8.4 /10 1 Votes
Language English ISBN 978-0140174878 Subject Feminism | 4.2/5 Goodreads Pages 456 (1994 edition) Originally published 1980 Page count 456 (1994 edition) Country United Kingdom | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Series Penguin Women's Studies Media type Print (Hardcover and Paperback) Similar Janet Radcliffe Richards books, Woman books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Sceptical Feminist: A Philosophical Enquiry (1980; second edition 1994) is a book about feminism by the English philosopher Janet Radcliffe Richards.
Contents
Summary
Richards defends liberal feminism against both anti-feminists and radical feminists. She argues that feminism should not be concerned with benefiting a particular group of people (women) but with removing a particular kind of injustice.
Scholarly reception
The Sceptical Feminist has been influential, but it has been criticized for being "too unworldly in its understanding of women's oppression, and insufficiently radical in the remedies it proposes." Susan Mendus writes that Richards provides little discussion of inequalities of power which perpetuate injustice, and accepts that "women's work" is less fulfilling and valuable than work outside the home, commenting, "Richards's feminism is logical rather than ideological, cerebral rather than celebratory." The book was controversial within and outside feminism, in regard to standards of rationality, fashion and style, and Richard's liberal stance.
Philosopher Christina Hoff Sommers expressed agreement with some of Richard's arguments in Who Stole Feminism? (1994).