Key Feminist Philosophers

Why This Matters

Feminist philosophy isn't just about memorizing names and book titles—it's about understanding how thinkers across centuries have challenged the very foundations of how we think about gender, identity, power, and knowledge. When you encounter these philosophers on an exam, you're being tested on your ability to trace the evolution of feminist thought: from Enlightenment arguments for women's rationality, through existentialist critiques of gender construction, to contemporary theories of intersectionality and performativity.

Each philosopher here represents a distinct approach to answering fundamental questions: What is gender? How is it constructed? Who gets excluded from feminist movements? Don't just memorize that Judith Butler wrote about performativity or that Kimberlé Crenshaw coined "intersectionality"—know why these concepts emerged, what problems they solved, and how they connect to or critique earlier feminist frameworks. That's what FRQs will ask you to demonstrate.

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Foundations: Enlightenment and Existentialist Roots

These philosophers established the philosophical groundwork for feminist thought by arguing that women's subordination is socially constructed rather than natural—a radical claim that challenged centuries of essentialist thinking.

Mary Wollstonecraft

• Wrote "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" (1792)—the first major philosophical argument that women deserve equal education and are capable of reason
• Critiqued Enlightenment hypocrisy by applying rationalist principles to gender, arguing that denying women education made their supposed "inferiority" a self-fulfilling prophecy
• Laid groundwork for liberal feminism by framing women's rights as a matter of justice and rationality rather than sentiment

Simone de Beauvoir

• "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman"—this famous line from The Second Sex (1949) introduced the idea that gender is socially constructed through lived experience
• Developed the concept of "the Other" to explain how women are defined negatively in relation to men, who represent the default human subject
• Applied existentialist philosophy to gender, arguing that women must claim their own freedom rather than accept roles imposed by patriarchal society

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Second-Wave Critiques: Domesticity and Patriarchy

These thinkers challenged mid-twentieth-century assumptions about women's "natural" roles, exposing how cultural institutions and literary traditions reinforced gender oppression.

Betty Friedan

• "The Feminine Mystique" (1963) named "the problem that has no name"—the widespread dissatisfaction of suburban housewives who were told domesticity should fulfill them
• Sparked second-wave feminism by documenting how postwar American culture trapped educated women in unfulfilling domestic roles
• Co-founded the National Organization for Women (NOW), translating philosophical critique into political organizing for legal equality

Virginia Woolf

• "A Room of One's Own" (1929) argued women need material independence—specifically money and private space—to create literature and intellectual work
• Pioneered feminist literary criticism by examining how patriarchal structures excluded women from the literary canon and creative professions
• Connected economic conditions to intellectual freedom, showing that women's absence from history wasn't about ability but about access

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Intersectionality: Race, Class, and Multiple Identities

These philosophers challenged mainstream feminism's tendency to center white, middle-class women's experiences, arguing that gender cannot be understood in isolation from race, class, and sexuality.

Kimberlé Crenshaw

• Coined "intersectionality" (1989) to describe how race and gender create overlapping, compounding forms of discrimination that can't be addressed separately
• Critiqued both feminist and anti-racist movements for failing to account for Black women, who fall through the cracks of single-axis frameworks
• Transformed legal theory and feminist philosophy by providing a framework for analyzing how multiple identity categories interact in systems of oppression

bell hooks

• "Ain't I a Woman?" (1981) examined how sexism and racism together shape Black women's experiences—challenging white feminism's claim to speak for all women
• Advocated for feminism as a movement to end all domination, not just gender oppression, emphasizing that liberation must be collective and transformative
• Wrote accessibly and prolifically to make feminist theory available beyond academia, insisting that theory must connect to lived struggle

Audre Lorde

• Emphasized "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house"—arguing that feminist movements must transform their methods, not just their targets
• Championed the power of difference rather than sameness, insisting that acknowledging race, sexuality, and class differences strengthens rather than divides movements
• Modeled intersectional identity as a Black lesbian feminist poet, showing how marginalized positions offer unique insights into systems of power

Gloria E. Anzaldúa

• "Borderlands/La Frontera" (1987) introduced "mestiza consciousness"—a way of thinking that embraces contradiction, ambiguity, and multiple cultural identities
• Theorized the U.S.-Mexico border as both physical and psychological, exploring how Chicana women navigate between cultures, languages, and expectations
• Expanded intersectionality to include cultural and linguistic identity, advocating for feminism that celebrates rather than erases difference

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Poststructuralism and Beyond: Destabilizing Identity

These philosophers push further, questioning whether stable identity categories like "woman" are useful at all, and imagining radically fluid understandings of gender and embodiment.

Judith Butler

• Developed gender performativity theory in Gender Trouble (1990), arguing that gender isn't something you are but something you do through repeated stylized acts
• Challenged the sex/gender distinction by suggesting that even biological sex is interpreted through cultural frameworks—there's no pre-discursive "natural" body
• Foundational for queer theory, opening space to question heteronormativity and imagine gender beyond the binary

Donna Haraway

• "A Cyborg Manifesto" (1985) rejected origin stories and natural boundaries—using the cyborg as a figure that blurs human/machine, nature/culture, male/female
• Advocated for "situated knowledges" against claims of objective, universal knowledge, arguing all knowledge is partial and embodied
• Influenced feminist science studies by examining how scientific discourse constructs gender and nature, and imagining liberatory alternatives

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Quick Reference Table

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Self-Check Questions

1. Compare and contrast de Beauvoir's concept of "the Other" with Crenshaw's "intersectionality"—how does each explain women's subordination, and what does intersectionality add that de Beauvoir's framework lacks?

2. Which two philosophers would you pair to discuss how material conditions (money, space, labor) shape women's intellectual and creative possibilities?

3. If an FRQ asked you to explain how gender is constructed rather than natural, which philosopher provides the most radical version of this argument, and why?

4. Identify two philosophers who critique mainstream feminism's exclusions—what specific groups or experiences do they argue are left out?

5. How does Butler's theory of gender performativity differ from de Beauvoir's claim that "one becomes a woman"? What's at stake in this distinction?