Women In Political Theory

"This book Looks at how misogyny and western political thought were intertwined in their origins and how this relationship has worked itself out through the classic texts of traditional and modern political thory. In this revised edition. the analysis of these texts is accompanied by a new introduction and conclusion which bring the debates on this topic up to date. The concluding chapter examines contemporary feminist theory by discussing pooststructuralist and postmodernist themes, which allows for a reappraisal of the critical perspcti..."

In this pathbreaking study of the works of Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, and Mill, Susan Moller Okin turns to the tradition of political philosophy that pervades Western culture and its institutions to understand why the gap between formal and real gender equality persists. Our philosophical heritage, Okin argues, largely rests on the assumption of the natural inequality of the sexes. Women cannot be included as equals within political theory unless its deep-rooted assumptions about the traditional family, its sex roles, and its relation to the wider world of political society are challenged. So long as this attitude pervades our institutions and behavior, the formal equality women have won has no chance of becoming substantive.

This wide-ranging and accessible book provides a thorough overview of the key debates in gender and political theory.

The first volume to explore comprehensively the intersection of feminism, politics, and philosophy, Women in Political Theory sheds light on the contributions of women philosophers and theorists to contemporary political thought. With close attention to the work of five central thinkers-Sarah Grimké, Anna Julia Cooper, Jane Addams, Rosa Luxemburg and Hannah Arendt-this book not only offers sustained analyses of the thought of these leading figures, but also examines their relationship with established political theorists of the past, such as Locke, Machiavelli, and the ancients. Demonstrating that each of the figures covered was indeed a political theorist of her time, whilst highlighting the strength of her thought and the reasons for which it has not been accorded the attention that it merits, Women in Political Theory offers a fascinating overview of the political thought of five theorists whose work is central to an understanding of modern thought. As such, it will be of interest to scholars and students of sociology, philosophy, political and social theory, feminist thought, and gender studies.

Publisher description: This book examines the role of the female and the feminine in Plato's philosophy, and suggests that Plato's views on women are central to his political philosophy. Morag Buchan explores Plato's writings to argue his notions of the inferior female and the superior male. While Plato appears to allow women equal opportunity and participation of political life in the Ideal State in The Republic, his motivation rests on masculine ideals. Women in Plato's Political Theory examines issues including women's relationship to men, to reproduction, to rational thought and politics in Plato's work, and addresses more generally the problem of sexual identity in philosophy. This book is an important contribution toward a wider interpretation of Platonic philosophy.

Conference papers, political theory, women, UK - womens rights, womens organizations, political participation. Bibliography.

This title was first published in 2002: Christine de Pizan held no political office and her work was not influencial on any political theorist living today. However, in the disciplines of women's studies and French literature she has inspired intellectual debate, so much that the two sides of the debate are referred to as Christinophiles and Christinoclasts. This book persents the political paradoxes of Christine de Pizan. She was a woman in a man's world, an Italian at a French court, and the daughter of a civil servant in a world structured by social class. Her corpus of political works include five works designed to educate the male ruling class, two works expressly princesses and a treatise on warfare. The goal of this book is to outline the political theory of Christine de Pizan and situate her ideas within the history of political ideas in general.

In Gender, Class, and Freedom in Modern Political Theory, Nancy Hirschmann demonstrates not merely that modern theories of freedom are susceptible to gender and class analysis but that they must be analyzed in terms of gender and class in order to be understood at all. Through rigorous close readings of major and minor works of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and Mill, Hirschmann establishes and examines the gender and class foundations of the modern understanding of freedom. Building on a social constructivist model of freedom that she developed in her award-winning book The Subject of Liberty: Toward a Feminist Theory of Freedom, she makes in her new book another original and important contribution to political and feminist theory. Despite the prominence of "state of nature" ideas in modern political theory, Hirschmann argues, theories of freedom actually advance a social constructivist understanding of humanity. By rereading "human nature" in light of this insight, Hirschmann uncovers theories of freedom that are both more historically accurate and more relevant to contemporary politics. Pigeonholing canonical theorists as proponents of either "positive" or "negative" liberty is historically inaccurate, she demonstrates, because theorists deploy both conceptions of freedom simultaneously throughout their work.