 It is no accident that law and commerce are both public domains from which women have historically been excluded. It is no accident, either, that the philosophers who originated these views of the self typically endorsed this exclusion. Deeming women emotional and unprincipled, these thinkers advocated confining women to the private domestic sphere where their voices could be neutralized and even transformed into virtues, in the role of empathetic, supportive wife, vulnerable sexual partner, and nurturing mother. Associated with bodies rather than minds, women were tasked with the maintenance of their own bodies and those of others in a gendered division of labor (Rawlinson 2016). The division of values along binary gendered lines has historically been associated with the valorization of the masculine and the stigmatization of the feminine. The masculine realm of rational selfhood is a realm of moral decency, principled respect for duties, and prudent good sense. However, femininity has been associated with a sentimental attachment to loved ones that spawns favoritism and compromises principles. Likewise, femininity is associated with immersion in the unpredictable domestic exigencies of the private sphere, while the masculinized self appears as a sturdy fortress of integrity in the public domain of dutiful citizenship. The self is essentially masculine, and the masculine self is essentially good and wise.