Mary Briody Mahowald

I bought this book for a college class, read two selections, and then kept it for almost a decade thinking that I'd finish the rest. The one traditional philosophy textbook that I'd read in high school didn't cover much in the way of women, either in concept or in editorial selection.

Predictably, some famous names come off as heroes (John Stuart Mill) and some as raving lunatics (Freud, Nietzsche). However, the strength of the collection is not just in excerpting pop top 40 philosophers talking about women, but in framing women writers in schools of thought alongside their more famous male counterparts. Simone de Beauvoir isn't stuck in a section about women - she's right next to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Jane Addams is the featured Pragmatist, instead of William James.

I found the last section difficult to get through, possibly because the writing becomes more academic (i.e. less centered on convincing the reader and more on demonstrating logistical correctness). There's also something inherently unattractive about feminism as a postmodernist philosophy - it's all deconstruction and no construction. Of the feminist perspectives, I found only Charlene Haddock Seigfried and bell hooks compelling. The last selection, about eco-feminism, seems like cheating since it's a survey instead of an argument. Why include a survey in a survey?

Many people asked about the book as I read it (over the course of a decade) at bus stops, workplace break areas, etc. I don't think I ever convinced anyone to pick it up, but I did have some decent conversations about philosophy and philosophical education.… (plus d'informations)