19th Century, part 1: the women

“Women have been largely excluded from philosophical history,” but their real contributions have also been neglected. Consider again the tragedy of Hypatia, for instance.

J.S. Mill’s friend Harriet Taylor (1807-1858) (bbc) made a huge contribution in the 19th century, as did others whose overlooked stories are detailed by Jennnifer Michael Hecht in Doubt: A History:Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Ernestine Rose, Fanny Wright, Isabella Hooker… And here’s a list compiled by the BBC; here’s another.

When I asked my colleague Dr. Magada-Ward for her list of the half-dozen most important feminist philosophers, here’s what she came up with: susan bordo, nancy tuana, shannon sullivan, nancy hartsock, evelyn fox keller, helen longino, lisa heldke, maragret urban walker, bell hooks, carolyn korsmeyer, hilde hein, and carolee shneeman…

…judith butler, simone de beauvoir, carol gilligan, dorothy dinnerstein, sandra harding, angela davis, maria lugones, claudia card, elizabeth spelman, donna haraway…

One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion. Simone de Beauvoir

Many of these women share Mary Wollstonecraft’s suspicions about “romantic love” being a social construction and imposition to reinforce traditional gender inequality and keep women in their place (the kitchen, the bedroom, the home in general).

In philosophy especially they challenge the easy dichotomy that associates mind with reason, culture, and masculinity, and the body with instinct, nature, and femininity. They bristle at Aristotle’s active/passive paradigm of procreation and its suggestion that “the male is more fully able to actualize his potential” as a matter of metaphysical and biological reality (rather than historical sexist exclusion).

Many feminists think the whole western scientific mindset is due for an overhaul. Evelyn Fox Keller: “the emphasis on power and control so prevalent in western science [is] a projection of a specifically male consciousness… that conjoins the domination of nature with the insistent image of nature as female…”

It will be a good day for humanity, will it not, when all of us can rise above gender (and race, ethnicity, religion, politics) and accept the plurality of our differences on equal terms? We’re not there yet. But to this “happy pragmatist” it looks like we’re moving in the right direction.

The 20th century has (finally!) been more hospitable and receptive to female perspectives. It was 1920 before the suffragists succeeded in wresting the vote, but it’s been a magnificent chorus ever since. Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, Kate Millett, Susan Bordo, Genevieve Lloyd, Maya Angelou, Martha Nussbaum… many more women’s voices are being raised and heard, to our collective good fortune.

anne newport royall

harriet martineau

frances fanny wright

ernestine rose

Dorothea (Brendel) Mendelssohn

elizabeth cady stanton