What a time in history to be a woman with a passion for philosophy! I recall the first time I realized that the presumed reader of a philosophical text was a man, not a woman. I, as a reader, was presumed to share the assumption that to call a trait "womanish" was to disparage it. Still, in reading philosophy, I set aside these disquieting thoughts. After all, the qualities which philosophers denigrated were ones I myself wanted to avoid. Given the line dividing subjects of thought and objects of thought, I aligned myself with the subjects, i.e., with the men. That was over thirty years ago. Now my bookshelves are lined with books entitled "Woman and Philosophy," books written by women. Previously an anomaly, the woman professor of philosophy is now a fixture, if not yet a commonplace. Today we have a Committee on the Status of Women and a newsletter, sponsored by the American Philosophical Association. That is the good news.

The bad news is that we still need a committee that seeks to advance our standing in the profession. Having made in-roads into professional journals and publishing companies, having established our work on APA programs and in the curriculum, having been hired to teach every course from logic to Derrida, and having had several women voted into the highest office of our Association, we may conclude that American academic philosophy is doing a considerably better job of accepting women as equals than is our nation as a whole. But as so many of us know, we are still the only woman, or one of the few women, in our departments. Most of our graduate schools graduate mostly men Ph.D.s, and seem, at least, to be more likely to lose their talented women than their talented men. Women faculty complain that their work in feminist philosophy gets discounted at tenure time, although they are routed into teaching the popular, heavily enrolled women and gender courses. Our most prestigious departments are least likely to have anyone who works in the area of feminist philosophy, and a highly esteemed journal, in its centennial issue, represented virtually no women or feminist work. Although our pay is frequently on par with our male colleagues, we often will not take advantage of family leave policies for fear that we will not be viewed as serious by our fellow faculty; we are more concentrated in 2-year and 4-year colleges than in graduate-degree-granting universities; we continue to suffer slights of colleagues and students, sensing that there remain those who just tolerate women in philosophy; and if we do feminist philosophy, we continue to have our work joked about, denigrated, or dismissed. Where do we go from here? How much do these apprehensions reflect the reality of the profession and how much are they unwarranted?

Martha Nussbaum has pointed out that the situation for women in the United States is considerably better than for women in other parts of the world. She has directed our attention beyond our own borders. I would like to see the Committee move beyond borders in a number of directions. Such moves are crucial if advances are to be consolidated and remaining barriers are to be removed. Such outward motion is also part of the responsibility of attaining a degree of power and recognition.

First, then, I believe that we need to get a clearer vision of how women are doing in the profession. What are the hurdles that they are now facing? And how can the APA provide the support that women require to be fully recognized in the profession? Second, we need to move outward. In this respect I hope to see us continue the work of the committee in 1) joining with the other Committees representing minorities to advance the participation of women of color in philosophy; and 2) thinking about how we may offer support and have exchanges with women philosophers internationally.

I would also like to see new initiatives in two areas. First, I would like to explore the possibility of joining with analogous committees on the status of women in different disciplines. Many of the impediments women in philosophy face are also encountered by women in other fields and require attention by the professoriate generally. I have in mind questions of child and elder responsibilities and the tenure clock; the overuse of part-time instructors (of which women constitute a disproportionate number); questions of sexual harassment and sexual conduct between students and teachers; etc. Many of these concerns are crucial to our professional lives, but cannot be dealt with within the discipline as such. Second, as professional women, I believe that we also have a responsibility to exercise our privileges on behalf of women whose voices are not heard. Some professional organizations of women have spoken up with respect to issues that affect women more generally. At the very least, I would like to begin a debate about the role of our own organization with respect to such issues. For example, cutbacks in welfare affect many women, among them many of our women students. What, if anything, should a committee such as ours do with respect to the harm caused by these cutbacks. Should we speak out with one voice as women philosophers?

What I have outlined is an ambitious agenda. It seems that with each new committee the agenda becomes increasingly ambitious. As we prosper in our discipline, we feel both our power and our powerlessness more acutely. I hope we can continue the good work of past committees and blaze some new trails.

I want to thank Martha Nussbaum for the wonderful programs she and the rest of the committee have set in motion. I want to welcome the new editors of the newsletter, Barbara Andrew, who will serve as an interim editor for one year, and Joan Callahan, who will take over for the remaining four years. I also want to thank Diana Meyers for her generous offer to stay on as a Senior Consulting Editor during the transition period.

• From the Editor
• About the Newsletter
• News from the Committee on the Status of Women
• From the New Chair
• Book Reviews
  • Recent Feminist Philosophy Textbooks, Reviewed by Amy Mullin
  • Free Spirits: Feminist Philosophers on Culture and Gender Basics: Feminist Perspectives on Women and Men, Reviewed by Jessica Prata Miller
  • The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory and Women, Knowledge and Reality: Explorations in Feminist Philosophy, Reviewed by Cynthia A. Stark
  • Ethics: A Feminist Reader and Living with Contradictions: Controversies in Feminist Social Ethics, Reviewed by Margaret A. McLaren
  • Hypatia's Daughters: Fifteen Hundred Years of Women Philosophers, Reviewed by Julie M. Zilberberg
• Notes on Contributors