A Feminist (unintended) reading of Hannah Arendt's political thought

Abstract

Feminist literature on Hannah Arendt's political thought is rich and diverse. From an initial critical approach by second-wave feminism, to feminist and post-feminist proposals from the 1990s onwards that take Arendt's legacy as a conceptual and hermeneutical framework to strengthen their own theorizations. In the following paper we will analyze the different feminist approaches that have dealt with Arendt's work and thought. On the one hand, we will start from the conservative position presented by the author herself and how her personal idiosyncrasy influenced the first feminist critiques that revealed the limits of her thought. On the other hand, we will look at the main readings that interpret Arendt's thought from a proto-feminist point of view, but which, as we will note, go beyond Arendt's own intentions.