A second thread running through the different forms of feminist moral thinking has been that of individualism. To give priority in moral reasoning to the individual, to allow individuals the discovery of meaning in life, to affirm individual fulfilment, to provide the structures for individual expressions of authentic life, have been persistent themes of feminist writing. That feminism should have emerged with the encouragement of Enlightenment individualism, and that it continues to press for the recognition and treatment of women as individuals, has meant that some attention to what it means to be an individual self is a key issue for debate amongst the various paradigms. Indeed, there is now considerable re-evaluation of the nature and the requirements of such individualism, both within feminism itself, and more widely in political and moral thinking. Sensitivity over this issue has heightened in recent years through a renewed emphasis on the nature and significance of communities, and indeed on the priority of the community in shaping the moral project itself. In these new considerations, there is a good deal of reassessment of the implications of individualism, along with concern that expressions of individuality, particularly in the unhindered exercise of free choice, are not so happy a prospect for human social life as once may have been believed.