Let me begin by saying this: I am not the sort of person who despises men. I love men. I think they are great and I’m glad God made them. I am profoundly thankful for the contributions they have brought into the world, and I long for the day when Jesus comes back and men and women are no longer under the curse and struggling with one another.
But let me be real for a second, y’all. In humility, without aggression or bitterness in my heart, let me say something: sometimes I am weary of only learning about men. This is not something unique to Covenant College. Here are a smattering of anecdotes from my education.
I grew up memorizing the timeline song from the Classical Conversations curriculum. It wasn’t until this year that I realized only two women are named in that song: Queen Victoria and Elisabeth Elliot. The realization gave me pause, but, as I am sometimes prone to do, I found all sorts of rationalizations for why that was the case and I dropped the thought, a little deflated, but with more pressing things to consider.
In CHOW II, I learned about all sorts of amazing people with amazing thoughts, and, while I loved it quite a lot, it was curious to me that we read Mary Shelley, and Mary Wollstonecraft, and… no other works by women. It’s not that I didn’t care about everything else we discussed—on the contrary, I ended up writing seven pages of thoughts on the “Communist Manifesto.”
In Twentieth Century Continental Philosophy, I was assigned to give a presentation on a female philosopher, but in the curriculum we only had readings from two women.
I can count with one hand how many women were discussed at any length in all of the history classes I took my freshman year.
I’m not necessarily saying this to be critical of the curriculum (though I think there is a place for that. I haven’t taken Historiography yet, so I can’t say too much about why we choose some stories over others, but it’s worth considering). Nor am I saying this because I think our professors are all sexist and terrible—on the contrary, Dr. Davis and Dr. Wingard have both been incredible and so encouraging to me as I’ve navigated what it means to be in a discipline that has historically been almost exclusively male led.
I’m not trying to rewrite history to cover up the noteworthy, celebratory accomplishments of great men who have changed the world in marvelous ways. I’m not trying to condemn the men who we study just because they are men (Proof: I once wrote a paper called “Alexis De Tocqueville: I Love Him”). I’m also not trying to create an echo chamber.
I know women’s contributions have been overlooked, squashed, prevented and discredited for a long time. I’m not saying there’s a whole narrative of history that we are excluding on purpose because we hate women and never want to see them celebrated. What I am saying is that there is a rich history of brilliant, inspiring, world-changing things women have done that I just want to learn about, and that I think you would inevitably find enriching to learn about too.
This sometimes makes me sad. Sometimes it makes me feel a little bit alone as a woman who wants to be in academia for the foreseeable future. If you have never thought about this before, I guess I’m just asking for you to ponder it and sit with me in this legitimately sad thing. I’m not asking for justifications or explanations.
I’d rather you not tell me it’s enough that we study Mary Shelley in CHOW II. If you don’t mind, just step into a moment of empathy and picture what it might be like. Maybe it seems like a non-issue to you, but I’d ask that you listen to my words and what I have to say, which is that it’s a bummer. It’s a bummer to have to exert 20 times the effort to try and seek out female voices from whom to learn.
It’s frustrating to want to write this article and feel like I’d better say all the things I’m NOT trying to do so I’m not misinterpreted. I understand the limitations. I’m just sad about them. And that’s fair. Dr. Weichbrodt talks a lot about “expanding your archive” and that’s sort of what I’m longing for here. I want to expand my understanding of who has contributed to the history of the world, and I don’t want to have to do that exclusively through side projects and summer readings.
Last week, I finished a paper on Hypatia of Alexandria, a brilliant woman who taught philosophy and math at the University of Alexandria. Learning about her and her work was ridiculously encouraging to me as a woman in philosophy.
I would really like to have more moments like that. Please reach out and email me if you have thoughts or questions, or want to call to mind fascinating and important women worth celebrating throughout history.