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On Adam Smith and Gender Construction

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Abstract

This paper aims at applying Adam Smith’s considerations on exchange and deception on gender questions. It thereby reads the Theory of Moral Sentiments as a theory of the construction of identities out of perceptions and deceptions of one’s own wishes and needs. By complementing Smith’s concepts with the ideas of his contemporary, Mary Wollstonecraft, it can be shown in which ways the Theory of Moral Sentiments can enrich gender studies in clarifying the role of deception in the construction of gender specific roles.

I would like to thank Caroline Gerschlager for both initiating and repeatedly commenting this paper.

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© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Mokre, M. (2002). On Adam Smith and Gender Construction. In: Gerschlager, C., Mokre, M. (eds) Exchange and Deception: A Feminist Perspective. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-3470-6_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-3470-6_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-5301-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-3470-6

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