E. van den Wildenberg (Esmée) MA

Esmée van den Wildenberg obtained her research master’s degree in Philosophy (Metaphysics and Epistemology) from Radboud University in 2021. Her master’s thesis focused on the notion of Mitsein in Simone de Beauvoir’s existentialist ethics. She also holds a master’s degree in Gender Studies from Utrecht University. In this master’s thesis she developed a feminist critique on the notion of ‘neutrality’ in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs vs. Women’s Health Organization (2022). Esmée is a PhD student at KU Leuven’s Institute of Philosophy and Radboud University. In her research, she is developing a Beauvoirian account of sexual consent. Drawing on Simone de Beauvoir’s ethics of ambiguity and contemporary feminist debates, including the #MeToo movement, she examines how sexual subjectivity and intersubjectivity are experienced in practice. Her work pays special attention to the “gray zones” where consent is unclear or contested, offering a nuanced understanding of consent as both a personal and relational project shaped by context, power, and freedom.