The Epistemological Foundations of the Feminist Citizenship Concept

Abstract

The criticism from feminist political theory toward the concept of citizenship can be understood from a broad conception of epistemology and gnoseology in general. From this perspective, the axis of the feminist criticism is directed to the conception of the individual as universal citizen, based on the contractualist theory, arguing that it is has been built from a restricted universalism that unveils a gender bias. Thus, the article suggests that the epistemic support of the feminist analysis to the notion of citizenship concerns a challenge to the category of a subject of universal rights, proposing this recognition as a key to obtain the emancipation of women in relations of domination, arguing, on this basis, that the division between the public space and the private sphere is a fiction. From there, emerges the questioning by the type of subjects that should underpin the model of citizenship, from which feminism has based an important part of its proposal to transform the conception of politics as a space that recognizes the gender gap and sustains equity.