Feminist Interpretations of Jane Addams (review)

A major part of critical feminist engagement with philosophy consists in what is often unproblematically deemed to be “the canon.” By illuminating and resituating philosophers’ writings in terms of what they might tell us about women, gender roles, and the often subtle or indeed overt sexism attendant in philosophical texts, “the canon” can be reconstructed, incorporating the many insights of contemporary feminist theory. This is believed to be beneficial not just to feminist philosophy, but to philosophy more generally, as philosophers’ misogynist theorizing, omission of women’s experiences, and tendency to universalize male experiences risk impoverishing our understandings of the subjects we generally theorize on the one hand, while fostering a largely exclusionary profession on the other.

Projects such as the current “Re-reading the Canon” series (under the auspices of Nancy Tuana for the Penn State University Press) thus serve a vital purpose by addressing the need for canon reconstruction, with Feminist Interpretations of Jane Addams contributing to a feminist re-reading of the pragmatist tradition, alongside other works on John Dewey (edited by Charlene Haddock Seigfried) and Richard Rorty (edited by Marianne Janack).¹

In this volume on Jane Addams, Maurice Hamington successfully brings together theorists covering a large spectrum of Addams’s work. Themes probed include Addams’s theology, aesthetics, literary style, political thought, and ethics. At the same time, aspects of life at Hull House, such as Addams’s community organizing, her intellectual influences, and even her sexuality are explored in interesting and often revealing essays, which convey a rich sense of who this iconic persona of the settlement era was, how she came to be seen, and how we might benefit—or not—from her work today. These questions of identity—Who is Addams? How is she perceived?—are perhaps also integral to her inclusion in the “Re-Reading the Canon” series, for one might ask why a feminist theorist requires further feminist interpretation.

Canon reconstruction functions not only by seeking to redress the largely skewed theorizing on women, but also serves to reinsert women philosophers into a historiography of canonical work, from which they have been omitted. As Hamington notes in the introduction, “‘re-reading’ takes on the added dimension of exploring a corpus of texts that until recently was relegated to the dustbin of American history” (1). Indeed, several Addams scholars have drawn attention to the fact that Addams is frequently maligned as a serious philosopher, sociologist, and activist, and some of the articles presented here problematize this depiction of her work.

For instance, Hamington’s essay contribution, “Community Organizing: Addams and Alinsky,” convincingly argues that a portrayal of Addams as a meek and ineffective charity worker directly contradicts Addams’s writings, and serves a sexist agenda, which elevates Saul Alinsky to the position of sole heir to the title “community organizer.” While exploring their differing styles—Addams preferring long-term, anti-ideological, cooperative approaches, and Alinsky tending toward confrontational, shorter bouts of activism replicated across various locations—and the gendered implications thereof, Hamington shows that ultimately “Alinsky (through the Chicago School) was an unwitting protégé of Addams” (256).

Taking a critical stance on Addams’s writing on prostitution, Victoria Bissell Brown finds in “Sex and the City: Jane Addams Confronts Prostitution” that Addams misleads her audience in an account of innocent girls ensnared in the white slave trade. While the organizers of this trade make profits from the sexual exploitation of their victims, Addams refrains from rooting prostitution in an economic analysis, and instead turns the issue into a moral one, wherein sexual purity must be preserved for marriage, for the sake of the greater social good (see 131, 137–38, 142). According to Brown, Addams’s convictions in this matter are so unyielding that she overlooks the actual circumstances of the women engaging in prostitution and misrepresents data to bolster her case. Hence, Brown asserts that “Addams is best categorized among her Victorian generation’s progressive social philosophers, not among its pioneering social scientists” (136).

While this criticism may be harsh, and even reminiscent...