This paper recovers and pays homage to the arguments in support of the equality of the sexes developed by the Seventeenth Century Cartesian philosopher François Poullain de la Barre (1647-1723).
This paper was originally presented as part of a panel entitled "Feminist Philosophy After Twenty Years" at the 1993 meeting of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association (APA). It is a discussion of the conditions that needed to be-and were-present in the United States in the 1970s in order for feminist philosophy to take root and flourish.