Women’s Existence, Woman’s Soul: Essence and Existence in Edith Stein’s Later Feminism

Abstract

This article brings Stein’s philosophical and feminist views together to examine developments in her thinking in the early 1930s. I focus on Stein’s essay “Spirituality of the Christian Woman” as it relates to her philosophical questions about existence and essence in Finite and Eternal Being. I contend that Stein’s “Spirituality of the Christian Woman” is both elucidated by and helps make sense of her philosophical developments at this time. I maintain that my contention can help us better understand Stein’s relationship to gender essentialism.