Practice question · True or false
Pateman argues that contract theorists simply forgot to consider women.
Hints
- Consider whether the theorists discussed the family.
- They discussed it explicitly and placed it outside the contract.
Show the answer
False
Why
False, and the distinction is the whole point. They discussed the family at length and placed it deliberately outside the contract; the contracting "individual" is specified as property-holding, independent and male-headed. Pateman's claim is that the exclusion is structural, the argument needed it, rather than an oversight that later reformers could simply correct.
Practise The Liberal State and Its Contracts
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