This book focuses on six women who are often seen as particularly tough-minded: Simone Weil (1909-1943, French philosopher), Hannah Arendt (1906-1975, German-American philosopher), Mary McCarthy (1912-1989, American writer), Susan Sontag (1933-2004, American writer), Diane Arbus (1923-1971, American photographer, and Joan Didion (1934, American writer). It traces the careers of these women and their challenges to the pre-eminence of empathy as the ethical posture from which to examine pain.
