A Glimpse into America’s Liberal Democracy Stunting Womens’ Personhood

Abstract

Personhood, as examined by Martha Nussbaum, is defined as “autonomy, self respect, and a sense of fulfillment and achievement” (Nussbaum 56). In this paper, we extrapolate this definition of personhood to modern conceptions of democracy. Hence, democratic personhood would be defined as autonomy, self-respect, and sense of fulfillment through the representative means of political representation and equal economic opportunity. With a liberal feminist lens, ideally, democratic personhood can be achieved. But is this the reality of our current political and social institutions?