ABSTRACT
Western philosophy has often placed emotions in opposition to reason and argued that a person cannot be both emotional and fully rational at the same time. This tradition has also associated women with emotionality; the claim that women are more emotional than men is a recurring theme in discussions of women’s capabilities. Moreover, these two traditional claims about emotions often appear intertwined. The consequence is problematic for feminists. If women are more emotional than men, and if emotionality conflicts with reason, then women are less qualified than men for tasks requiring rational capacities, e.g., politics, scholarship, economics, etc.
