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The Meaning of Heroism
Taking this class during a life-altering pandemic has shifted my personal definition of heroism in many ways. At the beginning of this course in August, I wrote about a vague concept of heroism, narrowing my definition near the end by recognizing Black Lives Matter as a key example of modern-day heroism. Reading my original discussion post, my description of BLM’s heroism continued to resonate with me: “[BLM] used historical context to create a collectivist, decentralized movement for Black lives which can’t be slowed or stopped by the state assassination of a leader. That kind of power is scary to state leaders, but it’s a rare kind of power that is truly for the people.”
The majority of heroes we’ve studied in this course have been differentiated by seemingly super-human qualities (mostly in battle) and hailed as extraordinary individuals. Part of what makes Achilles so special as a hero is that there can never be another Achilles (unless you ask Aristotle, of course). These heroes often defy the community to achieve their heroism, and are then raised on a pedestal for their individualism. If there’s one thing living through covid-19 has taught me thus far, however, it’s that true, far-reaching heroism is much more about collectivism than it is individuality. The most impactful heroes are those who reject the limelight and celebrity, working with others to achieve a beneficial collective outcome over any individual status-gains. Modern heroism no longer fusses with physical strength, combat skills, or bloodlines. Modern heroism is empathy, goodwill, and collectivism.
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POLS383 Takeaways
Out of everything we’ve read and discussed this semester, the most prevalent takeaway from this class for me has been the repeated exclusion of women in philosophy, both in ancient times and our modern discussions. My favorite blog post to write was on an article from The Washington Post, which discussed how the lack/poor quality of female representation in Ancient Greek/Roman texts continues to discourage women from pursuing philosophy today. In Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey, we saw women frequently diminished to sex slaves and battle pawns. Even in the realm of the Divine, goddesses seemed to be portrayed as more emotional, fickle, and dramatic than their male counterparts. In Plato’s Republic, there was little room in the political community for female voices. These themes have been repeated throughout the majority of our texts, and as a woman, this has resulted in a frustrating lack of applicability and representation throughout our curriculum. Reading Antony and Cleopatra was incredibly refreshing in this sense, as Cleopatra is nearly the first woman we’ve read about who’s characterized as forward-thinking, cunning, and as possessing leadership qualities (extraordinary ones, at that). I’m appreciative to have ended the semester on this note; Cleopatra is the "unexpected” hero female students of philosophy deserve.
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Heroism in the News, 11/12/2020
Nebraska’s Governor Pete Ricketts is no hero, but he provides a great modern day comparison to Julius Caesar’s selfish behavior in Shakespeare’s works. In Julius Caesar, Roman General Caesar faces serious flack from confidants (Brutus) and civilians alike for consistently placing his selfish needs before the needs of the Roman army and civilians. Similarly, Gov. Ricketts has endured unprecedented criticism throughout 2020, mostly pertaining to his resistance regarding covid-19 precautions (such as mask mandates or enforced social-distancing). Ricketts is likely resistant to enacting these measures because of the stake his family has in Nebraska’s economy, including holdings in the state’s highest-profiting businesses. A few months ago, Ricketts even threatened to withhold emergency federal funding from state buildings who chose to enforce mask-wearing per the CDC’s guidelines. Because Gov. Ricketts has continually failed to protect Nebraskan families through enhanced safety measures since the virus’s arrival on American shores, he’s partially to blame for his own exposure and his succeeding quarantine this week. Hopefully this personal experience with covid-19 will encourage Ricketts to display some leadership and enforce new guidelines in Nebraska as cases rise.
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Heroism in the News, 11/10/2020
This Tuesday, November 10th, 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci--the nation’s leading infectious disease expert--was honored as part of the Brooklyn borough’s “Brooklyn COVID Heroes” acknowledgements, which have been recognized throughout 2020. Eric Adams, President of the Brooklyn Borough, called Fauci “a reassuring champion of science and reason who has navigated our nation through turbulent times.” Dr. Fauci grew up in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, and has served under several Presidential administrations as an acclaimed health expert. During his speech, Fauci assured the audience that a covid-19 vaccine is on the way, and credited his learned “Brooklyn strong” as the key characteristic which defines his endurance in Washington. This recognition closely follows former President Trump’s disparaging comments regarding Fauci and his team, suggesting he would fire Dr. Fauci following the election. Dr. Fauci’s commitment to science and safety above all, despite continued criticism from the highest elected office in the country, is a profound example of modern heroism and leadership. His apolitical record, working with Presidential administrations across party lines to combat several health crises (HIV/AIDS, SARS, the Swine Flu, and now covid-19), exemplifies his genuinely benevolent intention.
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Heroism in the News, 11/05/2020
Throughout our time in POLS383, we’ve seen the political community’s importance to justice demonstrated across several ancient works. In Politics, Aristotle asserts this is due to justice’s inherent responsibility to both equality and the common good. We discussed in class that societies fail only when people become apathetic to their greater political community, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the United States today. Beyond the mask debates of 2020, the U.S. has struggled with political engagement and voter turnout (especially among young people) since the mid-20th century. In some of the best news of this year, the 2020 general election is expected to accrue the largest turnout since 1908 (when women and people-of-color were largely obstructed from voting), with a projected 66.4% of the eligible voting population casting their ballots this cycle. Close competition between candidates spiked higher turnout in battleground states, as well as among the younger generation of voters ages 18-29. Such historic participation is encouraging for the larger political community, especially in a year (or four) plagued by the erosion of democratic principles and humanitarian ideals.
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Heroism in the News, 11/3/2020
On Monday we discussed Aristotle’s assertion in Politics that the wise view the soul as a form of harmony, for which leisure is essential. He saw music as a crucial component of this relationship due to the inherent joy and emotion it produces, which is unlike any other. In 2020, music’s impact on the world permeates far deeper than solely leisure, and this extends beyond flighty “cancel culture” to weighty political endorsements and lobbying through popular entertainers. Rap is a fundamentally political genre, and rappers have used their powerful lyricism to invoke class and race discussions since at least the 1980s. Some producers and musicians even claim government officials have involved themselves in the rap game, essentially bribing artists to incite violence in their music, which then allows politicians to swoop in and campaign on “law and order”. On October 29th, 5 days before the election, Lil Wayne announced his endorsement of President Trump--and as of today, Good Luck America reported Lil Pump has joined him. Lil Wayne and Lil Pump accompany a string of rappers who’ve seemingly endorsed the president, including Kanye West (who also ran for president in 2020 after the primary cycle), Ice Cube (who met with Trump this year to discuss his “Contract with Black America”), and 50 Cent.
If you’re interested in the politics of rap music I would definitely recommend NPR’s podcast Louder than a Riot!
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Heroism in the News, 10/29/2020
Here’s a wholesome story for your spooky season! Hendrik and Alarik Hildebrant, two brothers from Georgetown, Texas, recognized their personal hero this week by dressing up in his honor for Halloween. Warren, who works for Texas Disposal Systems, is idolized by the Hildebrant brothers. Sabrina, the boys’ mom, says the two wait for Warren to make his rounds every Thursday morning, and rush out to greet him with Gatorade and snacks. In return, Warren fuels the kids’ excitement by providing them personal demonstrations of his truck and it’s capabilities. The boys couldn’t wait to show Warren their homemade TDS costumes, complete with a custom mini garbage truck for storing Halloween candy (pictured), and work boots which match Warren’s exactly. Service providers (like trash-collection employees) have historically been denied the recognition which comes with heroism, even though we rely on their efforts daily. However, as my post on modern heroism indicated a few weeks ago, people are beginning to appreciate these services and their importance to the system on a greater scale. There is no better example of this appreciation than the genuine admiration that comes from kids like the Hildebrant boys, untainted by societal standards and cultural norms. Take a look at this story for some heart-warming pictures, just to take the edge off election week. :)
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Heroism in the News, 10/27/2020
Unfortunately, I’m writing this post in response to a post I made in optimism on September 22, as Justice Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to the Supreme Court on October 26, 2020. In my post a month ago, I praised both Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski for taking a stand against Republican party leaders by planning to vote against Barrett’s confirmation. Last night when the Senate held Barrett’s confirmation hearing, Sen. Collins was the only Republican to vote against the confirmation. Sen. Collins’ Democratic opponent in Maine--Speaker Sara Gideon--asserts this was a calculated move by Collins to secure more votes in a close election, saying Collins would have supported Barrett’s nomination had the Republicans needed her vote. Zach Blanchard, the author of this article, supported this by confirming Collins voted in favor of nominating Justice Barrett to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017, as well as Justice Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in 2018. Sen. Collins’ supposed heroism and stand for justice represents the exact opposite of Antigone’s. While Antigone was more than willing to break the law and die for her brother’s cause and what she thought was just, Sen. Collins only stands for what’s just when it it doesn’t stand to hurt her. While that may not be the antithesis of heroism, it’s certainly disingenuous.
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Too Much Freedom: The Case for American Collectivism
Argumentative Post, 10/23/2020
The coronavirus pandemic has wrought a whole host of challenges across the globe, but an issue which seems uniquely American is the unending debate over the necessity and legality of enforced mask-wearing. Other more centralized countries, who are committed to and unbothered by their enduring family and community values, have taken to wearing masks unhesitatingly, enjoying relative success in fighting the virus because of it. The U.S., however, has struggled through a seemingly unending 9-month ebb-and-flow of new cases and fatalities, mostly due to procedural inconsistencies regarding social-distancing and mask-wearing between states. Majority-Republican states have been resistant to safety measures for the most part, following the lead of President Trump, who has yet to consistently wear a mask despite his recent familial battle with covid-19 and his hypocritical restrictions on personal employees. Reporter Frank Bruni argues the mask debate is a new symbol of the degradation of American expertise under Trump, supported by his recent verbal dismissal of the U.S.’s apolitical disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci as “a disaster”, and his associates as “idiots” (Haberman, 2020). Trump has similarly elevated the concept of mask-wearing to a symbol of status, with Bruni arguing that refusal to wear a mask inherently implies one’s access to consistent and reliable testing. Journalists Liz Plank, BrieAnna Plank, and Anna North highlight Trump’s encouragement of militaristic, tough-guy messaging in response to the pandemic as a perpetuation of this selfish individualist culture, as such rhetoric implies showing basic human empathy and consideration is somehow weak or submissive.
According to the majority of reporters and analysts featured in this article, this American conundrum is rooted in pervasive individualism and our collectively fragile self-concept. Lithick asserts every modern American, in this era of self-expression desperately sought originality, has “been made to believe that our only important ability is to be seen and heard”, so for individuals who have taken this lifetime of subconscious messaging to heart, masks seem to be equated to the complete erasure of the individual. There is a distinctly western obsession with being seen, even if it means risking mortality. Anti-maskers have cherry-picked all kinds of legislation to advance their own agenda, but the First Amendment is most commonly abused, as dissenters often “forget” the limits our Founding Fathers imparted on “free” speech. As Lydia Denworth of Scientific American reported, some Americans have even claimed mask-wearing violates their religious freedom, as it prevents others from seeing their face which was made “in the likeness of God” (Lithwick, 2020).
Americans’ mask debacle is the perfect example of the predicted contradictions in Socrates’ imagined democracy throughout Plato’s Republic. In Books 8 and 9, Socrates famously characterizes democracies as full of “unnecessary desire and thumos (spirit)”, but lacking in reason, which is essential for the philosopher. He dismisses democracies as a legitimate form of governance, believing they dangerously allocate too much freedom for the individual. As we’ve witnessed throughout 2020, along with the erosion of democratic ideals, too much freedom often leads to self-righteous individualism, which is inherently dangerous for the community. Dahlia Lithwick puts it best in her article for Slate on American individualism: “if you maintain that your freedom to ritually enact your ineffable you-ness at the expense of everyone else is what makes America different, it stands to reason that masks feel akin to tyranny” (Lithwick, 2020).
Haberman, M. (2020, October 19). Trump calls Fauci 'a disaster' in a call with his campaign staff. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/19/us/elections/trump-fauci.html.
Lithwick, D. (2020, May 14). The American Obsession With Individualism and the Refusal to Wear a Mask. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/masks-coronavirus-america.html.
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Heroism in the News, 10/22/2020
Tonight Kristen Welker became only the second Black woman to moderate a presidential debate solo since Carole Simpson in 1992. Welker graduated from Harvard in 1998 after interning with “Today”, and has been an NBC White House correspondent since 2011. During this evening’s debate, she zeroed in on six topics: the economy and American families, leadership characteristics, covid-19 management, race relations, national security, and climate change. These highly pertinent topics have been cursory in previous debates, outshined by interruptions and personal attacks. Welker, however, held her own, unwaveringly enforcing candidates’ time limits and successfully directing them to discuss more specified policy than ever before. Our democracy is inarguably at stake in this election; Russia, China, and Iran are all provably invested in destabilizing U.S. democratic ideals and voter efficacy. Voters were owed in this final debate a respectful exchange about tangible policy, and I thought Welker facilitated this to the best of her ability. This type of commitment to democratic ideals, while probably considered dangerous by Socrates’ standards, defines modern American heroism to me. I also thought it was important to note Welker’s objective and deferential demeanor throughout the debate, despite President Trump’s prior attacks on her character, as well as his repeated claims throughout the debate that he’d done more for Black Americans than anyone besides Abraham Lincoln. Kristen Welker, who is Black and Native American, fielded these unhinged declarations with the utmost grace.
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Heroism in the News, 10/20/2020
In this article by the Washington Post, a Swedish economics professor grapples with one of the questions Socrates focuses on throughout The Republic: is there such a thing as too much freedom?
Lars Calmfors begins to address this inquiry by analyzing Sweden’s response to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. While the Swedish Public Health Agency emphasized social-distancing and work-from-home protocol, the government never mandated a formal lockdown allegedly due to high public compliance. Social gatherings have only been limited to 50 people, and schools and daycare centers have remained open throughout the year. This approach has inarguably softened the economic “blow” of covid-19 for Sweden, but while many have praised the state and sought to mimic it, including President Trump’s medical adviser Scott Atlas, Calmfors argues that the Swedish strategy was neither profitable nor preferable.
Sweden’s drop in GDP over 2020 has been considerably smaller than that of other European countries. Sadly, however, Sweden’s death rate from coronavirus is one of the highest. Sweden’s neighbors Norway and Finland have enjoyed both a smaller GDP decrease and a lower death rate, all while imposing more stringent restrictions and lockdown procedures. As of this past week, Norway cumulatively indicated 52 coronavirus infections per million people, Finland saw 64 infections per million people, and Sweden suffered a staggering 581 infections per million people (right behind the U.S. at 673 infections per million people, but unfortunately the U.S. lacks a centralized public healthcare system like the aforementioned states). By nearly any calculation, the minor benefits to Sweden’s economy are offset by the economic detriments of so many lives/so much productivity lost. Coronavirus has repeatedly proven that too much individual freedom will often cost the collective.
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Heroism in the News, 10/18/2020
A poll conducted by Mattel and the UK children’s program Fireman Sam for the Modern Day Heroes Campaign surveyed 2,000 adults to better pinpoint public perceptions of modern-day heroism. The campaign launched to fundraise for the Disasters Emergency Committee and promote Fireman Sam, but I found the survey results about modern heroism very interesting in comparison to the models of ancient heroism we’ve analyzed in class. A few of the highlights:
1. 36% of those surveyed said they’d changed their personal definitions of heroism in light of the events of 2020, with more emphasis on the “everyday hero” as opposed to superhero-like characters.
2. Heroic careers for 2020: nurses, doctors, firefighters, grocery store employees, waste collection workers, and delivery drivers.
3. Determination, honesty, and integrity were listed as the leading attributes of a hero.
4. Only 7% of those polled listed physical strength as a defining characteristic of heroism (take that Achilles)!
5. 74% of those polled believe it’s important for children to see a diverse range of heroes in the television shows they watch.
6. The top 10 acts of “everyday heroism” according to those surveyed:
- assisting in first aid
- directing traffic after an accident
- aiding someone with a flat tire
- jump-starting someone’s car
- giving someone a ride
- reaching something on the top shelf for a stranger at the store
- lending money
- helping someone with a tech issue (setting up a smartphone, lending a phone charger)
- surprising your partner/friend/kids with a treat
- bringing a spare mask for a friend :)
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Heroism in the News, 10/13/2020
On Monday we discussed at length whether people would commit unjust acts if they knew they could never be punished, which begs the question whether people would commit just acts if they knew they could never personally reap the rewards. This question is particularly interesting in light of the commencement of Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing in the Senate this week.
Much of Barrett’s hearing so far has revolved around her motherhood to seven children, two of which were adopted from Haiti. While reading hearing’s transcript from 10/12, I noticed glaring differences in the ways Barrett described her kids. Barrett’s biological children were described in terms of their future aspirations and their similarities to their parents, while her adopted children were introduced solely through their adoption stories and prior struggles. Barrett played on pathos by narrating the “terrible” conditions in which she and her husband “rescued” these children from, while describing her youngest special-needs child in similarly degrading terms. Senate Republicans have posited these anecdotes to highlight Barrett’s alleged propensity for empathy and commitment to service, but her rhetoric makes me question the true motives behind propositioning her children and their adoption stories.
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Heroism in the News, 10/08/2020
Memory Haven, an app for dementia patients and their caretakers, will launch on the app store late this October. The app’s journey to success was marked by significant challenges; although the technology industry is dominated by males, Memory Haven was solely developed by three Nigerian-Irish young women (Rachael Akano, Margaret Akano, and Joy Njekwe) and their female mentor, Evelyn Nomayo. Memory Haven was created for a 12-week competition sponsored by Technovation through their Technovation Girls campaign. The app ultimately took home the competition’s prize title, surpassing over 1,500 submissions from 62 different states.
The young women’s app includes six features to assist with three critical indicators of dementia: memory loss, loss of speech, and recognition difficulties. Features include a reminder setting for medication, a photo album with tagging capabilities (to aid in recognition), music catalogs, outreach opportunities, memory games, and face/voice recognition.
Most of the challenges the young women faced were centered around technology’s lack of diversity, regarding both race and in gender. When the Irish Times announced the women had been selected as finalists for Technovation Girls, internet trolls questioned the women’s Irish citizenship and the validity of their efforts. Though they have faced adversity throughout their education and careers, as well as throughout the process of app-creation, these women stuck with the path and came out on top. They displayed a heroism like that of Odysseus--one of labor, ordeal, perseverance, and endurance.
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Heroism in the News, 10/06/2020
President Trump, who has downplayed the severity of the coronavirus since its initial appearance in the U.S., is continuing to belittle the illness’s symptoms throughout his individual case. Trump’s administration publicized the president’s diagnosis of covid-19 on October 2nd, and since the announcement, there’s been little but “good news” and projected strength leaving the White House. October 5th, just three days post-publication, the president staged a dramatic departure from Walter Reed military hospital where he was receiving treatment. In a massive display of supposed “invincibility”, the president returned to the White House from Marine One, removed his mask, and asserted, “I feel good,” before entering a room full of aides. Prior to President Trump’s return, he’d already infected First Lady and several other aides, but returning to the White House mask-less seems characterizing of his general disregard. While some 210,000 Americans have died of covid-19, and millions have been infected, the president’s message as of October 5th was that Americans shouldn’t fear the virus or let it “control [their] lives”, with some sources claiming he reported feeling better than he had in 20 years. President Trump and his campaign were clearly trying to emulate an Achilles-like infallible heroism in the face of the upcoming election. The president is battling an illness which has killed many, and his team is projecting nothing but self-assuredness to convince Americans that society and the economy have moved past the virus. Though the president received unprecedented experimental treatments at Walter Reed, he’s even alleged immunity to covid, though he’s only around 5 days into his 14-day quarantining period post-treatment. This Achilles-esque show of power and will is interesting in this context, because the president is not a young warrior like Achilles, nor is his age group exempt from the virus’s victimization--in reality, President Trump is a 74-year-old man with significant health problems, who, like old Socrates in Crito, should be wary of claiming such victory and heroism so readily.
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Justice is Indefinable Without the Female Perspective (Argumentative Post)
Women have been excluded from philosophy since its commencement as a discipline. Throughout the Homerian epics, as well as Plato’s works, the ideas and actions of women are minimized, disregarded, or belittled, and female characters are nonessential unless in the context of sex or the home life. Female character arcs were historically restricted to goddesses. Although I acknowledge the general analysis that women were simply uneducated and rarely existed in roles of warfare or philosophy–the “heroism” of the time–as a woman of the 21st century well-versed in the depth and range of other women, I often find that explanation hard to reconcile. I’m sure the few women of the time who could read observed the discrepancies between women’s reputation in literature and their lived experiences; this is confirmed in the writings of Marie de Gournay, a French author of Shakespeare’s time, who queried, “how unjust is the way in which women are usually treated in conversations [of philosophy], in so far as they are included at all?” (Anderson, 2019)
Female philosophers like de Gournay were discounted in their fields just as often as they were in ancient Greek literature. Some were persecuted for their theory in manners evocative of Socrates’s conviction and execution. While Marie de Gournay was challenging her 17th-century peers in France, German princess Elisabeth of Bohemia influenced Rene Descartes throughout their six-year correspondence (intriguing him with her unprecedented critiques of his writings). Simultaneously, philosophers Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway were diversifying discussions of tolerance, human suffering, and community in England. Less than a century later in 1734, Emilie Du Chatelet defied stereotypes by founding a philosophical hub from her home, as French women were banned from participating in intellectual conversations and university-life. Chatelet’s later work, “Foundations of Physics”, made waves throughout Enlightenment-era Europe, and while her discoveries have remained relevant, her name and significance have sadly faded from modern consciousness.
W.W. Norton & Co published “The Norton Introduction to Philosophy” in 2015, an anthology of some of the field’s greatest works, compiled and edited by renowned professors from Princeton and M.I.T. and beginning with the works of Plato and Aristotle. Though this textbook detailed 2,400 years of prominent texts, it failed to integrate any of the numerous foundational female works pre-20th century (Anderson, 2019). We in POLS383 have been promised more flattering portrayals of women once we delve into Shakespeare’s writings, but this lack of analysis surrounding firsthand female perspectives in philosophy is observable even through this course. While women have dominated classroom education since the 20th century, positions in higher education and school administration were consistently reserved for white men until the last decade (Wong, 2019). This trend may explain the centuries-long persistence of these works, despite their narrow perspective and lack of diversity in terms of gender, not to mention race or status. Furthermore, this could provide insight into the modern lack female philosophical engagement, as only 30% of bachelor’s degrees in philosophy are obtained by women (Wong, 2019). The perseverance of these homogenous texts is partially to blame–why would any logical woman spend four years studying a curriculum which has minimized her perspective so vehemently? Professors Andrew Janiak and Christia Mercer argue the value of female perspectives most succinctly in their discussion with the Washington Post’s Nick Anderson, asserting, “from Plato’s ‘Republic’ through the early modern period, questions about the relation between justice and education were central to philosophy. Unsurprisingly, it is marginalized authors such as de Gournay who often treat these questions most astutely.” (Anderson, 2019)
Anderson, N. (2019, April 29). Philosophy’s gender bias: For too long, scholars say, women have been ignored. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/04/28/philosophys-gender-bias-for-too-long-scholars-say-women-have-been-ignored/
Wong, A. (2019, February 20). The U.S. Teaching Population Is Getting Bigger, and More Female. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/02/the-explosion-of-women-teachers/582622/.
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Justice is Indefinable Without the Female Perspective (Argumentative Post)
Women have been excluded from philosophy since its commencement as a discipline. Throughout the Homerian epics, as well as Plato’s works, the ideas and actions of women are minimized, disregarded, or belittled, and female characters are nonessential unless in the context of sex or the home life. Female character arcs were historically restricted to goddesses. Although I acknowledge the general analysis that women were simply uneducated and rarely existed in roles of warfare or philosophy--the “heroism” of the time--as a woman of the 21st century well-versed in the depth and range of other women, I often find that explanation hard to reconcile. I’m sure the few women of the time who could read observed the discrepancies between women’s reputation in literature and their lived experiences; this is confirmed in the writings of Marie de Gournay, a French author of Shakespeare’s time, who queried, “how unjust is the way in which women are usually treated in conversations [of philosophy], in so far as they are included at all?” (Anderson, 2019)
Female philosophers like de Gournay were discounted in their fields just as often as they were in ancient Greek literature. Some were persecuted for their theory in manners evocative of Socrates’s conviction and execution. While Marie de Gournay was challenging her 17th-century peers in France, German princess Elisabeth of Bohemia influenced Rene Descartes throughout their six-year correspondence (intriguing him with her unprecedented critiques of his writings). Simultaneously, philosophers Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway were diversifying discussions of tolerance, human suffering, and community in England. Less than a century later in 1734, Emilie Du Chatelet defied stereotypes by founding a philosophical hub from her home, as French women were banned from participating in intellectual conversations and university-life. Chatelet’s later work, “Foundations of Physics”, made waves throughout Enlightenment-era Europe, and while her discoveries have remained relevant, her name and significance have sadly faded from modern consciousness.
W.W. Norton & Co published “The Norton Introduction to Philosophy” in 2015, an anthology of some of the field’s greatest works, compiled and edited by renowned professors from Princeton and M.I.T. and beginning with the works of Plato and Aristotle. Though this textbook detailed 2,400 years of prominent texts, it failed to integrate any of the numerous foundational female works pre-20th century (Anderson, 2019). We in POLS383 have been promised more flattering portrayals of women once we delve into Shakespeare’s writings, but this lack of analysis surrounding firsthand female perspectives in philosophy is observable even through this course. While women have dominated classroom education since the 20th century, positions in higher education and school administration were consistently reserved for white men until the last decade (Wong, 2019). This trend may explain the centuries-long persistence of these works, despite their narrow perspective and lack of diversity in terms of gender, not to mention race or status. Furthermore, this could provide insight into the modern lack female philosophical engagement, as only 30% of bachelor’s degrees in philosophy are obtained by women (Wong, 2019). The perseverance of these homogenous texts is partially to blame--why would any logical woman spend four years studying a curriculum which has minimized her perspective so vehemently? Professors Andrew Janiak and Christia Mercer argue the value of female perspectives most succinctly in their discussion with the Washington Post’s Nick Anderson, asserting, “from Plato’s ‘Republic’ through the early modern period, questions about the relation between justice and education were central to philosophy. Unsurprisingly, it is marginalized authors such as de Gournay who often treat these questions most astutely.” (Anderson, 2019)
Anderson, N. (2019, April 29). Philosophy's gender bias: For too long, scholars say, women have been ignored. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/04/28/philosophys-gender-bias-for-too-long-scholars-say-women-have-been-ignored/
Wong, A. (2019, February 20). The U.S. Teaching Population Is Getting Bigger, and More Female. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/02/the-explosion-of-women-teachers/582622/.
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