Women in Western Political Thought

Susan Moller Okin (1946-2004) was a prominent feminist philosopher and the Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society at Stanford University. Her books include Justice, Gender, and the Family and Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?

"Okin has written an engaging, serious, careful, and important work that raises the issues of women and politics in their most elemental and pertinent form... A pioneering book."--Benjamin R. Barber, New Republic "A brilliant, clear, sustained drive through the murky history of men's ideas about what they wished women to do into the terra incognita of what women can be... [A] major contribution to political thought."--Christina Robb, Boston Globe "Excellent... Given the generations of scholars who have ignored the obvious, Okin's contribution is tantamount to the child declaring the emperor to be without clothes. Her language is calm, clear, simple, and strong."--Vivian Gornick, Washington Post "Okin's impressive book makes clear that whatever we may have been taught, we cannot read the great political theorists as though 'mankind' means all of us."--Nannerl Keohane, Ethics

• Introduction to the 2013 Edition ix Acknowledgements xix Introduction 3 PART I. PLATO 1. Plato and the Greek Tradition of Misogyny 15 2. Philosopher Queens and Private Wives 28 3. Female Nature and Social Structure 51 PART II. ARISTOTLE 4. Woman's Place and Nature in a Functionalist World 73 PART III. ROUSSEAU 5. Rosseau and the Modern Patriarchal Tradition 99 6. The Natural Woman and Her Role 106 7. Equality and Freedom - for Men 140 8. The Fate of Rosseau's Heroines 167 PART IV. MILL 9. John Stuart Mill, Liberal Feminist 197 PART V. FUNCTIONALISM, FEMINISM AND THE FAMILY 10. Women and Functionalism, Past and Present 233 11. Persons, Women, and the Law 247 12. Conclusions 274 Appendix to Chapter 2 305 Afterword to the 1992 edition 309 Notes 341 Bibliography 387 Index 399