As a follow up from my last article, “How Many Female Philosophers Do You Know?”, where I discussed the importance of teaching female historical figures in academics, I decided to interview my philosophy professor, Professor Everette, to discuss her views on this topic. Professor Everette teaches the course “Intro to Philosophy: Get It Girl” at DePauw University. I asked her a few questions…
1. What got you into Philosophy?
Professor Everett actually started off being interested in computer science at a college in Portland. For a bit, she jumped around from major to major and wasn’t exactly sure about what path she wanted to go down. Environmental things interested her, and she found an environmental ethics class with Ethical Theory as a prerequisite. This was her first encounter with Philosophy. She became totally drawn in and learned to argue for the things she believed and against the things she thought were wrong. “I found it so empowering to learn how to keep track of my thinking analytically and be able to tell who was bullshitting. I felt more in ownership of the things I believed,” Everette explained. She fell in love with Philosophy. “I didn’t feel like I was done learning, so I loved Philosophy. I could see deeper into politics, but it was only the beginning. I was completely clueless and didn’t know what I was doing. I just wanted to keep going.”
2. What do you like most about teaching at DePauw University?
“I’ve had a great deal of freedom to teach the things that are interesting to me. At DePauw, if you’re interested in it, you can teach it,” Everett explained. There was a job opening at DePauw University and she took it. She brought a number of courses to DePauw, like courses on environmental ethics, animals ethics, and ethics and economics. Everett discussed her previous job and said, “I came from Carleton College, a wonderful and very rigorous school of spectacularly nerdy students. But it’s not a diverse body. DePauw is much more diverse; you can’t predict what matters to students or where they’re coming from. That makes it more exciting and more interesting.” Everett explained how she believes DePauw is a very good school and students who leave here do really well in life because DePauw put a lot into making sure the students do. “There are so many resources to ensure students come in and leave successfully. It’s fun to be a part of that.”
3. Why is your class “Get It Girl” and not just an “Intro to Philosophy” course?
Everett talked a lot about the absence of women in history and the lack of mentioning them. She said, “A lot of disciplines got more diverse over time, but Philosophy just did not do that. It took a lot of time for the discipline to take seriously that our identities matter, that they’re not just irrelevant to our ideas.” Everett went on to explain how she had always been stem-minded and argumentative. She discussed the lack of representation of women in the classes she took and taught and mentioned, “I could hold my own in arguments, but not everyone likes to engage in that adversarial conversation– and that was big. I could tell maybe that might be why not that many women were involved.” The biggest reason she decided to start a “Get It Girl” Philosophy course was to invite a different group of people to the conversation. She explained to me that one of the reasons why women and students of color in general aren’t present in Philosophy is because of the invitation. She wanted to create a safe space where everyone is welcome. She said, “Women in the syllabus matter. There is zero reason for more men/more predominantly white people to be taught in philosophy than women. There’s just no good reason for it,” she says. “There are all kinds of philosophers in every demographic. Insight and wisdom that comes from having been excluded.” Everett explained how philosophy gets better and better as it gets more diverse.
Professor Everett had amazing things to share about the importance of including women in philosophy and in classroom discussion in general. I thought having an interview with her would be perfect as a follow up on my previous article that mentioned the course she teaches, “Intro to Philosophy: Get It Girl” and I recommend the course to all!