  Cynthia Freeland (2000) criticizes the idea that feminists can mine  the history of philosophy for useful ideas as other philosophical  movements and perspectives have done.  She argues that the feminist  appropriation/inheritance approach to the history of philosophy is an  ideology.  Freeland defines an ideology as a theory or viewpoint that  is politically oppressive and epistemically flawed.  Feminists who view  the philosophical canon as a resource to be mined for ideas useful to  feminism are engaged in a potentially oppressive activity since the  history of philosophy is replete with ideas and theories that are (or  might be) oppressive of women today.   The epistemic flaw is that the  appropriation approach is overly reverential of the tradition and might  therefore be insufficiently critical of it.  Deference is not an  epistemic virtue. Freeland  points out that appropriators tend to use  standard criteria of historical interpretation like the principle of  charity that tries to find consistency in a philosopher's theories or  doctrines.  Following out this line of thought, it turns out that all  standard historians of philosophy might be guilty of this epistemic  defect since all of them use standard criteria of historical  interpretation.  The criticism cuts a wide swath since it requires  feminist historians of philosophy to deviate radically from the norms  of their discipline since it turns out that the norms themselves might  promote deference and oppression. What kind of feminist engagement with  the history of philosophy remains possible?