The Sceptical Feminist

The Sceptical Feminist: A Philosophical Enquiry

The 1980 hardback edition
Author Janet Radcliffe Richards
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre Philosophy
Published 1980 (Penguin Books)
Media type Print
Pages 456 (1994 edition)
ISBN 0-14-017487-7

The Sceptical Feminist: A Philosophical Enquiry is a book about feminism by the English philosopher Janet Radcliffe Richards. First published in 1980, an expanded edition was published in 1994.[1]

Summary

Richards defends liberal feminism against both anti-feminists and radical feminists. She argues that feminism should not be concerned with benefiting a particular group of people (women) but with removing a particular kind of injustice.[2]

Scholarly reception

The Sceptical Feminist has been influential, but it has been criticized for being "too unworldly in its understanding of women's oppression, and insufficiently radical in the remedies it proposes." Susan Mendus writes that Richards provides little discussion of inequalities of power which perpetuate injustice, and accepts that "women's work" is less fulfilling and valuable than work outside the home, commenting, "Richards's feminism is logical rather than ideological, cerebral rather than celebratory."[2] The book was controversial within and outside feminism, in regard to standards of rationality,[3] fashion and style, and Richard's liberal stance.[4]

Christina Hoff Sommers expressed agreement with some of Richard's arguments in ''Who Stole Feminism? (1994).[5]

References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Richards 1994. p. 4.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Mendus 2005. p. 781.
  3. ↑ Battersby 1991. p. 200.
  4. ↑ Whelehan 1995. pp. 39-40.
  5. ↑ Sommers 1994. pp. 27, 278.

Bibliography

Books
  • Mendus, Susan (2005). Honderich, Ted, ed. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-926479-1.
  • Richards, Janet Radcliffe (1994). The Sceptical Feminist: A Philosophical Enquiry. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-017487-7.
  • Sommers, Christina Hoff (1994). Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-80156-6.
  • Whelehan, Imelda (1995). Modern feminist thought: from the second wave to "post-feminism". Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0814793002.
Journals