5 Women Who Inspire Us (Seriously)

In honor of International Women’s Day we’ll get real for a sec and pay homage to a few people who have been really meaningful to us:

1) Our Moms. Cliche, but seriously our mom’s are amazing. My mom divorced my dad-bro when I was a lil baby and I grew up thinking that anything I wanted to do in life I could just do. Men were an afterthought. My mom was a firefighter, an EMT in rescue helicopters, and boss-bitch of all the drunks in the ER. How cool is that? Our other mom (we want them to be best friends) is very literally the nicest woman you will ever meet. I picked her up once when she was rear ended and I received a hand written thank-you note in the mail the next day. She is a diabetic who makes brownies because she has four kids and a husband who like them and puts the needs of literally every person she has ever met in front of her own. Thanks moms!

2) Sara Shady. This was our Feminist Philosophy professor. At a small college it wouldn’t have been uncommon to not have any female professors at all, so her presence as one of the figureheads of the department made me feel really comfortable. I always felt a lil dumb and like I was faking it because all the bros in my classes were so arrogant. One day she said that when she was in grad school she felt like one day someone was going to tap her on the shoulder and tell her she didn’t belong there. I was like GET OUT OF MY HEAD LADY. But seriously, I had no idea that the way I felt was incredibly common and this little ounce of vulnerability went a long way.

3. Susan Bordo. This is a feminist philosopher who wrote a book called Unbearable weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. If you want to know the thought process of being a woman, you should pick this book up. It explained to me all of the issues I have with my appearance, how they came to be, and why it’s a feminist issue. Her books are academic but she writes for people, not philosophy journals. I think she was exploring issues of the body through philosophy because she wanted to understand them, so that we can all investigate the root causes and do something about it. This isn’t ineffectual analytic philosophy, she’s not debating whether or not she exists. This is important and relevant and grounded in her own intellectual passions.

4. Janice Moulton. Janice Moulton invented the critique against the adversary method. This means she said “hey, arguing back and forth might not be the most effective way to find out if something is true or not.” We’ve blogged extensively about why this is a really important concept.

5. Anne Sexton. It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that we’re kind of #dark bitches sometimes. As a girl your supposed to be happy and nice and not tell guys you have deep emotional issues. Anne is like I’m here, I’m dark, whatever! She was writing confessional poetry about being depressed, jealous, horny, and just about anything else without a hint of embarrassment. Reading her poems may have been our little dark and twisty version of Free to Be You and Me.