The following appeared in Volume 98, Number 1 (Fall, 1998) of the APA Newsletters

A year has gone by, too swiftly – but full of interesting developments. The Committee on the Status of Women met last November for a 2-day period and set the agenda for the three years of my tenure as Chair. We also met at the APA December 1997 and have engaged in a continuing email discussion throughout the year. Below, I detail some of our plans and actions begun that November and carried forward since.

NEWSLETTER: At our November meeting we discussed ways of enhancing the function of the Newsletter. When the Newsletter was first created, there were very few avenues for women philosophers to publish material on feminist philosophy. The situation, while still not optimal, is considerably better. Not only does Hypatia serve as a superb organ for feminist philosophy but other philosophical journals also publish work in feminist theory. Although we agreed that retaining the special issue focus is valuable, we decided that more space ought to be devoted to providing important professional information to the community of women philosophers. With this in mind a number of proposals were floated, some of which Diana Meyers and Barbara Andrew have already put into effect. We decided that the Newsletter ought to serve as a forum for drawing attention to, and gaining recognition of feminist work by reviewing books on feminist work, reporting on conferences in which we both highlight feminist contributions and consider relevant omissions of feminist work, publishing reports from other organizations of women in philosophy, and reviewing mainstream books from a feminist perspective. The Newsletter can also help mainstream feminist philosophy in undergraduate classes by publishing sample syllabi for undergraduate philosophy classes, as well as interesting and innovative ways of introducing women philosophers, feminist theory and feminist perspectives into traditional philosophy courses.

WEBPAGE: We also discussed enhancing the use of the APA CSW website. We now have included links with other websites, including SWIP, the Feminist Theory Website, and the Canadian Society for the Women in Philosophy. The website also includes a link to the Directory of Women Philosophers, Documents of the Women’s Liberation Movement, the Newsletter and the CSW charge, membership and past reports. We have encouraged the National Office to archive the newsletter on the Web and they are looking into ways of doing so. The National Office has been very helpful in accommodating our various requests, and we are interested both in having the membership make use of the webpage and in finding additional useful applications of the web.

STUDY OF HOW WOMEN ARE DOING IN PHILOSOPHY AND THE APA 100TH ANNIVERSARY: The year 2001 marks the 100th Anniversary of the APA. As the CSW is the largest and oldest of the diversity committees, we felt that it would be appropriate for us to take the initiative in organizing 100th Anniversary events which indicated the broadened horizons of philosophy. We determined a two-pronged approach:

1. To request of the APA Board that it undertake a study which asks how the profession was faring in expanding its interests and opportunities to include women and other populations who have been under represented in professional philosophy. We proposed that we undertake such a study with the Committees on the Status of Blacks, Hispanics, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Persons, as well as any other diversity committees that may be formed in the interim. The results of such a "climate study" should lead to proposals for policy initiatives to help broaden the scope and reach of our profession so that it becomes appropriately responsive to the plurality of the population it serves and so that it incorporates ideals of fairness and justice to which all philosophers should be committed.

2. To propose as a theme of the 100th Anniversary of the APA: "Embracing the challenge of plurality within the profession." Proposals included: a plenary session in which speakers from different philosophical traditions, and speakers who pose different challenges to traditional philosophy (from the standpoints of race, gender, sexuality, disability, and so forth) engage in a series of dialogues, that is, in nonagonistic and nonantagonistic conversations; special book exhibits, readings at bookstores around the country, and special events at meetings highlighting new scholarship in philosophy.

To further the aims of these two projects, we had the first joint meeting of the diversity committees. We will present the APA Board with the request for resources for these ventures. I welcome all who have ideas for either the study or the anniversary celebration to contact me. I am especially interested in hearing from anyone who has experience in setting up or conducting a "chilly climate" study.

MAINSTREAMING FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY AND WOMEN IN PHILOSOPHY: At our November meeting, we discussed the paucity of feminist articles in mainstream journals of philosophy, the need for textbooks that included the feminist perspective among the main debates, the importance of publishing and disseminating syllabi of courses in which feminist philosophy is included within otherwise standard courses, the need for more plenary sessions at philosophical meetings that include feminist perspectives within discussions of contemporary philosophical debates, and the recommendation that the Newsletter publish reports and reviews of conferences in which the recognition of feminist philosophical work is acknowledged and discussed. There are a number of actions we have initiated and there are many things you can do as well. I am contacting the Committee on Lectures and Publications and requesting that it look at who does the reviewing for mainstream journals and whether women are adequately represented. If you are serving on a program committee of one of the Divisions or of a philosophical society, please look for opportunities to include women philosophers and feminist philosophy in plenary sessions. If you have found effective ways to mainstream feminist philosophy in traditional courses, please share this information with the Newsletter editors. Recently, it was called to my attention that an encyclopedia of philosophy was being revised and that the proposed revisions did little to include more women philosophers. I collected suggestions for inclusion from the Committee and submitted them to editor of the series who was very pleased by our intervention and happy to cooperate with us. If you see any opportunities for intervening in proposed publications in which women’s contributions to philosophy are underreported or undervalued please call them to the attention of the committee. Please look for ways to mainstream women’s contributions to philosophy and call on the Committee to help bring to fruition ideas you have.

OUTREACH TO OTHER COMMITTEES ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN AND ACTIVISM: At the November meeting we decided that the Committee on the Status of Women sometimes needed to engage in issues which, though they affect us as we practice our profession, are not limited to women in philosophy. In addition, we decided that, at times, as professional women we need to speak on behalf of other women. To these ends we determined:

1. That we should form alliances with other CSW in other disciplines. Many issues such as Family Leave Policies are normally enacted by Colleges and Universities and not by professional associations. We discussed approaching these committees to enable us to apply pressure to the university community on such issues, forming alliances with women in other disciplines; cooperating on a study of the status of women in a number of different academic disciplines; and planning a future conference to discuss the needs of women in the academy. We have only begun the formidable task of contacting the relevant persons in the many professional societies that serve the academic community.

2. We passed a resolution concerning the educational opportunities for women on welfare. That resolution was published in the last Newsletter. In the same vein, I have written a letter to a number of Congressional leaders on behalf of the Committee concerning a bill pending that would allow college course work to count as fulfilling workfare requirements and would mandate other measures that would make it possible for TANF participants to earn college degrees.

3. We adopted a resolution asserting that we wanted the APA to use unionized hotels in preference to non-unionized hotels whenever this was feasible. We noted that this issue is a women’s issue since the majority of service workers in hotels are women, and that these are often very exploited workers. We determined to seek out allies and collectively to request of the Board that it refrain from using non-union hotels whenever there is a reasonable alternative.

4. We discussed the desirability of having an organ of the APA that was expressly political and that served as a function analogous to that of the Women’s Caucus of the ASPA. Although no action was recommended at this point, it is an issue that we may wish to open at a later date.

5. Subsequently, we determined to endorse a document which will be posted on our web site entitled the Declaration of Sentiments 1998. It is a document that I was privileged to help draft. The drafting committee consisted of 50 women, many of whom were among the most prominent feminist women leaders, writers, academics including Charlotte Bunch, Heidi Hartman, Eleanor Smeal, Linda Tarr-Whelan, Ruth Mandell, Martha Fineman, Kate Millet, and Jo Freeman. It is a wonderful document and I encourage you to read it and to use it in your classrooms.

APA SESSIONS: We had a number of wonderful sessions, and have several more planned for the coming year. Linda Alcoff organized a wonderful session on "The Challenge of Teaching Philosophy for Women Faculty" for the Pacific Division last March. The session included an exciting and very diverse panel and invited a great deal of audience participation. Mary Mahowald organized a powerful session at the Central APA entitled "Family and Medical Leave Policies: Are They Helping Us or Hurting Us?" We hope that this session will be only a first step in a more active involvement of this issue. Martha Nussbaum organized and chaired a special session on "Is the Language of Rights Good for Women?" with Catharine MacKinnon, Wendy Brown, Elizabeth Kiss, and Yael Tamir. This session was so successful that we determined to plan a follow-up session entitled "Women and the Dilemmas of Democracy." Judith Green and Nel Noddings have organized this session for the December 1998 APA meeting. The Pacific 1999 meeting will feature a session on affirmative action organized by Debra Satz. Also in the planning process is a joint session with several other committees to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Martha Nussbaum and Uma Narayan are planning a session on international feminism for the Central Meeting. We hope to coordinate some future sessions with the special issues of the Newsletter and Hypatia.