The Dominant Tradition in Western Philosophy Has Tended to Assign

Essay

The dominant tradition in Western philosophy has tended to assign a privileged role to a detached version of reason, denigrating the body and emotion while overlooking how this point of view is itself patriarchal and culturally biased. Western feminist philosophers have offered broad critiques of this tradition and its patriarchal (or masculinist)assumptions. Write an essay detailing this perspective, focusing first on the feminist critique of patriarchal assumptions about sex and gender. Then look at how feminists challenge cultural assumptions about three of the following issues: nature; the body and reason; gender, moral reasoning, and emotion; science; and language.