Lecture 2: exclusion of certain women, Coventry

What is Catherine McKenna’s pornography debate?

How anti-pornography laws turned into anti-obscenity laws that were applied unequally

How were anti-obscenity laws used to suppress book stores?

They were justified to suppress LGBTQ+ and sexuality that were considered socially unacceptable at the time

What is the difference between analytic and continental methods?

• Analytic: finding symbols in everything

• Continental: explaining cultural/social impacts

How is analytical philosophy related to excluding women in philosophy?

Philosophy was dominated by analytical philosophy

• implied that the male mind > female body

• masculinity: positive, associated with logic

• femininity: negative, associated with emotion

What is the Heloise complex?

Women seeking philosophy by becoming a pupil to a man, thus being stuck in the man’s shadow

• Heloise is the most famous female philosopher due to her connection to a man

Why did femininity in women exclude them from philosophy?

Agreed that women ARE capable of reason

• just that their voice is reason is “feminine” instead of neutral

• excluded due to association with not be rational

What are Eileen O’Neill’s 4 reasons for women’s exclusion in philosophy?

1. Didn’t use their name (anonymous)

2. Work in letters, poetry, novels not considered philosophy

3. The domination of “scientific philosophy” (associated to masculinity)

4. Threatened if they wrote (viewed as unnatural)

How is access related to excluding women in philosophy?

Access to reading/writing were gatekept for only “rational” people

• inability to read/write excludes you from philosophy

• political autonomy/self autonomy also reserved for “rational” people

How did George Eliot & Marry Ann Evans escape conventry?

• Through articulating philosophical ideas in her novels

• Contributions by translating Spinoza & Feuerbach philosophies