Feminist Philosophy, Misc

This article challenges the prevailing notion of feminist freedom rooted in individual choice, influenced by neoliberal ideology. While choice is integral, it argues for a broader perspective acknowledging systemic inequalities shaping women's options. Highlighting the flawed promises of neoliberalism, it discusses how economic disparities and workplace discrimination hinder genuine choice. It advocates for policies promoting economic justice, workplace equality, and reproductive rights as essential for feminist freedom. Ultimately, it calls for collective action to dismantle barriers and create a society where (...) all women have the genuine power to shape their lives. (shrink)

J.L. Austin argues that ordinary language should be used to identify when it is appropriate or inappropriate to make, accept, or reject knowledge claims. I criticize Austin’s account: In our ordinary life, we often accept justifications rooted in racism, sexism, ableism, and classism as reasons to dismiss knowledge claims or challenges, despite the fact such reasons are not good reasons. Austin’s Ordinary Language Epistemology (OLE) classifies the discounting of knowledge claims in classic cases of epistemic injustice as legitimate ordinary maneuvers. (...) I provide recommendations for revision of OLE and offer a means of distinguishing between dismissals in cases of epistemic injustice and their legitimate counterparts. (shrink)

Women in the field of art and science have an unquestionable presence worldwide that exceeds their visibility in the general visual art scene. When cataloguing women’s range of practices and exploring their agency in art and science, a new model of inclusivity and access to the public sphere for all individuals working in art emerges. First, these are contributions reflecting on projects being carried out by women in the broadest interpretation of the term – individuals who identify themselves as women, (...) cisgender, non-cisgender, transgender, gender fluid and independent of their sex and gender. Second, these are contributions that reflect on research methodologies, collaboration strategies, knowledge sharing, as well as public vs. personal, embodiment and materiality. (shrink)

This paper uses the figure of the nomad from the work of Rosi Braidoti to critically examine rhetoric about vaccine and masking mandates, and the science of covid more broadly. I draw out the tensions and ambivalence felt as we navigate this on-going crisis in ways epitomized by the phrase “I have a healthy mistrust of authority, and I am still vaccinated.” Though ambivalent, the nomadic subject finds an affirmative ethics, navigating the “right” response to incite positive change and expose (...) our current states of subjectivity. Recognizing the ambivalence of this state may be useful for feminists who critique medicine for its historical sexist and racist “objectivism,” while also supporting medical science and trust in the case of vaccine mandates. (shrink)

In this article, we reflect on our experiences teaching a PWOL course called Philosophy for Living. The course uses modules focused on different historical philosophical ways of life (Epicureanism, Stoicism, Confucianism, Existentialism, etc.) to engage students in exploring how philosophy can be a way of life and how its methods, virtues, and ideas can improve their own lives. We describe and compare our experiences with two central aspects of our approach: engagement with diversity and the use of immersive experiences and (...) assignments. In particular, we discuss how we recognize and center various forms of diversity in philosophy—cultural and gender diversity, but also diversity in how and in what forms philosophy can be done and what “philosophy as a way of life” can be. We also examine how the experimental and experiential aspects of immersive assignments promote deeper understanding and create possibilities for personal transformation. (shrink)

Feminism has long grappled with its own demarcation problem—exactly what is it to be a woman?—and the rise of trans-inclusive feminism has made this problem more urgent. I will first consider Sally Haslanger’s “social and hierarchical” account of woman, resulting from “Ameliorative Inquiry”: she balances ordinary use of the term against the instrumental value of novel definitions in advancing the cause of feminism. Then, I will turn to Katharine Jenkins’ charge that Haslanger’s view suffers from an “Inclusion Problem”: it fails (...) to class many trans women as women. Jenkins offers a novel norm-relevancy account of woman to avoid the Inclusion Problem. Unfortunately, Jenkins’ account has serious internal problems, i.e. problems by Jenkins’ own lights: it is unintelligible, or it suffers from an Inclusion Problem of its own. After that, I will develop novel arguments for the conclusion that the project of Ameliorative Inquiry is both incoherent and also impossible to complete—at least, impossible to complete in a trans-inclusive way. Trans-inclusive feminism, therefore, would do well to move beyond Ameliorative Inquiry. Insofar as that’s not possible, trans-inclusive feminism inherits the incoherence of Ameliorative Inquiry. (shrink)

Discussions of “privilege” have become increasingly common, but it’s often unclear what exactly people mean by “privilege.” Even well-known writings about privilege rarely take the time to define the word and explain what it means. The confusion this creates is one reason why debates about privilege are often contentious and unproductive. This essay aims to demystify privilege, presupposing no prior knowledge of philosophy. With a clear definition, it is easier to discuss some of the main debates about privilege: Is there (...) such a thing as “white privilege”? What about “male privilege”? And what’s the point of talking about privilege, anyway? (shrink)

This article examines the portrayal of matricentric feminism as well as expounds the issues of mythology and how both informed each other in Umaru Landan and Dexter Lyndersay’s Shaihu Umar. It argues that Fatima’s sojourn in search of her son, Shaihu, is propelled by a will borne out of motherhood and given strength by supernatural forces. The methodological base of the study is qualitative in nature appropriating the concepts of matricentric feminism and mythology as structural scaffoldings while Jacques Derrida’s concept (...) of deconstruction will be used as analytical framework. This concept attempts to challenge the interpretation of a text based on conventional notions of stability of human self, the external world, and of language and meaning. The philosophy of existence of the eponymous character is revealed in the play. The article tries to probe if the matricentric elements exuded by Fatima (Shaihu’s mother) are just a will tied to motherhood or if it is given strength by the metaphysics of presence and the messianic. (shrink)

Whereas intersectionality presents a fruitful framework for theoretical and empirical research, some of its fundamental features present great confusion. The term ‘intersectionality’ and its metaphor of the crossroads seem to reproduce what it aims to avoid: conceiving categories as separate. Despite the attempts for developing new metaphors that illustrate the mutual constitution relation among categories, gender, race or class keep being imagined as discrete units that intersect, mix or combine. Here we identify two main problems in metaphors: the lack of (...) differentiation between positions and effects and the problem of reification. We then present a new metaphor that overcomes these two problems: a basket of apples. We argue that considering social positions as the diverse properties of different apples avoids reification by considering categories as properties and not as objects themselves, and at the same time it allows us to think about the effects dimension from a plural and contextual approach. With this shift, we propose a reframing of the discussion in debates on intersectionality theory on the relation among categories, their in/separability and fragmentation. (shrink)

Microaggressions are seemingly negligible slights that can cause significant damage to frequently targeted members of marginalized groups. Recently, Scott O. Lilienfeld challenged a key platform of the microaggression research project: what’s aggressive about microaggressions? To answer this challenge, Derald Wing Sue, the psychologist who has spearheaded the research on microaggressions, needs to theorize a spectrum of aggression that ranges from intentional assault to unintentional microaggressions. I suggest turning to Bonnie Mann’s “Creepers, Flirts, Heroes and Allies” for inspiration. Building from Mann’s (...) richer theoretical framework will allow Sue to answer Lilienfeld’s objection and defend the legitimacy of the concept, ‘microaggression’. (shrink)

In this essay, I draw on Kant’s legal philosophy in order to defend the right to voluntary motherhood by way of abortion at any stage of pregnancy as an essential feature of women’s basic rights. By developing the distinction between innate and acquired right in Kant’s legal philosophy, I argue that the viability standard in US law (as established in Planned Parenthood v. Casey) misunderstands the nature of embodied right. Our body is the site of innate right; it is the (...) means through which we can set and pursue ends in the world. The law, therefore, cannot adjudicate the relationship between the will and the body: it cannot require us to allow our bodies to be used against our will. By comparing unwanted pregnancy to sexual assault, I problematize the notion that consent to pregnancy, like consent to sex, can ever be conclusive. I examine Kant’s own account of unwanted pregnancy, in which he describes mother and child finding themselves “in a state of nature” in order to rethink the status of the fetus in law, and I argue that we should understand the fetus’s right to life as provisional, rather than as enforceable by law. (shrink)

This article is a feminist intervention into the ways that disability is researched and represented in philosophy at present. Nevertheless, some of the claims that I make over the course of the article are also pertinent to the marginalization in philosophy of other areas of inquiry, including philosophy of race, feminist philosophy more broadly, indigenous philosophies, and LGBTQI philosophy. Although the discipline of philosophy largely continues to operate under the guise of neutrality, rationality, and objectivity, the institutionalized structure of the (...) discipline implicitly and explicitly promotes certain ontologies, epistemologies, and methodologies as bona fide philosophy, while casting the ontologies, epistemologies, and methodologies of marginalized philosophies as mere simulacra of allegedly fundamental ways of knowing and doing philosophy and thus rendering these marginalized philosophies more or less expendable. This article is designed to show that legitimized philosophical discourses are vital mechanisms in the problematization of disability. (shrink)

Not a few feminist writers, such as Kristeva, Irigaray, and Chodorow, have dealt with Freud’s psychoanalysis so far, but it is not clear to what degree the Freudian theory grounds their arguments, because Freud himself developed his psychoanalysis mainly for the male mental world (Seelenleben). In this paper, we shall follow Freud’s train of thought exclusively from this angle. After the geneses of Pcpt.-Cs., id, ego, and super-ego (W-Bw, Es, Ich, and Über-Ich, respectively) are treated (§§7-10), we shed light on (...) how these factors relate to the female spirituality (§§11-24) and why feminists could still rely on Freud’s thought (§25). On the other hand, the present research will also provide an easy introduction to Freud’s psychoanalysis, by reference to which each thinker could overview the Freudian theory (Fig. (5) and Fig. (8) will help). In this respect, we shall also take account of the masculine side of his discussion, that is to say, how a man usually develops his male personality, while we constantly put it in stark contrast to the female spirituality. Although, in this modern world, not a few thinkers criticize the Freudian theory as non-scientific like Popper did (§2), we should remember that there remain supporters of his theory, such as Grümbaum (§3). We shall touch on this kind of argument relating to philosophy of science in the first half of this paper, which will also provide some useful knowledge for the readers who still get doubtful of the Freudian theory and its usage in feminist arguments. (shrink)

This article aims to explore the philosophical meaning of pregnancy and maternity in the writ-ings of R. Soloveitchik and Emmanuel Lévinas. They both make a phenomenological enquiry into these phenomena, by looking on the biological aspect and the emotional aspects. R. Solove-itchik suggests a spiritual interpretation concerning the meaning of pregnancy, which is both biological and spiritual. He attempts to differentiate between the natural parenthood and the spiritual parenthood. Lévinas gives us the philosophical observation through the phenomenolog-ical research of pregnancy, (...) motherhood and parenthood. For him, this inquiry may be revealed as an ethical occurrence that demand responsibility. Perhaps this is one of the unique dimensions of modern Jewish philosophy, looking towards the religious texts with modern philosophical method and modern philosophy theories. Reading carefully the biblical story of Genesis on the notion of birth and maternity, raises textual questions and cultural questions. For Lévinas and R. Soloveitchik these questions can open the door to new philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

This review shows how Hinduism had been instrumental in removing (sic) the oppression of women in India. The review also mentions the much misunderstood Aghoris.

Many of the commentators—let’s ignore their sex for the moment—suggested including women in the Feyerabend conference. Then the question was raised, “but are they of the right quality, status, rank?” That is, do they bring down the average quality of the conference in virtue of their being of inferior status, or, in Vincenzo Politi’s words, not “someone whose work is both relevant to the topic of the conference and also as widely recognized as the work of the invited speakers” (HOPOS-L (...) archive, “CFP: Feyerabend Conference,” Tuesday, July 17, 2012, 14:57:20)? It is extremely important that such a discussion of quality, status, and rank recognize the scourge of evaluation bias and its long-term and pervasive consequences. One well-designed study this past year, published by the National Academy of Sciences, established prominent evaluation bias among both male and female science faculty in their evaluations of a student applying for a managerial job, who was randomly assigned either a male or a female name (Moss-Racusin et al. 2012). These professors examined the qualifications of the students and decided whether to hire them, what salary to give them, and whether to mentor themand howmuch to do so.The resultswere that both male and female scientists hired more men, gave them higher salaries, and offered more mentoring to them, even though themale applications were identical to the female applications. When probed about their reasons for not hiring or mentoring the female applicants, the professors explained that they based their decisions on the inferior competence of the applicant: the female applicants were perceived as less competent by all professors (with identical applications between males and females). This is what “evaluation bias” looks like, and it has been established in many, many contexts since the 1970s—this is only the most recent. (shrink)

Door de eeuwen heen hebben talloze vrouwen zich verdiept in een veel-heid aan filosofische thema’s, maar vaak zijn deze denkers onzichtbaar gebleven. Van de 17e-eeuwse filosofe Anna Maria van Schurman zullen sommigen wel hebben gehoord, maar wie kent haar tijdgenote Anne Conway? Uit de 20e eeuw is Hannah Arendt inmiddels wereldberoemd, maar de namen Susanne Langer, Gloria Anzaldúa en Werewere Liking zullen misschien alleen de specialisten bekend in de oren klinken. Vele vrouwelijke denkers waren uitgesloten van officiële onderwijsin-stellingen en namen (...) hun toevlucht tot andere vormen van filo so fie -beoefening, zoals briefwisselingen en essays. En dat levert een onschat-bare rijkdom aan filosofische bronnen op. In dit nieuwe standaardwerk worden 67 vrouwelijke denkers bij elkaar gebracht; van de Oudheid tot onze eeuw; van islamitische en katholieke mystica’s, een 18e-eeuwse Nederlandse logica tot een Nigeriaanse politiek filosofe. (shrink)

This article examines who or what should be the target of feminist criticism. Throughout the discussion, the concept of memes is applied in analyzing systems such as patriarchy and feminism itself. Adapting Dawkins' theory on genes, this research puts forward the possibility that patriarchies and feminisms are memeplexes competing for the limited energy and memory space of humanity.

The contention of this article is that parents do have obligations to care for their children, but for reasons that are not typically offered. I argue that this obligation to care for one’s children is unfair to parents but not unjust. I do not provide a detailed account of what our obligations are to our children. Rather, I focus on providing a justification for any obligation to care for them at all.

What does Husserlian phenomenology have to offer feminist theory? More specifically, can we find resources within Husserl’s account of the living body ( Leib ) for the critical feminist project of rethinking embodiment beyond the dichotomies not only of mind/body but also of subject/object and activity/passivity? This essay begins by explicating the reasons for feminist hesitation with respect to Husserlian phenomenology. I then explore the resources that Husserl’s phenomenology of touch and his account of sensings hold for feminist theory. My (...) reading of Husserl proceeds by means of a comparison between his description of touch in Ideas II and Merleau-Ponty’s early appropriation of this account in the Phenomenology of Perception, as well as through an unlikely rapprochement between Husserl and Irigaray on the question of touch. Moreover, by revisiting the limitations in Husserl’s approach to the body—limitations of which any feminist appropriation must remain cognizant—I attempt to take Husserl’s phenomenology of touch beyond its initial methodologically solipsistic frame and to ask whether and how it can contribute to thinking gendered and racialized bodies. The phenomenology of touch, I argue, can allow us to understand the interplay between subjective, felt embodiment and social-historical context. In opening up Husserl’s account of touch to other dimensions—intersubjective and affective—sociality is revealed as residing within, and structuring of, touch. Such touch can allow us to think embodiment anew. (shrink)

Forming part of the Routledge Revivals programme, this book, originally published in 1987 to commemorate the centenary of Engels’ The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, has been reissued in 2010. As such, it gives us an insight into the lasting importance of Engels’ influential work on ‘the woman question’ on the one hand, while providing us with the complex and sophisticated late 1980s feminist analyses of said work, on the other. The articles in this edited volume (...) attest to the nuanced and often critical readings of The Origin by feminists, who, equipped with conceptual tools developed to explain the distinctly gendered oppression experienced by women, identify several shortcomings in Engels’ important, but contentious exposition of the origins of women’s subjugation. (shrink)

This special issue marks the culmination of Hypatia's twenty-fifth anniversary year. We kicked off the celebration of Hypatia's quarter century as an autonomous journal with a conference, "Feminist Legacies/Feminist Futures," which drew close to 150 attendees—a capacity crowd, and more than twice what we'd expected in the planning stages! The conference provided an opportunity to reflect on how Hypatia came to be and how it has shaped feminist philosophy.

This paper is a response to Val Plumwoods call for writers to engage in ‘the struggle to think differently’. Specifically, she calls writers to engage in the task of opening up an experience of nature as powerful and as possessing agency. I argue that a critical component of opening up who or what can be understood as possessing agency involves challenging the conception of time as linear, externalised and absolute, particularly in as much as it has guided Western conceptions of (...) process, change and invention. I explore this through anthropologist Carol Greenhouse's claim that social conceptions of time can be read as theories of agency. Thus, in seeking to respond to Plumwood’s call to think differently, the question becomes: what kind of writing would enable a fundamental re-thinking of agency without, however, ignoring the way Western notions of agency have been shaped by linear accounts of time? I look to Jacques Derrida's work as one example. I first locate the possibility of re-writing time and agency in the experiential aspects of his writing, which I argue interrupt both the reader’s sense of agency and linear models of reading. But further, I connect Derrida’s work directly with Plumwood’s by examining how his deconstruction of the Western concept of invention may enable another account of creative change that could reshape what counts as ‘agency’ within the Anthropocene. (shrink)

Some feminist gender sceptics hold that the conditions for satisfying the concept woman cannot be discerned. This has been taken to suggest that (i) the efforts to fix feminism’s scope are undermined because of confusion about the extension of the term ‘woman’, and (ii) this confusion suggests that feminism cannot be organised around women because it is unclear who satisfies woman. Further, this supposedly threatens the effectiveness of feminist politics: feminist goals are said to become unachievable, if feminist politics lacks (...) a clear subject matter. In this paper, I argue that such serious consequences do not follow from the gender sceptic position. (shrink)

In examining Judith Butler's treatment of Spinoza insofar as it reflects the tenacity of a commitment to the need to "honor the death drive," a need often justified by the ethical and political resources it provides, this essay asks about the basis of this need for feminist theory. From whence does it come? What ethical and political work does a primary vigilance toward our destructive and death-bent urges do? Thus, I begin with a review of Butler's treatment of Spinoza, and (...) proceed to make some suggestions about what motivates her creative appropriation of his principle of conatus. Finally, without demanding that Butler represent Spinoza's philosophy accurately, I propose that Spinoza's philosophy allows a very strong acknowledgment of destruction, including self-destruction, without conceding the necessity of an ethics or politics of anxiety. Like Butler, and perhaps even more radically, Spinoza insists upon our opacity to ourselves, our irreducible and original multiplicity and constitutive relationality, as well as the inability finally to demarcate the boundaries of the self. Yet his ethics culminates in what he calls a "remedy for the affects," in an endeavor to displace and minimize sad passions, like anxiety. In concluding, the question for feminist theory remains: Which are the best fictions, models of selfhood, and modes of speculation for the displacement of anxiety, aggression, and the passions that trigger violence agianst ourselves and others in a misogynist, homophobic, and racist culture? If I am not able to answer these questions in the course of this brief essay, I hope to underline the importance of asking them. (shrink)

While feminist epistemologists have made important contributions to the deconstruction of the traditional representationalist model, some elements of the Cartesian legacy remain. For example, relativism continues to play a role in the underdetermination thesis used by Longino and Keller. Both argue that because scientific theories are underdetermined by evidence, theory choice must be relative to interpretive frameworks. Utilizing Davidson's philosophy of language, I offer a nonrepresentationalist alternative to suggest how relativism can be more fully avoided.