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An-Other Revolution: Political Thought from ‘The Woman Question’ to Gender
Edited by Laura Mitarotondo and Fiorenza Taricone
In a historical conjuncture that is increasingly sensitive to the issue of gender equality in its various manifestations (public policies, legislative instruments, affirmative actions, cultural strategies), yet at the same time marked by conservative trends – including the “renegotiation” of women’s rights –, Politics proposes a special issue devoted to reflecting on the forms of women’s and feminist political thought, in its capacity to reveal historically invisibilized power dynamics and interconnected dispositifs of oppression.
Starting from the image of the “longest revolution” (Juliet Mitchell), the issue aims to highlight the originality of women’s political thought which, although anticipated by some significant earlier testimonies, emerges during the anti-absolutist Revolutions (English, American, French). Subsequently, the political, cultural, and symbolic transformations brought about by theories and practices of liberation and stimulated – already from the second half of the twentieth century – by feminist movements, have triggered an uninterrupted and still productive scholarly debate on power, discrimination, identity, and the materiality of subjects and processes.
The aim, therefore, is to retrace a long season of radical upheavals in society, politics, and social customs which, beginning in late modernity and with repercussions that remain relevant today, reaches the heart of the twentieth century, reacting against the consolidated tradition of thought responsible for the cultural “construction” of female subalternity.
The changes that followed concerned, at different times, demands for civil and political rights, the rejection of sexual roles, critiques of the division of labor, the affirmation of female subjectivity – beyond paradigms of care, sexuality, and reproduction – up to the convergence of global feminist struggles (for the environment, against racism, for social justice).
From a historical-political perspective, the issue therefore encourages an in-depth examination of that complex system of knowledge which, by revealing the contingent nature of inequality, has also contributed to deconstructing the mechanisms of naturalization of historical differences – from which asymmetries of power and processes of inferiorization originate – and to critically interrogating the cultural and institutional paradigms around which Western institutions have been structured.
The call for papers for issue no. 25 (1/2026) thus aims to promote a deeper exploration of the transformative potential of women’s and feminist political thought in its multiple dimensions, and to examine its impact on social and political studies.
We encourage submissions that engage with, but are not limited to, the following themes:
- Women’s political thought and the outcomes of their intellectual, civic, and political engagement within institutional life, with particular focus on the forms of their participation in the construction of the democratic history of different countries.
- The contribution of political thinkers and traditions, or currents of political thought, that have investigated the relationship between women and society, problematizing the female condition and hierarchical models based on sexual difference.
- The contribution of global feminisms, starting from egalitarian and difference feminisms, in their subversive scope, both on the cultural and on the epistemological and political levels.
- The political potential of “gender” as a relational analytical category, used not only to understand the genesis of female subordination, but also to unveil the power mechanisms underlying the social organization of sexual difference.
- The methodological “gender” revolution currently affecting the canon of the history of political thought, implicitly fostering a new historical narrative – beyond the mere genealogical reconstruction of female figures of the past – capable of challenging the partiality of a prevailing value system that influences both the selective memory of a community and the normative parameters of scholarly research.
- the forms of the current debate on the processes of institutionalization and capitalization of gender issues, concerning both the colonization of the social and political achievements of feminisms and the modalities of conflict neutralization ensured by the bureaucratization of struggles for equality.
To submit an article proposal, authors are required to send a detailed abstract of approximately 2,500 characters (including spaces) and a short bibliography of no more than 10 items to the following email address: cfp@rivistapolitics.eu
(Subject line: “Cfp 25”).
The proposal must specify the title of the article, the author’s name, and the methodological approach to be adopted (e.g., History of Political Thought, Political Philosophy, multidisciplinary approach, etc.).
If the proposal is accepted by the editors of the special issue, the author will be required to submit an article with a maximum length of 35,000 characters (including spaces, but excluding bibliography, abstract, and keywords). Articles must be prepared in accordance with the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition (Author–Date) and must exclusively use the journal’s template file (submissions not using this file will be excluded).
All submitted articles must be original and comply with the journal’s ethical code.
Deadlines
- 22 February 2026: abstract submission
- 1 March 2026: notification of proposal evaluation results
- 20 May 2026: submission of final articles
- 19 July 2026: notification of double-blind peer review results
- 7 September 2026: submission of revised articles following reviewers’ comments (if any)
- 1 October 2026: publication
Politics. Rivista di Studi Politics 