Caring for Justice, New York, 1997

1997. West, Robin. Caring for Justice. New York and London: New York University Press, [1997]. ix, 356 pp. Hardcover in dust jacket. Fine. $25. * Over the past decade, mainstream feminist theory has repeatedly and urgently cautioned against arguments which assert the existence of fundamental?or essential?differences between men and women. Any biological or natural differences between the sexes are often flatly denied, on the grounds that such an acknowledgment will impede women's claims to equal treatment. In Caring for Justice, Robin West turns her sensitive, measured eye to the consequences of this widespread refusal to consider how women's lived experiences and perspectives may differ from those of men. Her work calls attention to two critical areas in which an inadequate recognition of women's distinctive experiences has failed jurisprudence. We are in desperate need, she contends, both of a theory of justice which incorporates women's distinctive moral voice on the meaning of justice into our discourse, and of a theory of harm which better acknowledges, compensates, and seeks to prevent the various harms which women, disproportionately and distinctively, suffer.