Many are married as happily as members of other groups. But they work for greater equality for women in work, and in pay. They want respect for women equal to that given to men. For thousands of years the work and experience of women has been different from that of men and it continues to be different. Women do the bulk of caring for children, the old and the sick.
Women do the bulk of domestic work, regardless of whether they have other work outside of the house.
Women, in most families, are the ones to remember and arrange celebrations of birthdays and anniversaries. They maintain relations to relatives and friends. They wipe away tears, help get over disappointments, and strengthen the pride of children and adults. Against the background of this experience, many traditional concepts of philosophy, such as autonomy, knowledge and power look rather different from the way in which they appear in traditional Western thought. Feminist Theory uncovers these different meanings of traditional philosophical concepts.