PRESENTATION

Feminism as emancipation movement establishes a world-view from the women standpoint, it's a reflection and a theoretical construction. For this reason feminism is a philosophy. Feminism as an exercise to grasp and analyse, and as an exercise of valué and meaning, and as a proposal of radical utopia, is a very original philosophy which is situated, which has struggled to be recognised as such.

Thinking, from we women, and about us during the most of history has remained hidden, or has been pushed aside to margins and intellectual borders, has been estimated as «in minor tone» or as «things proper of women», «beauty parlour themes» —as usually said long ago—, just simple whispers that we women interchange, or self-investigation only interesting for ourselves. How should have been different if the official philosophy contributed to divide the world between the masculine principie of human rationality and feminine principie of natural instinct and sensibility (proper of nature)?

Patriarchal civilisation refused the access of women to knowledge and education, so is possible that a philosophical reflection of women subjected only to the oral level stretching back from ancient times is lost forever. The Greek Logos, being the ground of Western philosophy was completely male, yet Plato express through the mouth of Sócrates the admittance of receiving from Diotima a lot of knowledge about the nature and origin of love, of Eros, and other epistemological forms. After all, Sócrates said that his maieutic method was developed as imitation of his mother's activity, a midwife, as the art to bring thoughts to birth. Despite, most of historians of philosophy consider Diotima only as a figure who was created, nonexistent at all.

And so the course of human reflection went on up to twenty century, with the women in the margin, at the edges, because as Umberto Eco puts: «It is not the case that there is a lack of female philosophers. It happened that male philosophers preferred to forget them, and these men have rather taken hold of women's thoughts». Really in every respect is the opposite: much of the most influential philosophy legitimated the misogyny. The most classic examples can be found in Thomas Aquinas, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche.

Against all the conditions on access, control and diffusion about knowledge rebelled many women, starting from the question on the témale condition, because the question put by Sor Juana resound inside all rebel girls: «[women], don't they have a rational soul like men?» (letter to Father Núñez,1682). In their search for knowledge, témale thinkers (scientists, humanists, artists, etc.) were fighters for their right and women striving for the intellectual life at the same time.

Critical thinking from women can not avoid facing up androcentrism, either from diverse points of view to produce a Copernican revolution for understanding and transformation of the world. For the reason of bringing a support as perspective and visión can be assured that all feminism is a philosophy. We feminist women are obliged to philosophize, and we can not philosophize but only from ourselves, as situation and being into the world.

In the following pages a set of papers will be found from our fellows, representing a good sample of current ideas and discussions on feminism, which under the condition of legitímate philosophical thinking, pretend not only to understand the world, but to change it also.

A. C.