Equality/difference

the paradox of feminine citizenship according to Joan Scott

Abstract

This article aims to launch one more reflection in the academic context of Brazil, specifically in the field of social sciences, on controversial and challenging subjects as gender, equality, difference and construction of the individual. The effort in developing this set of ideas comes from the intention to analyze the theoretical-methodological works of the American historian Joan Scott, specifically his work, Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man. In the analysis of explanation of the theoretical and conceptual framework of these studies, we observed formulations, differences and contradictions. Notions that define not only the interpretations of the author in view of the state of the art, as well as understandings that reflect serious and secular situations that impact on women’s lives. Among them differential access to material goods and spiritual society, to the author, the overarching factor of inequality. Deep down all these attempts to construct a feminist epistemology postulate a social theory multicultural and emancipatory character, hence its importance as a study.