Katrina Hutchison and Fiona Jenkins (eds.), Women in Philosophy: What Needs to Change?

Excerpt

In the introduction to Women in Philosophy: What Needs to Change?, editors, Fiona Jenkins and Katrina Hutchison, note that women in many fields of study feel frustrated, hurt, or merely annoyed at some of their experiences in academia. However, they also note something unusual about these feelings when it comes to philosophy: the feelings have given way “to careful reflection on how to make sense of such experience, how to find an articulation of its form, structure, causes, and potential remedies” (p. 1). That is the beauty and power of this book. The essays in this collection are not merely stories of women philosophers feeling mistreated (though the lived experience is included), nor are they an angry call to arms for a feminist revolution. The women writing in this collection are careful to look at both data and the stories of women in philosophy to try to find the cause or causes of a problem that is already well-recognized. Moreover, a central question for almost all of the women writing in this important collection is – as is reflected in the title – what needs to change? What can be done to make things better for both women in the field and for the field itself? …