The Sceptical Feminist
Cover of the first edition
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| Author | Janet Radcliffe Richards |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Penguin Women's Studies |
| Subject | Feminism |
| Publisher | Penguin Books |
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Publication date
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1980 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 456 (1994 edition) |
| ISBN | |
The Sceptical Feminist: A Philosophical Enquiry (1980; second edition 1994) is a book about feminism by the English philosopher Janet Radcliffe Richards.
Richards defends liberal feminism against both anti-feminists and radical feminists. She argues that feminism should not be concerned with benefiting a particular group of people (women) but with removing a particular kind of injustice.
The Sceptical Feminist has been influential, but it has been criticized for being "too unworldly in its understanding of women's oppression, and insufficiently radical in the remedies it proposes." Susan Mendus writes that Richards provides little discussion of inequalities of power which perpetuate injustice, and accepts that "women's work" is less fulfilling and valuable than work outside the home, commenting, "Richards's feminism is logical rather than ideological, cerebral rather than celebratory." The book was controversial within and outside feminism, in regard to standards of rationality, fashion and style, and Richard's liberal stance.
The philosopher Christina Hoff Sommers expressed agreement with some of Richard's arguments in Who Stole Feminism? (1994).
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