feminist philosophers talking back and why it matters (to me)

“But feminists have to continue to resist cultural messages that say women’s lives are not important, our experiences have no significance, and our feelings are excessive or uncontrolled and therefore irrational. Autobiographical philosophy is a way of “talking back” to those messages. As a feminist philosopher, I need to have the courage of my convictions and the willingness to investigate my own experiences critically. I need to see them as a source of information while taking them, not as an unmediated reflection of reality or of my self (Scott 1998), but as evidence for the intersubjective meaning and power of social concepts like ‘woman,’ ‘academic,’ and ‘philosophy.’ At the same time, I have to be careful not to overestimate the liberating effects of autobiographical philosophy. It will not change the world, but it can change individuals.”

Christine Overall from Writing What Comes Naturally?
Hypatia, Volume 23, Number 1, Winter 2008, pp. 227-235

I have strong personal conviction to “talking back” to messages that diminish the experiences, voices, and perspectives of women.

This diminishment comes from many places and is not a left-right issue or a religious-secular issue. I have seen and experienced this diminishment in both my right-of-center, religious background and in left-of-center, academic and political (and especially policy) discourses. (Happy to provide examples!)

Interestingly, my time in grad school and discovery of particular strains of feminist theory has reignited a confidence I once carried. I used to be very self-confident, and much of that confidence was rooted in my experiences as a woman, particularly those as a mother. In some ways my religion affirmed these, but what I “knew” was always subject to higher order, decidedly “male” knowledge. I believe this to be symptom patriarchy’s influence on cultural epistemology and ontology more than a flaw of religion, per se.

My own engagement with feminist theory and critical reflection on my own experience and ideas through a feminist theory lens may not change the world. It doesn’t need to. But you better believe it’s changed me!