Tales from the Trenches: On Women Philosophers, Feminist Philosophy, and the Society

for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy

Author(s): Nancy Fraser
Source: The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 26, No. 2, SPECIAL ISSUE WITH THE
SOCIETY FOR PHENOMENOLOGY AND EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY (2012), pp. 175-184
Published by: Penn State University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/jspecphil.26.2.0175
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 jsp
Tales from the Trenches: On Women
­Philosophers, Feminist Philosophy, and the
Society for Phenomenology and Existential
Philosophy

Nancy Fraser
new school for social research
and collège d’études mondiales, paris

The fiftieth anniversary of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential

Philosophy (SPEP) provides a good occasion for reflecting on the history
of women and feminist philosophy in the society. I’m not in a position to
provide anything like a real history. But I can offer some memories and
impressions of my own experiences. These will of necessity be personal
and idiosyncratic. But they might nevertheless shed some light on certain
historical events while also revealing something about how the women and
feminist philosophers of my generation encountered the society’s practices
and how some of us sought to change them.
I belong to the generation of women and feminist philosophers who
did their graduate work in the 1970s, the generation who sought to enter
the profession in the late 1970s and early 1980s. We had a tough row to
hoe. In graduate school, many of us labored alone as the sole woman in
the cohort or class. And many of us pursued our work in departments
that had not a single woman professor, let alone one interested in feminist

journal of speculative philosophy, vol. 26, no. 2, 2012

Copyright © 2012 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA

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 176 nancy fraser

­philosophy. This was as true for those of us in Continental ­departments

as for those in more mainstream analytic programs. In fact, I have the
­impression, though not the data to support it, that the situation may have
been worse in Continental departments, which inherited or mimicked an
Old World European style, more overtly patriarchal and authoritarian than
that characteristic of analytic departments. In such departments, as in ana-
lytic departments, female graduate students had to do our work in what
I can now see, with the benefit of hindsight, were “hostile climates.” It
was often assumed that we didn’t belong, weren’t serious, and could never
become real philosophers.
My own experience, it must be said, was rather different. I did my
graduate work in the 1970s at the Graduate Center of the City University of
New York (CUNY). Unusually, the department’s faculty roster included two
senior tenured women, Virginia Held and Gertrude Ezorsky. Granted, they
didn’t speak to each other. And both were analytic philosophers. But both
had serious interests in left-wing political philosophy, while ­Virginia was
developing an interest in feminist philosophy. More important, both sent
a clear message, by their very presence in the department, that a female
­philosopher was not an oxymoron. In addition, this was a time when CUNY
had a significant cohort of women Ph.D. students, including Eva Kittay,
Diana Myers, Judith Lichtenberg, Sue Weinberg, Marcia Lind, Bea Banu, and
me. Comprising some of the strongest students in the ­program, this group
represented a critical mass. As a result of our numbers, the department’s
ethos was relatively woman-friendly. Not only did we women ­students enjoy
considerable legitimacy, but most of us went on to have careers in the disci-
pline, and at least four have done work in feminist ­philosophy.
But CUNY was the exception, not the rule. In the 1970s, most female
philosophy graduate students had to fight for the standing that their male
counterparts were granted as a matter of course. Facing skepticism, if not
outright hostility, women had to fight for the right to do philosophy, to
be taken seriously. And we had to fight that battle over and above all the
myriad “normal” difficulties that all graduate students faced. Quite a few
talented women I knew did not make it through.
Those of us who did faced bleak conditions once we left graduate
school and embarked on teaching careers. In those days, the job market
still ­functioned largely as an old boy network. Very few searches were
genuinely open, and even fewer were open to women. Those of us who
were lucky enough to get jobs—and it was in one respect easier than now,

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 tales from the trenches 177

i­ nsofar as the market was better—mostly found ourselves once again the
only woman in the department.
I can best describe my experience by paraphrasing Art Spiegelman:
it was upon leaving graduate school that my troubles in philosophy truly
began. I taught at three universities before moving to the New School for
Social Research in 1995: State University of New York–Binghamton,  the
University of Georgia, and Northwestern University. One of these (­Georgia)
was a largely analytic department; another (Northwestern) was ­Continental,
with very deep ties to SPEP; while the third (Binghamton) was mixed.
But there were nevertheless real similarities. In each case, I was the only
woman in the Philosophy Department—although ­Northwestern later
hired one more while I was still there. In one case (I leave it to you to
guess which), the departmental climate was overtly misogynistic. In the
others, the ethos was superficially welcoming but founded on a set of
“male-as-norm” assumptions that served to marginalize any woman who
landed there. ­Normal practice included graduate program ­recruitment
­brochures that used the generic he; private, off-campus, invitation-only
­philosophical soirees from which women faculty and students were
excluded; offhand remarks by male professors in seminars and faculty
meetings to the effect that ­fellowship money was wasted on women;
­undergraduate and graduate students who refused to accept the authority
of a female professor; and sexual and gender harassment. To be in a depart-
ment where this sort of thing was “merely” implicit, and not a matter of
open hostility, was the best one could hope for in those days.
Things became especially dicey when one was teaching or practicing
feminist philosophy. The latter was dismissed as ideology (as opposed to
“real philosophy”) and made the butt of jokes. Again, this was just as true in
Continental as in analytic departments—perhaps even more so. ­Consider
the following three incidents, all tied to my repeated (and repeatedly failed)
efforts to hire another feminist philosopher in a celebrated ­Continental
department with deep ties to SPEP. In one case, a distinguished pioneer
of feminist political philosophy was rejected out of hand when the chair
held aloft a letter from a senior member who was away on leave; waving
the letter Joe McCarthy–style, the chair claimed that it contained damag-
ing information about the candidate’s personal integrity, information he
was unfortunately not at liberty to disclose. In a second case, one of the
most influential and widely read Continental feminist philosophers in
the ­country was voted down when a colleague made an elaborate show of

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 178 nancy fraser

c­ overing his eyes, opening her landmark book to a random page, and
­pointing his finger at a random passage; reading aloud, in a voice dripping
with sarcasm, he “demonstrated” that the work was sheer gobbledygook.
As disheartening as these incidents were, my colleagues’ responses to my
protests were even worse: All but one saw nothing wrong with the behav-
iors in question; and several blamed me for disrupting the meetings. But
my protests led to progress of a certain sort. My third attempt went bad in
a more subtle way, as colleagues who had learned to avoid public displays
of misogyny used backdoor channels to the dean to block a hire for which
they had publicly voted. Plus ça change. . . .
As these incidents suggest, the rejection of feminist philosophy could
be every bit as virulent in Continental as in analytic departments. As a
result, women doing Continental feminist philosophy faced multiple bur-
dens. First, we faced all the difficulties of newly hatched Ph.D.s struggling
to make our way in the profession. But in addition, second, many of us
faced primary care responsibilities beyond those our male counterparts
were likely to assume. Third, we faced the sort of gender-based hurdles
and hostile climates mentioned above. Fourth, we encountered difficulties
stemming from the fact that we were doing Continental philosophy in an
analytically dominated profession. Fifth, we faced the scorn (open or hid-
den) of male colleagues for whom the expression “feminist philosophy”
was a contradiction in terms. And this is to say nothing of the further bur-
dens that fell on those of us who were women of color; members of sexual,
religious, and/or ethnic minorities; and/or women from working-class
backgrounds. The result was a heavy load of layered burdens, asymmetric
to those faced by our male counterparts.
There was also what I call “the ruse of collegiality.” I mean the effort-
lessness with which male colleagues interpret women’s unease in such
environments, not to mention our protests against them, as signs of our
“personality problems.” Here’s an example from my history, a story that
I’ve never before told in public. A few months after I was awarded tenure,
in the late 1980s, I received a large envelope in the campus mail contain-
ing materials from my dossier. Most were items I had submitted myself,
which were being returned to me. But the packet also contained a docu-
ment I  should not have received, namely, the department’s confidential
letter ­recommending me to the Tenure Committee. Naturally, I read it
straightaway. After happily making my way through pages arguing that my
research and teaching met the standards for tenure, I came upon a section

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 tales from the trenches 179

that made my heart stop. Under the heading “Service” was a discussion of
my shortcomings as a colleague: I was conflictual, unpleasant, uncollegial,
and difficult to work with—I can’t remember whether they actually used
the word shrill, but that was the general idea. The most galling part was
that, having pilloried me, the signatories (who were themselves not exactly
poster boys for mental health, let alone collegiality) went on to pat them-
selves on the back for their ability to look beyond my personality problems
and to recommend tenure despite them. In the years since, I have often
wondered how that letter found its way to me. Of course, it could have been
a simple mistake. But I sometimes suspect that a secretary in the Dean’s
Office, who knew me and was privy to some of the department’s gender
troubles, may have intentionally included it in the packet.
Although I did in the end get tenure, not everyone in my situation was
so lucky. On the contrary, many talented women in Continental feminist
philosophy were driven out of the profession. Others hung on but were
shunted onto career paths that undervalued their actual gifts and achieve-
ments. Even some of the most well-known and highly regarded feminist
philosophers of my generation found it necessary to leave philosophy
for other disciplines in order to get tenure: Judith Butler had to move to
­rhetoric, Seyla Benhabib had to move to government, and Iris Young had to
move to public policy and political science.
Each of us who did survive has her own story about where and how
she found the resources (both inner and outer) to persevere in the face
of long odds. I’ve already mentioned one chapter of my story: the CUNY
chapter, which gave me a sense of philosophical entitlement. Or rather, it
reinforced the sense I had first acquired as an undergraduate major at Bryn
Mawr College, which was then (and still is) a bastion of female intellectu-
ality and bluestocking feminism. In fact, it was only in retrospect, many
years later, that I came to realize how unusual my formation really was.
I’m still amazed at the sheer dumb luck I had to have studied philosophy
in such exceptional woman-friendly environments and thus to have been
spared the agonies of self-doubt that plagued so many of my female friends
and colleagues in the profession. And I’ve come to see how important it is
to spare others those agonies, by building department cultures that nur-
ture and empower female graduate students and junior colleagues. Equal
opportunity demands nothing less.
Well that’s one side of the story. Now here’s the other side: the good
and  hopeful side. We did actually succeed in creating a body of thought

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of genuine significance, even world-historical significance, I would say.

Of course, feminist philosophy still has nowhere near the legitimacy and
institutional presence it deserves. Yet the body of thought itself is truly
remarkable. It offers a deep interrogation of the hidden gendered struc-
tures that ground all manner of philosophical thought: from metaphysics
and epistemology, philosophy of science, and philosophy of language to
aesthetics, ethics, social and political philosophy, philosophy of law, and
history of philosophy. Probing each of those fields, feminist philosophers
have uncovered the gender biases, asymmetries, and silences. And we have
constructed alternatives. Continental feminist philosophy, especially, was
(and is) at the forefront of this historic achievement.
Thus, the work we did was both revolutionary and stigmatized. How
did we do it? A good part of the answer is second-wave feminism—and
the broader democratizing New Left ethos from which it sprang. We drew
strength from, indeed were lifted by, a great historical wave of radical
energy that was sweeping across the world. Borne along on a giant surge
of utopian longing and militant commitment, we felt emboldened, capable
of standing up for ourselves and making history. Thus, the feminist move-
ment itself was our most important resource. Most of us saw ourselves as
the “academic wing” of the broader movement. We drew on, and tried to
contribute to, the latter’s energy. In those days, there was less separation
than now between academic feminism and feminist activism. Ideas flowed
back and forth quite easily, as we tried to give conceptual and theoretical
form to insights that were generated via consciousness-raising and other
extra-academic practices. Many of us tried to develop forms of writing and
modes of address that could speak simultaneously to our philosophical
colleagues and to broader feminist counterpublics. And of course, we had
one another. We found inspiration and encouragement in the Society for
Women in Philosophy and eventually in women’s caucuses and networks
within SPEP, as I shall explain.
First, however, I need to say for the record that I am tremendously
proud to have been a part of the creation of Continental feminist philoso-
phy. More important, I am deeply grateful to have had the luck to come
along at this point in history and to find the sisters and comrades with
whom to undertake this project and share this work. The opportunity to
situate my work in the context of second-wave feminism gave it a depth and
significance it could never have otherwise had.

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 tales from the trenches 181

Nevertheless, this, too, must be said: For all its historical importance,
feminist philosophy never succeeded in transforming the discipline of
­philosophy to anywhere near the extent that our counterparts in other
humanities disciplines did theirs—I’m thinking of history, ­literature,
­anthropology, and classics, all disciplines in which the problematic of
­gender has been successfully mainstreamed. Our discipline has proved
much more resistant to transformation than any of those. Feminist
­philosophers were forced to take a more separatist path than feminists in
those disciplines. As a result, feminist philosophy became a bit of a ghetto,
albeit the most vibrant ghetto in the profession. In my view, the effects
of our ghettoization are unfortunate—unfortunate for the larger philosoph-
ical world, which was deprived of our insights, but also unfortunate for us.
Too often, we have found ourselves talking only to one another, reading
only one another, citing only one another. Of course, we differ among our-
selves on this point. Some are more or less content to be cut loose and
spared the need to communicate with a retrograde mainstream. Others,
like me, have experienced the isolation as deformation and a loss, albeit not
one of our own making. It’s possible that such differences are generational.
Could it be that the women of my generation were more inclined to directly
engage (indeed to attack) the nonfeminist authorities (the “big men”) in
our fields? That certainly was (and is) my own MO. But whatever one says
about that, our ghettoization remains problematic. As I see it, ­feminist phi-
losophy should not be one disciplinary subfield among ­others but, rather, a
perspective that challenges, and ultimately transforms, ­philosophy as such.
This brings me, finally, to SPEP. The society’s evolution since the bad
old days of the 1980s, when I first participated in it, is quite remarkable.
Imagine the large hotel ballroom where the fiftieth anniversary session
was held, or recall it, if you were there. Picture a packed audience that
includes large numbers of women and people of color. Now begin mentally
subtracting one woman and one person of color after another, until virtu-
ally none remain. What you’re left with is a reasonably accurate picture of
what you would have encountered at a SPEP meeting in the early 1980s.
At SPEP meetings, too, I routinely found myself the sole woman in the
room, at best one of two or three. Feminist philosophy was not on the radar
screen. In fact, there was virtually no critical social theory, no Marxism, no
poststructuralism, no critical “race” theory. There was only, as the society’s
name proclaimed, phenomenology and existential philosophy. And even

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these were sanitized. There was nary a mention of Simone de Beauvoir or

of Sartre’s late Marxian work.
SPEP’s brand of phenomenology and existential philosophy was, in a
word, depoliticized and patriarchal. The informal culture, as I experienced
it, was authoritarian and woman-hostile. Equally problematic were the
society’s governance structures. There were two unelected directors, one of
whom was effectively Director for Life. They, or perhaps he, exercised total
control over the society’s meetings and publications. There was no program
committee, no blind review of submissions. The directors simply selected
the papers and set the program as they liked. They were accountable to no
one. It was at best an old boys’ network, at worst a private fiefdom.
The effect was to preclude any possible foothold for feminist phi-
losophy. Also precluded was any chance for women to participate fully,
on a par with men. And this really mattered for women in Continental
philosophy—whether or not they did feminist work. After all, SPEP effec-
tively was Continental philosophy in the United States. To be excluded from
or ­marginalized in SPEP was to face a kind of “philosophical death.” There
was simply nowhere else to go.
All that changed as a result of a remarkable series of events in the
mid-1980s, events in which I participated. The transformation began in
1984, when a motion to establish a Committee on the Status of Women
was adopted at the annual business meeting in Atlanta. Frankly, I don’t
remember much about how that happened, although I played a role, along
with Linda Bell, Bill McBride, and several others. I recall, however, that the
establishment opposed the motion and that the directors were not at all
pleased when it was passed. And I know that I was one of the three original
members of the resulting committee, along with Lenore Langsdorf and Bill
McBride. What I have only recently remembered, but can now recall with
total clarity, is that my paper submission for the following SPEP meeting
was rejected.1
Much clearer in my mind are the events of the following round, at
the 1986 business meeting in Toronto. At that meeting, Iris Young,
Bill McBride, and I introduced a resolution aimed at democratizing the
­organization. Our motion called for (1) competitive elections and term
­limits for the co-directors, at least one of whom had to be a woman, and
(2) an elected program committee and blind review of submissions. Our
effort had the support of many, though not all, of the society’s female
members; some who held back may have been genuinely opposed, while

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 tales from the trenches 183

others were ­sympathetic but too dependent on old boy patronage to come
out openly for the cause. In addition, our supporters included many men
who chafed under the authoritarianism of the society’s leadership and
who were eager for change. Bill McBride played a leading role in orches-
trating our ­campaign and in lending it legitimacy. He was a distinguished
scholar and a full professor, while Iris and I were nobodies, untenured
assistant ­professors and feminist theorists.
The Toronto business meeting was tumultuous. Our side had worked
hard to promote attendance—I remember trawling the halls, buttonholing
women and other likely supporters, and pressing them to attend. Owing
in part to those efforts, but even more to the growing awareness that a
confrontation was brewing, the room was packed. I suspect, in fact, that
it was the most well-attended business meeting in SPEP’s fifty-year his-
tory. The chair (who happened to be the aforementioned Director for Life)
used every parliamentary trick in the book to discredit our motion and to
skew the discussion against it. I can’t claim to remember accurately and
fully all that went on at the meeting. But one incident stands out sharply
in my memory: it was a dramatic moment, which could well have been
decisive. The ­Director for Life was using the power of the chair to call on
people whom he believed would oppose our motion. One after another,
the naysayers spoke. All the while, Iris, Bill, and I were waving our arms,
desperate to get the floor so we could rebut them. But to no avail. We were
ignored, as were our supporters, and the cause seemed lost. Disregarding
our flailing arms, the chair called on someone way at the back of the room,
with whom none of us had discussed the matter. The person he called on
was Dick Howard, a senior member of the chair’s own department, whom
he must have considered a safe bet. Once recognized, Dick did something
remarkable and completely unexpected: he stood up and said, “I yield the
floor to Nancy ­Fraser.” One of the unsung heroes of this story, he gave us
the chance to make our case for the motion and to answer the claims of its
detractors. The vote that followed, as you know, was a resounding victory
and one that initiated a major transformation of the society’s governing
structures.
It was perhaps a small change in the grand scheme of things. But
big changes are made up of such small events. So this one deserves to be
remembered, along with others, as we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of
SPEP. It was a moment in which the society’s previous way of doing “busi-
ness as usual” ran up against broader historical forces, which proved to

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be bigger than it. It was also a moment in which feminist philosophy and
feminist activism converged—not only with each other but also with the
broader spirit of antiauthoritarianism and the wider democratic energies
of an era. I, for one, look forward to the day when such a convergence
occurs again.

note
1. I owe this “recovered memory” to Lenore Langsdorf. In remarks from the
floor at the fiftieth anniversary session where this lecture was given, Langsdorf
mentioned that in the year following her election to the first SPEP Committee
on the Status of Women, her conference paper submission had been rejected.
This prompted me to recall that mine had been too. Yet, so far as I know, neither
of us was aware of the other’s rejection. And so the pattern was never revealed
until now.

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