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A review by jpov
How to Think Like a Woman: Four Women Philosophers Who Taught Me How to Love the Life of the Mind by Regan Penaluna
4.0
I took a philosophy class in college and I wish I could say it was more memorable. It was only an intro to philosophy but I imagined the class to have more opportunities to explore concepts that I knew and end up questioning and debating. Instead, we focused on the main male philosophers and spoke about matter. I remember feeling deflated and regretting having picked a nine am class. I wish instead that I took a class from Regan Penaluna. I loved learning about these four women and about Penaluna’s own experiences. I will preface by saying that this is and I don’t think should be an overnight read. You get a lot of history from Penaluna, giving context to these four woman philosophers not solely their philosophies and facts. With all this information they should be given space and time to settle in your mind.
This book follows along while Penaluna talks you through her life, her studies of philosophy and how throughout it she found these four women philosophers who ended up changing her life. There were many quotes that stood out to me (and that I have highlighted and noted in a notebook) yet this is the one that has stuck and I will leave with you. It is from one of the philosophers Mary Wollstonecraft, “Do not retreat. A woman’s path to self-knowledge requires her to risk losing herself to find herself. I will go further, and affirm, as an indisputable fact, that most of the women, in the circle of my observation, who have acted like rational creatures, or shewn any vigour of intellect, have accidentally been allowed to run wild”.
Thank you to Regan Penaluna, NetGalley, and Grove Atlantic.
This book follows along while Penaluna talks you through her life, her studies of philosophy and how throughout it she found these four women philosophers who ended up changing her life. There were many quotes that stood out to me (and that I have highlighted and noted in a notebook) yet this is the one that has stuck and I will leave with you. It is from one of the philosophers Mary Wollstonecraft, “Do not retreat. A woman’s path to self-knowledge requires her to risk losing herself to find herself. I will go further, and affirm, as an indisputable fact, that most of the women, in the circle of my observation, who have acted like rational creatures, or shewn any vigour of intellect, have accidentally been allowed to run wild”.
Thank you to Regan Penaluna, NetGalley, and Grove Atlantic.