Anne Phillips

A Stanford University Press classic.

Democracy is the central political issue of our age, yet debates over its nature and goals rarely engage with feminist concerns. Now that women have the right to vote, they are thought to present no special problems of their own. But despite the seemingly gender-neutral categories of individual or citizen, democratic theory and practice continues to privilege the male. This book reconsiders dominant strands in democratic thinking - focusing on liberal democracy, participatory democracy, and twentieth century versions of civic republicanism - and approaches these from a feminist perspective. Anne Phillips explores the under-representation of women in politics, the crucial relationship between public and private spheres, and the lessons of the contemporary women's movement as an experience in participatory democracy.

The discussion of pre-colonial slavery shows how slavery became integrated into the new colonial economy. If colonialism was the product of capitalism, as conventional wisdom would have it, why were the intersts of capitalism so ill-served? This is the central enigma which Anne Phillips confronts in this study of British colonial policy formulation in West Africa. North America: Indiana U Press