Feminism/Philosophers

History of Feminist Philosophy

The very beginnings of Western philosophy have included discussions about the status of women. Plato spoke of women's roles in The Republic. He claimed that while there are some obvious physical differences between men and women, there are some women that are taller, stronger, etc. than most men. Furthermore, Plato claimed that there are no differences between men and women's ability to understand reality and make reasonable judgements about it.

Conversely, Plato's student, Aristotle held a very low opinion of women. Aristotle in his work, Politics claims that women ought to be treated as property. Furthermore, the best a woman can achieve is to rear a fine family.

Topics of Interest to Feminist Philosophers

Feminism within philosophy is a very large field; the topic encompasses most, if not all, disciplines that philosophy covers. Feminists have an interest in subjects ranging from Aesthetics to the Philosophy of Religion, thus it would be dishonest to say that Feminist philosophers study one particular subject or intersection. We can, however, safely say that Feminist philosophers are interested in how gender, race and class (among other things) affect and are affected by philosophy.

Below is a general list of topics that have prominent Feminist interest.