Love Philosophy, but Where's my Feminism?

So, a feminist philosophy professor came in to teach my Ancient/Medieval class about female philosophers and why they weren't included in the list of canonical philosophers. She didn't want to argue whether or not these women were in fact philosophers, but wanted to create a dialogue between the "legitimate" philosophers and the "illegitimate" philosophers in order to expand our notion of WHO and HOW a philospher comes to be a philosopher.

I thought it was a great idea and have often wondered, as a philosophy major, where all the women are! I figured that the lack of opportunities (given that women were generally restricted to domestic spaces) was to blames. However, that shouldn't have stopped them from writing letters. In fact, many philosophers either wrote nothing (Socrates) or had their philosophy "formalized" from letters to books (Sartre).

Overall, the discussion was fruitful and I was happy to learn of philosophers like Periktone and Theano. However, I couldn't help leaving feeling angry at some of the ideas/propositions expressed. For example, the philosopher asserted that one of these female philosophers had the same ideas earlier about the tripartite soul and that Plato plaigirized this philosopher. She mentioned that there is distinct evidence proving that Plato did in fact read the earlier female philospher's treatise, but I find this hard to believe and would like to see the evidence in order to decide for myself. Overall, I felt like the talk was a little destructive about the study of philosophy. She mentioned that other disciplines included notable works by people of color and women and that philosophy was lagging far behind. I felt like the underlying message was philosophy should change NOW to include female philosophers or we shouldn't keep studying it. However, I firmly believe that whether ideas are articulated by a man or woman makes no difference to the validity of an argument. In other words, we should read and consider these women not BECAUSE they are women, but instead BECAUSE they offer a unique take or argument on certain issues. I also feel like she demanded change to happen too fast. A discipline does NOT change overnight or from the publication of one book. It takes a group of dedicated academics publisihing MULTIPLE arguments and convincing MULTITUDES of other professors to include these female philosophers in their curriculum.