IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jhudca/v6y2005i2p167-183.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Women's Bodies: Violence, Security, Capabilities

Author

Listed:
  • Martha Nussbaum

Abstract

Violence against women is a global problem of great magnitude. After laying out some sample data on violence against women, I argue that this violence, and its ongoing threat, interferes with every major capability in a woman's life. Next, I argue that it is the capabilities approach we need, if we are to describe the damage done by such violence in the most perspicuous way and make the most helpful recommendations for dealing with it. But the capabilities approach will be helpful in this area only if it develops effective arguments against cultural relativism and in favor of a context-sensitive universalism, and only if it is willing to make some claims, albeit humble and revisable, about which capabilities are most deserving of state protection, as fundamental entitlements of all citizens. Finally, I sketch some possible implications of the capability approach for public policy in this area.

Suggested Citation

  • Martha Nussbaum, 2005. "Women's Bodies: Violence, Security, Capabilities," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(2), pages 167-183.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jhudca:v:6:y:2005:i:2:p:167-183
    DOI: 10.1080/14649880500120509
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14649880500120509
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/14649880500120509?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. David A. Clark & University of Manchester, 2005. "The Capability Approach: Its Development, Critiques and Recent Advances," Economics Series Working Papers GPRG-WPS-032, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    2. Hadia Majid & Rashid Memon, 2016. "Group inequality and regional development: Evidence from Pakistan: Evidence from Pakistan," WIDER Working Paper Series 151, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Pearson Nkhoma & Helen Charnley, 2018. "Child Protection and Social Inequality: Understanding Child Prostitution in Malawi," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 7(10), pages 1-20, October.
    4. Shatanjaya Dasgupta, 2019. "Attitudes About Wife-Beating and Incidence of Domestic Violence in India: An Instrumental Variables Analysis," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 40(4), pages 647-657, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jhudca:v:6:y:2005:i:2:p:167-183. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CJHD20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.