Spelman, Elizabeth V.

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SPELMAN, Elizabeth V.

PERSONAL:

Female. Education: Wellesley College, B.A.; Johns Hopkins University, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Philosophy Department, Smith College, Northampton, MA 01063. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Educator and author. Smith College, Northampton, MA, professor of philosophy.

WRITINGS:

Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought, Beacon Press (Boston, MA), 1988.

Fruits of Sorrow: Framing Our Attention to Suffering, Beacon Press (Boston, MA), 1997.

Repair: The Impulse to Restore in a Fragile World, Beacon Press (Boston, MA), 2002.

Contributor to numerous journals and magazines, including Hypatia and New England Law Review. Also contributor to Wicked Pleasures: Meditations on the Seven "Deadly" Sins, edited by Robert Solomon, Rowman & Littlefield (Lanham, MD), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS:

A professor of philosophy at Smith College, Elizabeth V. Spelman has written and taught about feminist theory and the role of suffering in life. She has also written about the variety of human activities that focus on "repair," from fixing cars to mending friendships. In her 1988 book, Inessential Woman:Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought, Spelman takes a close, self-reflective look at feminist theory and how it has exclusively applied to white, middle-class women of North America and Europe. In the book, Spelman examines both classic and current examples of philosophical thinking about women. The opening chapters of Inessential Woman explore the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle and how their philosophies about life and people do not translate to women or slaves. She also examines modern feminist philosophers such as Simone de Beauvoir, Janet Radcliffe-Richards, and Nancy Chodorow and their similar failure to assimilate women from lower socioeconomic groups into a coherent feminist theory.

In her rethinking of feminist philosophy, Spelman argues that most, if not all, feminist philosophers have been guilty of ignoring the roles of race, class, culture, and ethnicity in the oppression of women. Instead, the author argues, these philosophers insist on the sameness of people rather than recognizing inherent and important differences. As a result, says Spelman, most feminist theory has failed to progress beyond the biases inherent in the theorists' own class, race, and ethnic background.

Several reviewers of Inessential Woman found Spelman too repetitive in her presentation concerning the weaknesses of feminist thought. Writing in Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, Elaine Marks noted that Spelman uses repetition as her "main rhetorical strategy" and that, while it helps her make her case, it is also "a weakness because repetition, particularly of the phrase 'white middle-class women' becomes itself an example of the 'generic' woman Spelman claims to be writing against." Marks also commented that she found the book's greatest weakness to be the exclusion of feminist thinkers influenced by "post-1968 European thought."

Marilyn Frye, writing in the New York Times Book Review, said that Spelman does not make as much headway in resolving some of the problems of feminist theory as she initially seems to promise in the book. Nevertheless, Frye commented that the book is "very successful as a meditation, against all odds both witty and optimistic, on ethnocentrism, racism and feminism." Naomi Scheman, writing in the Women's Review of Books, commented, "Spelman's book is an invitation to a conversation, and if it lacks the virtuosic dazzle of the solo turn, it more than compensates by its conversational tone, its grounding in the author's own experience and her skill at making that experience … accessible and useful to others."

In her next book, Fruits of Sorrow: Framing Our Attention to Suffering, Spelman delves into how people try to make sense of suffering and how the typical human responses to suffering that are accepted and condoned by society may actually be open to question. For example, the common emotion of compassion, argues Spelman, may in many cases really be a way of hiding condescension or, in another sense, appropriating the other's person's suffering to ourselves even though we are not actually feeling the same pain. In Fruits of Sorrow, Spelman examines philosophical thought about suffering from a diverse range of thinkers, from the ancients, such as Plato, to modern suffragists and activists. Composed of six essays, Fruits of Sorrow focuses not on the nature of suffering but, as Spelman points out, on "what we [not experts] say about sufferers and the meaning of their suffering as we employ familiar and everyday ways of responding to people in pain."

Spelman also discusses, as Cross Currents contributor Margaret Urban Walker noted, "how attention to suffering can divide human beings even in some cases where it appears to affirm a common lot and a defining condition." Robert Hoffman, writing in Library Journal, found the book "sloppy" and said that it should "be ignored." Other critics viewed the work more favorably, a Publishers Weekly reviewer writing that "Spelman has written a genuine and perceptive book that makes reading about suffering a highly enjoyable experience." Although Nel Noddings, writing in Hypatia, objected to some of Spelman's arguments, the reviewer noted that, "Overall … this book—always interesting and well written—reopens an enormous arena for further analysis."

Repair: The Impulse to Restore in a Fragile World presents Spelman's thoughts on the human psyche and its relationship with our ability and instinct to fix things, from broken cars to fractured relationships. Spelman writes that people often have different goals in mind when they begin the process of repair. For example, she discusses the different types of repairs performed by an auto mechanic as opposed to a painting conservator, including their very different goals and approaches to repair. For example, Spelman explores what is really being attempted by repairing, and asks whether repairs are always necessary or even good, citing, for instance, how restoration may sometimes destroy the value of an object.

Spelman is interested in much more than the physical repair of objects, however. She also explores issues such as gender differences in moral deliberation, the ongoing debate regarding reparations for slavery in the United States, and the concept of apologies as a "repairing" of the moral status of the apologizer rather than the person who is apologized to. A Kirkus Reviews contributor felt that Spelman abandons her points too quickly and commented that the author "raises a number of questions but examines none of them in depth." Barbara Brown Taylor, writing in the Christian Century, wrote: "Whether the focus is a teacup, a relationship, a life, or a 50-year-old face, [every individual] … is charged with the responsibility of deciding when, where and how the reparative impulse is to be exercised. No one who reads this book will ever again be unaware of that responsibility."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Spelman, Elizabeth V., Fruits of Sorrow: Framing Our Attention to Suffering, Beacon Press (Boston, MA), 1997.

PERIODICALS

American Book Review, May-June, 1990, Jean F. O'Barr, review of Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought, p. 12.

Christian Century, January 25, 2003, Barbara Brown Taylor, review of Repair: The Impulse to Restore in a Fragile World, p. 34.

Chronicle of Higher Education, July 19, 1997, Nina C. Ayoub, review of Fruits of Sorrow: Framing Our Attention to Suffering, p. A18.

Cross Currents, winter, 1998, Margaret Urban Walker, review of Fruits of Sorrow, p. 571.

Duke Law Journal, December, 1989, Joseph William Singer, review of Fruits of Sorrow, pp. 1751-1783.

Ethics, July, 1990, review of Fruits of Sorrow, pp. 898-900.

Feminist Teacher, winter, 1992, Delysa Burnier, review of Inessential Woman, p. 35.

Georgia Review, spring, 1998, Jeanne Braham, review of Fruits of Sorrow, p. 168.

Hypatia, spring, 1998, Nel Noddings, review of Fruits of Sorrow, p. 162.

Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2002, review of Repair, p. 1017.

Library Journal, February 1, 1989, Beverly Miller, review of Inessential Woman, p. 77; June 15, 1997, Robert Hoffman, review of Fruits of Sorrow, p. 72.

Michigan Law Review, May, 1991, Jennifer Nedelsky, review of Inessential Woman, pp. 1591-1609.

Michigan Quarterly Review, winter, 1990, Linda Simon, review of Fruits of Sorrow, p. 133.

Mother Jones, October, 1989, Valerie Miner, review of Fruits of Sorrow, p. 47.

New Statesman & Society, April 27, 1990, review of Fruits of Sorrow, p. 38.

New York Times Book Review, April 30, 1989, Marilyn Frye, review of Inessential Woman, p. 18.

Publishers Weekly, December 2, 1988, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Inessential Woman, p. 39; July 7, 1997, review of Fruits of Sorrow, p. 60.

Ruminator Review, winter, 2002-2003, Patrice Clark Koelsch, review of Repair, p. 39.

Social Theory and Practice, spring, 1991, Lorraine Code, review of Fruits of Sorrow, p. 85.

Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, fall, 1990, Elaine Marks, review of Fruits of Sorrow, p. 309.

Women's Review of Books, April, 1989, Naomi Scheman, review of Inessential Woman, p. 20; June, 1998, Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich, review of Fruits of Sorrow, p. 21.