How to Rethink the Human Being – Male and Female?

The Challenging Anthropology of Edith Stein (1891-1942)

Abstract

Edith Stein, one of the first women to enter a male-dominated philosophical world, took an interest in women’s emancipation and rights, deepening her political interest through socio-theoretical work in the field of sociology, whose approach is still little studied today. In a context in which we are witnessing the transformation of the image of women and especially the deconstruction of binary genders brought about by gender theory, we need to rediscover the intellectual contribution made by Edith Stein, who preferred the vision of truth to other references. Edith Stein approaches the question of gender in an explicitly phenomenological way, considering the body as the first phenomenal self-expression of the essence of man and woman. Although she does not have the last word on an issue as complex and intricate as gender, her words — through her life and even more so through her inflicted but accepted death — acquire a special value, that of testimony.