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Expressive Identity as Feminist Ethics: A New Model of Political Legitimacy through Vulnerability Theory

Citizenship
Gender
Political Participation
Critical Theory
Feminism
Austerity
Ethics
Policy Change

Abstract

This Paper argues that a feminist critique of law drawing from theories of precarity* and vulnerability* provides an ethics of resistance to the model of political legitimacy which privileges a harmful gendered dynamic of productivity and participation. Building a model of social interaction from the dynamics of signalling behaviours,* we find that political legitimacy depends upon a gendered conception of ‘instrumental identity.’ Linking gender conformity with ‘in-group’ behaviours, ‘instrumental identity’ privileges identity performance which contributes to an economic-growth model of the perception of human value. A feminist ethics of ‘expressive identity’ challenges political legitimacy founded on the economic value of humans, and locates human value in the free expression of self. Vulnerability theory can be used to advocate re-focusing law and policies of work and welfare towards prioritising caring in the private sphere.* Distancing perceptions of human value from economic productivity creates conceptual space for a new model of political legitimacy based in an ethics of equality and encouraging political participation through the free expression of identity. *Judith Butler, Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable?, (London: Verso. 2010) *Martha A. Fineman, “The Vulnerable Subject and the Responsive State” in Emory Law Journal, Vol. 60 No. 2 (2010-2011); Jonathan Herring, Caring and the Law, (London: Hart Publishing.2013) *Eric A. Posner, “Symbols, Signals, and Social Norms in Politics and the Law” in The Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. XXVII (June 1998); Brian Druzin, “Law, Selfishness, and Signals: An Expansion of Posner’s Signalling Theory of Social Norms” in Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, Vol. XXIV No. 1 (January 2011) *Susan Bisom-Rapp and Malcolm Sargeant, Lifetime Disadvantage, Discrimination and the Gendered Workforce, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2016)