Emancipation and “The Woman Question”

The core theoretical argument of this chapter is that emancipation enables people to more fully engage in the choice and learning required to become the version of themselves they want to be. In order to explore this theory and its implications, I connect the contributions of early liberal contributors on “the woman question”—including Mary Astell, Mary Wollstonecraft, and John Stuart Mill—with the work of subjectivist social and political theorists like F. A. Hayek, Ludwig Lachmann, and J. M. Buchanan, who considered participation in choice processes to be essential to both personal flourishing and to cultivating one’s ability to contribute to the social world. These arguments are consistent with the early liberal feminist thinkers who argued that women were held back by being excluded from both education and the opportunity to learn from their own actions. If women are denied the ability to choose for themselves, their personal development, productive engagement with the community, and ability to make social contributions will all be impeded. As such, women, their communities, and society at large are all better off when women are emancipated.

Find the chapter here.