Feminist interpretations and political theory

This volume brings together feminist readings of famous classic and contemporary texts from Plato to Rawls. The collection also includes examinations from the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft and Simone de Beauvoir which are usually excluded from the works conventionally held to comprise "Western political thought". The feminist scholars focus on neglected arguments and silences in the texts and raise fundamentally important questions about the significance of sexual difference in the great works of political theory. A diversity of feminist approaches and theoretical frameworks are represented, forming a variety of interpretations and argument about such questions as the patriarchal construction of central political categories, the relation between public and private life, and the problem of equality and difference, including differences among women.