Feminism And Philosophy Essential Readings In Theory, Reinterpretation, And Application

Feminist philosophy has had a powerful impact not just on philosophy but on other disciplines as well. This imaginatively edited anthology enables readers to sample this literature widely and to trace the breadth and the depth of its influence.

The past twenty years have seen an explosion of work by feminist philosophers and several surveys of this work have documented the richness of the many different ways of doing feminist philosophy. But this major new anthology is the first broad and inclusive selection of the most important work in this field. There are many unanswered questions about the future of feminist philosophy. Which of the many varieties of feminist philosophy will last, and which will fade away? What kinds of accommodations will be possible with mainstream non-feminist philosophy? Which will separate themselves and flourish on their own? To what extent will feminists change the topics philosophers address? To what extent will they change the very way in which philosophy is done? However these questions are answered, it is clear that feminist philosophy is having and will continue to have a major impact on the discipline of philosophy. This volume is the first to allow the scholar, the student, and other interested readers to sample this diverse literature and to ponder these questions for themselves. Organized around nine traditional “types” of feminist philosophy, Feminism and Philosophy is an imaginatively edited volume that will stimulate readers to explore many new pathways of understanding. It marks a defining moment in feminist philosophy, and it will be an essential text for philosophers and for feminist theorists in many other fields.

Preface -- Credits -- Introduction -- Liberal Feminist Perspectives -- The Sexual Politics of the New Right: Understanding the “Crisis of Liberalism” for the 1980s -- Early Liberal Roots of Feminism: John Locke and the Attack on Patriarchy -- The Moral Significance of Birth -- Marxist Feminist Perspectives -- The Feminist Standpoint: Developing the Ground for a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism -- Reproducing Marxist Man -- The Family as the Locus of Gender, Class, and Political Struggle: The Example of Housework -- Radical Feminist Perspectives -- Sexuality, Pornography, and Method: “Pleasure Under Patriarchy” -- To Be and Be Seen: The Politics of Reality -- Moral Revolution: From Antagonism to Cooperation -- Psychoanalytic Feminist Perspectives -- Family Structure and Feminine Personality -- Political Philosophy and the Patriarchal Unconscious: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Epistemology and Metaphysics -- Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Heterosexual Imperative -- Socialist Feminist Perspectives -- Life Without Father: Reconsidering Socialist-Feminist Theory -- What’s Critical About Critical Theory? The Case of Habermas and Gender -- The Politics of Socialist Feminism -- Anarcha Feminist and Ecological Feminist Perspectives -- Anarchism and Feminism -- Healing the Wounds: Feminism, Ecology, and Nature/Culture Dualism -- Bureaucracy and Public Life: The Femininization of the Polity -- Phenomenological Feminist Perspectives -- Toward a Phenomenology of Feminist Consciousness -- Pregnant Embodiment: Subjectivity and Alienation -- Breast Cancer: Power Versus Prosthesis -- Postmodern Feminist Perspectives -- Cultural Feminism Versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory -- Sorcerer Love: A Reading of Plato’s Symposium, Diotima’s Speech -- Reading the Slender Body -- Perspectives on the Intersections of Race, Class, and Gender -- Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism and the Demand for “The Woman’s Voice” -- Race, Class, and Psychoanalysis? Opening Questions -- The Social Construction of Black Feminist Thought