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This chapter returns to the question of what it means to be a Black woman intellectual by interrogating the claims in an article in Ebony Magazine in 1966 called “Problems of the Negro Woman Intellectual.” Given the ferment of racial crises in the 1960s, this chapter argues that much like the transitional period of the 1890s, the transition from Civil Rights to Black Power was marked by a tension over the roles that Black women would play, not only as political activists, but as intellectual leaders. Thus Harold Cruse’s Crisis of the Negro Intellectual erased a long and significant history of Black women’s intellectual labor in order to sustain his narrative of racial crisis. What really seems to be in crisis are the terms of Black masculinity. Cooper reads Toni Cade Bambara’s book of essays The Black Woman as a critical corrective to Cruse’s assertions because The Black Woman presses the case for Black women’s centrality as thought leaders and public intellectuals in racial justice struggles, and Bambara and her comrades approach the same political moment as an opportunity for creativity around the articulation of new modes of what she terms “Blackhood” rather than embracing the narrative of crisis. This chapter makes clear that the struggle to be known and to have the range of Black women’s experiences properly articulated in the public sphere is a recurring struggle for Black women thinkers. At the same time, these women engage in a range of creative practices to make Black women’s lives legible in public discourse.

This concluding chapter summarises the exploration of the relationship between women, political discourse, and political representation in the previous chapters. It argues that there are of course successful women public intellectuals in Europe, the UK, and other parts of the world. However, very few countries show the same profile of success in gender politics that the US does, and the public intellectuals outlined here have profiles that stand independently of the administrations they served. Many of these women could easily have stood for election as president in the US; Hillary Clinton, of course, did stand. Many wanted Condoleezza Rice to run as president; Elizabeth Warren may yet run in the 2020 election. In other cases, Susan Rice may stand for the Senate. Ultimately, the contemporary women public intellectuals profiled in this book offer outstanding models of women public intellectuals, but there is still much more to achieve.

This chapter focuses on Catherine Macaulay and Mary Wollstonecraft, which are considered to be the two most important women writers on politics and society in late 18th-century England. Both were instrumental in the development of feminist political thought and by the 1790s, ‘Catherine Macaulay and Mary Wollstonecraft had achieved a kind of political articulacy and a degree of public audibility that are central to the emergence of modern feminist politics in Britain’. This was not seen as an area that women should comment on. Both Macaulay and Wollstonecraft showed that women as public intellectuals could defend republican political principles. In addition, both contributed to debates on education and both believed in the same education for women and men. Wollstonecraft argues that the education of women should be about giving them more independence. Similarly, Wollstonecraft maintained that women should work and become independent. As such, Wollstonecraft's feminism can be located in a general trend towards sexual liberation.

This chapter addresses the significance of social movements in accelerating women into the public sphere as public intellectuals. Indeed, the role of social movements was important in defining women public intellectuals politically. The growth of social movements has to be set alongside the expansion of higher education for women, as well as the expansion of the print industry. This led to an expansion and broadening of the base of women's participation in political activity, particularly around specific campaigns and causes. Women were actively involved, individually and collectively, in a number of campaigns prior to the emergence of the suffrage movement. Ultimately, the intersection of gender and class was an important factor leading to the growth of both political activism and, more specifically, the emergence of the suffragettes and later women's liberation movement (WLM). Analysis shows that the motivation of most women was pragmatic and issue based as opposed to ideological. Issue-based politics covered all social classes and thus brought women together in social activism and within social movements.

In Classical Antiquity, the study of language and literature was a crucial part of education. Girls generally only took part of primary education, and women who progressed further did so by private tuition. Women were expected to be married and produce children and to practice their virtue in the traditional role of the wife and mother. Many women were well read in both Latin and Greek literature, and some twenty female poets are known from antiquity. However, women lacked training in formal rhetorical skills, because they were expected to speak and write in a different style. Nor were women supposed to enter into the places where public lectures took place. All the same, we know of women who received higher education and even taught philosophy (probably in private houses) or occupied themselves with philology. The women philosophers were normally born into philosophic households or married to philosophers. When grammar—a discipline dealing with language and literature—gradually became an independent subject in the first century BCE, it was taught in secondary schools. From the first century CE on we can get glimpses of female teachers of letters, but their achievements were not recorded. Thus, we have neither grammatical nor philosophical doctrine attributed to a female scholar, and this article deals with the general conditions of women scholars rather than their individual contributions to scholarship. Many prejudices prevailed concerning the inferiority of women. Aristotle thought that women were weaker than men not only physically but also intellectually. This remained common consensus, even if the Stoics and Platonists argued that women’s souls are not as such inferior to the souls of men. The Christians reinforced these prejudices, although they thought that men and women share a common human nature. Yet the Apostle Paul had said ‘I do not permit a woman to teach’ (I Tim. 2:12). However, Christian women could refuse marriage and follow an ascetic life, which brought about new opportunities for them as prophets, deaconesses, patrons, and occasionally even as teachers.

This chapter discusses the gender politics of ‘bluestocking philosophy’. The idea of a single, unified conceptualization of what constituted a bluestocking and what was understood as a bluestocking philosophy is somewhat misleading, as the idea of a single voice emerging from this group is almost a contradiction in terms. What can be identified is who made up the bluestocking circles and what they aspired to be and to do. Elizabeth Montagu was a central figure in the development of bluestocking circles and, along with Elizabeth Vesey and Frances Boscawen, helped to forge a public identity for women public intellectuals through Montagu's own scholarship as well as her support for other women writers. The early bluestocking circles were not established as a vehicle for promoting equity or women's rights, or even rights of citizenship. However, they played an important role in the second half of the 18th century in entrenching cultural and social transformation into the social system. In addition, they ‘played a crucial role in a widening and defining of women's social roles in the eighteenth century’.

This chapter studies how Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, and Sheryl Sandberg fared as women public intellectuals in the context of contemporary political and corporate life. Elizabeth Warren used her economic stance as a major part of her focus on her Senate campaign and she has also been influential in her contribution to debates on affordable health-care and college debt. Warren's reputation has been built on her role as a ‘progressive fighter’ and comes from her track record of opposition to Donald Trump, which goes back to before his presidency. Meanwhile, Sheryl Sandberg is a bestselling author and her books and the controversy surrounding them have framed her contribution and legacy. Unlike other women public intellectuals with distinct academic careers and hugely successful publications, Sandberg does not write as an academic, but as a corporate thinker who is interested in the advancement of women in corporate life. Finally, Hillary Clinton is probably the most famous woman public intellectual on the planet. She has come closest to breaking the ‘glass ceiling’ in US politics and has provided signposts for women, both positive and negative, about what it means to be a woman at the highest levels of the public sphere.

This chapter focuses on Rosalyn Terborg-Penn and how she belonged to a generation of black women intellectuals who have been trained, for the most part, outside of black institutions. However, unlike many of her contemporaries, who remained in mainstream institutions, Terborg-Penn chose to teach in historically black colleges and universities (HBCUS). In so doing, she opted to practice outside of the box. As a result, the author shares with poet and scholar Gloria Wade-Gayles the frustrations and rewards of committing their professional lives to educating primarily black students yet also functioning among academics in mainstream associations and institutions. The story of Terborg-Penn told here is based on her over forty years as a student, a faculty member, or a scholar in higher education. Terborg-Penn's memories reflect interactions with peers, as well as interactions with the stalwarts who guard the doors to the ivory tower.

This chapter assesses three high-profile women public intellectuals in the US: Condoleezza Rice, Samantha Power, and Susan Rice. All of these three women public intellectuals are significant role models for women wanting to move from academic positions into different administrations. While the contribution and legacy of Condoleezza Rice is a mixed one, no one can detract from her contribution and achievements as an African-American academic woman and public intellectual. Condoleezza Rice can take credit for a number of policy successes, including the restoration of full diplomatic relations with Libya and progress in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Meanwhile, one of the most interesting aspects of Power's career is the contrast between her ardour as an activist and her duties as an adviser. Finally, Susan Rice was highly effective in her role as national security adviser and oversaw the coordination of intelligence and military efforts during a period that was marked by an escalation of the battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the Middle East, the crisis in Syria, and increased aggression from Russia.

Kuo Siu-may (1916–1995) is best known as the wife of Bishop K. H. Ting (1915–2012). In previous studies she has generally been cast in the shadow of her husband. Kuo Siu-may was educated in Anglican schools and her life and work may be seen as part of the development of the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui (CHSKH) and of Chinese history as a whole. She also transcended this framework and developed her own role in society. This chapter considers Kuo Siu-may as an independent individual in her own right and interpret her role as an Anglican woman intellectual in pre- and post-liberation China from different perspectives. This chapter offers a different perspective on the role of Anglican women beyond the confines of the Church and opens up a new area of scholarly research.