Between Femininity And Feminism Colonial And Postcolonial Perspectives On Care

This book engages with the contribution of feminist thinkers to examine their transformation of the activity of philosophy itself in the course of its contact with the feminine. It also portrays how the feminist philosophy brings about a greater awareness of philosophy's relation to history, culture and other disciplines. The author vividly puts into limelight the struggle between femininity and feminism in the philosophical corpus of feminist thinkers with reference to the concept of care. She takes pioneering feminism during the colonial period as its starting point and moves to its second wave during the post-colonial period to examine the trajectory of the concept of care. Women do not form a homogeneous category. Therefore, this volume explores the extent to which Ramabai, Wollstonecraft, Okin, Gilligan and de Beauvoir can dialogue with the contemporary women. The relationship between these thinkers and their arguments is conceptually connected. The book addresses a few questions such as what is femininity, can one define feminine at all, how does a feminist feminine differ from a patriarchal feminine, can male philosophical frameworks be employed in feminist directions, among others. The book also investigates the shifts from the colonial to post-colonial periods in the feminist approaches to care. It examines the possibility of integrating feminine care with the political concepts of justice and autonomy. An added task of intervening in the conceptual categories of Western feminism in an attempt to blur the strict binary between the Indian and Western traditions, is also explored.