I'm a philosopher and feminist theorist. I am interested in the values that underlie feminist theory and political practice, and much of my research focuses on issues related to women in the global South.
I am currently finishing a trade book entitled The Freedom Myth (Beacon 2024) about why we need to stop thinking feminism's core value is freedom and start thinking it's equality.
My most recent book, Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic (Oxford University Press 2018) asks what values should guide transnational feminist solidarity. I show how feminism can respect cultural and religious differences and acknowledge the legacy of imperialism without surrendering its core ethical commitments. Some of the arguments I develop in the book are condensed for a popular audience in this piece I wrote for The New York Times.
My work on adaptive preferences, including my first book Adaptive Preferences and Women’s Empowerment (Oxford University Press 2011), develops an approach to responding to choices made by oppressed and deprived people that perpetuate their own oppression and deprivation.
My areas of research within philosophy include ethics and moral psychology, political philosophy, and feminist philosophy. I also work in the interdisciplinary fields of development ethics and decolonial and postcolonial feminisms. Some of the transnational practices I have analyzed in this work include microcredit, household divisions of labor, and commercial gestational surrogacy.
I hold the Jay Newman Chair in Philosophy of Culture at Brooklyn College and am Professor of Philosophy and Women's and Gender Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center.
My pronouns are she/her, and I pronounce my last name [KAW]-der.
My agent is Markus Hoffman at Regal Hoffman & Associates.
You can download my cv here.
I am currently finishing a trade book entitled The Freedom Myth (Beacon 2024) about why we need to stop thinking feminism's core value is freedom and start thinking it's equality.
My most recent book, Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic (Oxford University Press 2018) asks what values should guide transnational feminist solidarity. I show how feminism can respect cultural and religious differences and acknowledge the legacy of imperialism without surrendering its core ethical commitments. Some of the arguments I develop in the book are condensed for a popular audience in this piece I wrote for The New York Times.
My work on adaptive preferences, including my first book Adaptive Preferences and Women’s Empowerment (Oxford University Press 2011), develops an approach to responding to choices made by oppressed and deprived people that perpetuate their own oppression and deprivation.
My areas of research within philosophy include ethics and moral psychology, political philosophy, and feminist philosophy. I also work in the interdisciplinary fields of development ethics and decolonial and postcolonial feminisms. Some of the transnational practices I have analyzed in this work include microcredit, household divisions of labor, and commercial gestational surrogacy.
I hold the Jay Newman Chair in Philosophy of Culture at Brooklyn College and am Professor of Philosophy and Women's and Gender Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center.
My pronouns are she/her, and I pronounce my last name [KAW]-der.
My agent is Markus Hoffman at Regal Hoffman & Associates.
You can download my cv here.