Philosophy for Girls: An Invitation to the Life of Thought is an unusual philosophy book. It straddles academic and general audiences, is intended to be used in university and high school classrooms, and understands its readership to be anyone, really, but especially those who identify as girls and women who are 16- to 24-years-old. The book lies in between public and academic discourses, between adolescence and “adulthood,” and between relative unawareness and the conscious taking up of one’s ideas, often for the first time. It is a book on the threshold.
As the editors of this book, we think that this “in-betweenness” mimics the movement of our lives and of many people’s lives, and even of philosophy itself. Students in our classes navigate complex webs of pressures and demands; philosophy faculty are asked to do ever more with fewer resources; we move between and among our own personal, spiritual, political, and familial commitments. Time, energy, and attention are scarce. Given the language of commodification encoded in our world, it is no wonder that we “spend” time and “pay” attention as instrumental “investments” for future returns.
As a book and as a living process, Philosophy for Girls pushes back on this narrative of instrumental value, insisting on seeing the value of its readers and contributors both in the here and now and into the future. This book exists as a nexus point between this moment, where the voices of girls and women may be heard but not valued, and a thick sense of time outside this moment, where the being of girls and women have always had value though many, including philosophers, have not seen it.
1. What is ‘Philosophy for Girls’?
The book’s cover bears a pomegranate and was painted by one of our students based on a shoddy painting that Melissa did a long time ago. The pomegranate refers to Persephone. The book’s Prologue envisions her story as one of a girl growing into her conscious awareness and smarts—i.e., growing into her own questions and knowledge. As a liminal but essential figure in many Greek myths, Persephone is the only goddess to reign over two realms, earth and Hades. As described in Philosophy for Girls, she moves between both domains. She also symbolizes being in-between adolescence and adulthood as well as symbolizing, for our book’s purposes, the ways that a person may come to be intellectually empowered.
We have seen many “Persephones” in our classes. They are young people on the brink, wanting permission for and recognition of their own ideas, not knowing if they’re good enough or smart enough or “profound” enough. We have seen these Persephones because we have also been, and are, these Persephones—full of questions, wandering our worlds, growing into ourselves.
Since this book is transgressive in many ways, especially in being both personal and academic, we wanted to communicate clearly to the book’s contributors whom to have in mind when writing their chapters, even in the initial stages. We took some risks in doing so, like in providing this specific snapshot of the range of readers envisioned for this book:
- She is 17-years-old and has been told that she “thinks too much.” She has been given this book by a well-meaning relative or friend. She is curious and interested in ideas but doesn’t quite know where to go with her thoughts.
- She is the daughter of your best friend who wants to know what you work on in philosophy and why/how to think about your topic.
- She has taken a course or two in philosophy and is sitting in your office, wanting recommendations from you about what to read next and where to go in her thinking. You hand her this book.
- She is sitting in an upper-division high school class or first-/second-year college course in philosophy. She will be asked to give a presentation on one of the chapters and has chosen yours.
- She feels misfit and is filled with questions. Your chapter can help guide her through the question-worthiness of your topic and how she can approach it.
We don’t wonder why women of all ages feel excluded from philosophy, because many of the traditional resources and general discourse in the field are not inclusive or appealing to women and girls. It’s also no wonder that women and girls have their ideas valued less than men and boys. When those ideas are undervalued, everyone suffers. This book, then, aims to be explicitly good for those who identify as girls and women, but the audience includes anyone who seeks to break harmful traditions that perpetuate stereotypes about men being thinkers and women…not.
What we have learned from our students about what they want to read—and what we want to read—meant paying special attention to writing details. These included a sincere and rigorous though non-academic tone, a pitch that honors the “thinkerly” nature of its readers in being smart without being condescending, prose that’s vivid and clear while conveying complex ideas eloquently, and a thoroughly coherent and cohesive book. Authors wrote in their own voices and provided opening chapter anecdotes about girls and women, and citing nearly all women in their essays.
2. The Ethos and Process of the Book
Despite this being a revolutionary project, the concept was conceived through classical philosophical fields of study. Designing the book to exist beyond this place and time demanded that we consider recurring, timeless questions of metaphysics and epistemology in addition to social-political and ethical concerns, each of which forms a section of the book. We invited contributors through a varied and thorough research process, reaching between and beyond the analytic-continental divide and among genres. Fully aware of the other under-represented groups in professional philosophy, we looked for contributors with diverse backgrounds and perspectives. All chapters were written by women philosophers, with “women” being understood inclusively. Particularly aware of prestige bias and attempting to correct for it as much as possible in a single project, we attempted to reach women around the world, in a variety of institutions. Contributors are thus both established and rising philosophical stars.
We expect some disagreements from readers. Some might think we are reinforcing gender binaries by focusing on girls and women, despite our argument that we are only recognizing one group (of many) who have been and still are excluded from philosophy. Some may disapprove of the word “girls,” though we believe “girl” is being reclaimed and demarcates a new region and locus of power, one that does not rely upon norms of masculinity for definition, This reclamation is evidenced by movements such as “#Like a Girl,” Amy Poehler’s “Smart Girls,” Michelle Obama’s “Let Girls Learn” initiative, and the many admonitions of “You Go, Girl!” Summarily, we think the term has moxie.
3. Some Highlights
One of the most philosophically creative—and frankly, fun—aspects of this project was being able to search for, reveal, imagine, find, and rethink philosophical connections. Working in the “in-between,” we were able to build unique and nontraditional connections between topics that have been separated in more traditional philosophical discussions. We think readers will find the book to be a novel and welcoming approach to philosophy.
The first section of the book is rooted in questions about the “self.” Meena Dhanda’s chapter on identity and Serene Khader’s chapter on autonomy approach this question from metaphysical and ontological dimensions in Analytic and Continental philosophy. This section crystalizes the broad metaphysical subject through a range of illustrative anecdotes, like Khader’s use of Starr in The Hate U Give (2017) as being able to be and stay true to herself in a coherentist view of autonomy, and Dhanda’s use of characters from a contemporary Indian film, The Ship of Theseus (2013), which riffs on the ancient paradox by the same name, to show the complexities of identity over time. Claudia Mills begins her chapter on pride, which shows its complexities in light of a person’s identity and sense of self, with Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Karen Stohr’s use of a quotation from Jane Austen’s Emma, “Emma sat down to think and be miserable,” for the start of her chapter on self-knowledge continues to make us chuckle.
All five chapters in the second section of the book, “Knowing,” demonstrate that knowledge is not value-neutral but instead reveals thical commitments. Gillian Russell’s chapter on logic paves a new path in arguing for a conception of feminist logic, which is “logic used for feminist ends, as a tool for exposing and confronting bias in arguments, and for formulating and defending arguments for gender equality” (95) as part of “logic that studies (gender-based) social hierarchies and their influence on logical consequence” (96). Subrena Smith’s chapter on science shows how “[o]bjectivity is not a value-free realm” (122), using the case of Anna Morandi, an 18th-century anatomist, to show the fraught relationship between science and social worlds. Robin Zebrowski’s chapter on technology traces that idea through Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Patricia Locke’s chapter on art concludes the section, for art too is a way of knowing. The section demonstrates the multiple ways of conceiving knowing in starting with logic and ending with art.
The third section, “Social Structures and Power Relations,” includes chapters on race and gender because they are social structures and, indeed, power relations. It also includes a chapter on language, which might seem unlikely, insofar as language is often associated with metaphysics rather than ethics. Nonetheless, Elizabeth Camp’s essay, “Language: Power Plays in Communication,” interrogates the ways that language exists and is used in a human framework of value and power. Readers should learn to see these structures such that they may navigate their world and resist injustices. Further, simply making oneself heard, understood, and respected as a legitimate interlocutor is challenging. Monica Poole’s essay on credibility, opened through a retelling of Cassandra’s myth, is therefore a central topic not only in this section but in the book.
The final section, “Contemplation in Action,” correlates with ethics but with an emphasis on acting in the world as opposed to traditional value theory. The section begins with Myisha Cherry’s chapter on anger reclaims anger for the ‘angry girl.’ Girls and women are ridiculed for their supposed emotional essence (too emotional to be a president, a fighter pilot, a scientist) while having their emotional lives neutered insofar as only some emotions have been deemed fitting. Anger has always been a “man’s” emotion, and rarely seen as a virtue, yet Cherry shows that by embracing the Medusa trope, anger can be an “act of moral protest” (230). Anger may be exactly the right response to injustice, as may be the virtue of tzedek, the Hebrew virtue of “doing what must be done,” as explored in Devora Shapiro’s chapter. On the other hand, empathy has often been required of young women. Lori Gruen challenges this gendered understanding of empathy and encourages us not only to become empathetic humans, which is a relation-building comportment, but to also think about and critique the social structures that contribute to the oppression of the person for whom we feel empathy. Importantly, she argues that we must extend that empathy to other-than-human animals as well.
The result, we think, breathes fresh life into enduring and timely topics in philosophy. You can find all chapter abstracts here.
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At the end of her Preface to the second edition of Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Gloria Anzaldúa writes, “Caminante, no hay puentes, se hace puentes al andar. (Voyager, there are no bridges, one builds them as one walks.)” This volume, we hope, is the starting point of creative, unique, and powerful reading experiences for girls, and also women, and men, and boys, and non-binary folx, and gender queer folx, and all other folx on the spectrum of diversity that is humanity. We continue to build this bridge as we too walk, seeking the in-betweens that we could not include or were simply missed while relying upon those that we have already found.
The Women in Philosophy series publishes posts on women in the history of philosophy, posts on issues of concern to women in the field of philosophy, and posts that put philosophy to work to address issues of concern to women in the wider world. If you are interested in writing for the series, please contact the Series Editor Adriel M. Trott or Associate Editor Julinna Oxley.
Melissa M. Shew
Melissa M. Shew is a Visiting Professor at Marquette University, where she also works as a Senior Faculty Fellow in the Center for Teaching and Learning. In addition to teaching at the university level for fifteen years, she also taught for five years at an all-girls high school.
Kimberly K. Garchar
Kimberly K. Garchar is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Kent State University and an associated faculty member at Northeast Ohio Medical University. Dr. Garchar specializes in American pragmatism, ethics, and clinical ethics, particularly in the areas of death and dying. She has focused on issues of gender and gender equity throughout her career.
