A historical approach to feminism: Hermeneutic feminism

The universalist thought that dominated Western philosophy was both the starting point of feminist theory and the subject of fundamental criticism. On a critical level, feminist theory mainly deals with the foundation of gender norms as absolute cultural laws and the resulting masculine-feminine polarization. For the purpose of examining this polarization, in the studies where feminism is handled with a historicalist approach, post-modern and post-structuralist theories are generally used and the relationship between hermeneutics and feminism is rarely mentioned. However, hermeneutics is not only a strong ally of post-modern feminism, but also provides a unique basis for the solution of the problem of relativism that post-modern feminist theories are trying to overcome. The aim of this study is to apply hermeneutics as an efficient resource that offers the opportunity to examine post-modern feminism itself from a historical perspective and to investigate the possibility of a hermeneutical feminism.