This non-fiction book details the author's own experiences with sexism and the patriarchy in philosophy academia, as well as exploring the lives and works of four female philosophers who influenced both her work and personal life.

Being a philosophy graduate, and due to the lack of discussion surrounding female philosophers and the absence of female philosophers on university syllabuses, this book totally grabbed my attention. I loved the balance of the personal alongside the philosophical history in here - learning about the four female philosophers was interesting and informative, and experiencing this alongside the author's personal story, and learning about how her philosophy studies impacted her personal life, was fascinating.

This was entertaining and educational with empowering feminine vibes, which is exactly what I wanted. I'd highly recommend this to anyone wanted to learn more about female philosophers.

I had a hard time deciding what to say about this book. I appreciated the dive into feminist philosophy and the contributions women have made from the beginnings of philosophical thought. I even connected to some of the comparisons that she made between her own life and those of women throughout history and the idea that the more things change, the more they stay the same. However, the memoir style of book didn't always work for me and I found some of the author's insights into her own life taking away from the narrative. I wanted to learn more about the highlighted philosophers and others that she mentioned and less about the author's romantic and interpersonal struggles.

As for the audio narration, it wasn't my favorite. With nonfiction, the narrator has a big job to communicate all the facts in an engaging and informative way. I don't know if the narrator always succeeded. Also, I had some issues with pronunciations. The narrator went out of her way to pronounce French names, places, and ideas with the proper French pronunciation, but then mispronounced some British English place names, like Magdalene College at Cambridge, which is 'Maudlyn' in British vernacular.

This book was very eye opening. It stirred up a lot of feelings inside me:

* Frustration for the way women have been treated for so long.
* Respect for all the women who were brave and forward-thinking enough to push against the limitations set for them to honor themselves and their right to knowledge above anything else.
* Baffled at how the English languages continues to be "dumbed down" over the years. The quotes in this book were so beautifully written/spoken. How did we let ourselves get to the point where we speak so plainly?? *sigh*

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to have learned about all these incredible women of history that education and society tries to forget. I also enjoyed learning about Penaluna's personal life experiences that brought her to the places and mindset that she's at.

I would recommend this book to any and everyone who is willing to approach it with an open mind and the reverence it deserves.

interesting and important subject! overall i enjoyed the book, and i liked the mix of history and memoir but think those two elements could have been a bit more well balanced! sometimes the history parts bored me a little bit.

i just found the narrator a bit grating eventually - i felt she was trying so hard to convey emotion in her voice and i just found it a bit annoying.

[4 Stars]

How to Think Like a Woman is part memoir, part nonfiction about Penaluna's journey to understand the role of women (historically and now) within the philosophical canon. I found this to be quite lovely and an easily recommendable book. The writing is very conversational and definitely not a barrier for the average individual. You also don't need to be familiar with philosophy or philosophical writings to pick this up and understand Penaluna's points.

Penaluna perfectly balanced the memoir elements of this book with the nonfiction/biographies of the four philosophers. I loved the reflections she had on how their lives and writings impacted her in her own life and guided her through various struggles she encountered. I only wish that the biography elements themselves had included more on the actual writings of these women. There was a large emphasis on explaining their life stories and the challenges they faced due to their gender, which is important. But then I felt that the bulk of their writings were breezed over. I would have loved to get more into the weeds of what they exactly wrote about and argued for.

On a similar note, I would love to read something by this author in the future on modern women philosophers. For the purposes of this book that topic doesn't really have a role, but I would love to see a meditation on where philosophy is today, women who are making impacts on the field now, and how common thought or the canon could (or is) changing.

Overall this is a great read. This book really made me realize just how few women have been highlighted in the various philosophy courses I've taken. Or even penned philosophical works I've picked up in my own time. I realized I myself had succumbed unknowingly to the false belief that there must not have been any women philosophers out there. I'm grateful to this book for introducing me to so many new female writers that I might never have known about.


I really enjoyed the narrator's performance! I think they did a great job with the pronunciation of all the names and whatnot. As well as just generally with the reading of the text. I really made this a lovely experience

Regan Penaluna is the bold voice of literary fiction that I have been craving. She seamlessly weaves historical accuracy with modern day feminism, and I couldn't have been more hear for it if she sat by my bed in the evenings and the read the book aloud to me herself.

Love, love, loved.

i don’t have any prior knowledge on philosophy so listening to this audiobook really taught me so much! hearing about women in philosophy was even better during women’s history month! i’m definitely going to look more into women philosophers because the way the author depicted them was so interesting, i already want to learn more.

I have no background in philosophy of any kind, but I still able understand and appreciated the topics discussed. That being said, I think the author did a great job of tying the subject matter in with her personal narrative, which was engaging in and of itself! I learned so much about not only philosophy, but the women in history who laid the ground work for most of us today.

This was a joy to read and it gave me a lot to think about. I'm so glad I got to close out Women's History Month with this read. I would definitely recommend it.

The beauty of this book was unexpected. I read it slower than I normally would to savor it. As a female grad student working on a dissertation, I found a wealth of inspiration and motivation.

Penaluna uniquely interweaves serious scholarly research on early female philosophers and their lives with reflections on her own life. The author is actively engaging in the pursuits of her subjects alongside her study of them. The result is a powerful case for the continued challenge of female scholars to be taken intellectually serious and the refusal by them to allow that to hold them back.

The book is a treasure trove of the stories of phenomenal women. I hope it leads to more historical works that don’t shy from inclusion of the author’s experience, as well as further research on early female philosophers. If you are looking for a historical thread to pull, this book provides many.

Interweaving her own journey as a female philosopher with the stories of historical female philosophers, Penaluna has written an educational and deeply moving piece of work. Even having learned about a few of the philosophers mentioned (namely Astell and Shelley) in various university courses I was still astounded at the amount I didn’t know. Penaluna details the stories of each philosopher with such tender appreciation, and humanizes these women so as to be more than just token female philosophers. She wrote of their accomplishments and lives with detail and passion, inspiring further research not only of the four she focuses on, but women in the field in general. I have never read a book before which combines the authors own story with those of historical figures, and I found it only increased my appreciation for the work done, and hardships faced, by these women when reflected with contemporary struggles of women trying to legitimize themselves in a stereotypically 'man's field'.

Thanks #netgalley for this book in exchange for an honest review. I listened to this book and the narrator was good. This is the type of book that I would have struggled to read so I'm glad that I was able to have the audiobook. Excellent transitions between the authors life and philosophy. Highly recommend.

I thought I would try something a little more educational. I liked the historical aspect of this book and I think most of the experiences shared in this were highly relatable as a woman. This was mostly interesting as philosophy is a part of my curriculum and it opened my eyes on how we approche philosophy. I would really recommend however my only complaints would be the narrator which I found slightly annoying though it is extremely personal. 4 stars

I really enjoyed this ARC. Penaluna makes some incredibly insightful points on not only women in philosophy but women in academia, and more widely, in society. Though I've seen some commentary in other reviews about the inclusion of Penaluna's own experience at university and with her professors being unnecessary to the point, I feel these are essential to understanding the pervasive misogyny and racism that has kept women from gaining equal footing with their male and white counterparts. Penaluna's insights here show that though women have many more rights and opportunities than they did then, the same views of inferiority that kept them in the shadows have seeped into this century and still impact women today, though much more subtly than before.

I highly recommend this book to everyone. If you are picking this book up to learn how to "think like a woman" you may be disappointed. But if you want to learn WHY women think, and why women think the way we do, you will find some valuable insight into how women navigate this world, all the considerations we must make before we act, the limits we come up against, and how we try to dismantle or break through them. Having experienced how academia is more favourable towards white cis-men in their fields, we need more women like Penaluna to continue to challenge the assumptions that women just "aren't suited" to the work. I look forward to seeing more work from Penaluna in the future!

This isn’t my usual read but I wanted to try something out of my comfort zone. I expected something a little different but it was still an interesting listen. I had expected to find something more historically leaning, or talking more about the women in philosophy but a good portion of the book, the first few chapters, was about the author and her own experience in the field and why it was such a struggle. It also kind of seemed like a lot of bashing of men for a good portion of those chapters and how all of the men around her were trying to push her down. It was a lot to take in.

Overall though, it was a good book and I would recommend this to women looking to break into the philosophy field.

Thanks to Net Galley and Ms. Penaluna for this ARC. I just put the order in for my desk copy. I am using this book in the Fall for my Truth and Inquiry course. My students are going to be blown away. This book is spectacular. The audio version was totally listenable and allowed me to never put it down.

a feminist book to reconcile you with philosophy.

At the crossroads between a philosophical lesson and a memoir, this book tells the story of four women philosophers: Damaris Cudworth Masham, Mary Astell, Catharine Cockburn and Mary Wollstonecraft as well as the story of Regan herself. Immersed in academic and then professorial life, she ponders the "big questions" of life. She reflects on the position of women in philosophy, and experiences herself the omnipresent misogyny in this milieu and the devaluation of the work of women philosophers. She highlights how these women of letters are ignored in philosophy curricula. It's simple, without having much knowledge in this field or having done dedicated studies, how many women philosophers can you name? It's indicative of the place we give to their work. Another area where white men dominate. This ubiquitous observation in every field makes me mad, thank you to women like Regan Penaluna for writing this kind of work to enrich and educate us, long live the sisterhood.

This was my first audiobook ever and as it’s not fiction you can’t just distractedly listen with one ear, I will read the physical book as well just to be able to actually remember things from what I read. This is completely personal but if like me you have a more visual than auditory memory and attention span then I would recommend going for the physical copy! Either way, this book is an incredible work piece and very interesting. It makes philosophy accessible to everyone.

This is a really interesting and engaging read. The mix of memoir and history of (woman) philosophy works well. I was not familiar with most of the philosophers Penaluna writes about, and I appreciated being introduced to them. Penaluna’s way of integrating her own personal story with that of four key female philosophers makes this a book I could definitely recommend to my customers.

This was so interesting. I really enjoyed this one, and I'm planning to look more into the works of the philosophers Penaluna mentioned. I also appreciated how she oriented the reader in the very beginning with her author's notes, so the reader really understands the lens through which she approached her work and framing which we can apply to it as we read.

There is no doubt that the subject matter explored in this book is important and interesting. Female philosophers are almost entirely overlooked, historically, so to have a (somewhat) deep dive on a few of those women was wonderful, and overdue. I also really loved that the author, Regan Penaluna, didn’t shy away from the aspects of these women’s ideology or politics that were problematic or counter productive to women’s liberation, or flat out racist and exclusionary. When we study male philosophers those truths, however upsetting, are accepted. expecting female philosophers to be without fault is another way in which we perpetuate monolithic ideas. Normalize the layers of humans, and open yourself up to learn, more broadly.

Adversely, I did think that the memoirs bits, that chronicled the authors studies and her relationship were not well balanced and I would have either preferred more of those sections or none at all. The parts that discussed the philosophers came across info-dumpy and a bit text-book like. Perhaps I am more well versed in female philosophers than other readers, as I had already taken an interest in the topic, for years, but I didn’t find it as enlightening as I would have hoped.

‘How to Think Like a Woman’ did, absolutely, reignited my interest in these topics and kind of encourage me to do my own further study. The audiobook was a very enjoyable listen and Angie Kane did a wonder job of narrating these topics into life. Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher, Dreamscape Media, for allowing me access to on of the books I was so excited for, this year. I’ll definitely be recommending this to people use getting into the topic and encourage them to use it as a springboard. To me, this is the perfect type of book to read via audio.

Although critical of Philosophy, this book was written by someone who loves Philosophy. This was a great critique of the canon and all of its implications.

Some ideas have been right for thousands of years and some have been wrong for thousands of years. If there’s any field that should be able to critically analyze itself, it should be this one. When truth is your overriding goal, why wouldn’t you push back?

I was inspired by the way the author used the works of philosophers to decide how to live her own life. I think that this autobiographical impulse is the only worthwhile way to engage with the subject.

As I read, I was often reminded of Skye Cleary’s book on Simone De Beauvoir—which I also loved.

Although I have a bachelors degree in Philosophy, my lack of knowledge of women philosophers is glaring and embarrassing. This book did not solve that problem for me. But it did chip away at that issue. For that, I am grateful.