Since its inception and for the two centuries since, feminism has engaged in what might be considered a critical endorsement of Enlightenment principles of universal rights, equality and individual freedoms. Universal principles of citizenship were generally seen as fairer and more inclusive, having developed in opposition to particularistic rights such as those vested in castes, estates or ethnic groups. While feminists have long sought to denounce what, in recent debates, has been identified as the "false universalism" of an exclusive and androcentric liberalism, this criticism has nourished a strategy which sought not to renounce universalism but to ensure that it is applied consistently. Like other disadvantaged social groups, women demanded recognition as moral and legal equals and deployed egalitarian arguments to assert the rights associated with citizenship. However, while asserting that they had the same rights to justice and political representation as men, they also insisted that women's "difference" be recognized as...