Why do some feminists like to criticize rationality so much? Doesn't that just reinforce the idea that women are less rational?

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Let me begin by saying that any meaningful discourse requires reason,including feminist attempts to mount a critique of reason!

Feminists differ significantly, so there is no one answer to your query, butthere seems to be a shared conviction that rationality alone is insufficient toshed light on many of the deeper problems humans seek to solve. One wayto ask the question could be: "Given its rightful role in any inquiry,does rationality exhaust all aspects of a given question?" or: “Howdoes one's experience, cultural identity, gender, along with many other socialmarkers shape the nature of the questions one raises and the answers one iswilling to consider ‘rational?’"

Historically speaking, the raising and answering of significant humanquestions has been done in the context of educated, white, European maleacademics or clerics. Perhaps Descartes could sit by the fire and believehe is but une chose qui pense (a thing that thinks), but is this theexperiential norm for most men and women? Where are the meditationsdevoted to their collective wisdom?

Remember, feminist do not debate arithmetic and so I would suggest thatfeminists do not critique rationality per se. Rather, feminists argue that reasoning thatpurports to be universal but is not inclusive of a wider range of humanexperience/reasoning is never "pure reason" but contextual. But this isn’t just a feminist matter! Why would anyone wish to privilege a narrowsample of one type of reasoning (significant in its own right) to the exclusion of all others?

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