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The Feminist Philosophies : An Overview Of The Issues By Karen J. Warren

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Karen J. Warren in her article "Ecological Feminist Philosophies: An Overview of the Issues" presents a definition of a conceptual framework as "a socially constructed set of basic beliefs, values, attitudes, and assumptions that shape and reflect how one views oneself and others. It is oppressive when it explains, justifies, and maintains relationships of domination and subordination. An oppressive conceptual framework is patriarchal when it explains, justifies, and maintains the subordination of women by men." (Warren xii) In her other article "Feminist Environmental Philosophy", Warren adds to this definition the notion of the unjustified "isms of domination," examples of these "isms" are: sexism, racism, classism, and ethnocentrism. Warren argues that these isms of domination share conceptual roots in five features of an oppressive conceptual framework. The first feature is "value-hierarchical, Up-Down thinking that attributes greater value to that which is “Up” than to that which is “Down”," (Warren 2015: 9) developing a morality based on dominance and exploitation, with men Up and women Down. The second feature is "oppositional (rather than complementary) and mutually exclusive (rather than inclusive) value dualisms, which place greater value (status, prestige) on one disjunct over the other," (Warren 2015: 9) with men and culture attributed greater value than that of the devalued women and nature. The third and fourth features of oppressive conceptual frameworks "are

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