Women in the History of Political Thought

As one reads the classic works of political philosophy one is limited to books written by male authors. When reading interpretations of these authors it seems that the male philosophers were only concerned with the male citizen. Arlene Saxonhouse argues that these classic authors, from Plato to Machiavelli, while they praised the world of male public action, also recognized that the public world was not the totality of human existence. These authors, Saxonhouse says, saw that a private sphere which included women existed, and that that sphere set limits upon and defined the possibilities of the public world. She argues further that the authors did not ignore the female, rather it is the inadequacies of modern scholarship that have made them appear to have done so. This volume shows how women have been an integral part of political philosophers' vision of the world, not a scattered side show in certain philosophical works.

?This important book raises questions that are central to the study of women and the understanding of political life. It should be read by advanced scholars and students alike.... Saxonhouse's recovery of the classical thinkers' appreciation of the world beyond politics sharpens, rather than resolves, questions about the costs of a gendered division of labor and about how men and women should function as political creatures. For that very reason Saxonhouse's book makes a significant contribution to both the history of political thought and contemporary feminist theory.?-American Political Science Review, "This important book raises questions that are central to the study of women and the understanding of political life. It should be read by advanced scholars and students alike.... Saxonhouse's recovery of the classical thinkers' appreciation of the world beyond politics sharpens, rather than resolves, questions about the costs of a gendered division of labor and about how men and women should function as political creatures. For that very reason Saxonhouse's book makes a significant contribution to both the history of political thought and contemporary feminist theory."-American Political Science Review

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