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(3) An ideological creation (an unrealistic emphasis on self-determination
at the exclusion of the social makes the individual appear autonomous
when in reality it is not) (Brown 1993).
Feminist theorists see the very basis of individualism, the autonomous individual, as a
masculine construct. Traditionally, individuality, authenticity, autonomy, and
independence are traits to which only men have had access (because of cultural beliefs,
laws of citizenship and property ownership, etc). It is not that women are unable to
achieve authenticity or autonomy, but rather that these options have been shut off to
women because of the way “woman” has been constructed. The Enlightenment
philosophers upon whose ideas the autonomous individual is founded “did not intend to
include women within the population of those capable of attaining freedom from
traditional forms of authority” (Flax 1997, 173). Men were defined as capable of “self-
emancipation,” “autonomy of reason,” and “objective truth”—not women.
For example, authenticity refers to understanding oneself, experiencing and
recognizing the real self: “To be authentic requires acting at one’s own behest both at a
feeling level and also at an intellectual, reflective one” and “the more autonomous is an
action, the more authentic is the self” (Griffiths 1995, 179). Elissa Melamed argues that
“authenticity” is a luxury women have not been able to afford:
Our dependence on men has taught us to dance the shuffle. We sold out
long before our forties—probably in our early adolescence when we
decided that others could determine how we should look, think, and
act…We sold out because, much more than men, we have been socialized
to conform (1983, 195-6).
Stereotypes abound, in popular culture and academic culture, which suggest that men are
“active,” women “passive.” Of the very long list of “feminine” traits that Klein found in
the work of past social scientists, independence and autonomy are not found. In fact,
Convention