Feminist social and political theory

Starting with the liberal demand for equality, and the subsequent challenge to equality offered by the first feminist philosophers, this chapter traces the feminist understanding of sexual difference and other differences - including the difference between human and animal. It is argued that, on the one hand, feminism is a movement with primarily practical goals - of achieving a better condition for women - and that this movement would deploy political and social theory accordingly, and, on the other hand, that it could also be the case that the very nature of women as a group might require new modes of theorizing and new modes of political grouping.