Women in Western Political ThoughtIn 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. |
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achieve AFTERWORD argues argument Aristotle Aristotle's asserts assumption Athenian citizens claims clearly conclusions considered contemporary context defined dependent Discourse on Inequality discrimination discussion Emile entire Equal Rights Amendment equality Ethics example existence fact father female sex FEMINISM freedom functionalist functions gender Greek happiness household human husband ideal ideas important individual innate institutions interests John Stuart Mill justice Laws Letter to d'Alembert LIBERAL FEMINIST lives male man's marriage means ment Mill Mill's moral Moreover mother NATURAL WOMAN Nichomachean Ethics Nouvelle Héloise Okin opinion Pateman patriarchal family perceived persons Plato political theory Political Thought potential pregnancy prejudice private wives radical rational reason regarded reproduction Republic Rousseau Saint-Preux says sex roles sexual slaves Social Contract society Socrates Sophie sphere status structure Subjection of Women subordination Supreme Court theorists things tion traditional treatment of women U.S. Supreme Court virtue wife