Thinking Woman: A Philosophical Approach to the Quandary of Gender

What does it mean to be a woman? Do women have a unique nature and a unique vocation? Should feminists work to help women specifically or to support all people? Thinking Woman examines the lives and ideas of women in the history of philosophy who wished to understand and advocate for themselves as women. Some like Hildegard of Bingen and Edith Stein found women to be a unique creature designed by God necessary for good stewardship of creation. Others such as Mary Wollstonecraft and Sojourner Truth found women to be identical to men in all but biology and thus identical before the law. Still others from Simone de Beauvoir to Judith Butler found the very question troubling as they tried to sort out cultural ideas from biological rules. These women and their views form a canon on the question of women a canon that can help guide the conversation for thinkers and activists today who want both to understand women and to advocate for justice for all people. In style form and content Thinking Woman is a text that matters. Jennifer Hockenbery Dragseth weaves together history biography analysis and critique to present the impressive range of work by women philosophers on central questions of gender and our common humanity. This works relevance to contemporary science health care religion and politics is essential making Dragseth herself a thinking woman to whom we must listen. --Caryn Riswold Professor of Religion Gender and Womens Studies Illinois College A Lutheran philosopher Jennifer Dragseth uniquely advances the scholarly examination of gender and sexual difference. In search for truth on the complex question of what is a woman Dragseth invites readers to critically engage major gender theories and to do so specifically in conversation with the thinking women who for centuries have approached the quandary of gender philosophically. This sparkling book speaks volumes of the consequential nature of philosophy and theory in the lives of women and advocacy for equality. --Kirsi Stjerna Professor of Lutheran History and Theology Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary of California Lutheran University; Docent University of Helsinki Dragseths work is not only a rigorous treatment of what it has meant for philosophers to think about gender; it is also a compelling defense of the ways that diverse philosophical dialogue might continue to inspire our activism. --Maggie Labinski Assistant Professor of Philosophy Fairfield University Jennifer Hockenbery Dragseth is Professor of Philosophy at Mount Mary University in Milwaukee Wisconsin. She teaches courses in Christian philosophy history of philosophy ethics philosophy of science and women philosophers.