[5] The book was also reviewed by the philosopher Virginia Held in Ethics,[6] the philosopher Mary Tiles in Philosophy,[7] Kathryn Jackson in Signs,[8] Ruby Riemer in Women & Politics,[9] Sara Shute in Journal of the History of Philosophy,[10] and Marjean D. Purinton in Southern Humanities Review,[11] and discussed by Martina Reuter and Laura Werner in NORA: Nordic Journal of Women's Studies.

She credited Lloyd with being "admirably sensitive to the historical changes in the characterization of reason", and argued that while most academic philosophers believe that "the current competing pictures of the normatively rational self are in theory gender-neutral", Lloyd made a strong case to the contrary in her "utterly devastating" book.

[3] Russell called the book "an extensive, careful historical analysis of the claim that Western standards of rationality and morality are masculine in orientation".

Grave wrote that The Man of Reason has been considered a twentieth century classic of feminist thought.

[13] Lloyd, who has described the book as an "overview of the successive alignments between maleness and ideals of reason throughout the history of western philosophy",[14] has argued that the work had sometimes been misunderstood and that it had been criticized for failing to distinguish between true philosophical thought and "sexist metaphor".