How to Think Like a Woman summary

If you were a young woman in the seventeenth century, brimming with curiosity about life’s profound questions, you were also confronted with a world that refused you the chance to explore them. This was the reality for Mary Astell, who, despite all odds, became one of the first English feminist philosophers.

Born in 1666, Astell received an uncommon education for a girl, thanks to her progressive uncle. However, when he passed away, she faced a future of domestic toil, with no prospects for marriage due to her family’s diminishing finances. Determined to continue her studies, the 22-year-old Astell took a bold step – sewing her meager savings into her dress, she boarded a carriage for London to attempt to earn a living through her writing.

Throughout the history of Western philosophy, women have played significant yet often unacknowledged roles in the lives and work of renowned male thinkers. Socrates, for example, was married to Xanthippe, a woman 40 years his junior. Despite the age difference, Xanthippe challenged Socrates intellectually, with Socrates reportedly stating that he chose to marry her for this very quality.

Other philosophers had more problematic relationships with the women in their lives. Immanuel Kant maintained a lengthy correspondence with a young woman named Maria von Herbert, who sought his advice about her depression and expressed doubts about his moral philosophy. However, Kant dismissed her as an “ecstatical little lady” suffering from “curious mental derangement.”

Amid her growing disillusionment with academic philosophy, Penaluna discovered a kindred spirit in Mary Wollstonecraft. Immersing herself in the eighteenth-century philosopher’s fiery texts, she felt a jolt of recognition. Here was a woman who, centuries earlier, had wrestled with the same existential questions that consumed her: What does it mean to be a thinking woman in a world that undervalues women’s minds? How can one reconcile the desire for love and recognition with the pursuit of intellectual autonomy?

For Wollstonecraft, the answers lay in a lifelong battle against the forces of patriarchy. Born in 1759 to an abusive father and a submissive mother, she was determined from a young age to escape the fate of domesticity that entrapped most women of her time. Self-educated and fiercely independent, she carved out a precarious living as a writer in London, crafting polemical works that laid the foundation for modern feminism.

Discovering the legacy of female philosophers shaped Penaluna’s identity as an academic. It also guided her through personal crises, including her decision to leave a troubled long-term marriage. But soon after finding a new partner, Penaluna encountered a fresh challenge: raising children.

Becoming a mother was a transformative experience that raised profound questions about the tension between intellectual ambition and maternal duty. Immersed in the exhausting, all-consuming work of caring for a newborn, Penaluna found herself grappling with feelings of resentment and guilt, envious of her husband’s ability to leave for work each day without the burden of parental ambivalence.