Podcast Summary: Katharine Jenkins, "Feminist Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction” (Oxford UP, 2025)

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Morteza Hadjizadeh
Guest: Professor Katharine Jenkins
Date: October 1, 2025

Episode Overview

This engaging episode features Professor Katharine Jenkins discussing her new book, Feminist Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction, published by Oxford University Press. Jenkins introduces listeners to the complexity, purpose, and richness of feminist philosophy, exploring its foundational debates, practical impact, and ongoing relevance amid contemporary social struggles.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Katharine Jenkins’ Background & Motivation

• Jenkins recounts her route into philosophy via a fascination with concepts over the practice of fine art, and her excitement on discovering that feminism and philosophy could be combined as a career.
  • “I could cut out the middleman and go straight to the ideas — and that’s what philosophy was.” (02:22, Jenkins)
  • She notes her activism and eventual discovery of feminist philosophy around 2011 shaped her research.

2. Framing Feminist Philosophy (Book’s Scope)

• Prompted by Hadjizadeh, Jenkins explains the necessity for a distinct Very Short Introduction focused specifically on feminist philosophy, given prior volumes focused on other approaches or broader feminism.
• She clarifies feminist philosophy as philosophy "in the service of feminist aims, broadly understood as the aim of emancipating women or ending the oppression of women" (06:10, Jenkins).
• Unlike traditions like Marxism, feminist philosophy is unified more by purpose than by method, figurehead, or tradition.
  • “Whether something counts as feminist philosophy is always, to some extent, a political judgment.” (06:59, Jenkins)

3. Defining Feminist Philosophy’s Purpose

• Jenkins emphasizes that feminist philosophy is animated by a drive for social change, though the link to practical outcomes differs by topic (e.g., abortion vs. feminist logic).
• The question of what “counts” as feminist philosophy can’t be separated from political disagreement.

4. Diversity and Breadth of Feminist Issues

• Feminist philosophy is notable for its focus on otherwise “non-feminist” issues—like the environment or labor—as it reveals their connections to oppression.
  • “When you delve deep into it, you do understand that it’s quite interrelated. Environment is one of them… ecofeminism and environmental studies.” (08:11, Hadjizadeh)
• Jenkins affirms it is important to include diverse issues (08:40).

5. Language, Terminology, and Gender Categories

• Jenkins details the political and philosophical stakes in language, especially debates about the meaning and boundaries of “woman.” She reflects on balancing careful wording with the inevitable evolution of language.
  • “Language does matter... there are political stakes in our language choices.” (09:54, Jenkins)
• She distinguishes between defining “women” biologically (risking essentialism) and by social experiences (risking exclusion and inaccuracy).
  • “When feminists have been like, yes, we have identified the social experiences that bind women together, they turn out to be… only certain women together, only white women or only middle-class women, or something like this.” (13:14, Jenkins)
• Jenkins suggests sometimes “gender” (as a broad social phenomenon) is a more productive frame than “woman” as the subject group.

6. Complexity vs. Clarity in Definitions

• Discussion of whether the “fluidity” of gender concepts strengthens feminist philosophy.
  • Jenkins expresses her analytic background drives her toward precise, multiple definitions rather than embracing ambiguity for its own sake.
  • “We don’t need to eschew definition, we just need eight different definitions, and they need to be really precise.” (15:17, Jenkins)

7. The Role of Tradition

• Feminist philosophy doesn’t form a single, unified tradition—it appears globally and variously. Tradition shapes it but doesn’t define it.
  • “Philosophy in general is a team sport, not something that we do as isolated individuals.” (18:39, Jenkins)

8. Understanding Oppression Structurally

• Jenkins introduces Marilyn Frye’s influential birdcage metaphor: oppression is not about individual hardship or narrow legal restriction, but about structurally interlocking barriers.
  • “It’s only once you have all the wires together and you see how they interlock, that you see how for any direction the bird might try to go, there will be a wire that stops them.” (21:32, Jenkins)
• She relates this metaphor to contemporary examples, such as women constrained in abusive relationships due to economic pressures and social norms (23:50).
• The structural view shows why seemingly non-gendered barriers (e.g., the cost of living) heavily impact women.

9. Intersectionality and Solidarity

• Frye’s conceptualization can help build bridges across movements (e.g., trans rights, anti-racism, class struggle) by focusing on shared oppression rather than strictly on group identity.
  • “Thinking about shared oppression… is helpful for coalition-building.” (28:19, Jenkins)
• Jenkins notes that intersectionality reveals overlapping structures of oppression that require alliances between movements.

10. The Co-Optation of “Protecting Women” in Right-Wing Politics

• Jenkins addresses how right-wing populist movements manipulate rhetoric about protecting women/children to justify reactionary politics (e.g., anti-migration, anti-trans measures).
  • “Anytime someone claims to be coming in and acting to protect women, I just think you need to be really suspicious.” (30:08, Jenkins)
• She urges feminists to “fact-check” protectionist claims, noting these are often not genuinely in women’s interests.

11. The Challenges of “Defining Woman”

• Jenkins briefly outlines three key philosophical positions and their obstacles:
  • Gender Realism: The search for a unifying feature of womanhood struggles across differences of class, race, era, etc.
  • Gender Skepticism: Denies that “woman” is a meaningful or coherent category, raising problems for feminist politics.
  • Gender Nominalism: Accepts the category is constructed through naming, but this may lack political heft.
  • “There seem to be different ways to approach it, and each approach has its own difficulties.” (33:58, Jenkins)

12. Highlighting Marginalized Labor: Domestic Work & Capitalism

• Jenkins enthusiastically discusses the book’s inclusion of social/materialist feminist insights, using the visual of the Red Women’s Workshop screen print: men emerge from a factory only to be “recharged” by women’s unpaid domestic work (41:16).
  • “A lot of value in Marxist understandings of exploitation and economy… But the contributions of women to the economy… don’t count.” (41:18, Jenkins)
• She reflects on “wages for housework” debates and how ideologies of housewifery naturalize this unpaid labor.
• Angela Davis’s critique is highlighted: merely attaching pay to housework fails to address its exploitative nature.

13. Utopian Thinking and Social Imagination

• Jenkins asserts that imagining alternative systems—such as universal healthcare—demonstrates how feminist philosophy enables utopian, future-oriented political imagination.
  • “To live other than we have been used to living, it can help to be able to imagine living differently…” (50:22, Jenkins)
• She views the project of feminist philosophy as interwoven with action, not simply “theory then practice.”

14. Hope and Forward-Looking Solidarity (Closing Reflections)

• Jenkins expresses concern about the present rise of reactionary, anti-feminist, and anti-minority movements but insists on the necessity of hope as a principle of resistance.
  • “I think we need to decide to be hopeful, because the alternative isn’t really worth thinking about.” (53:08, Jenkins)
• Grassroots coalition-building, intersectionality, and solidarity across issues offer grounds for optimism.
  • “The kind of nexus of oppressive ideologies that has coalesced is… going to prompt a responsive kind of coalescing among the people who want to stand up against oppression in all its forms.” (54:50, Jenkins)
• Noted examples like LGBT support for miners in the 1980s illustrate powerful cross-movement alliances.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On defining feminist philosophy:
  "We can usefully think about feminist philosophy as philosophy done in the service to feminist aims, broadly understood as the aim of emancipating women or ending the oppression of women." (06:10, Jenkins)

• On the complexity of gender:
  “…if you pick it out biologically, you’re opening the door to a kind of biological essentialism … and if you define it by social experiences, then it’s very difficult to find any set of social experiences that all the people you have in mind have in common.” (13:14, Jenkins)

• On language and change:
  “All I could do was acknowledge it. So I have a note in the book where I say, look, I've chosen the language I'm using carefully, but it's going to change… please read it with an awareness of that flux in mind. Language does matter, I think.” (10:08, Jenkins)

• On oppression as structure:
  “It’s only once you have all the wires together and you see how for any direction the bird might try to go, there’ll be a wire that stops them.” (21:32, Jenkins)

• On cross-movement solidarity:
  “Thinking about shared oppression rather than a prior shared group status… it can be a helpful protective against some directions of thinking that I think are unhelpful and oppressive in themselves.” (26:26, Jenkins)

• On housework, class, and labor:
  “Work really hard if you’re a person who is in the home, keeping the home and caring for people in the home. Like, that's really hard work. And I think it's something we need to think about.” (41:48, Jenkins)

• On the co-optation of feminist concerns by right-wing rhetoric:
  “Anytime someone claims to be coming in and acting to protect women, I just think you need to be really suspicious of that. I just think you need to ask a lot of questions when you hear that.” (30:08, Jenkins)

• On hope and the future:
  “I think we need to decide to be hopeful because the alternative isn’t really worth thinking about. ... At the end of the day, I think we have to decide to be hopeful and to act from that hope, because I don’t really know what else we can do.” (54:03, Jenkins)

Key Segment Timestamps

• 01:56 – Jenkins’ introduction and academic journey
• 03:57 – Why feminist philosophy needs its own “Very Short Introduction”
• 06:10 – Defining feminist philosophy’s purpose
• 09:45 – The role of language and terminology in feminist philosophy
• 13:14 – Difficulties in defining “woman”
• 15:17 – On fluidity & precision in philosophical language
• 18:39 – Teamwork & tradition in philosophy
• 21:32 – Marilyn Frye’s “oppression as a birdcage” metaphor
• 28:19 – How structural oppression supports coalition-building
• 30:08 – Dangers of “protecting women” narratives in right-wing politics
• 33:58 – Philosophical theories about “what is a woman?”
• 41:16 – Valuing domestic labor in feminist and socialist traditions
• 50:22 – Utopian imagination and imagining alternatives
• 53:08 – The necessity of hope in activism
• 54:50 – Ground for optimism: solidarity and intersectional alliances

Conclusion

Jenkins’ conversation is a rich, lucid overview of both the foundational concepts and the current stakes in feminist philosophy. She argues that feminist philosophy is defined by its purpose and diversity, and that it remains vital for both illuminating structures of oppression and for devising imaginative, solidaristic, politically effective responses in a challenging era.