SOURCE: Fair, Gardner. Review of Sex and Social Justice, by Martha Nussbaum. Social Theory and Practice 25, no. 2 (summer 1999): 344-52.

In the following review of Sex and Social Justice, Fair asserts that, while Nussbaum carefully balances different sides of the questions she addresses, she fails to reconcile her abstract theories with historically specific realities.

In recent years, at least two distinct tendencies within contemporary Western feminist debates have emerged. The first involves the internationalization of feminist theory and politics, and the second involves a critique of “victimization.” Both of these tendencies have influenced the feminist arguments found in Martha Nussbaum's recent book, Sex and Social Justice.

Feminist theory is only one of several areas that Nussbaum has written on, and in our age of academic specialization, her interdisciplinary breadth is intriguing. She began her career in the classics of Greek and Roman antiquity, writing The Fragility of Goodness: Luck...