Introduction Every student at Fordham, my undergraduate school, had to take at least two full years of philosophy, so philosophy was one of the largest departments on campus, with at least 20 full-timers. With the rise of feminism, the increased numbers of college-educated women, and affirmative action, all this changed. The vast majority of women philosophers are very sympathetic to the goals of feminism. Before affirmative action, we were systematically discriminated against in the awarding of fellowships and academic prizes, and in admission to graduate schools.
Women are well-represented and active on the contemporary philosophical scene.
There are still comparatively few women logicians, but there are prominent women in most other fields of philosophy, especially ethics, philosophy of science, feminist theory, and epistemology. It is a false stereotype that all women philosophers specialize in feminist theory. Feminist concerns inform the writings of most women philosophers, whether or not they are explicitly writing about feminism. For example, as I will discuss below, Genevieve Lloyd's study of the early rationalists reveals their latent bias in favor of attitudes that we usually consider masculine. Sandra Harding and Helen Longino do philosophy of science from a critical perspective that takes feminism for granted.