“The Philosopher Queens” edited by Rebecca Buxton and Lisa Whiting

 I found this book through Unbound, a website where you can donate to books you would like to read and support their publishing. I saw the title and thought this project sounded incredible, and something absolutely worth having in the literary world. It is super expensive to get a book published, I would encourage people to check out Unbound (regardless of whether or not you live in the UK) and support similar projects.

If someone were to ask you to name a philosopher, everyone would probably name the same couple of people. There are Plato and Aristotle as the ancient philosophers, and then possibly Kant and Nietzsche for the more recent ones. Notice what all of these names have in common? They are all male! Philosophy is incredibly male dominated, with female philosophers throughout history and in modern times often overlooked in favor of their male counterparts. This book aims to change that.

Each chapter of The Philosopher Queens gives a brief overview of a female philosopher’s life and works. I was very impressed with how much information the authors could pack into just the space of a few pages. It feels as though you have a sense of the world that these women lived in, as well as what they thought about. The summaries are excellent and very easy to read, and they name drop all of the philosopher’s major works for further reading.

The authors also clearly highlight a diverse group of women, not just the white upper-class ones that are usually highlighted in “feminist philosophy” courses. There are Asian, African, Islamic, and a whole host of other nationalities highlighted in these chapters. The authors also do not shy away from holding past philosophers accountable to their ideas. Hannah Arendt is a commonly known female philosopher who wrote about WWII and is still relevant today but has a history of racism and racist ideas. This is all brought up and grappled with, as much as it can be in such a short summary.

This is not your typical philosophy textbook with lots of jargon and unreadable sentences. The editors knew what they were doing and made this accessible to everyone. And with the equal parts of history and philosophy, there is plenty to learn about. I hope to eventually make my way through more writings by these lady philosophers, I know that there are plenty I have yet to study.