The Woman of Reason

This text challenges the direction taken by much recent work in the field of feminist studies. It mounts a defence of humanism - a tradition of which many contemporary feminists have been sharply critical. Many feminists have viewed reason and rationality with deep suspicion. They have argued that reason was constructed by male philosophers in a way that excluded feminine traits: the man of reason was a masculine fiction. But this rejection of humanism assumes that there is only one tradition of humanism and only one conception of the rational individual.