The "Public Sphere" In The Eyes Of Feminists

Habermas's "The Structural Transformation of Public Sphere" published in 1962, although the advent of the German edition of this book has been quiet for a long time, but it's very important to Habermas. Through this book, Habermas not only to establish his own unique inherent critical model about the methodology, but also found as an ideal type of "public sphere" concept, allowing him to follow their own construct of the idea to build his social model which was called "social interaction". So the idea of public sphere theory is an important foundation for the concept of Habermas. In this book, he proposed the concept of "public sphere" ,but it had not aroused great interest in academy until at the end of the 80's ,when the book was translated into English. The work made the promotions of Communication Studies , sociology, political science, literature and many other fields of innovation and development, also caused a large controversy. For example, theologians believe that Habermas's public sphere model negates the role of religious groups. There are also many challenges from the left-wing academy, they concerned on whether there has a proletarian public sphere. The feminists also challenge this idea. For feminists, the concept of public sphere ignored women. Among them, feminists' criticism for "public sphere" sustained for a long time and caused wide implications.Now, there are many literatures of feminists in academy. This made us could analysis their study of Habermas. Take Chinese academy for example, Habermas's concept of the public sphere, at the turn of the century, have also been made widespread concern. But the feminists from European and American, Chinese academy still don't pay much attention to them. In view of the "public sphere" of Habermas' own academic career, as well as the dual significance of the academic community, the "public sphere" concept of feminists has been done an important corrective efforts. This paper will be take Nancy Fraser as an example, clear up the theory of her so that we can not only to understand the typical contemporary feminist thinking of political philosophy, but also can be more in-depth to discuss today's feminist political thought, as well as the current impact of "public sphere".Fraser's research focuses on social and political theory, feminist theory, cultural studies, social justice. Her representative works about the public sphere, such as "Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics: Redistribution, Recognition, and Participation"; "Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy" have been repeatedly cited as a contemporary feminist political philosophy in foreign countries. In particular, she tried to criticize and reshape the concept of contemporary political theory and her work also have a greater impact. Fraser thought that the idea of "public sphere" has an positive meaning for women liberation, but the account of Habermas was lack of "female view", which ignored the importance of "female public sphere". Its essence is the idea of the the public sphere in bourgeois liberalism, which lack of study of those non-free, non-capitalist, non-competitive public sphere . She carried out a series of comparisons and reflections on the "public sphere" concept to reflect on several theoretical assumptions. And on this basis from the feminist point she try to amend the "public sphere" so that to establish a more diversified choice of "public sphere " in advanced capitalist society. One of them is about the assumption of equal access to public sphere. Habermas, like many other bourgeois liberal intellectuals, agreed to "bracket" the social inequality, and does not regarded equality as a necessary condition for political democracy. But Fraser believes that this way usually benefited to the sovereign group, and inhibit the active participation of the public. And in reality, especially in the stratified society, disadvantaged groups tend to be ignored. Women as the largest vulnerable group, in many cases are still unable to obtain equal access to the public sphere. The second is whether public sphere is a single public sector. Habermas provides a single, multiple public sphere but Fraser thinks that a number of public spheres' association is better. If there is only one public sphere , the lower bound will be excluded. In a single public sphere, women were excluded from this way. But if we can establish a variety of secondary public spheres, those secondary groups, including women is likely to establish their own sub-public sphere. The third is what should be discussed in the public sphere. Habermas believes that the private issues shoule be excluded, and in the public sphere people's topic should be related to the public interests and public affairs. This account should not satisfied Fraser, including the other feminists. For Fraser, the distinction between public and private is not a pre-determined, participants have the ability to decide what is worth talking about, and what are the issues about common concern. Overall, from the entering of the public sphere , the type and association of public sphere and the topics in the public sphere, Fraser has a comprehensive clean-up of the basic assumptions about the concept.What's the characteristics of Fraser's "female public sphere", what's its possibility and defect, what's the relationgship with her whole thinking and what's the response of Habermas will also to be stated in this article.