Excellent question. "Feminist Philosophy" as a title covers a range of types of philosophy that are united in the goal of offering a critique of patriarchy and exploring the positive contributions philosophically that are made in light of being female (in terms of both gender and sex, and in terms of the extent to which gender is a social construct, etc). I take your point about why the term "feminist philosophy" seems out of place with the nature of philosophy because the term denotes advocacy and commitment to a particular position, rather than a more open-ended inquiry into questions of gender, sex, social realities, and the like. But I suggest that the term is no less philosophical than terms like 'Marxism' or 'Marxist philosophy' or 'Kantian philosophy' and the like. Perhaps your concern is (at heart) the worry that if a person is a self-described feminist philosopher (or Marxist or Christian or Idealist ...philosopher) this suggests that the person is no longer open to alternatives. Good point....

I suggest that when a person calls or describes a gender or species or event or thing as beautiful, this implies or signals that the person believes the gender etc is worthy of aesthetic pleasure or delight. There need not be anything sexist or demeaning in this, and it does not suggest that the object of delight is merely an object of delight or that the beautiful "object" (or the object of beauty) is in some sense passive. One might claim 'the women Olympic athletes swam beautifully today' or 'the women soldiers performed beautifully in their rescue of the orphans yesterday when they met with severe resistance from the hostage-takers' without any sexism coming into play. Going a bit further: I suspect the phrase "women are beautiful" is somewhat odd. I suppose one might first want to know the scope of the reference: are all women beautiful or the majority or a significant number of women are beautiful? Are women all beautiful in the same way? What are the reasons for thinking all or many or...

Good question! First, there have almost always been women in philosophy in the west, though their status has been very difficult owing to Patriarchy. There is an excellent four volume work called A History of Women in Philosophy, published by Springe. This largely addresses what women philosophers have thought and think (the history goes up to the early 19990s) but you can also find in it pictures of how males viewed females in philosophy. The history is sad; Aristotle was bad, Plato a bit better (he thought women could be rulers in an ideal republic). For a catalogue and examination of the grim ways women have been viewed in culture and the history of ideas, you might check out Simone de Beauvoir's classic, ground breaking book The Second Sex, published in 1949. So, the Springer History will give you a good look at the classical scene, and you might also look at Genevieve Lloyd's The Man of Reason:'Male' and 'Female' in Western Philosophy, published in 1984. For two early modern works arguing for...

Excellent question! You are right that utilitarianism or other ethical theories may well be able to advance causes that are central to a feminist outlook. The reason why an ethics of care has been historically associated with feminism is largely because it was seen as an important contrast to the mostly male dominated field of ethics in which justice and impartial rationality were seen as central. So, at one point John Rawls was seen as the leading architect in post-world war two ethics of a rational political theorist (celebrating a thought experiment in which one imagines oneself behind a veil of ignorance). When Carol Gilligan then came of the scene with an ethics of care, it was supposed by many that Gilligan was the feminist response to the more male oriented Rawlsian framework. But really there is no reason in principle why one could not embrace Rawls' outlook and feminism (or many or most feminist ideals), and one could embrace some versions of an ethics of care and yet (because of some...