The Sexual Contract

Carole Pateman (1940-Present) is a British political theorist and feminist. While known for her contributions to democratic theory and feminist political theory, Pateman’s educational background also includes economics, history, and sociology. She received her doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University, has held a teaching position in political theory at the University of Sydney, and currently teaches in the department of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles. 

The Sexual Contract is Pateman’s most famous work and couples a criticism of democratic theory with a feminist lens. Her earlier work, Participation and Democratic Theory, published in 1970, critiques the elitism of leading democratic theorists, the circular logic she reveals their theory rests on, and their inability to understand the full scope of and link between political participation and civic engagement. Similarly, The Sexual Contract is a challenge to dominant interpretations of democratic society, where Pateman points out the inherent contradictions and flaws of contract theory as well as the oversights of socialists and feminists in their tacit acceptance of contractarian ideas and political fictions. Her expertise in various dimensions of political thought allows her to draw together classic Enlightenment thinking, contemporary contract interpretation, socialist theory, and feminist perspectives.

Pateman’s background in historical study is also evident in the text.