 Feminist philosophers typically reject the Kantian and Rawlsian conceptions of autonomy. Five categories of feminist critique have been identified (Mackenzie &amp; Stoljar 2000b, 5–12). All of the critiques reject both the nature of the self and the value of autonomy implicit in the Kantian/Rawlsian account. The notion of self implicit in the Kantian and Rawlsian accounts is said to be “atomistic”; that is, it is abstracted from the social relations in which actual agents are embedded. Such a conception of the self is associated with the claim that autonomous agents are, and ought to be, self-sufficient, which in turn is associated with the character ideal of the “self-made man”. Feminists challenge this character ideal and question whether self-sufficiency, or “substantive independence”, is really a value that a theory of autonomy, and normative theories in general, should promote (Jaggar 1985; Code 1991). If autonomy is somehow conceived as inimical to being a woman—because, for example, being a women involves valuing social relationships of care whereas being autonomous devalues such relationships—one denies women, in particular, the social and political advantages associated with the label “autonomous”.