Overview

Woman: History and Critique of a Polemical Concept follows the changes in the concept of 'woman' from the Early modern to the post-colonial age, using the words of women who challenged its patriarchal definition to understand its transformations. Rudan convincingly argues that the concept of 'woman' is doubly polemical. It affirms sexual difference as political difference, while denying the universal character of modern political concepts that emphasize the unity of the political and social order by exposing its fundamental division. At the same time, 'woman' is a concept marked by differences-of race, class, culture-that continually redetermine its content. To trace the history of the concept of 'woman' is thus to affirm a different perspective on history itself, a partial perspective that lays the groundwork for the feminist critique of the present.

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Paola Rudan is Professor of History of Political Thought at the University of Bologna. She has published monographs on Simón Bolívar and Jeremy Bentham, and several articles on the history of women's political thought and feminist political theory.

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