I was sitting here reading topics in this forum and a niggling thought hit me. How can philosphers be true philosphers unless they take both gender perspectives into thought or account. Does this not negate all or most philisophical viewpoints?
Genders are equal but travel different paths of thought and reality. The more I thought of what I have learned from each popular philospher, has made me realize that they are some what wrong.
At least wrong in the summation. I have been looking at philosphy from a bigoted viewpoint. I have failed to realize that their view points and philospohies negate the opposite gender. I am slowly beginning to understand why certain philosophies seem unfit to me. Gender philosophy hmm yea I think it could be.
Should not all philosophy take into account both genders? Males are dominant here at this forum, why? Why should not the female perspective be brought into concert with the male. Would that not be more accurate and sound? Perhaps a topic of male female aproach to philosophies should be offered where each can be visited and learned instead of just published authorities. what do you think?
I think men (though I am one) are oversubscribed in most things in our society.
I know that for myself, I try not to define myself by gender, by race, by politics. I know that these things are part of who I am, but I do try to minimize their negative impacts as much as I can.
I know I don’t always succeed.
I think a major element of this is just plain old empathy. It is especially evident on ILP these last couple of days that there are some very vocal people who lack any amount of empathy.
I dunno, I guess I’m kind of rambling now, so I’ll stop.
Anyways, just wanted to say I thought your post was really good.
Kris - Do you know the name Carol Gilligan? She is a psychologist who has a lot to say about gender and morality. She often discusses just what you bring up here. She is often called a feminist, but her focus is usually not to promote a feminine view over a male one, but to reconcile the two. Her major work is “A Different Voice”. I googled her and got some informative hits. Just in case you are interested - I consider her a published authority, and more importantly, a writer who makes some sense.
No. Why should a perspective be any lessened simply because it ignores something else? Unless everything is of equal validity (in which case there is no philosophy to be done) then there is always better and worse, and sometimes ‘better’ means ‘to the exclusion of the feminine or female’. Likewise, ‘better’ sometimes means ‘to the exclusion of the masculine or male’.
To me there is no ‘both gender perspectives’ because there is no opinion, intellectual talent, belief or whatever that is exclusive to only one gender. So, theoretically speaking, gender isn’t of the slightest relevance.
Historically, on the other hand, women have been excluded from almost all philosophical culture, certainly in Europe. But I don’t necessarily see this as being to the detriment of philosophy as men can just have just as good, true, right or effective ideas as women.
No, they don’t. People travel different paths, genders are socio-biological constructs that don’t ‘do’ anything autonomously.
Tell me, what is the more obvious:
Male-dominated philosophy that excludes the female (I can’t think of a single example where this is irrefutably clear)
Female-dominated philosophy that excludes the male (almost all feminist philosophy, to its discredit)
The fact is that philosophy is written by people. People have a gender. Some people read a lot into this, some don’t. Just because women haven’t done a lot of philosophy doesn’t make philosophy in general patriarchal, sexist and so on.
They have more interest in it. Just like there are more male physicists but more female primary school teachers.
No, there is no ‘the female perspective’ and there is no ‘the male perspective’. There are perspectives. Sometimes they have some association with one gender rather than another. Most of the time, they don’t.
I think that this is a vastly complex question that I don’t have to time to answer properly at this juncture. Historically there has been a marked exclusion (for whatever reasons) of females from the doing of philosophy. This doesn’t necessarily affect the product, philosophy, however much it might affect the history of philosophy and philosophical institutions. I think that you are grossly simplifying the issue and I’m willing to bet a million dollars that you can’t tell me, clearly, what you mean by ‘the female perspective’.
Now, had you gone for ‘is philosophy predominantly masculine?’ rather than ‘is philosophy predominantly male?’ then we’d be having quite a different conversation and I’d be agreeing with you a lot more. But I see no inherent connection between male and masculine or female and feminine, whereas you clearly do. The issue of how rationality (central concept to all European philosophy) is masculine is covered, at length, by Helene Cixous. She’s an example of a feminist philosopher who doesn’t insist on making crass generalisations and passing it off as political activity, so I get along with her works quite well.
You are right about masculine/male, female/feminine , Hey I was bone tired and waiting for a phonecall about status of a family member, which kept me from my bed 4hours later then normal and obviously stress muddled my brain, so my words while they sounded sound last night are indeed hazy this morning. I admit I could have written it better.
You are also right about not clearly being able to state the feminine perspective which is why I brought it up. It is like knowing you are ill but, not knowing what is wrong with you, so you don’t know how to cure it.
There are fundamental differences in gender perspectives and philosophies and some that are not so obvious. I am not a feminist, never have been and never will be. I don’t think males are evil nor do I believe the average male suppresses females. I just think that perspectives are truly different like left and right.
Here are truly simple examples : defense, war, property, values, morality, education. masculine perspective and philosophy treats these subjects differently then feminine perspective and philosphy.
for example: Property
Property and gender perspectives is an easy place to start.
We are purchasing these 10 acres My husband’s perspective and reasons for the purchase are different then mine, even though they come to the same conclusion : Yes buy the land. Had they been noncompatible we would not be here.
Masculine reasons and perspective: Property will increase in value, lots of space to hold other important crap, I mean investments. And a status of owning more then others at less cost. Basically a financial and status sound purchase.
Feminine reasons and perspective: Can family thrive and grow here and are they going to be safer here or in a city? basically family protection / nesting.
I see haven ,he sees investment. The two are compatable yet different Had I seen it unsafe he would have agreed and we would not have purchased. Had he seen it as a bad investment I would have agreed and we would not have purchased.
Two different perspectives on family and on family philosphy. Both can stand alone and succeed but, they work better together as a team, as one.
The masculine aproach to philosophy is different then the femine aproach or rather then just aproach use perspective.
Look at Nietzsche Now his is truly a masculine philosophy as
Tao is not ,not really there is some in it that probably can change, maybe more then I see or maybe less. While I can agree with some of Nietzsche I would say his philosophy lacks a good round perspective.
One philosophy that is attributed to him; Survival of the fittest. His masculine thoughts on the fittest is really skewed from feminine fittest.
I agree that philosophy should not be gender biased nor related but, it is. It mostly carries a masculine feel and touch that could be more applicable and complete with the feminine perspective. Is that not what philosophy is about? Getting more information to learn more, instead of clinging to past ideas.
Nietzsche does ask us what it would mean ‘if truth was a woman’, so you while the majority of his writing is as you say, he’s well aware of the irony of what he’s doing. But okay, I’d accept that as an example.
‘Negate’ is an awfully strong term, but indeed, limitation, at least, seems fair.
Males are naturally limited (to use the term again) to a male perspective; moreover, males, for whatever reason - perhaps due entirely to preconcieved gender roles - are more inclined to study and write philosophy. That is, it’s not necessarily their fault, so to speak, the situation is the way it is.
That said, your observation is not entirely overlooked: the feminist movement is, for example, a female philosophy in its own right. Not to mention the likes of Rand, Arendt, Genevieve Lloyd, Fatima Jayoushi, and others are out there, and I wouldn’t think for a moment they are judged by any seperate standard than their male counterparts.
That’s kind of what I was getting at: I think the likes of Rand and Arendt are considered in virtually the same light as some pretty major philosophical figures. They do not cast the same shadow as, say, the figures in the ILP banner, but are, in my view, on the same stage as the likes of the ‘second-tier’ males in the field, no?
I do agree, that said, for philosophy to come to a true fruition - academically, at least - it ought include as many women and minority viewpoints as possible.
Just for the record, I’ve never once taken anything Nietzsche said about women seriously - the one great flaw of his philosophy - yet one can argue he was, in that sense, if only in that sense, a product of his time.
Excellent kriswest outstanding approach to what is clear and everyone avoid, how can you think the best to make when you are clearly possessed of desires to win alone or to see distress of wars? women nature is more than adapted to think right as she wish always to be in environment of understanding and love, this is the proof what you said that doing philosophy or plomberie is on the same wave desire for men, investment to gain status of power and nobody loves a thing of what he does or have faith in making on the ground, this what explain how they like to fight as friends and nobody is what he says they don’t care of any they say, what you said of he will take into account your happiness in being safe as you would value his concerns, is just the reflection of the truth built on lies, you deserve to be loved they say but noone want to love, you see it as right and left, pleasur of compassion and pleasure of control, intelligence vs emotional needs, this is surely the mean of the fusion to be one, knowing that intelligence alone will always need feelings to abuse for justifying your rush so it will always lead to avoid the truth of intelligence you betray, as happiness in just feeling safe and love can last for ever you are forced to intelligence to justify your soul
it is funny how intelligence appear to express a will to destroy and not to understand your wishes and goals, it is like the thought of superior mind saying his desire to kill without being hurt, that is why an honest person for Dan appears to be judge as foolish for not saying dum
Kriswest’s problem is incredibly subjectivist(is that the word?). In fact, what it says, I think, is that female philosophy may come to entirely different conclusions. But, unless you are subjectivist(I hope that’s the word) then one must be better than the other! Like siatd said…
There’s a train of thought that runs through Wittgenstein, Orwell and Foucault that associates structures of language with structures of power, knowledge, pleasure and so on. Indeed, it forms the basis for Neuro Linguistic Programming, which is a pet interest of mine. I understand how there probably are certain things about being female that you can’t put into words because the words and phrases don’t exist yet. It is from these issues (not merely applied to gender but for the sake of this discussion…) that we get the notion of the ecriture feminine.
Sure, but this is the two of you conforming to quite a basic set of norms (no offence, one relies on norms when making large decisions and it would seem practical to do so) that for many would not stand up or be relevant. Homosexuals, for example, tend to confound many of the male/female norms precisely because the object of their sexual affection is of the same gender as they are. Hence ‘queens’…
Ah, but likewise one could cite the ‘homosexual approach to philosophy’ or the ‘people from Sidcup approach to philosophy’ or the ‘supporters of Manchester United who became depressed after the Munich Air Disaster approach to philosophy’ - that is to say, we can keep dividing and dividing and classifying and naming down to the individual, or even further. How about ‘siatd at 4 o clock in the morning approach to philosophy’ as different from ‘siatd at 10 o clock in the morning approach to philosophy’?
My point is this - what does one hope to achieve apart from reinforcing the division between male and female (or between masculine and feminine)? Were one to adopt a politicised female writing of philosophy then what would one hope to see result? You’ve implied an answer to this a couple of times, but I think that that’s the more interesting conversation here.
Nietzsche was a masculine philosopher but his theoretical shifts (e.g. the favouring of dynamics over structures) could be seen from our vantage point as being quite feminine.
I don’t think that we should take too seriously Nietzsche’s writings about women because I get the impression he took his mother and sister as his evidence for almost all of his comments. Given what his sister did with his works after F. died I feel it’s safe to assume that they didn’t really get on too well.
I don’t see this connection between Nietzsche and survival of the fittest. It’s more like ‘survival of the person who uses their power most imaginatively’ or something along those lines. I think that the association between basic Darwinism and Nietzsche is one made later, firstly by the proto-Nazis and then by ‘Satanists’ or whatever they call themselves.
No, philosophy is about inspiring comedy and fiction. In fact, I’ve no idea what philosophy is about, so maybe you’re right.
No I don’t think entirely different conclusions, that would not be sound logical thinking. I am curious about amount of possible difference and the combination of perspectives. Neither is better, it is not a contest. It is an idea, a possible change of aproach to old theories and ideas, a revamp, not elimination. I would think that a goodly amount of possible conclusions would not change.
Ahh, is it possible you think that I am a card carrying soul sucking Feminist? LOL Not a chance. I have stated before I am not, no way in hell one of those. I was raised and cared for by men since the age of 13, not women, I am surrounded by men, not women, I love my men and understand men better then women. That being said gives me a certain insight maybe, I could be wrong, but I don’t believe so. Being raised and loved by a great father and two older brothers and having 98% of all humans that walked through our doors male, and now living with a husband and son, and still majority of of humans are males walking through our doors. I get nothing but masculine thoughts and ideas and perspectives flooding me and surrounding me. But they don’t fit. It is like putting on clothes that were made for someone else, sure you can wear it but, it is not entirely comfortable.
I know there is a difference between the two, it is not a competition it is a possible addition that might enhance not detract.
