Unlike our counterparts in Europe who have rewritten their specific cultural philosophical heritage, American feminists have not yet critically reappropriated our own philosophical tradition of classical American pragmatism. The neglect is especially puzzling, given that both feminism and pragmatism explicitly acknowledge the material or cultural specificity of supposedly abstract theorizing. In this article I suggest some reasons for the neglect, call for the rediscovery of women pragmatists, reflect on a feminine side of pragmatism, and point out some common features. The aim is to encourage the further development of a feminist revisioning of pragmatism and a pragmatist version of feminism.

Cosmetic surgery provides a problematic case for feminist theorizing about femininity and women's relationship with their bodies. Feminist accounts of femininity and beauty are unable to explain cosmetic surgery without undermining the women who opt for it. I argue that cosmetic surgery may have less to do with beauty and more to do with being ordinary, taking one's life into one's own hands, and determining how much suffering is fair.

Political agency is vital to the formulation of a feminist politics so feminists have attempted to create a subject that eschews the sexism of the Cartesian subject while at the same time retaining agency. This paper examines some of the principal feminist attempts to reconstitute the subject along these lines. It assesses the success of these attempts in light of the question of whether the subject is a necessary component of feminist theory and practice.

In Speculum of the Other Woman (1974), Luce Irigaray argues that “any theory of the subject has always been appropriated by the masculine.” This paper offers an analysis of Irigaray's critique of subjectivity and examines the psychological mechanism referred to as “the phallic economy of castration.” A different way of conceiving the relation between subject and object is explored by imagining a new subject of desire.

Reason has regularly been portrayed and understood in terms of images and metaphors that involve the exclusion or denigration of some element—body, passion, nature, instinct—that is cast as “feminine.” Drawing upon philosophical insight into metaphor, I examine the impact of this gendering of reason. I argue that our conceptions of mind, reason, unreason, female, and male have been distorted. The politics of “rational” discourse has been set up in ways that still subtly but powerfully inhibit the voice and agency of women.

Feminist philosophy seems to conflict with traditional philosophical methodology. For example, some uses of the concept of gender by feminist philosophers seem to commit the genetic fallacy. I argue that use of the concept of gender need not commit the genetic fallacy, but that the concept of gender is problematic on other grounds.

Marjorie Shostak's ethnography, Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman, is analyzed as a case study of feminist social science. Three principles of feminist research are suggested as standards for evaluation. After discussion of the principles and analysis of the text, I raise a criticism of the principles as currently sketched. The entire project is framed by the question of how best to resolve conflict between researcher and participant accounts.

The feminist in academe, says Paula Bennett, is like Procne married to Tereus, “inextricably wedded to the sources of her harm.” An ethical justification of academic feminism can be found, not in cooperation and affiliation, but in the strategies currently necessary to ensure curricular and cultural diversity. Historically contextualized and strategically politicized, this ethic is founded on the claim that universities are places where we may all learn to know what is other than ourselves.

This piece sets the scene for the inaugural addresses by Rosi Braidotti and Selma Sevenhuijsen which follow and provides background information on the history of women's studies in the Netherlands.

Inaugural lecture as Professor of Women's Studies in the Arts Faculty of the University of Utrecht, May 16, 1990.

Inaugural lecture as Professor of Women's Studies in the Social Science Faculty at the University of Utrecht.

A Response to Puka's “The Liberation of Caring: A Different Voice for Gilligan's ‘Different Voice’”

A response to S. Elise Peeples's comment “Her Terrain is Outside His ‘Domain.’”

A comment on Susan Wendell's paper “Oppression and Victimization; Choice and Responsibility” that appeared in Hypatia 5(3).

A response to Maryann Ayim's “In Praise of Clutter as a Necessary Part of the Feminist Perspective.”

A response to the exchange between Esther Frances and Helen Bequaert Holmes on the contents of Hypatia.