Introduction
Personal autonomy emerges as a concept frequently used in political, social, and legal debates. It is constantly evolving in scope since its definition is the subject of an ongoing discussion. Feminist scholars have also contributed to this discussion with their reinterpretation of the meaning of autonomy and its importance in individuals’ lives.
The concept of autonomy itself is crucial for the feminist movement. It relates to the core issues of feminism that are emancipation and oppression. As emancipation means living according to one’s own will, autonomy is one of the significant values in feminist philosophy (Veltman and Piper 2014, 1). Therefore rather than a total rejection of the concept, feminists have suggested redefining it. Their reformulation is based on the critiques of the liberal understanding of the concept.
Feminist scholars have claimed that liberal understanding of autonomy was rooted in values such as self-sufficiency, self-reliance, independence, and...
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Özdemir, N. (2020). Relational Autonomy: A Feminist Perspective on the Concept of Autonomy. In: Sellers, M., Kirste, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6730-0_703-1
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