Iris Marion Young
Justice is not just about who gets what, but about ending oppression and domination, which wear many faces in everyday life.
Placement
Political philosopher: justice is not only distribution but the absence of oppression and domination, which has five faces; “throwing like a girl” shows how a body learns its limits from society.
Key ideas
- Five faces of oppression
- Politics of difference
- Throwing like a girl
Influence
Influenced by 4
Simone de Beauvoir
influenced by ✓
Young started from Beauvoir’s account of woman as both subject and object to describe the inhibited bodily comportment of girls (‘Throwing Like a Girl’, 1980). I. M. Young, “Throwing Like a Girl”, Human Studies 3 (1980); S. de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième Sexe (1949)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Simone de Beauvoir › 1908–1986
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
influenced by
Young applied Merleau-Ponty’s motor intentionality to feminine bodily comportment, finding an ‘inhibited intentionality’ caught between ‘I can’ and ‘I cannot’ (‘Throwing Like a Girl’, 1980). I. M. Young, “Throwing Like a Girl”, Human Studies 3 (1980); M. Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception (1945)
Evidence: AI draft
Maurice Merleau-Ponty › 1908–1961
Michel Foucault
influenced by
Young drew on Foucault’s analysis of power in everyday practices to define oppression as structural, not as rule by tyrants (Justice and the Politics of Difference, 1990). I. M. Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (1990); M. Foucault, Surveiller et punir (1975)
Evidence: AI draft
Michel Foucault › 1926–1984
Jürgen Habermas
influenced by
Young took up Habermas’s discourse model of deliberative democracy but widened it to include greeting, rhetoric and narrative as forms of political communication (Inclusion and Democracy, 2000). I. M. Young, Inclusion and Democracy (2000); “Communication and the Other”, in S. Benhabib (ed.), Democracy and Difference (1996)
Evidence: AI draft
Jürgen Habermas › 1929–2026
Influenced 1
Sally Haslanger
influenced
Haslanger took up Young’s account of oppression as structural, arising from institutions and practices rather than individual ill will (‘Oppressions: Racial and Other’, 2004; Resisting Reality, 2012). S. Haslanger, “Oppressions: Racial and Other”, in M. P. Levine and T. Pataki (eds.), Racism in Mind (2004); Resisting Reality (2012); I. M. Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (1990)
Evidence: AI draft
Sally Haslanger › b. 1955
Criticism
Mutual critique 1
Nancy Fraser ⇄ mutual
criticised
Young objected that Fraser’s dual framework of redistribution and recognition splits apart what belongs together: cultural and economic injustice are intertwined in the same structures (‘Unruly Categories’, 1997). I. M. Young, “Unruly Categories: A Critique of Nancy Fraser’s Dual Systems Theory”, New Left Review 222 (1997); reply: N. Fraser, “A Rejoinder to Iris Young”, New Left Review 223 (1997)
Evidence: AI draft
criticised by
Fraser objected that Young’s Justice and the Politics of Difference (1990) runs together cultural and political-economic injustice and affirms group differences that justice may require abolishing (1995). N. Fraser, “Recognition or Redistribution? A Critical Reading of Iris Young’s Justice and the Politics of Difference”, Journal of Political Philosophy 3 (1995); I. M. Young, “Unruly Categories”, New Left Review 222 (1997)
Evidence: AI draft
Nancy Fraser › b. 1947
Criticizes 2
Hannah Arendt
criticised
Young took up Arendt’s distinction between guilt and political responsibility but tied responsibility to participation in unjust structures, not to membership in a polity (Responsibility for Justice, 2011). I. M. Young, Responsibility for Justice (2011), ch. 3 “Guilt versus Responsibility: A Reading and Partial Critique of Hannah Arendt”; H. Arendt, “Collective Responsibility” (1968)
Evidence: AI draft
Hannah Arendt › 1906–1975
John Rawls
criticised
Young argued that the ‘distributive paradigm’ dominant since Rawls misses institutional structures of oppression and domination (Justice and the Politics of Difference, 1990, ch. 1). I. M. Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (1990), ch. 1
Evidence: AI draft
John Rawls › 1921–2002
Works
A phenomenology of feminine bodily comportment: how girls learn to inhibit their own movements.
Five faces of oppression – exploitation, marginalisation, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, violence – and a critique of the distributive paradigm.
Position
Young’s early essay “Throwing Like a Girl” applied Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology to Beauvoir’s claim that women are made, not born: girls learn to move within a limited space and to treat their bodies as fragile objects, and this comportment is social, not natural. “Justice and the Politics of Difference” argued that the “distributive paradigm” dominant since Rawls misses what justice is mostly about: institutional structures that oppress and dominate. She distinguished five faces of oppression – exploitation, marginalisation, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence – and defended a politics in which difference is represented rather than assimilated.
Life & context
Iris Marion Young (1949–2006) was born in New York, studied at Queens College and Pennsylvania State University and taught at Worcester Polytechnic, Pittsburgh and, from 2000, the University of Chicago. She combined political theory with feminist activism and work on urban policy, and was a visiting fellow in Princeton, Frankfurt and Canberra. She died of cancer at fifty-seven, leaving a last book on responsibility for structural injustice, published posthumously.
Further main works
- Inclusion and Democracy (2000)
- Responsibility for Justice (2011)
Appears in
- Journey ‘What Is Just?’ · Stop 9 of 10
- Debate ‘Justice and Equality’
- Debate ‘Do We Deserve Our Success? Meritocracy’
As of November 2026 · Sources · Improve this page · How Agora is made