ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the three "waves" of feminism: early feminism and the right to vote; the challenge of structural inequalities in the economy and the society that disadvantage women; and gender essentialism that denies gender choices to people. It considers feminist critiques of some influential philosophers, and examines several of the contributions that feminist philosophers have made to the ongoing struggle for gender equality in political thinking, political theory, and civil society. Many political thinkers in recent years have exposed the way in which much of traditional political theory has denied women a chance for full participation in the public realm. Politics is in part an elaborate defense against the tug of the private, against the lure of the familial, against evocations of female power. One soon realizes that finding a "higher" place in the working world does nothing for liberation from patriarchal domination.
