While women philosophers are beginning to be rediscovered in the Early Modern period, they are conspicuously missing from later nineteenth and early to mid-twentieth century histories of philosophy...

In Pythagorean Women, classical scholar Sarah B. Pomeroy discusses the groundbreaking principles that Pythagoras established for family life in Archaic Greece, such as constituting a single standard of sexual conduct for women and men. Among the Pythagoreans, women played an important role and participated actively in the philosophical life. While Pythagoras encouraged women to be submissive to men, his reasoning was based on the desire to preserve harmony in the home. -/- Pythagorean Women provides English (...) translations of all the earliest extant examples of literary Greek prose by Neopythagorean women, shedding light on their attitudes about marriage, the home, music, and the cosmos. Pomeroy sets the Pythagorean and Neopythagorean women vividly in their historical, ecological, and intellectual contexts, illustrated with original photographs of sites and artifacts known to these women. (shrink)

L’article traduit pour Clio HFS est le premier chapitre de Writing Women’s History : International Perspectives (1991), premier ouvrage édité par La Fédération internationale pour la recherche en histoire des femmes née en 1987. Il dissèque six dichotomies qui ont permis ou permettent encore de penser les relations entre hommes et femmes et l’écriture de leur passé. Si les trois premières (nature/culture, travail/famille, public/privé), profondément inscrites dans la culture occidentale moderne et source de hiérarchies et d’exclusions, ont été (...) à la fois utilisées et contestées par les historiennes des années 1970 et 1980, trois nouvelles ont surgi des débats intellectuels et politiques (sexe/genre, égalité/différence, intégration/autonomie). Ces nouvelles dichotomies doivent être aussi déconstruites et dépassées, pour aller de l’avant sur le plan politique et historiographique. (shrink)

This article addresses cultural memory’s ability to address past and present injustices by focusing on the artistic-political practices displayed by the professional actresses of Roma descent from the independent theater the Giuvlipen in Bucharest. The founders of this Romani women-centered theater also have ‘invented’ the word ‘Giuvlipen’ – ‘feminism’ in the Romani language – because there had previously been no word to connote both the forms of oppression and the consciousness raising politics performed by Romani women. By applying (...) the lens of intersectional feminism, the argument this article aims to put forth is that Giuvlipen’s artistic performances can foster the awareness raising of the Romani women’s ‘double jeopardy’. At the same time, the artistic performances displayed by the Giuvlipen Theater challenge the habits of historical remembering and its politics of oblivion, which can in turn promote experiential forms of knowledge and new structures and archives of feelings. (shrink)

This ground-breaking book surveys the history of women's political thought in Europe from the late medieval period to the early modern era. The authors examine women's ideas about topics such as the basis of political authority, the best form of political organisation, justifications of obedience and resistance, and concepts of liberty, toleration, sociability, equality, and self-preservation. Women's ideas concerning relations between the sexes are discussed in tandem with their broader political outlooks; and the authors demonstrate that (...) the development of a distinctively sexual politics is reflected in women's critiques of marriage, the double standard, and women's exclusion from government. Women writers are also shown to be indebted to the ancient idea of political virtue, and to be acutely aware of being part of a long tradition of female political commentary. This work will be of tremendous interest to political philosophers, historians of ideas, and feminist scholars alike. (shrink)

Academic examination of the role of women as Australian citizens. Asks what it means to be a woman citizen in Australia today. Questions male domination of Australian public political life. Examines the histories of citizenship for Australian women of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, showing how gender has been central to the construction of citizenship. Demonstrates how the masculinisation of citizenship has marginalised women's activities as citizens. Includes notes, select bibliography, notes on contributors and index. Editors both (...) teach history at the University of Western Australia and have published on women's issues and Australian history. Crawford's previous titles include 'Women and Citizenship: Suffrage Centenary'. (shrink)

Dès ses débuts, l’histoire des femmes a privilégié la comparaison comme moyen de comprendre les spécificités de la subordination féminine dans des contextes nationaux différents. L’introduction historiographique de ce court recueil coordonné par Anne Cova témoigne de l’importance, depuis les années 1970, des travaux comparatifs portant sur des questions aussi diverses que la montée de l’État providence, le féminisme, le rapport entre féminisme et maternité, entre femmes et fascismes, genre et...

This history of the unique community of Theravada nuns known as siladhara, based at Amaravati and Chithurst Buddhist monasteries is presented in two parts. The history from its inception in the late 1970s until the years 2000 appeared in Buddhist Studies Review 23. This second part gives the most recent developments in the order, from 2000 to the present day, plus reflections on the future. The research is based on personal interview with founding members of the order as (...) well as email, telephone and written communications with nuns past and present. It considers the implications of the revived bhikkhuni ordination for the siladhara and addresses the possibilities for the future. It describes the founding of a parallel order of Theravada nuns in Western Australia, with some significant differences to the UK nuns. It concludes that in attempting a form of monasticism for women, giving all the advantages of renunciation but at the same time negotiating the difficult synthesis of Western expectations, traditional Theravada cultural norms and the monastic rule itself, it has largely succeeded. (shrink)

A History of Women Philosophers, Volume I: Ancient Women Philoophers, 600 B.C. - 500 A.D., edited by Mary Ellen Waithe, is an important but somewhat frustrating book. It is filled with tantalizing glimpses into the lives and thoughts of some of our earliest philosophical foremothers. Yet it lacks a clear unifying theme, and the abrupt transitions from one philosopher and period to the next are sometimes disconcerting. The overall effect is not unlike that of viewing an expansive (...) landscape, illuminated only by a few tiny spotlights. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to examine the problem of loneliness in Hannah Arendt in the light of her considerations about totalitarianism. We seek not only to clarify this concept, but to examine to what extent it is important for understanding certain aspects of Arendt's critique of philosophy in general and political philosophy in particular.

ABSTRACTIt is only in the last 30 years that any appreciable work has been done on women philosophers of the past. This paper reflects on the progress that has been made in recovering early-modern...

How did the events of the early modern period affect the way gender and the self were represented? This collection of essays attempts to respond to this question by analysing a wide spectrum of cultural concerns - humanism, technology, science, law, anatomy, literacy, domesticity, colonialism, erotic practices, and the theatre - in order to delineate the history of subjectivity and its relationship with the postmodern fragmented subject. The scope of this analysis expands the terrain explored by feminist theory, while (...) its feminist focus reveals that the subject is always gendered - although the terms in which gender is conceived and represented change across history. Feminist Readings of Early Modern Culture not only explores the representation of gendered subjects, but in its commitment to balancing the productive tensions of methodological diversity, also speaks to contemporary challenges facing feminism. (shrink)

Within a relatively brief period of time, there has been a veritable outpouring of research on anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. This article presents a concise overview of some of the major works on these eating disorders from a variety of disciplines including biomedicine, psychology, sociology, and history. The article establishes a general context of Americans' preoccupation with food and diet. However, since the majority of those suffering from anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are female, this article places these (...) eating disorders in the specific historical context of American women's history. In earlier times, some women reacted to their role expectations with physical responses. While linking modern phenomena to these earlier physical reactions of American women, the article also highlights the various twentieth-century social and cultural factors that push some modern girls and women to respond to their situations either by refusing food or consuming and regurgitating large quantities of food.In addition to the historical perspective, which points to the relevance of social and cultural factors as well as biomedical and psychological ones, the article offers an overview of the various theories currently suggested to explain the meaning of food to those who suffer from these disorders. These theories range from the addiction model to food as a metaphor for control and self-definition. Whatever the meaning of food, it is important to note that both anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are determined by an interaction of many factors both personal and biological and social and cultural. (shrink)

In this paper, I seek to address the underrepresentation of Iranian women architects in historical narratives, exploring the perishable traces of their work and contributions to the field of architecture. Inspired by Carla Lonzi's call for women to consider their narrative incomplete and the International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA), I delve into the unique challenges Iranian women architects face and their impact on architectural history. I examine the historiographical review of Iranian women (...) architects, their work, and their contributions to the field, highlighting the importance of preserving and disseminating this often-overlooked knowledge. By investigating the current editorial challenges, I explore how archived material should be disseminated and the agency of such material in shaping a more inclusive and accurate historical narrative. Furthermore, I discuss the role of resources, archives, and new technologies in preserving and accessing the work of Iranian women architects. Considering data feminism and information visualization, I consider the implications of algorithms and digital technologies on accessing archived information and the potential for a more inclusive historical narrative. Through the lens of Iranian women architects, this paper contributes to the broader discussion on the representation and history of women in architecture by unearthing and preserving the perishable traces of their work. (shrink)

Les prémices du mouvement pour l’émancipation des femmes coïncident dans l’espace grec avec leur entrée sur la scène littéraire. Les écrivaines participent d’abord largement de la veine patriotique qui caractérise la littérature grecque au xixe siècle. Mais elles s’en éloignent progressivement à partir des années 1880, quand certaines se tournent vers la prose et la fiction, évolution propice à l’expression d’une critique du système de genre qui correspond en outre à un glissement du récit de l’histoire nationale vers celui d’histoires (...) de la sphère privée. Outre l’intérêt intrinsèque qu’elle présente, notamment à travers l’intrication de la question nationale et de la question des femmes, l’étude du rapport des écrivaines grecques à l’histoire au xixe siècle invite à une réflexion historiographique et épistémologique sur l’articulation entre genre, histoire et littérature. (shrink)

Women’s entry into the legal academy in significant numbers—first as students, then as faculty—was a 1970s and 1980s phenomenon. During those decades, women in law schools struggled: first, for admission and inclusion as individual students on a formally equal footing with male students; then for parity in their numbers in classes and on faculties; and, eventually, for some measure of substantive equality across various parameters, including their performance and evaluation both in and in front of the classroom, as (...) well as in the quality of their experiences as students and faculty members and in the benefits to be reaped from their tenure. This part of the story of women’s entry into the legal academy in the 1970s and 1980s—a story of attempted admission, then inclusion, then integration and assimilation, and then, finally, equality—is now a familiar one, at least in broad outline. It is not, in its entirety, an uplifting story. According to a raft of articles produced by women law students in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, women law students during those decades participated less in the classroom, were called on and responded to differently when they did participate, suffered from more law-school-induced anxiety disorders and other mental health issues, graduated with lower GPAs and less law review experience, published fewer notes and filled fewer editorial positions on those journals, held fewer leadership positions overall while in law school, and had far more difficulties connecting with mentors, teachers, and would-be recommenders among the faculty than male students. Women law professors during those decades were tenured at significantly lower rates than men and, particularly at high prestige schools and at schools with fewer female faculty among the tenured ranks, were hired at lower rates that did not reflect their number in the pool of qualified applicants, had trouble asserting or maintaining authority in the classroom or being perceived as having authority, taught lower-prestige courses and received low teaching evaluations, and, like their students, were published far less frequently in the major and most prestigious law reviews. Much of this, albeit not all, has not changed much for either students or faculty. As women in law schools enter the posttenure and midcareer phase, many of the old problems persist while new ones appear: women faculty are invited to participate on panels less often than men, and both women students and faculty are underrepresented as authors in law reviews. Although gender-neutral parental leave is now available to faculty at most law schools, many such policies are still ad hoc. There is considerable worry, although no hard evidence, over whether men disproportionately use the time off to write rather than care for children. Women are still disproportionately overrepresented in some fields and underrepresented or unrepresented in others, and those fields correlate in unsurprising ways with levels of prestige: the more women in a field, the less prestigious. As elsewhere in the workforce, women faculty in legal education suffer from sexual harassment, most of which is unremedied. Women still suffer a pay gap in law schools that remains unaddressed at most universities, as it does elsewhere in academia. There is a sizeable literature on these depressing phenomena that stubbornly do not seem to abate. In these comments, however, I want to focus on another, less appreciated, part of the story of women’s entry into the legal academy in the 1970s and 1980s: the emergence of a body of scholarship—sometimes called feminist legal theory—produced by some of these women legal scholars over the same time period. The story I want to focus on, in other words, is not that of second- or third-wave women’s struggles within the academy, either for admission, acceptance, assimilation, or equality in law schools. Rather, this Article focuses on the story of the scholarship some of those second-wave assimilated women produced once they got there. Feminist jurisprudence, understood largely as scholarship on issues pertaining to gender equality, was launched in the 1970s, endures today, and continues to shape debates. Feminist legal theory, however, was in effect a subfield within feminist jurisprudence and, as its name implies, was an attempt to fashion a broad- based theoretical account of the relationship of law in liberal legal regimes to women’s subordination, patriarchy, and gender and sexual inequality— particularly in a post–civil rights era, when women enjoyed broad access to rights of formal equality, reproductive liberty, and liberal antidiscrimination law. Feminist legal theory so understood—a body of scholarship in search of a theoretical understanding of the relation of law to women’s subordination or, more simply, of law and patriarchy—was birthed in the 1970s, nurtured in the 1980s, and matured in the 1990s. I suggest in this Article that it is now seemingly in decline, and may soon disappear altogether. The reasons for this trajectory, I believe, are to date unexplored. Some reasons are fairly self-evident. Feminist legal theory was a product of three time-specific factors peculiar to the 1970s and 1980s: it reflected the political and the legal struggles of second-wave feminism. The critical theory schools were, to varying degrees, present or thriving in the academy in the 1970s and 1980s, within which feminist legal theory was birthed, grew, and then coexisted with critical theory, albeit at times very uneasily; and this feminist theory reflected second-wave women faculty and students’ mixed experiences of assimilation, success, and alienation in law schools themselves, as briefly recited above. Those three factors—the background politics, the presence of critical theory in law schools, and the differences in women’s experience of those schools—are all themselves either disappearing or dissipating in felt urgency, albeit in different ways and at different speeds, and that dissipation clearly is a part of the story of feminist legal theory’s decline. There are other reasons for its decline as well, however. Some are internal to feminism and feminist theory, and some pertain to the changing nature of legal scholarship from the 1980s to the present. I explore these reasons in Part II below. The story of the development of a distinctively feminist legal theory during the 1970s through the 1990s, and the story of its decline in the 2000s, is of obvious relevance to the history of second- and third-wave feminism. It should also be of interest for what it reveals about the nature of legal scholarship as it was understood, received, and produced in those decades. Its decline likewise reveals something about the changing nature of legal scholarship and the legal academy today. Thus, one conclusion I draw is that the feminist legal theory of the 1970s through the 1990s—regardless of the truth or lasting power of its claims—stands as an example of a type of legal scholarship that was somewhat distinctive to those decades. That form of legal scholarship, furthermore, likely can only emanate from the legal academy. For a host of reasons, we are currently in danger of losing this entire genre of intellectual work, which would be the polity’s loss, not just feminism’s or the legal academy’s. (shrink)

Over the course of the past twenty-five years, feminist theory has had a forceful impact upon the history of Western philosophy. The present collection of essays has as its primary aim to evaluate past women’s published philosophical work, and to introduce readers to newly recovered female figures; the collection will also make contributions to the history of the philosophy of gender, and to the history of feminist social and political philosophy, insofar as the collection will discuss (...) women’s views on these issues. The volume contains contributions by an international group of leading historians of philosophy and political thought, whose scholarship represents some of the very best work being done in North and Central America, Canada, Europe and Australia. (shrink)

As one reads the classic works of political philosophy one is limited to books written by male authors. When reading interpretations of these authors it seems that the male philosophers were only concerned with the male citizen. Arlene Saxonhouse argues that these classic authors, from Plato to Machiavelli, while they praised the world of male public action, also recognized that the public world was not the totality of human existence. These authors, Saxonhouse says, saw that a private sphere which included (...) women existed, and that that sphere set limits upon and defined the possibilities of the public world. She argues further that the authors did not ignore the female, rather it is the inadequacies of modern scholarship that have made them appear to have done so. This volume shows how women have been an integral part of political philosophers' vision of the world, not a scattered side show in certain philosophical works. (shrink)

Qualitative inquiry into eating disorders is burgeoning, offering valuable and innovative insights into various aspects of the condition. This study used life‐history interviews with 20 women who had recovered from anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa or both and who had remained healthy. The interviews focused on the women's narratives and experience rather than a diagnostic therapeutic model. Three themes of control, connectedness and conflict emerged as significant in the development, experience of, and recovery from an eating disorder. The (...) development of the condition was attributed to a lack of control, a sense of non‐connectedness to family and peers and extreme conflict with significant others. Recovery occurred when the women re‐engaged with life, developed skills necessary for conflict resolution and rediscovered their sense of self. Rather than viewing the development of, and recovery from an eating disorder as separate and discrete events, the data from the life‐history interviews suggest they are better viewed as one entity — that is, the journey of an individual attempting to discover and develop their sense of self. This perspective challenges some current constructs of eating disorders; it is not a condition in and of itself but a symptom of deeper issues that if addressed, when the individual is ‘ready’ to make that choice, will lead to recovery. (shrink)

This book contains a selection of papers from the workshop *Women in the History of Analytic Philosophy* held in October 2019 in Tilburg, the Netherlands. It is the first volume devoted to the role of women in early analytic philosophy. It discusses the ideas of ten female philosophers and covers a period of over a hundred years, beginning with the contribution to the Significs Movement by Victoria, Lady Welby in the second half of the nineteenth century, and (...) ending with Ruth Barcan Marcus’s celebrated version of quantified modal logic after the Second World War. The book makes clear that women contributed substantially to the development of analytic philosophy in all areas of philosophy, from logic, epistemology, and philosophy of science, to ethics, metaphysics, and philosophy of language. It illustrates that although women's voices were no different from men's as regards their scope and versatility, they had a much harder time being heard. The book is aimed at historians of philosophy and scholars in gender studies. (shrink)

This essay argues that work on the history of women's ideas has been repeatedly written out of the multiple historiographical reviews of twentieth century intellectual history. By recovering that work, and the contexts and sites of its production, the essay offers a new perspective on the historiography of intellectual history in the twentieth century.

This is collection of four philosophical texts written exclusively by women. It contemplates in chronological order The Dialogue by Catherine of Siena, The Interior Castle by Teresa of Avila, An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex by Judith Drake, and An Enquiry into the Evidence of the Christian Religion by Susanna Newcome. As such, the collection includes works in value theory, practical reason, theology, metaphysics, and epistemology. It encompasses eminently philosophical topics such as self-knowledge, prudence vs. morality, the (...) pursuit of perfection, the cosmological argument, Cartesianism, the psychology of religious experience, reason vs. faith, and an array of topics in Early Modern feminism. (shrink)