Feminist Philosophy — A Primer

A little book on a big topic.

I am pleased to announce my just published book, Feminist Philosophy — A Primer.

Because society has historically silenced women’s voices, the history of philosophy is dominated by male voices. Too many philosophy textbooks either entirely leave out women who are philosophers or they tack on a brief mention of them almost as an afterthought.

Feminist philosophy has been a vibrant school of philosophy for several centuries, achieving central place in philosophical thought since the mid-1900s. The contents of this book are excerpted from How We Are and How We Got Here: A Practical History of Western Philosophy. In that book, a chronological survey of philosophy, I discussed feminist philosophy within its historical context. But feminist thought deserves its own book, and this is that book.

With the book, I hope to fill the gap caused by the absence of short, accessible introductions to feminist thought. The book discusses some well-known and some overlooked philosophers who accept the radical notion that women are full human beings.

What I cannot solve, even in a book many times longer, is the problem of patriarchy. The division of humanity into two genders — based on a highly prejudicial interpretation of biological sex — that labels one…