Quanto contano i corpi? Disuguaglianze sessuali e famiglia privata nel dibattito femminista

The aim of this essay is to focus attention on the relations existing between the definition of the feminine nature and the consequential theorisation of the private family and, in particular, of gender rôles inside (and outside) the domestic community. For this purpose, the author has identified three models of family in the classics of political thought, respectively in Hobbes' analysis of paternal power in De Cive, in the definition of the matrimonial relationship within Hegel's Philosophy of Right and Law and in Plato's theses in favour of the abolition of the family as expressed in the Republic. These theses are examined and related to two leading trains of feminist thought: the theory of difference, which maintains that injustice springs from the removal of the gender difference, and the theory of equality, which considers that the origin of gender inequalities derives from a definition of woman that is made to coincide with no more than her biological function of reproduction