In meeting with a graduating senior this afternoon, I learned that her only exposure to a woman philosopher, in a syllabus for a class, was in my freshman seminar on the masters of suspicion with some readings on Arendt and in a 400-level class now in her senior year. In my seriously progressive department, how the hell did that happem? She is super smart and planning on doing a joint MD-JD program. I asked her if she thought about philosophy and pointed her to look, right behind her, at my philosoHERs poster of women in philosophy, and she noted that she did in fact see a few women of color like herself. But it was still much easier to see herself as a forensic MD-JD getting into the minds of serial killers than to see herself as a philosopher.
gonepublic: philosophy, politics, & public life 