrim ination on the grounds o f sex, gender, pregnancy, or m arital status.The em phasis for men ought to be on establishing unique relationships with individual women, whatever the duration.Aw areness o f the unique features of a person through sensitive observation and attentive listening translates into adapting one's behaviour to suit the uniqueness o f a person.Carol Gilligan (1997:276) thus argues that justice in interpersonal relationships "becomes understood as respect for people in their own term s".
Unique relationships are established through determ ining various factors of importance for establishing that relationship in a specific context.Features such as the following must be taken into account: the nature, capabilities, and characteristics of the person; the personal and political values of the person; the career and interests o f the person, the circum stances and duration of the encounter, and the preceding narra tive o f the history o f their interaction.If men should treat each woman they encounter in w hatever context in this unique way in addition to respecting them as the generalized other, they would show true care towards individual women.Carol C. Gould (1997:330) argues that care "translates into responsiveness to the particular needs and interests of individuals or groups instead of treating them all in the very same w ay" .

The link between justice and care
If justice in these relationships m eans respect for people in their own terms, and if that implies taking proper care of people, then an intimate link between justice and care becomes apparent.To care for people in interpersonal relationships requires resolution o f several issues con cerning justice.Care cannot be generalized and be distributed equally, as every person's unique, specific, and concrete needs m ust be deter mined (Tronto, 1989:174).Determining needs cannot be done unilateral ly, but only in dialogue with the person involved (Tronto, 1989:176-177).
How much caring a person receives results from a decision that takes into account the "am ount of tim e and kind of effort that a caring individual can expend" and the needs o f the person for whom one cares (Tronto, 1989:180).Caring relationships can easily become unequal power relationships w here care-givers keep care-needers dependent on them, as care-givers m ight them selves need the practice o f caring for others (Tronto, 1989:179-180).Justice in this case calls for appropriate relation ships between citizens o f equal dignity despite the inequalities created by the need for care and the capacity to provide or give care.
To treat people according to an appropriate judgem ent of their indivi duality seem s alm ost self-evident.Carol Gilligan (1997:275) says that within relationships "the self as moral agent perceives and responds to the perception of need".If the meaning of need can be somewhat stretched, one could argue that men should not treat all women the same, but rather be aware of the different options of what they might have to provide in a relationship with any woman.These options include partnership, care, debate, friendship, distance, support, aid, co operation, leadership, honour, dialogue, obedience, appreciation, love, emulation, and so on.Men should not, however, unilaterally decide what a relationship needs, as if they are experts in dom inant positions.Rather, mutuality and reciprocity must characterise relationships between women and men.Through verbal -and non-verbal -comm unication, negotia tion, and joint decision-m aking women and men can establish relation ships of various kinds which both affirm aspects o f their individuality and their shared humanity and for which they share responsibility.

Communication through genuine dialogue
Dialogue is the most appropriate medium for women and menregardless of the nature of their relationship -to sort out fem inist issues and to redefine their relations.Dialogue can be used in ordinary interaction, for decision-making, and for the resolution of conflict.Dia logue w orks particularly well for relationships experienced as shared projects where it enables genuine comm unication at deep levels.Dia logue can thus enable understanding between partners, problem-solving, and growth in their relationships.W hy is dialogue so appropriate?
Dialogue is a means of human comm unication that allows people to exchange views, present ideas, and express feelings in a process that treats each partner with equal respect and provides every partner with an equal opportunity to have their interests considered.Partners get a reasonable opportunity to state their case while others listen attentively and take them seriously.Dialogue thus provides every participant the opportunity to make their unique voice heard.Accom m odating unique ness leaves room for opening up and revealing differences.Differences are dealt with in the context of dialogue as mutual quest for reciprocal understanding and new perspectives on both the topic under discussion and on one another.Participants in dialogue must thus be able to tolerate differences and accept that full consensus is not the only possible aim of dialogue, nor should it be seen as the only worthwhile outcom e o f dialogue.
Dialogue only occurs when participants are equal partners who articulate their own interests and listen with appropriate attention to w hat others have to say.In dialogue the agenda is open and determ ined by good argum ents presented by participants in favour o f discussing specific issues.Adequate tim e must be assigned for dialogue so that issues can be properly debated to the satisfaction o f all concerned.A com m itm ent to co-operate in a process o f problem-solving provides the impetus to continue searching for adequate solutions.Participants in dialogue must be prepared to learn and grow through the process o f dialogue.To do so, they m ust be willing to listen to criticism o f them selves and their views and modify them selves and their positions if good argum ents warrant that.M odification is som etim es not enough, as new options m ight be needed, or equitable, principled com prom ises must be sought.

Equal partners in dialogue
Participants in a dialogue must regard one another as equal partners who deserve equal respect and consideration in the process of dialogue.Unequal relations of power can distort and destroy dialogue if the more powerful abuse their power to talk down to their supposed inferior partners.In a dialogue the exercise of power over others m ust be tem porarily suspended for the duration o f the dialogue.Susan Bordo (1998:25) writes grippingly about her dialogues with her father.She refers to these dialogues as "this conversation, an equal dialogue ... between an elderly man and a five-year old girl".W hat particularly empowered Bordo w as the way her father regarded her as worthwhile listening and responding to.So partners in dialogue ought to do.

Psychological bullying tactics
Men are not particularly adept at engaging in sustained dialogue over a long period about all im portant issues with the wom en in their lives.Many men would rather punish women with long periods o f silence, refusals to discuss matters, psychological bullying tactics, undermining their part ner's self-im age and self-confidence, and using violence or threats o f violence to intim idate and force wom en into subm ission to their authority.Unequal physical, financial, or other kinds o f power easily convert into dom inance that silences dialogue.Unequal power can also scar dialogue when the dom inant party sets the agenda unilaterally and thus constrains dialogue.In such cases, Nancy Fraser (1997:370) says, "deliberation [dialogue] can be a m ask for dom ination".
In other cases unequal power in dialogue is the result of one partner using superior abilities of form ulation for gaining unfair advantages Many people, and especially oppressed and form erly oppressed groups, might be handicapped here.Fraser (1997:370) points out that "subordinate groups can som etim es not find the right voice or words to express their thoughts".Further impedim ents that can ruin dialogue are the tendency H.P.P. Lótter of men to talk far more than women and thus to deprive them of their rightful opportunities to state their case and make them selves heard.Interruptions, cutting speakers or dialogue short, and silencing partici pants are more ways of derailing genuine dialogue.Fraser (1997:370) articulates these threats to dialogue neatly when she states that "men tend to interrupt women more than women interrupt men; men also tend to speak more than women, taking more turns and longer turns; and w om en's interventions are more often ignored or not responded to than m en's".Many men would thus have to familiarize them selves anew with the rules o f dialogue to move away from an adversarial style to a more co-operative style.

Sort out specific feminist issues
Men prepared to engage in dialogue with women as equal partners have an open invitation from feminists, says Sandra Harding (1998:182), "to work out for themselves, in dialogue with women feminists, a creative transform ation that could have widespread consequences for social relations".W hat would be on the agenda of this kind o f dialogue?One issue would be w om en's experiences of injustice.Another issue would be w om en's work.How men ought to look at or view women would also be important, as would m en's role in the fem inist struggle.

The willingness to listen to women as equals
To treat women as both equal citizens and as unique individuals with whom they are willing to engage in dialogue with open agendas, implies that men ought to be willing to listen to w om en's free, unhindered voices.Through listening to women as equals who relate their experiences of injustice and the value of so-called "w om en's w ork", men have the opportunity to come to a deep understanding of the main concerns driving feminism.Larry May (1998:344) thinks that men need to spend time "interacting with women in non-dominating ways to learn from them what it is like to be oppressed".Through the ensuing dialogue between women and men, sensitively setting up clear links between w om en's experiences of injustice and new, jointly determ ined interpretations of liberal dem ocratic values, wom en's violated human dignity can be restored and healed.Through these kinds o f dialogue many men will lose the blind spots that prevent them from seeing the injustices women suffer from and thus be able to see their roles in maintaining those injustices.
If men can succeed in listening to women in a way that makes women feel listened to, Sandra Harding (1998:180) suggests they will develop moral m otivation for using the insight they gain critically to "rethink the institutions o f society, their cultures and their practices".One example will illustrate the point.Men have dominated politics for centuries and in the process have set the political agenda attuned to those issues im portant to them.Carol C. Gould (1997:335) pleads for a political androgyny which would mean both a joint setting of the political agenda by wom en and men, as well as a greater role for wom en and their skills in politics.She (Gould, 1997:334) defines political androgyny as follows, "an importation into the public dom ain ... of the range of capacities, concerns, and values deriving from w om en's historical experience, as a corrective for the predom inance in public life o f historically male concerns and values".
Such reinterpretations o f public institutions in the light o f w om en's experiences of injustice m ust be extended to reinterpretations of m en's individual lives, values, and behaviour.Men ought to m odify their self understandings and identity in the light of m orally justified fem inist claims to justice.A specific claim to justice that might cause a considerable rethink on the part of men is w om en's demand that so-called "w om en's w ork" m ust be appropriately recognized.But more than recognition is demanded.W om en also w ant men to experience the benefits of w om en's work, especially raising children, and they insist on a more equitable distribution of the burdens involved.

Involvem ent in mothering functions
One o f the burdens often forced on wom en is raising children.W om en w ant men to share this burden, but also to experience the numerous benefits of caring for children.Feminists, like Sara Ruddick (1989), have no doubt that mothering children is a w orthwhile activity from which men can benefit.Her analysis of m othering indicates three dem ands that mothers o f children m ust fulfil.One is the satisfaction o f basic needs and protection of children through loving care.Children also dem and edu cation and nurturance in the sense o f stim ulating and guiding emotional and intellectual growth.Mothers also have to train their children to become socially acceptable.To fulfil these demands, mothers must be able to think!Ruddick (1989) judges m aternal thinking to be a distinct discipline which has characteristic intellectual capacities, judgem ents, attitudes, and values.A mother, Ruddick (1989:24) argues, "asks certain questions ..., she accepts certain criteria for truth ..., she cares about the findings ..., establishes criteria for determ ining failure and success, sets priorities, and identifies virtues ..." The com plexities o f m othering involve more.Virginia Held (1987:U S -119) argues that mothering is as creative as m anufacturing new products or producing innovative ideas.M othering shapes a new individual's language, culture, and social skills, making a child literate to become a com petent participant in a human community.M othering also develops moral values in a new individual that translates into appropriate caring relationships.A dult mothering needs to make itself superfluous through leading children to become autonomous, interdependent persons with their own unique identities.Held (1997) points to the complex judgem ents mothering requires to gradually guide and em power a child towards growing privacy, autonomy, and self-reliance within relationships of constantly shifting interdependence.
Men can gain several advantages if they become involved in a parenting role that includes mothering functions.Deeper attachm ents to their children, joy at the growth and developm ent of a child, and inner satis faction gained through selfless service are some.Judith Kegan Gardiner Feminists warn men involved in parenting to stay m odest about their newly adopted roles.Men still have a choice of getting involved in caring for their children, unlike women who are socialized into child-caring roles as their "natural roles" they are obligated to fulfil.In m ost cases women are the ones with final responsibility for children, w ithout any significant choice and whether they want to or not.Some m en's m odest involve ment thus not yet equalizes the responsibilities and burdens of child care.
Once men understand some of w om en's issues and experiences better and have chosen to treat women with the respect due to equal citizens and with the recognition due to unique individuals, they can view women with a com plex judgem ent that has many significant values and factors involved.New ways of viewing women would exclude stereotyping, but include seeing women as equals.Furthermore, treating women as individuals would bring awareness of all kinds o f differences that must be respected and appropriately responded to.Men must become able to see that some women are like them in im portant respects, e.g. in being a philosopher.Sim ultaneously they must be aware that there might be differences between them, e.g.different roles in fam ily life.
The correct response to sim ilarities and differences W here and when to respond to similarities and differences can be intuitively grasped and sensitively applied in some cases, whilst being aware o f the other person's reaction and feedback.In other cases the nature, conditions, and boundaries o f relationships need to be negotiated to reach mutual consent about appropriate behaviour.Feminism will have reached an im portant goal if men would judge wom en just like they judge other men -continually determ ining w hat relationship is possible with another person based on all relevant characteristics and circum stances.Then wom en could say, as Sim one de Beauvoir (1997:11) suggests, "she would seek ... m erely a comrade, a friend, a partner, ... a relation between equals", regardless which sphere of life or w hat kind of human activity form s the context.
In an open dialogue between wom en and men about w om en's frustrations with the system atic injustice men perpetrate against women as a distinct group in society, many men may deny any role in committing or perpetuating injustice against women.Some men might truly be blameless.In their case, Andrea Dworkin (1988) says, they need to com m unicate their innocence to other men in the hope o f changing those men to relinquish their sexist life-styles.Similarly, Dworkin advises men who openly express their com m itm ent to equality in the com pany of fem inists to m ake that com m itm ent true in relation to the wom en they deal with everyday.Men sharing a com m itm ent to fem inist ideals are w elcom e to participate in the fem inist struggle, but are cautioned to play a supporting role rather than trying -again!-to take over w om en's own struggle.Harry Brod (1998:202) argues in support o f m en's background role by saying that "insights about gender will more reliably com e from wom en than from m en", which makes intuitive sense.
There is no doubt that many men resist transform ation guided by legitimate fem inist aims, because such transform ation could undermine ideas and roles they grew up with and judge to be as natural as breathing.Often men are willing to change in some areas o f their lives, but not others, as Naomi W o lf (1993:27) describes, "Som e men are egalitarians at home and patriarchalists at work, or egalitarians with their daughters and patriarchalists with their w ives".David A. Kahane (1998: 2 2 2 ) articulates how disruptive legitimate fem inist claim s to justice might be on men, "he'd lose his sense of secure grounding in the world -his faith in his own judgem ents, emotions, and desires.Every aspect of his self would become suspect ...".Lengthy dialogue between wom en and men exploring all issues in depth, awareness of how human relations and institutions are constructed and reproduced, and shared inter pretations o f the public values embodied in the South African C onstitu tion, ought to deal with such problems.

Practical application: Marriage
One o f the favourite slogans of the fem inist m ovem ent is "the personal is political".Okin (1989:124) calls this slogan the core idea o f contem porary feminism and Elshtain (1981:202) describe the overriding imperative of feminists as the attem pt to "redefine the boundaries of the public and private, the personal and political".I have earlier argued in favour of an extension o f the scope of justice that would bring various aspects of household life under public moral evaluation.I have also argued that women m ust be judged as unique individuals within a broader framework that entails treating women as citizens of equal human dignity and worth.
In the light o f these arguments, the fem inist slogan can be extended, "If the personal is political, then let's politicize the personal" I want to take marriage as an exam ple o f how this would work.
W hat benefits would result if the central political values embodied in the South African Constitution were applied to marriage relationships?Would politicizing m arriage relationships provide reason for sensitive romantics to shudder or would it liberate marriage to become a secure space where two consenting adults o f equal dignity can establish a reciprocally de fined, meaningful, enriching, and mutually rewarding relationship?I hope to establish the second option.To do this, I first apply the rights, that the South African constitution grants to wom en as equal citizens, to marriage relationships.Next I apply dialogue as the preferred style o f human com munication to decision-m aking in marriage relationships.Lastly I draw some im plications for sex in marriage.
It seem s absurd to suggest that a wom an as citizen o f a liberal dem ocracy leaves her human rights, granted to her by her country's constitution, outside when she enters the home she shares with her partner in marriage.For w hat reason could a marriage relationship nullify her right to life so that her husband could m urder her? Could any reason nullify her right to be free from all form s of violence, so that her husband could physically abuse her if he thinks she needs to be "disciplined"?Any suggestion that marriage implies a relationship w here one or both partners have no human rights like these against the other seems almost too incomprehensible to consider.
Carole Pateman (1989:219) correctly asks whether a person can be "at one and the same time, a free dem ocratic citizen and a wife who gives up a vital aspect of her freedom and individuality, the freedom to refuse consent and say 'no' to the violation of the integrity o f her person?"Anne Phillips (1991:30) is even more blunt in her remark that feminists stress that "inequalities in marriage and the household make a nonsense of equal political rights".She argues that w om en's experiences in their households "continually undercut the possibilities for dem ocracy" and thus political equality requires "substantial changes in the domestic sphere" (Phillips, 1991:99-100).
If rights to life and to be free from violence apply inside m arriage as much as they do outside, w hat about other rights?Should they not be fully valid in m arriage relationships as well?A right sim ilar to the one to be free from all form s o f violence is that no person may be treated in a cruel, inhuman, or degrading way.Could there be good reasons to grant a marriage partner the freedom to treat the other partner in this way?Or should one rather suggest that a liberal dem ocratic state protecting its citizens from cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatm ent in the public sphere ought to have an interest in protecting them in the private sphere as well?Once cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatm ent manifests in a marriage relationship, true love takes a back seat or has disappeared.In such cases the state ought to intervene to protect the suffering partner from severe physical or psychological harm.If this is the case, then marriage partners ought to have such rights against one another.
The argum ent underlying the rem arks about human rights and marriage thus far is the following.A marriage relationship does not nullify the human rights citizens in any modern constitutional dem ocracy are accor ded by the constitutions operative in their countries.If this idea is con vincing as far as rights go that intend to prevent serious harms, w hat about other rights?If "everyone" has the right to make decisions concerning reproduction, it is difficult to see w hat kind of reason can take that right away from a wom an in m arriage (RSA Const., 1996: Art. 12, par. [2] a).It is unthinkable that her husband could m ake this decision for her, as that would place her in a position o f a m inor in relation to her husband -clearly not justifiable to a free and equal citizen.A t most a wom an could be required to make a joint decision about reproduction with her husband, based on dialogue that leads to consensus.This consensus m ust not result from any form o f coercion or intimidation.In cases w here partners fail to reach consensus, the right of "everyone" to make decisions concerning reproduction com es alive again to protect the wom en against being coerced or forced into som ething that radically affects her body.
Sim ilar argum ents can be made for rights to privacy, freedom o f thought, expression, association, movement, and protest that wom en have according to the South African Constitution.These rights ought to trump any other considerations that would allow one partner to dom inate and rule the personal life o f an equal citizen assigned all the custom ary dem ocratic liberties by a country's constitution.Only in cases when a partner voluntarily waives a right without any coercion or intim idation involved, can a m arriage be considered to be free from the dem ands of such rights.W aiving rights sim ply to "preserve the peace", which mostly means keeping a dom inating partner satisfied so that the partner does not do further harms, already suggests a relationship where coercion and intimidation have invaded spaces for free decision-making.
If marriage is a relationship between two free and equal citizens with all their human rights operative in their relationship, then how ought they to make decisions about their shared interests and responsibilities?The process of decision-m aking lies at the root of m ost cases of marital oppression and many deep frustrations result when that process is unfair and privileges one partner at the expense of the other.This process of decision-m aking is important as a result of the wide range of issues it potentially draws within its scope.
Marriage partners share most of the following interests and responsi bilities about which decisions must be made.They must manage their own love relationship by spending time together, giving each other sufficient attention of the right kind, and taking care of each other as need arises.Their sexual relationship is linked to all the issues previously mentioned, but include intimate and private aspects of their bodies, minds, and values as well, making it a particularly sensitive area.Sexual relationships mostly lead to offspring that place high demands in terms of resources and care.A wide range of issues needs to be decided, the division o f joys, responsibilities, and burdens that care for children requires from both marriage partners.M arriages are about many more kinds of human relations, of which relations with in-laws, friends, and colleagues have not even been mentioned as shared interests!Marriage partners -depending on their socio-econom ic status -also share various kinds of assets, that may include a residence, household goods, vehicles, a garden, investments, and so on.Their assets need care, such as m aintenance, cleaning, administration, and replacement.
How do two free and equal South African citizens in a marriage relationship divide the benefits and burdens of their shared interests and responsibilities?In the light of the strong value of autonom y underlying the human rights of the South African constitutional democracy, the marriage partners m ust make those decisions for them selves without being prescribed to from outside their relationship.If they have the responsibility to make out these issues for them selves, there is no other way than joint decision-m aking based on dialogue.Both partners must be willing to subm it to this process and abide by its outcomes.If they realistically determ ine their individual strengths and weaknesses, recog nize their talents, and take account of their available time, they ought to be able to reach a fair division of benefits and burdens that would be appropriate for their personal characteristics and circumstances.
Som eone might object that marriage partners have no m echanism to break deadlocks when they strongly disagree, as they would always be stuck with their voting resulting in a tie.This objection fails to take account o f the context o f decision-m aking.Decision-making in marriage is not only between two partners responsible for shared interests and duties.The partners making decisions are not only equal partners, but also friends and lovers.Autocratic decisions against the will o f a partner and negatively affecting that partner's life will have repercussions on their friendship, their love life, and sexual relations.Sichterm ann (1986:10) eloquently form ulates the link between sex and other aspects of marriage: A Sichterm ann continues to explicitly link w om en's problem s in experien cing orgasm to the "time, behaviour, and experience before the event" (Sichtermann, 1986:11).M istreating a partner in decision-m aking will thus have its own penalties.Integrity in m arriage is thus required, treating a partner according to the same values and with the same respect throughout all dim ensions o f marriage.
W hat im plications does a view o f m arriage as an institution limited by both partners' human rights, w here decision-m aking takes place on the basis of equal partners engaging in dialogue, have for sex between the partners?Although sex is an "archetypically private act," Jane Mansbridge argues that "patterns of sexual interaction encode and maintain patterns o f unequal power that reverberate beyond the private realm" (Mansbridge, 1993:64).Equality -or its absence -in a relationship can m ake a m ajor difference to sexual relations.In a m arriage relationship w here a husband strongly dominates, the sexual act resem bles sex between cattle.No foreplay, no m utuality, no elegance, and no sensitivity is involved.Only a brief penetration when the cow allows the bull when she intuitively knows that she is physiologically ready for the act.Simone de Beauvoir (1997:12) eloquently articulates this kind o f sex between humans: In contrast to sex between cattle, ostriches show a different approach.Eloquent foreplay consisting o f a dazzling display of black and white feathers in a lover's dance precedes the sexual act to which the female gives explicit consent.This comparison is much closer to sex between equal human partners, although still much poorer in content and meaning.Perhaps ostrich lovemaking still have too much o f males being the desiring subjects who are to become conquerors of the females, while the females play too much of the role of seductress who are content to be the desired object (cf. Sichtermann, 1986:7-11).
Equality in human sexual relations requires more than eloquent foreplay between desiring conquerors and desirable seductresses.Sichtermann (1986:12) argues for expansive sexual roles w ithout firmly set patterns, but rather consisting of "possible behaviour patterns with room for an array o f behaviour patterns".In such roles, women and men would both be subject and object, desirer and the desired, as some of the possibilities to be played out during sexual interaction.As a result, sexuality would become a "union of m ale-female activity and passivity" (Sichtermann, 1986:119).In sexual relations characterized as being reciprocally interdependent, both partners would be deeply satisfied.In relations o f domination where men deny women opportunities to express their desires and to actively explore their own fulfilment, both partners are harmed (Sichtermann, 1986:119).If one partner is deprived of free dom s and opportunities enjoyed by the other, both will suffer, as the level of sexual satisfaction experienced by one partner is strongly affected by the satisfaction -or lack thereof -experienced by the other (Sichter mann, 1986:119).
W here human sexuality have open spaces within a secure relationship, partners can be them selves with someone they trust implicitly.They can reveal their innerm ost being in a relationship where emotional intimacy exists that enables them to share their deepest feelings with their partner.As equal partners they take the initiative in turn to guide their partner to deeper levels of intimacy and pleasure that enrich their shared love.De Beauvoir (1997:12) articulates this kind of sex from her viewpoint as a w o m a n ,"... she, like him, is a consenting, a voluntary gift; they live out in their several fashions the strange ambiguity of existence made b o d y ...".

Feminist men in South Africa?
How should South African men react to legitimate feminist claims to justice that are supported by the central values o f the South African Constitution?Should men grudgingly grant women new spaces justified by their legitimate claim s to justice, or should they willingly and gladly give women the spaces owed them long ago?To "grudgingly grant" suggests a willingness to allow women in new spaces and to give them their legitimate places.W hat is noticeably absent is a new attitude welcom ing w om en to full status as equals and rejoicing about the elim ination o f injustice.To "willingly and gladly give" suggests changed ideas and attitudes about w om en that w elcom e them as full and equal partners w ho have been liberated from oppression and domination.Fem inist men are men with this attitude.
M ust South A frican men becom e "fem inist m en"?If a fem inist man m eans a man docilely accepting fem inist views, no.Such a man would be too confused by the w ide variety o f fem inist theories currently available.If a fem inist man m eans a man that constructively engage fem inists in dialogue as equal South African citizens with the aim of addressing their claim s to justice in partnership with them , then the answ er is yes.Yes, if you like to be labelled or to be placed in a category; if not, a fem inist man can sim ply be called a person w ho has becom e more hum an through elim inating injustice that he m ight have been co-responsible for, through having m ore m eaningful relations with w om en as equals, and through deeper appropriation and implem entation of the shared public values South Africans chose as foundational for their society.

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