She taught philosophy and women's studies at the New School of Social Research for forty years.
A panel celebrating her work was held at the American Philosophical Association meeting in San Diego in 2012.
Ruddick is best known for her analysis of the practices of thinking that emerge from the care of children.
She argued that mothering is a conscious activity that calls for choices, daily decisions and a continuing, alert reflectiveness.
[5] Lisa Baraitser describes her contribution: "Along with Adrienne Rich, Ruddick was probably the most important philosophical thinker to address the issue of mothering and motherhood since second-wave feminism, and in a similar spirit to that of Grace Paley, to extend her analysis of mothering under patriarchy to the development of the values necessary to oppose militarism and war.