Abstract: Turning to concrete questions of justice for women, Sen introduces the issue of ‘co-operative conflicts’ and argues that these conflicts are often rooted in traditional conceptions of women's role, which are internalized as ‘natural’ by the women themselves. Sen's contention is that the capabilities approach can handle these conflicts better than Rawlsian liberalism and economic utilitarianism. To Sen, the central problem is to confront the underlying prejudice directly and to outline the need for and scope of reducing inequalities in capabilities without accepting that this project necessarily causes great inefficiency.

Keywords: capabilities, co-operative conflicts, gender justice, justice, Rawls, utilitarianism,