The concept of patriarchy, or rule by “fathers,” throughout human history sparked much social and textual analysis, which was brought to theoretical completion by Carole Pateman in The Sexual Contract (1988). Pateman argued that when modern social contract theory was constructed by Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and John Locke (1632–1704), women were left out of the political equation and relegated to private life.

Iris Young (1949–2006), a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, addressed the connection between female social roles and political structures in Justice and the Politics of Difference (1990) and Inclusion and Democracy (2000). Young also addressed women’s disempowered bodily comportment in her 1980 essay “Throwing Like a Girl” (included in a book by the same name in 1990). In addition, feminist philosophers have welcomed and discussed the work of University of Michigan Law School professor Catherine MacKinnon.