Iris Marion Young facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Iris Marion Young
Born	(1949-01-02)January 2, 1949 New York City, U.S.
Died	August 1, 2006(2006-08-01) (aged 57) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Education	Queens College Pennsylvania State University
Institutions	University of Pittsburgh University of Chicago
Main interests	Contemporary political theory, feminist social theory, and public policy
Influences Beauvoir Derrida Foucault Habermas Marx Merleau-Ponty
Influenced Benhabib

Iris Marion Young (born January 2, 1949 – died August 1, 2006) was an American thinker who studied how societies work. She was a professor at the University of Chicago. Iris Young focused on ideas about fairness, especially for different groups of people. She also taught about politics, women's rights, and how government rules affect everyone. She really believed in people getting involved to make things better in their communities.

Early Life and Education

Iris Young was born in New York City. She studied philosophy at Queens College and graduated with high honors. Later, she earned her Master's degree and a PhD in philosophy from Pennsylvania State University in 1974.

Iris Young's Career and Teaching

Before working at the University of Chicago, Iris Young taught political ideas for nine years. This was at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. Before that, she taught philosophy at places like the Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Miami University.

In the summer of 1995, Young was a visiting professor in Frankfurt, Germany. She also held special visiting positions at many universities and institutes around the world. These included the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and the Australian National University.

What Iris Young Studied

Iris Young was interested in many different topics. She explored modern ideas about justice and how to make things fair. She also looked at democracy and how different groups of people fit into it. Her work included feminist political theory, which focuses on women's roles and rights in politics. She also studied how gender, race, and public rules affect society.

Social Groups and Fairness

A main idea in Young's thinking was that fairness isn't just about treating each person as an individual. She believed it was important to recognize social groups. This is because unfairness often affects groups of people in similar ways. For example, certain rules or ways of doing things might limit a whole group.

Because of this, Young argued for a "politics of difference." This means that treating everyone exactly the same might not fix problems for groups who have faced unfairness. Instead, we need to address the specific challenges faced by different groups. She thought that simply treating everyone equally might not be enough to truly make things fair for all.

Five Types of Unfairness

One of Iris Young's most famous ideas is her "five faces of oppression." She wrote about this in her book Justice and the Politics of Difference (1990). She explained that there are at least five different ways people can be treated unfairly. These are:

• Exploitation: When some people benefit from the hard work of others without giving them fair value.
• Marginalization: When a group of people is pushed aside and kept from participating fully in society.
• Powerlessness: When some people have little to no say in decisions that affect their lives.
• Cultural domination: When the ideas and ways of life of one group are seen as better than others.
• Violence: When people are harmed or threatened just because they belong to a certain group.

Young believed these different types of unfairness could not be simply explained by one single cause.

Understanding Body Movement

One of Young's well-known essays is "Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment Motility and Spatiality." In this essay, she looked at how girls and boys move differently. She explored how girls are taught to limit their body movements. This can make them feel less confident in doing tasks later in life. Her essay built on ideas from other thinkers like Simone de Beauvoir.

Unfair Social Systems

Iris Young also talked a lot about "structural injustice." This means that unfairness can be built into how society works. It's not always about one bad person doing something wrong. Instead, it's about rules, habits, and ways of life that make things harder for some groups. These systems can limit opportunities for many people.

Young said that because most of us are part of these systems, we all have a role in fixing them. She called this the social connection model of responsibility. This idea is different from just blaming one person for a problem. Instead, it asks how we can all work together to make things fairer for everyone. She believed that if our actions contribute to unfair systems, we have a shared responsibility to change them.

She used this idea to talk about real-world problems, like unfair working conditions in factories. She suggested that consumers in rich countries have a responsibility to help fix these problems.

The social connection model has five main points:

• It does not isolate blame to just one person.
• It looks at the background conditions that might seem normal but are unfair.
• It is forward-looking, focusing on how to fix things in the future.
• It involves shared responsibilities among many people.
• It can only be fixed through collective action, meaning people working together.

Later Life

Iris Young was married to David Alexander. They had a daughter named Morgen Alexander-Young.

Iris Young passed away at her home in Chicago on August 1, 2006. She was 57 years old and had been battling esophageal cancer.

Remembering Iris Young

After her death, many groups honored Iris Young's work. The Center for Gender Studies at the University of Chicago renamed its lecture series after her. The University of Pittsburgh also created the Iris Marion Young Award for Political Engagement in 2008. This award recognizes students and staff who work to make a positive impact in their communities.

Penn State University also created the Iris Marion Young Diversity Scholar Award. This award helps students from groups that are often underrepresented to study philosophy. These students learn about Iris Young's ideas as part of their studies.

In 2009, a book called Dancing with Iris: The Philosophy of Iris Marion Young was published. It was dedicated to her ideas. The American Political Science Association also gives an award in her honor, called the Okin-Young Award in Feminist Political Theory.

See also

In Spanish: Iris Marion Young para niños