Author Description

<p>"To be a philosopher and to be a feminist are one and the same thing. A feminist is a woman who does not allow anyone to think in her place."-from <i>Hipparchia's Choice</i> <p>A work of rare insight and irreverence, <i>Hipparchia's Choice</i> boldly recasts the history of philosophy from the pre-Socratics to the post-Derrideans as one of masculine texts and male problems. The position of women, therefore, is less the result of a hypothetical "femininity" and more the fault of exclusion by men. Nevertheless, women have been and continue to be drawn to "the exercise of thought." So how does a female philosopher become a conceptually adventurous woman? Focusing on the work of Sartre and Beauvoir (specifically, his sexism and her relation to it), Michèle Le Doeuff shows how women philosophers can reclaim a place for feminist concerns. Is <i>The Second Sex</i> a work of philosophy, and, if so, what can it teach us about the relation of philosophy to experience? Now with a new epilogue, <i>Hipparchia's Choice</i> points the way toward a discipline that is accountable to history, feminism, and society.</p>