Autonomy as emotion. The phenomenology of independence in academic women

What does it mean to be an autonomous woman? How should a woman define her autonomy within androcentric language and around the social limitations of a discriminatory society without violating her own needs for intimacy and emotional involvement? This paper reexamines the conceptual meaning of autonomy and independence in academic women. It reviews recent feminist criticism of autonomy and dependency, discusses some of its problems and limitations, and finally, based on the ways in which academic women think and talk about the independent individual, offers a new conception of dependency and autonomy as emotional experiences.