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Women in Philosophy in the UK A report by the British Philosophical Association and the Society for Women in Philosophy UK

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  • The University of Waterloo (also University of Sheffield)

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This was the first-ever study of the state of women in philosophy in the UK.
Content may be subject to copyright.
Women in Philosophy in the UK
A report by the British Philosophical Association and
the Society for Women in Philosophy UK
September 2011
Authorship & acknowledgements
This report is written by Helen Beebee and Jenny Saul, on behalf of the Joint BPA/SWIP Committee
for Women in Philosophy. We are extremely grateful to the committee members for their contribu-
tions, and in particular to Drew Howat for gathering and compiling the HESA data used in §2.
We are also grateful to Ana Barandalla, Clare Mac Cumhaill, Nicole Hall-Elck and Liz Ellis, Emily
McTernan, Amber North, Sarah Richmond and Emily Thomas for supplying the case studies in §4.
Members of the Joint BPA/SWIP Committee for Women in Philosophy:
Maria Alvarez, Helen Beebee, Alexander Bird, Havi Carel, Chris Hookway, Drew Howat, Gllian
Howie, MM McCabe, Adrian Moore, Jenny Saul, Alessandra Tanesini.
3
5
Contents
I. Introduction 6
1.1 What we would like you to do 7
2. Facts and gures 8
2.1. BPA questionnaire data 8
2.2. HESA data 10
2.3. Summary 11
3. Barriers to women in philosophy 12
3.1. Implicit bias 12
3.2. Stereotype threat 12
3.3. Sexual harassment 14
3.4 Why these barriers are unfair, and why their effects are bad for philosophy 14
4. Case studies 16
5. The BPA/SWIP mentoring scheme 19
6. Recommendations 20
6.1 For teaching (both UG and PG) 20
6.2 For stafng 21
6.3 For research 22
6.4 For journal editors 23
6.5 For those who may be suffering from stereotype threat 23
6.6 For everyone 24
7. Resources 25
8. References 26
1. Introduction
Philosophy in the UK has a long and very distinguished history. That history is dominated by male
philosophers: from Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, through Locke, Hume and Reid, to Bradley,
Russell and Wittgenstein. This is, of course, a feature not only of philosophy but of every other aca-
demic discipline. However, philosophy continues to be dominated by men in a way that many other
disciplines—particularly in the arts and humanities—are not. For example, according to HESA data,
only 35% of philosophy PhD students in the UK are female, compared to 61% in English and 53% in
history. If you visit the website of almost any UK department of English, history or psychology, you
are overwhelmingly likely to nd a considerably higher proportion of female members of staff than
in the philosophy department. The proportion of permanent post-holders in UK philosophy depart-
ments who are women stands at roughly 24%, despite the fact that roughly 46% of single and joint
Honours undergraduates are women.
Things look different, of course, if we compare philosophy not with English, history and psychology,
but with mathematics, physics and computer science. For example, the proportion of PhD students
in mathematics the UK who are women is 28%. One important difference between the sciences
on the one hand and philosophy on the other, however, is that the lack of women at all levels in
the sciences has long been regarded, nationally, as a serious problem, and various organizations and
initiatives exist to try to combat it.
There is, for example, Project Juno, an initiative set up by the Institute of Physics in 2007 to ‘recog-
nise and reward departments that can demonstrate they have taken action to address the under-
representation of women in university physics and to encourage better practice for both women
and men’ (<http://www.iop.org/policy/diversity/initiatives/juno>). There is the Athena SWAN charter,
which ‘recognises and celebrates good employment practice for women working in science, engi-
neering and technology (SET) in higher education and research’ (<http://www.athenaswan.org.uk/
html/athena-swan>). Athena SWAN was started by the Royal Society in 2005, and is now run by the
Equality Challenge Unit. And the Resource Centre for Women in SET, UKRC (<http://www.theukrc.
org.uk>), funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, provides a range of training
opportunities and resources, again aimed exclusively at SET subjects.
The UK also lags behind other countries when it comes to addressing the issue of the underrepre-
sentation of women in philosophy. In particular, the American Philosophical Association has a long-
standing Committee on the Status of Women (currently producing a report on best practices for
anonymous refereeing for journal editors). In addition, the recently established Women in Philosophy
Task Force (unconnected with the APA but largely US-based) has undertaken a range of activities,
including setting up the ‘What is it like to be a woman in philosophy’ blog (<http://beingawoman-
inphilosophy.wordpress.com>) and running a mentoring project (<http://www.philosophy.ku.edu/
mentoring-project>). The Australasian Association of Philosophy produced a report, Improving the
Participation of Women in the Philosophy Profession, in 2008, and since then has had a Standing Commit-
tee for Women in the Profession (see <http://aap.org.au/women>).
We believe it is now time for the UK philosophy community similarly to regard the underrepresen-
tation of women in philosophy as a problem, and to work together to nd and implement solutions
to it. The BPA and SWIP are launching a national mentoring scheme for women in philosophy (see
§5), but we do not have the resources of, say, the Institute of Physics, or even the AAP, and our ability
to launch and sustain national initiatives is therefore limited.
What we can do, however, is attempt to persuade the philosophical community that there is a prob-
lem to be solved, to provide concrete, practical recommendations for individuals, departments and
journal editors, and to ask you to implement as many of them as you can, in consultation with your
colleagues, your students, and your institutions. These are the aims of this report.
6
This report concerns the underrepresentation of women in philosophy. Clearly, there are other un-
derrepresented groups in philosophy as well. However, the BPA/SWIP committee took the view that
it is best to engage directly with the case of women in the rst instance. This is partly because it is
considerably easier to get reliable data (for example, it is unclear that Heads of Department would
be able to acquire reliable information about their students’ ethnicity), and partly because we have
to start somewhere. (The BPA plans to produce similar reports on other underrepresented groups
in the future.) However, many of the points made in §3 carry over to other underrepresented
groups (e.g. the point about women’s CVs also applies to the CVs of people with names associated
with ethnic minorities, as noted in Saul forthcoming). This being so, following the recommendations
in §6 (modied, where necessary) should go some way towards addressing the underrepresentation
of other groups as well.
1.1. What we would like you to do
First, we would, of course, like as many people as possible to read this
report. Please disseminate it as widely as you see t; for example, if you
are a Head of Department, you might consider sending the link to the PDF
(<http://www.bpa.ac.uk/policies>) to your colleagues and undergraduate
and postgraduate students.
Second, we would like the report to prompt informal discussion amongst philosophers. We have
only recently begun the task of trying to understand and alleviate the underrepresentation of wom-
en in philosophy, and even so this report only sbriey mentions work that has already been done on
the topic. We urge philosophers to read more on the topic—for example by following up some of
the references to the literature in §3—and also to apply their considerable collective and individual
wisdom to trying to rectify the situation.
Third, we would like Heads of Department and staff with relevant roles (Director of Undergraduate
Studies, etc.) to discuss the report, and in particular the relevant recommendations (§6), at depart-
mental meetings and staff-student liaison committee meetings. We would also like journal editors
and members of editorial boards to consider the proposals that are relevant to them.
Fourth, we would like everyone reading this to consider ways in which they, personally, might help
to solve the problem. Some of the proposals relate to individuals who teach, organize conferences,
and so on. In addition, the case studies in §4 give a avour of how staff and students alike might think
of their own ways of tackling the issue. Our proposals are not intended to be exhaustive, and there
are other ways in which the problem of the underrepresentation of women in philosophy might be
highlighted and addressed on a local level.
Finally, the Joint BPA/SWIP Committee for Women in Philosophy would like to hear your thoughts
about this report, and in particular, about any actions you have taken as a result, and what effects
they have had. Some quite small proposals might have large effects; conversely, some quite onerous
ones might make little difference. It is only by sharing information that we will, collectively, come to
a better understanding of the nature of the problem and how best to solve it.
Please direct your comments and experiences to the co-Chairs of the Committee, Maria Alvarez
(m.alvarez@kcl.ac.uk) and Jenny Saul (j.saul@shefeld.ac.uk)
1 The “What people are doing” quotes are taken from What We’re Doing About What It’s Like, <http://whatweredoingabout-
whatitslike.wordpress.com/>.
7
What people are doing1
“In order to avoid all-male conferences
and seminar lineups, I’ve started giving
women rst pick of dates. Somebody has
to be asked rst, after all.”
2. Facts and gures
The data in this section have two sources. The BPA questionnaire data was collected by question-
naires sent out to Heads of Department (or equivalent) between 2008 and 2011. Data were gath-
ered from 38 departments, with each responding department providing a ‘snapshot’ in a given year:
number of men and women in a given undergraduate year group, incoming and nishing PhD stu-
dents, and so on. While not all departments responded, the absolute numbers of staff and students
are large enough for it to be unlikely that the sample is unrepresentative. 2
The HESA data comes from the Higher Education Statistics Agency; we chose as our comparator
subject areas English, history and mathematics.
2.1. BPA questionnaire data
Table 1: Summary gures
Level % Women Sample Size
UG single Honours 44 1397
UG joint Honours 47 2368
Women as % of UG students = 46%
Taught Masters (Philosophy) 33 533
Taught Masters: Interdisciplinary with signicant
philosophy input
55 114
Research Masters 38 124
Women as % of Masters students = 37%
PhD intake 31 198
PhD completions 29 89
Women as % of PhD students = 31%
Casual teaching 28 359
Temporary lecturer/teaching fellow 30 79
Temporary research staff 25 59
Women as % of temporary staff = 28%
Lecturer 26 179
Senior Lecturer 28 111
Reader 22 49
Professor 19 134
Women as % of permanent staff = 24%
Commentary
The gures show a fairly steady decline in the proportion of women from over 45% at undergradu-
ate level to under 20% at professorial level, with the largest drops occurring between undergraduate
and Masters level (9 percentage points), and between Masters and PhD (6 percentage points).
It is worth noting that the gures for joint Honours (or rough equivalent) undergraduates are
2 The departments that provided data are: Aberdeen, Birkbeck, Birmingham, BCU, Brighton, Cambridge, Cardiff, Dundee,
Durham, Edinburgh, Essex, Glasgow, Greenwich, Heythrop, Institute of Education, KCL, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, LSE,
Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, OU, Oxford, Oxford Brookes, QUB, Reading, Roehampton, Shefeld, Southampton, St.
Andrews, Stirling, Sussex, UCL, UEA, Warwick and York.
8
skewed by two very large programmes; if these are discounted, the % of women is just over 50%.
Women thus make up over 50% of joint Honours (or equivalent) undergraduates, excluding these
two programmes, and students on interdisciplinary Masters programmes with a substantial philoso-
phy element.
The fact that the staff level where women are best represented is Senior Lecturer is also worth not-
ing; this may indicate a ‘glass ceiling’ effect.
Table 2: Admin roles in UK philosophy departments
Role % Female % Male
HoD 26 74
UG 28 72
PG 18 82
Research 22 78
UG Admissions 30 70
PG Admissions 21 79
Welfare 30 70
Commentary
The absolute numbers are small here (38 or less for each category), so it is difcult to draw rm
conclusions. Nonetheless, it does appear that women are slightly over-represented (relative to the
% of staff who are women) in the roles of HoD, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Undergraduate
Admissions Ofcer and Welfare Ofcer (or nearest equivalents), and slightly underrepresented in
the roles of Director of Postgraduate Admissions, Postgraduate Studies and Research Director.
9
Figure 1: Percentage women at each level
0 10 20 30 40 50
Undergraduate
Masters
PhD
Temporary Staff
Lecturer
Senior Lecturer
Reader
Professor
2.2. HESA data
Table 3: First degree students in various subject areas,
academic year 2008/09
Subject Area % Female % Male
Mathematics 40 60
English Studies 73 27
History 58 42
Philosophy 45 55
Table 4: Masters students in various subject areas, academic year 2008/09
Subject Area % Female Students % Male Students
Mathematics 30 70
English Studies 71 29
History 52 48
Philosophy 38 62
Table 5: Doctoral Students in Various Subject Areas, Academic Year 2008/09
Subject Area % Female Students % Male Students
Mathematics 28 72
English Studies 61 47
History 53 47
Philosophy 35 65
Table 6: All trends by subject area from rst degree to doctoral level
Female Students
In…
First Degree Masters
(% Change from First
Degree)
PhD
(% Change from
Masters)
Mathematics 40% -10% -2%
English 73% -2% -10%
History 58% -6% +1%
Philosophy 45% -7% -3%
10
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
PhilosophyHistory English StudiesMathematics
Female Male
Figure 2: First degree students in various subject
areas, academic year 2008/09
Commentary
It is notable that there is a reduction in the proportion of women from undergraduate to PhD levels
in all four subject area, though the decline is steepest in mathematics and philosophy: in mathemat-
ics, women make up 40 in every 100 undergraduates but only 28 in every hundred PhD students,
which is a 30% reduction. In philosophy, it’s a 22% reduction, compared to 15% in English and 9% in
history.
2.3. Summary
There is a steady decline in the representa-
tion of women from undergraduate level (46%,
according to the BPA questionnaire data) to
professorial level (19%) in philosophy, with the
largest drops occurring at Master’s level (down
to 37%) and then PhD level (down to 31%).
The HESA data suggests that the decline from
undergraduate to PhD levels is not unique to
philosophy (though the decline is steeper in
philosophy than in English and history); and
one might reasonably assume that the decline
from PhD through the different employment
categories to professorial level is not unique to
philosophy either.
Nonetheless, the fact that the decline is not
unique to philosophy does not imply that there
is no problem to be addressed. As we explained
in §1, the sciences have long regarded the under-
representation of women, at all levels, as a prob-
lem. That the arts and humanities have appar-
ently been less concerned may due to the fact
that, since women are not underrepresented—
indeed are overrepresented—at undergraduate
level, and since the decline from undergraduate
to PhD level is less steep, they are still fairly
well represented at higher levels too. Philosophy, however, more closely resembles the sciences than
do most humanities disciplines. Indeed, data from the US show that most sciences do better than
philosophy for percentage of PhDs awarded to female candidates—only computer science, engineer-
ing and physics do worse (Healey 2011). And yet philosophy lags behind all of these elds in trying
to address the problem.
Figure 3: Trends by subject area from rst degree to doctoral levels
Female Male
0
20
40
60
80
DoctoralMastersFirst Degree
History Philosophy
English StudiesMathematics
0
20
40
60
80
DoctoralMastersFirst Degree 0
20
40
60
80
DoctoralMastersFirst Degree
0
20
40
60
80
DoctoralMastersFirst Degree
11
12
3. Barriers to women in philosophy3
We do not fully understand why the proportion of women philosophers is so low. Some will insist
that it is due to innate and unchangeable psychological differences between women and men. This
may be true (though there are good reasons to doubt such claims; see e.g. Fine 2010, Jordan-Young
2010), but there is also strong evidence that there are other barriers to women in philosophy. As
long as these barriers exist, it will be impossible to know whether the underrepresentation of wom-
en is indeed due to such innate differences, or to these barriers. And since these barriers are, as we
will see, both unjust and bad for philosophy, there is good reason for us to strive to remove them.
3.1. Implicit bias
Recent psychological research has shown that most people—even those who explicitly and sincerely
avow egalitarian views—hold ‘implicit biases’ against such groups as blacks, women, gay people, and
so on, based on unconscious stereotypes of these groups. Even of members of the ‘targeted’ group
are susceptible to implicit bias (see e.g. Steinpreis et al. 1999, Vedantam 2005). Here is one striking
manifestation of this:
Women’s CVs
It is well established that the presence of a male or female name on a CV has a strong effect
on how that CV is evaluated. This is true both inside and outside academia. Philosophers have
not specically been studied, but we do know that those academics most likely to be aware of
the existence of unconscious psychological processes—psychologists—exhibit just this bias. In
Steinpreis et al.’s US study, 238 academic psychologists (118 male, 120 female) evaluated a cur-
riculum vitae randomly assigned a male or a female name. Both male and female participants
gave the male applicant better evaluations for teaching, research, and service experience and
were more likely to hire the male than the female applicant.
There has been no direct empirical research on stereotypes about gender and philosophy (though
some is in progress at the University of Shefeld), but there is good reason to believe that philoso-
phy is stereotyped as male. Sally Haslanger (2008: 213) writes:
As feminist philosophers have been arguing for decades, the familiar dichotomies with which
Anglophone philosophy denes itself map neatly onto gender dichotomies—rational/emotional,
objective/subjective, mind/body; ideals of philosophy—penetrating, seminal, and rigorous; and
what we do—attack, target, and demolish an opponent, all of which frame philosophy as mas-
culine and in opposition to the feminine.
In addition, analytic philosophy makes heavy use of logic. And there is an abundance of research
showing that mathematics is stereotyped as male (e.g. Nosek et al. 2002).
If this is right, then philosophers will display both the biases against women that are standardly held
in their culture and, additionally, biases against women in philosophy; and they will do so even if they
do not consciously believe the stereotype. The result of this is that, whatever their own gender, phi-
losophers are likely to unfairly downgrade the work of, wrongly ignore or mistakenly fail to encour-
age, women in philosophy at all career stages.4
3.2. Stereotype threat
Rather than affecting the way that members of a stigmatised group are perceived or evaluated,
stereotype threat affects the way that members of that group actually perform. Victims of stereotype
threat underperform on the relevant tasks because they are unconsciously preoccupied by fears of
3 Parts of this section are reproduced or paraphrased from Saul (forthcoming).
4 For more on these claims, including responses to objections, see Saul (forthcoming).
13
What people are doing
“I am a male philosopher at a top 5
Leiter institution, who is invited to
speak at many conferences. If I have any
concern that the conference might be
all-male, I now always ask something like:
“May I ask who else will speak? I trust
this will not be an exclusively male line-
up?” The strategy is to draw explicit at-
tention to gender inclusiveness in a way
that appeals to the good intentions of
the organizers, and at a time before their
speaker list is nalized. This strategy has
been quite successful: I believe that it has
led to the inclusion of women speakers
at two conferences so far.”
conrming the stereotypes about their group—so preoccupied that they show elevated heart rate
and blood pressure (Steele 2010: 119-20, 149). Rather tragically, the effect is strongest with those
most committed to doing well in the area in question. Victims of stereotype threat are often, though
not always, unaware of their own anxiety and performance pressure.
The effects of stereotype threat are dramatic. When in a threat-provoking
situation, blacks perform worse than whites on standardised tests; girls
perform worse than boys in maths; white people perform worse than
black people at sports (Steele 2010). But when the threat is removed,
performance from the stigmatised group improves dramatically—often to
the point of equality. Stereotype threat is likely to be provoked where one
is from a group that is negatively stigmatised in a certain context, one is
in that context, and one’s group membership is made salient. Importantly
for philosophers, being one of only a few women in a roomful of men is
sufcient to make one’s group membership salient. If philosophy is also
stereotyped as male, as seems likely, women philosophers are likely to
suffer from stereotype threat quite frequently. This will lead women to
underperform at all career stages, including crucially high-stress moments
like job interviews.
It is worth noting, however, that the issue isn’t merely one of under-
performance. Being subject to stereotype threat is stressful (recall the
elevated heart rate and blood pressure). Someone who is subject to it on
a daily basis will nd their job (or their PhD study) more stressful, in general, than someone who is
not, and is therefore less likely to want to stay in the stressful environment in the long term (Steele
2010, 111).
This is important because women philosophers’ membership of the stereotyped group—women—
can be made manifest routinely in the day-to-day business of academic life. Many women phi-
losophers are routinely the only female speaker at a conference or workshop or the only female
member on an appointments panel. In departments with small numbers of women staff, the women
will often nd themselves the only woman sitting on a departmental committee.
Moreover, stereotypically male behaviour amongst male (and perhaps also female) colleagues will
serve to make women’s status as women even more salient. One piece of stereotypically male
behaviour is an aggressive style of argument in the seminar room. This might include, for example,
displaying hostility—by words, tone of voice or body language—towards a speaker or audience (or
a class discussion) member whom one thinks has failed to grasp a point or adequately address an
objection, or pursuing a point well past the stage where it is obvious that the speaker has no ad-
equate response (Beebee, forthcoming). Relatedly, philosophers’ standard metaphors for what goes
on in the seminar room are those of competition, ghting and battle (Rooney, 2010). People win and
lose arguments, shoot down points, go for the jugular, ght their corner, take no prisoners, don’t pull
their punches, and so on. This all falls squarely in the ‘stereotypically male’ category.
The point here is not that women are somehow less able to cope when aggressive behaviour is
aimed at them, and so should be treated more gently than men. It is rather that aggressive behav-
iour, whoever it is aimed at, can heighten women’s feeling that they do not belong by reinforcing the
masculine nature of the environment within which they study and work.
14
3.3. Sexual harassment
We do not have good data on the prevalence of sexual harassment in philosophy. But we do have
a lot of very disturbing anecdotes about sexual harassment in philosophy, so much so that Inside
Higher Ed (Jaschik 2011) and Gawker (Nolan 2011) have both published stories on the topic. Much of
this discussion was spurred by anecdotes submitted to the blog What is it Like to be a Woman in Phi-
losophy: <http://beingawomaninphilosophy.wordpress.com/>. Although there is considerable variation
in how sexual harassment complaints are dealt with from institution to institution, it is clear that at
least some institutions are brushing aside complaints of sexual harassment. It should not be difcult
to see how both harassment, and a failure to deal adequately with it, may discourage women from
continuing in philosophy. But the following testimonial (<http://beingawomaninphilosophy.wordpress.
com/why-stay/>) helps to make it vivid:
I am about to start my PhD at an excellent Leiter ranked program. I have a BA and and MA
from excellent schools. I have worked closely with ground breaking philosophers in my eld. I
have published, I have an excellent teaching resume, phenomenal letters of recommendation,
and moreover I love my job. I am a good philosopher, and I am thinking about leaving philoso-
phy.
I have been a secretary and a chauffeur. I have been disingenuously promised research as-
sistantships and letters of recommendation, in return for dinner dates and car rides. I have
been asked if I was married while my colleagues have been asked what they think. I have been
told that I’m both cute and idiotic. I have passed on professional opportunities because I am
a woman, and no one would believe that I deserved those opportunities—accepting would
make me seem like a slut, since men make it on merit, and women make it in bed. So, ironically,
I have been praised as professional for having passed on professional opportunities. I have been
the lone woman presenting at the conference, and I have been the woman called a bitch for
declining sexual relations with one of the institution’s hosts. I think I have just about covered
the gamut of truly egregiously atrocious sexist behaviour. So I just have this one question that I
think I need answered: Is the choice between doing philosophy, and living under these condi-
tions, or saving yourself, and leaving the discipline?
This is an open call for reasons to stay.
3.4. Why these barriers are unfair, and why their effects are
bad for philosophy
We will assume here that there is no need to explain why sexual harassment is a bad thing, and we
will focus instead on implicit bias and stereotype threat.
The effect of implicit bias is that work is not getting the mark it deserves, the best candidates are
not being hired, and submitted papers are not being judged on their merits. The effect of stereotype
threat is that people are performing less well than they are capable of solely because they are mem-
bers of a group that is stigmatized, and are prone to experience unnecessarily high levels of stress.
These effects are clearly unfair (though for argument on this topic see Saul, forthcoming).
They are also bad for philosophy. If implicit bias and stereotype threat are having the sorts of effects
in philosophy that they have elsewhere, then:
Women’s work is being wrongly judged to be of lower quality than it actually is. This will lead to
talented philosophers not being encouraged to continue, not getting grants, not getting jobs, not
getting promoted, and not getting their work read.
15
What people are doing
“Every chance I get, I point out to the
people in charge of such things that it’s
not just the STEM subjects that have gen-
der problems. I argue that they should
look department by department—and
consider extending their programmes to
support women to philosophy (and other
elds, like economics, that are easily
missed if one focuses on broad catego-
ries like “arts and humanities” or “social
sciences”). And I think I’m starting to
make some headway.”
Talented and committed women philosophers are producing less good work than they otherwise
would, which means that the philosophy that exists is not as good as it could be.
To get the best possible philosophy being done, we need the best philosophers to receive proper
encouragement and good jobs, and to be working in environments where they can produce their
best work.
Until we successfully do something about implicit bias and stereotype threat, this will not happen.
The philosophy being produced is likely to be substantially worse than it would be in a fairer envi-
ronment. And that, needless to say, is not good for philosophy.
16
4. Case studies
In this section, women who have been involved in initiatives designed to improve women philoso-
phers’ visibility, experiences, etc. describe in their own words what they and their colleagues have
done, and what effects it has had.
University of Cambridge: Women in Philosophy Society
Emily Thomas, Amber North, and Emily McTernan
The Cambridge ‘Women in Philosophy’ society began in 2010, when we (three female graduate stu-
dents) decided to confront the gender imbalance in our departments, and explore together the best
means for remedying its problematic effects. With the help of both female and male faculty mem-
bers, we established a network and safe space to discuss the issues we face as women in philosophy,
through talks and workshops. The society has been very successful, as we have heard from a num-
ber of female academics (from inside and outside of our departments) and other female graduate
students. We hope these meetings will continue to bring illuminating insights, and opportunities for
response, through our three explicit purposes.
Firstly, we aim to discuss and celebrate the work that women are doing in philosophy. Histori-
cally speaking, women have not been working in philosophy for very long. For example, Emily Jones
became the rst woman to present at the Cambridge Moral Sciences Club in 1896. But this absence
is not only reected in the Philosophy Tripos’ historical courses, it is also reected in its contempo-
rary philosophy courses, where reading lists feature very few female philosophers. This is an issue
because female students benet from inspirational gures. Our group aims to address this need by
highlighting the signicant contributions female philosophers have made, and are making, through a
speaker series that in turn provides a platform for discussion.
Secondly, we provide networking opportunities for female philosophers working in diverse areas. Fe-
male graduates are often conscious of being the only woman in the room during talks, lectures and
reading groups. This is especially a problem at Cambridge as philosophy is spread across a number of
faculties—including Philosophy, History and Philosophy of Science, Classics and Divinity—resulting
in smaller group sizes with few women in each group. This can lead to an ‘outsider syndrome’: you
feel as though you do not belong, and as a result can become shy with participation. The Women in
Philosophy society aims to deal with this by connecting female philosophers. Talking to other female
graduate students and realising how many of us have felt this way from time to time—in different
rooms, at different talks—helps to alleviate this isolation.
Lastly, we discuss the various issues facing women in philosophy, and aim to nd strategies to deal
with them. These issues range from the difculty of balancing children with an academic career to
supervising a group of exclusively male students. However, the issue that our group returns to most
frequently is the culture around professional philosophy, and whether it can at times deter a kind of
individual who is often (though not always) female. Anecdotal evidence shows that argument style in
the ‘seminar room’ can take aggressive tones with negative objectives, such as the purely destructive
critique of a speaker or paper. This can lead to problems that fall along gender lines. For example,
some members of our group have described the experience of arguing in a calm tone only to be
talked over, or interrupted, by a louder and more aggressive argument style. One female PhD cited
this atmosphere as part of the reason for her leaving academia altogether. Several undergraduates
described how they were advised to improve their essays by ‘writing more like a man.
Of course, any analysis of the issues facing women in philosophy must be careful to avoid quick and
dangerous stereotypes. Some of our female members have expressed feeling no dissatisfaction with,
and even having a taste for, aggressive and rigorous critique. And this leads us to the larger question
of how different methods and interpersonal styles do or do not advance the content of philosophy.
17
Addressing gender imbalance is not only an issue for those affected, it also is an important entry
point for self-conscious analysis of the discipline as a whole—an analysis that any philosopher should
be interested in.
University of Edinburgh: Women in Philosophy Group
Ana Barandalla, Clare Mac Cumhaill, Nicole Hall-Elck and Liz Ellis
The EWPG was formed in early 2010, with the founding belief that, in general, professional philoso-
phy as an institution is not good to women, and that things ought not to be that way. That philoso-
phy is not good to women is manifest in the numbers and ranks in which women feature in the
profession, and by the sexist prejudices which many women experience and witness in the profes-
sion. It is also aggravated by the needless underrepresentation of women philosophers on reading
lists, edited volumes and, frequently, as invited speakers at seminars and colloquia.
We think that these phenomena are connected, and that they are driven both by cultural and by
structural factors. Culturally, one of the greatest factors is a conception of women and of men ac-
cording to which women are less good than men at philosophy. Structurally the factors are more
varied, but they often cluster around child bearing and family issues.
The purpose of the group is to address both those cultural and structural factors. We do so in theo-
retical and in practical ways. On the theoretical side, we work towards gaining a greater understand-
ing of discriminatory factors. On the practical side, we aim to promote ways of correcting them and
of minimising the detrimental effects of discrimination.
On the theoretical side, we have organised two workshops: one under the broad rubric of philo-
sophical issues surrounding the lack of representation of women in philosophy; another on feminism,
art, and pornography.
On the practical side we have pursued numerous initiatives:
We have encouraged faculty to increase the presence of women on course reading lists, at con-
ferences and as speakers at departmental seminars, and to make more frequent verbal reference
to women philosophers in their lectures, as well as more visible on the departmental website.
We have also informed them of the importance of making it obvious that they take their female
students seriously and that they value their philosophical insights. We thought that it was impor-
tant to do this repeatedly and through different channels: through formal meetings with senior
members of the philosophy department, through attendance at faculty meetings, and through
informal discussion with several members of the department.
We nominated a member of our group as someone to whom students could privately report
instances of sexist behaviour they had suffered or witnessed.
As part of the department Professional Development Seminars for postgraduate students, we set
a session led by members of the academic staff focusing on the difculties involved in combining
an academic career with raising a family.
We have also organised other events which were as theoretically minded as they were practical. We
organised a roundtable discussion featuring members of the academic staff, discussing facts about
the presence of women in professional philosophy. We also organised a workshop detailing some
of the difculties which women face in academia, and ways in which those difculties might be ad-
dressed at different levels.
18
We are about to commence planning a program of events for next year.
The Group’s greatest achievement so far is perhaps the raising of awareness particularly amongst
members of the academic staff about the multifarious ways in which sexist attitudes permeate the
discipline, and a genuine interest in correcting that situation. We have also seen a marked increase in
women speakers lined up for next year’s departmental weekly Friday Seminars. The Group has also
been invited to set the topic for another Professional Development Seminar.
UCL: Committee for Widening Participation
Sarah Richmond
The UCL Department of Philosophy set up a Committee for Widening Participation (WP) late in
2010 after Sarah Richmond, inspired by what she had heard at the November conference in Cardiff
on Underrepresented Groups in Philosophy, proposed it at a staff meeting. There are six of us on
the committee, plus an external advisor in the form of Helen Beebee. We chose the ‘WP’ title in
order to associate ourselves with the advertised commitment of UCL as a whole to WP issues, and
to make it clear that we take our remit to include the position not only of women, but also of the
other groups whose participation in the Department is at present disproportionately low: in par-
ticular, members of ethnic minorities, and people from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds.
We meet termly. Our two meetings to date have shown that there are numerous issues in rela-
tion to which the WP perspective is relevant and where, we hope, it will inuence policy. We have
begun monitoring student admissions and performance (at u/g and p/g levels), and the placement
in jobs of our graduate students, according to gender and (where we have the data) ethnic and
socio-economic categories. Members of staff have agreed to check teaching materials to make sure
that, where relevant, work by women philosophers is included and to encourage a wide range of
students to participate actively in seminars. Anonymity will be increased in relation to the Graduate
admissions process, and visits to local state sixth forms are planned, possibly with the assistance of
undergraduate ‘ambassadors’. The Department has discussed the matter of images, especially in rela-
tion to stereotype threat. The Pyke photos on our seminar room walls will stay in place for now, but
photos are being added to the website and other publicity materials to increase the range of people
depicted. We are drafting policy recommendations for future staff appointments. The enthusiasm
shown by a large number of colleagues has been gratifying and we are hopeful that signs of WP pro-
gress will soon be apparent. It is however clear that it will take time for the Department to become
signicantly more inclusive, and patience is required.
19
What people are doing
“I’d arranged to meet male colleagues A and B to talk about a
paper I was writing. Halfway through our discussion, male colleague
C joined us. C began a conversation with A about the central point
we were discussing (so, the central point in my paper). I tried at
several points to join this conversation, but each time C interrupt-
ed me. Throughout the conversation, he addressed all his questions
and remarks directly to A, completely ignoring me. A then had to
answer his phone, at which point C began the same process with B.
Again, I was unable to join the conversation, even though it was my
paper that was under discussion. This wasn’t an anomaly. I’m friends
with C and we often talk socially, but C has never engaged me in
a philosophical conversation and probably never will (though he
talks philosophy a lot with other men). I tend to interpret these
cases, when they happen, as reecting badly on me. I must not be
an interesting philosopher if C would rather talk to other people
even when he’s talking about my work, right? So on this occasion
I was feeling down. But as soon as C was momentarily distracted,
A and B both remarked on his obvious and unacceptable sexism. A
then suggested that we reconvene at a coffee shop across the road,
where we could nish our conversation without C’s interruptions.
We did, and it was great—not only because of the feedback I got
on my paper, but because I felt valued and supported by my male
colleagues.
5. The BPA/SWIP mentoring scheme
The BPA and SWIP will soon be launching a mentoring scheme, open to all women from rst-year
PhD level onwards who are students of philosophy or employed on a teaching and/or research
contract (including fractional contracts) in a UK university, up to Senior Lecturer level. The aims of
the scheme are to:
increase condence and reduce isolation of women philosophers in what is still a male dominated
environment;
encourage more women to continue within philosophy and to take on more senior roles;
provide women opportunities to discuss the problems they face;
offer women informed advice about their personal career development; and
raise the prole of women in philosophy.
Further information about the scheme and how
to participate, will appear on the BPA and SWIP
websites in due course.
20
6. Recommendations
6.1 For teaching (both UG and PG)
Use anonymous procedures (for marking, possibly also postgraduate admissions/funding deci-
sions) as far as possible. When anonymity is practised, the potential for implicit bias is substan-
tially reduced.
Double-check the women’s applications for postgraduate study to make sure that they haven’t
been downgraded due to implicit bias. (Obviously this is only either possible or appropriate
where anonymous procedures haven’t been used.)
Be aware that most people (whatever their sex, and whatever their political commitments) are
more likely to notice men attempting to contribute to discussion than women. (This is probably
partly due to expectations/implicit bias, and partly due to women participating more hesitantly.)
Make an effort to notice and to call on women. (See Bartky 1990: 91, Sadker and Sadker 1995.)
Communicate the phenomenon of stereotype threat, and the fact that it may be a cause of any
anxiety they experience, to women students. In addition, make sure they are aware that you
have high expectations for them, but that you think they are perfectly capable of meeting these
expectations (Steele 2010: 159-164). This helps with stereotype threat. Finally, encourage them to
try some of the further methods described in ‘For those who may be suffering from stereotype
threat’ below.
Encourage women to consider postgraduate study. In fact, encouraging all promising nal year
students to consider postgraduate study has the effect of increasing the percentage of women
continuing (Saul forthcoming).
Ensure that women staff are involved in postgraduate recruitment. Remember, the single biggest
drop in the representation of women in the UK occurs between undergraduate and Masters
levels.
Make sure that you have women, both staff and students, at your Open Days.
Encourage women PhD students to take advantage of the SWIP/BPA mentoring scheme (see §5).
Have women as lecturers, put women on reading lists, do anything you can to make students
aware that there are women philosophers. To get more women as lecturers and as postgraduate
students, follow the suggestions under ‘Stafng’, below. When you discuss women philosophers
in lectures, try using photographs as part of a PowerPoint presentation. Images are especially ef-
fective in combating implicit bias and stereotype threat, and they also help to make it clear that a
woman is being discussed.
Why?
Because doing this will help to break down the stereotype that philosophy is male, thus reducing
both stereotype and implicit bias (Blair 2002, Kang and Banaji 2006).
Because their exclusion may be due to implicit bias—studies have shown that women’s names
leap to mind less easily, and that women have to accomplish more than men to be seen as equally
accomplished (see for example the CV case mentinoed in §3). Good women are very likely being
overlooked where they shouldn’t be.
21
What people are doing
“We’d like to be able to longlist job ap-
plicants just on the basis of CV and cover
letter, both of which are easily anoymised.
But our online application system would
reveal identities anyway. So we’ve asked
HR to try to get the system changed in
order to allow us to avoid bias based
on social identities at this stage of the
process.
Exposure to counter-stereotypical exemplars reduces stereotype threat (Blair 2002, Kang and
Banaji 2006).
How?
Instead of just relying on the names that leap to mind for reading lists, make a point of actually
going through bibliographies and looking for female names you may have failed to think of. The
AAP has a searchable database of papers by women that are suitable for undergraduate teaching,
Women’s Works (<http://women.aap.org.au/papers>), although it is currently not very comprehen-
sive.
6.2 For stafng
Make sure that women in your department aren’t carrying a dispropor-
tionate share of the pastoral care in your department, and that their
administrative work isn’t disproportionately focused on teaching. These
sorts of jobs are stereotyped as female, and are also the less prestigious
than, say, PG or Research Director, thus slowing down women’s career
progress (Misra et al. 2011).
Encourage women below the rank of senior lecturer to join the SWIP/
BPA mentoring scheme (see §5).
Provide funding, if possible, for women below the rank of senior lec-
turer to attend the SWIP/BPA mentoring workshop, to be announced
in the next year.
Investigate resources that may be on offer at your institution to combat underrepresentation of
women in other elds. Universities tend to look at gender breakdowns by faculty (or school) and
thereby fail to notice that philosophy has a problem. They sometimes do have e.g. special funds to
help with re-starting research after maternity leave, and they may be willing able to extend these
to philosophy once they become aware of philosophy’s gender breakdown.
Try to increase the number of women on your staff.
Why?
Because doing this will help to break down the stereotype that philosophy is male, thus reducing
both stereotype and implicit bias (Blair 2002, Kang and Banaji 2006).
Because their exclusion may well be due to implicit bias—studies have shown that women have
to accomplish more than men to be seen as equally accomplished (Saul forthcoming). Good
women are very likely being overlooked where they shouldn’t be.
How?
Preferring women, except in tie-breaker situations, is illegal in the UK. But there are many other
things one can do5:
Encourage women to apply for your jobs.
5 Many of these suggestions are taken from Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute 2006.
22
Put multiple women on the appointment panel if possible to reduce stereotype threat: stereotype
threat still occurs if one is very much in the minority even if one is not the only woman in the
room, so one woman is not enough (Saul forthcoming).
Make sure that all panel members are familiar with the phenomenon of implicit bias, since all
(whatever their own group membership) are likely to fall prey to it.
Double-check the women’s applications to make sure that they haven’t been downgraded due to
implicit bias.
Bear in mind that letters of reference are likely to contain elements of gender stereotyping. Stud-
ies have shown that women’s references tend to emphasise stereotypically female traits that are
not so impressive (niceness, attention to detail) over more impressive stereotypically male traits,
such as originality and ambitiousness (Madera et. al. 2009, Ruth 2010).
Don’t allow decisions to be made just on the basis of an overall feel—all too easily affected by
bias. Instead, insist on a more detailed evaluation: e.g. how were the arguments in the presenta-
tion? How signicant was the paper? How good were the responses to questions? How much
teaching ability was shown? This improves decision-making quite generally, but also helps to block
the inuence of bias.
Try for as many data points as possible when making a decision: any one thing (e.g. letters of
reference) might have been inuenced by implicit bias, or stereotype threat.
6.3. For research
Try to make sure you include women as conference speakers, in anthologies, etc.
Why?
Because doing this will help to break down the stereotype that philosophy is male, thus reducing
both stereotype and implicit bias (Blair 2002, Kang and Banaji 2006).
Because their exclusion may well be due to implicit bias—women’s names are likely to leap to
mind less easily, and women have to accomplish more than men to be seen as equally accom-
plished (Saul forthcoming). Good women are very likely being overlooked where they shouldn’t
be.
How?6
Realise that the rst names you think of are overwhelmingly likely to be male. This is exactly what
work on implicit bias would predict. So if you want some female names, you’ll need to work a lit-
tle harder. You might ask around a bit. Or you might look at the papers cited by some of the men
you’ve thought of to nd some women who work in the area. Neither of these is ideal, though,
since the same biases will make it harder for others to think of women, or to remember to
cite them. Perhaps a better idea is to search for your topic on the Philosopher’s Index, Phil Papers
(<http://www.philpapers.org>) or Women’s Works (<http://women.aap.org.au/papers>), and see
what women have written on it.
Studies have shown that women often need to have done a lot more to be considered success-
6 This discussion draws heavily from this blog post: <http://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2011/03/26/how-to-avoid-
a-gendered-conference>.
23
What people are doing
“I’m secretary to the Analysis Trust, and
would like to report that the committee
members and editors recently revised
the paper reviewing processes at Analy-
sis. The new policy is as described on the
website (<http://www.oxfordjournals.
org/our_journals/analys/for_authors/>):
“We practise triple anonymity: the Editor
receives the submissions in anonymous
form, as do referees, and authors are not
informed of the identity of referees. A
proportion of papers are sent on to ref-
erees, and all accepted papers will have
been refereed.Given what we know
about bias in the review process, I’m
sure you’ll agree that this is a commend-
able step. I hope this encourages more
women to submit papers to the journal.
ful than men do. There’s a good chance that you’re only thinking of super-famous women, while
considering much less famous men. That is, you may well be setting the bar higher for women. So
consider inviting some less famous women than those you rst thought of. (This will also help
redress injustice, since in many cases implicit bias will have been involved in these women being
less famous.)
Don’t wait till the last minute to invite women. (Being asked at the last minute was the 4th most
popular reason that women declined conference invitations, according to a poll on Feminist
Philosophers: <http://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2011/03/18/results-what-if-anything-
prevents-women-from-accepting-conference-invitations/>.)
If there really are not that many women in your eld, perhaps consult with them rst about dates.
Offer childcare at your conference. (For discussions of how to do this, go here: <http://feminist-
philosophers.wordpress.com/category/childcare-at-conferences>.)
Learned societies that fund conferences: consider ways of encouraging
funding applicants to ensure that women are adequately represented in
the list of proposed speakers.
6.4. For journal editors
As far as possible, practise both anonymous review and anonymous
editing. Anonymous editing is important because editors reject up to
65% of papers without making use of referees (Lee and Schunn 2010,
Saul forthcoming).
Why?
The effect of implicit bias on journal publishing is well-documented.
A recent study was done of the journal Behavioural Ecology: after
switching to anonymous review, the representation of women authors
increased by 30% (Budden et al.).
In study of ‘prestige bias’, researchers resubmitted previously-published
papers to top psychology journals that did not practise anonymous
review, but with non-prestigious institutional afliations. All but one of
these papers was rejected—not for plagiarism/lack of originality, but for ‘serious methodological
aws’ (Lee and Schunn 2010).
6.5. For those who may be suffering from stereotype threat
All of the following techniques have been shown to reduce stereotype threat.
Remind yourself that stereotype threat may be a source of any anxiety you are experiencing
(Johns et al. 2005).
Spend some time reecting on counter-stereotypical exemplars when you’re in—or about to be
in—a threat-provoking situation (Steele 2010: 215).
24
Spend some time in a threat-provoking situation writing about the values that matter most to
you (Miyake et. al. 2010). Women in a physics class who wrote two short (unmarked) assignments
on values that matter to them earned higher marks than those who wrote on values that matter
to others but not to them. The explanation of this phenomenon is that ‘when they reafrm their
core values in a threatening environment, people re-establish a perception of personal integrity
and worth, which in turn can provide them with the internal resources needed for coping effec-
tively’ (Miyake et. al. 2010: 1235.)
Focus on your membership of social groups that are not negatively stigmatized in philosophy—
people with good ‘A’ level grades or who are getting high grades for their coursework, people
who have been accepted onto a good postgraduate programme, people funded by the AHRC for
their PhDs, etc. (Steele 2010: 170).
Join the BPA/SWIP mentoring scheme (see §5).
6.6. For everyone
Make sure that your university’s policies on harassment and student/faculty relationships are
clearly communicated to both staff and students.
Take any concerns about harassment very seriously, and follow your university’s policies. Seek
guidance, if needed, from university authorities.
Create an atmosphere in which harassing behaviour is clearly unacceptable. If sexist, racist or
homophobic comments are made, speak up. One of the most damaging things is for such com-
ments to go unremarked upon. For guidance on speaking up in such situations, you may nd it
useful to consult this website on ‘bystander training’: <http://web.mit.edu/bystanders/assessing/>.
Suggest any papers, books or book chapters by women that you know of, which are suitable for
undergraduate teaching, for inclusion on the AAP’s Women’s Works database; see women.aap.org.
au/papers.
If you are a member of staff, investigate your institution’s policy and procedures relating to
gender equality. Is there a university-level committee for equality and diversity? If so, what do
they do? Has the university got an Athena SWAN ‘Bronze’ award? (This requires commitment to
various principles, as evidenced by action, not all of which are aimed at the sciences.) If not, you
could ask why. If they are, you could ask to see a copy of the application; this should contain a
lot of information about its policies and procedures. (There are links to the applications on the
Athena SWAN website, but very few of them work.) The list of University Bronze award holders
is at <http://www.athenaswan.org.uk/html/athena-swan/awards/current-award-holders>.
If you are a student, ask your student rep to table this report at a staff-student committee meet-
ing, and ask your Head of Department to do the same at a departmental meeting.
Be on the look-out for things that you can do to improve the climate for women, and don’t just
assume that other people are thinking of this. Don’t make the mistake, for example, of assuming
that someone else will be making sure your seminar series isn’t all-male.
25
What people are doing
“Perhaps the most important thing the
dept has done is to distribute climate
surveys every now and again to keep
tabs on things, to see how things might
be improved, and to attempt to nip any
potential climate issues in the bud. You
can read the survey here: <http://what-
weredoingaboutwhatitslike.wordpress.
com/2011/07/21/what-rutgers-is-doing-
about-what-its-like/>.”
7. Resources
Further reading: See §8 below.
BPA Women in Philosophy website: <http://www.bpa.ac.uk/resources/women>. Includes a PDF of this
report, information about the BPA/SWIP mentoring scheme, PDFs of Beebee (forthcoming) and Saul
(forthcoming), etc.
SWIP UK website: <http://www.swipuk.org>. Includes a useful links page with links to blogs, websites,
etc.
AAP Women in Philosophy website: <http://women.aap.org.au>. This includes
links to their 2008 report and the Women’s Works database.
Women in Philosophy Task Force website: <http://web.mit.edu/wphtf>. In -
cludes some links and resources.
What Is It Like To Be a Woman in Philosophy?: <http://beingawomaninphiloso-
phy.wordpress.com/>.
What We’re Doing About What It’s Like: <http://whatweredoingaboutwhatits-
like.wordpress.com/>.
APA Newsletters on Feminism and Philosophy, Spring and Fall 2009: These are
special issues devoted to the underrepresentation of women in philoso-
phy.
26
8. References
Bartky, S. 1990. Femininity and Domination, New York: Routledge.
Beebee, H. forthcoming. ‘Women and Deviance in Philosophy, forthcoming in Women in Philosophy:
What Needs to Change? Edited by Fiona Jenkins and Katrina Hutchison. Available at <http://www.
bpa.ac.uk/resources/women/>.
Blair, I. 2002. ‘The Malleability of Automatic Stereotypes and Prejudice’, Personality and Social Psychol-
ogy Review, 3: 242-261. Available at <http://www.bpa.ac.uk/resources/women>.
Budden, A., Tregenza, T., Aarssen, L., Koricheva, J., Leimu, R. and Lortie, C. 2008. ‘Double-Blind Review
Favours Increased Representation of Female Authors’, Trends in Ecology and Evolution 23:1, 4–6.
Haslanger, S. 2008. ‘Changing the Ideology and Culture of Philosophy: Not By Reason (Alone)’, Hypa-
tia 23: 2, 210–223.
Healey, K. 2011. ‘Gender Divides in Philosophy and Other Disciplines’, <http://www.kieranhealy.org/
blog/archives/2011/02/04/gender-divides-in-philosophy-and-other-disciplines>.
Jaschik, S., ‘A Call to Shun’, Inside Higher Ed, <http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/03/30/phi-
losophers_consider_what_to_do_about_sexual_harassment>.
Johns, M., Schmader, T., Martens, A. 2005. ‘Knowing is Half the Battle: Teaching About Stereotype
Threat As a Means of Improving Women’s Math Performance’, Psychological Science 16:3, 175–9.
Kang, J. and Banaji, M. 2006. ‘Fair Measures: A Behavioral Realist Revision of ‘Afrmative action’’, Cali-
fornia Law Review 94: 1063–1118.
Lee, C. and Schunn, C. 2010. ‘Philosophy Journal Practices and Opportunities for Bias’, APA Newsletter
on Feminism and Philosophy.
Madera, J., Hebl, M., and Martin, R. 2009. ‘Gender and Letters of Recommendation for Academia:
Agentic and Communal Differences’, Journal of Applied Psychology 94: 6, 1591–1599.
Misra, J., Lundquist, J. H., Holmes, E. and Agiomavritis, S. ‘The Ivory Ceiling of Service Work’, Academe
Online January-February 2011: <http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2011/JF/Feat/misr.
htm>.
Miyake, A., Kost-Smith, L., Finkelstein, N., Pollock, S., Cohen, G., and Ito, T. 2010. ‘Reducing the Gender
Achievement Gap in College Science: A Classroom Study of Values Afrmation’, Science 330:
1234–1237.
Nolan, H. ‘Philosophy Departments Are Full of Sexual Harassment’, <http://ca.gawker.com/5787195/
philosophy-departments-are-full-of-sexual-harassment>.
Rooney, P. (2010) ‘Philosophy, adversarial argumentation, and embattled reason’, Informal Logic, 30:
203–234.
Ruth, D. ‘Letters of Reference May be Costing Women Jobs, Promotions’, <http://www.rice.edu/na-
tionalmedia/news2010-11-09-letters.shtml>.
Sadker, M. and Sadker, D. 1984. Failing at Fairness: How America’s Schools Cheat Girls, New York: Touch-
stone Press.
27
Saul, J. Forthcoming. ‘Implicit Bias, Stereotype Threat and Women in Philosophy’, forthcoming in
Women in Philosophy: What Needs to Change? Edited by Fiona Jenkins and Katrina Hutchison. Avail-
able at <http://www.bpa.ac.uk/resources/women/>.
Steele, C. 2010. Whistling Vivaldi and Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us, Norton.
What is it Like to be a Woman in Philosophy?, <http://beingawomaninphilosophy.wordpress.com/>.
What We’re Doing About What it’s Like, <http://whatweredoingaboutwhatitslike.wordpress.com/>.
Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute. 2006. ‘Reviewing Applicants: Research on
Bias and Assumptions’, <http://wiseli.engr.wisc.edu/docs/BiasBrochure_2ndEd.pdf>.
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“Can you name the ten philosophers?” is one of the simplest questions for a philosophy student. Ironically, all it takes to make this question difficult is the addition of one word women. Even though Elena Cornaro Piscopia received her doctorate in philosophy from the University of Padua in Italy in 1678, 300 years ago (Kalnická 2021), we continue to categorize “woman philosopher” and “Asian philosopher who specialized in metaphysics,” implying that these people are extraordinary. In this article, we questioned whether it was necessary to distinguish between men and women in this “modern, civilized democratic society.” To respond to this question, we examined the academic setting in philosophy and considered how gender-related issues are reflected
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Full-text available
It has become increasingly common to endorse and implement anonymous grading as a way of promoting fairness or equality of opportunity in the classroom. The American Philosophical Association currently recommends anonymous grading, as do the Canadian Philosophical Association, the British Philosophical Association, the Society for Women in Philosophy, and Minorities and Philosophy. Despite its increasing prevalence, the practice has received surprisingly little attention in applied ethics. This paper begins filling this gap. I start by clarifying the ‘Standard Argument’ from fairness or equality of opportunity for anonymous grading. I then argue that the Standard Argument fails to support current models for anonymous grading. The issue: current models for anonymous grading are practically self-undermining if the aim is to reduce violations of equality of opportunity or fairness. So, if we want to address bias in grading because we care about equality of opportunity or fairness, we need to change how we do it.
Book
Este es un libro que nace de nuestro compromiso por señalar las contribuciones de las filósofas a partir de la pregunta vital: ¿Quiénes nos formaron? Como resultado, se presenta este diálogo a doce voces; reunidas para dialogar, desde distintos lugares en América Latina, sobre nuestra formación teórica, profesional y humana desde una plataforma equitativa y franca. Concebido, en medio de la pandemia por SARS-CoV-2, queremos construir un espacio abierto a nuevas ideas, propuestas e identidades en la Filosofía. Más aún, queremos invitar a nuestros alumnxs a vislumbrar las posibilidades de un cambio radical en la forma en que concebimos y hacemos filosofía.
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Existing indexing systems used to arrange philosophical works have been shown to misrepresent the discipline in ways that reflect and perpetuate exclusionary attitudes within it. In recent years, there has been a great deal of effort to challenge those attitudes and to revise them. But as the discipline moves toward greater equality and inclusivity, the way it has indexed its work has unfortunately not. To course correct, we identify in this article some of the specific changes that are needed within current indexing systems and propose a new model that could embody them. We use the Diversity Reading List in Philosophy as a case study and PhilPapers as a basis for comparison. The model we propose not only represents the discipline in a more inclusive and fair way, but it is also efficient, easy to use or implement, and adaptable for a variety of contexts.
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Linda Martín Alcoff and others have emphasised that the discipline of philosophy suffers from a 'demographic problem'. The persistence of this problem is partly the consequence of various forms of resistance to efforts to address the demographic problem. Such resistance is complex and takes many forms and could be responded to in different ways. In this paper, I argue that our attempts to explain and understand the phenomenon of resistance should use a kind of explanatory pluralism that, following Quassim Cassam, I call multidimensionalism. I describe four general kinds of resistance and consider varying explanations, focusing those involving vices and social structures. I argue that vice-explanations and structural-explanations are both mutually consistent and mutually enhancing. If so, there is no need to choose between vice explanations and structural explanations or any other kinds of explanation. We can and should be multidimensionalists: using many together is better.
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This paper describes and analyses the experience of the participants of an undergraduate reading group on ‘The Wartime Quartet’. In the first section, I explain the set‐up of the reading group. In the second section, I discuss what the participants shared and the trends we noticed in our experiences as women and marginalised genders studying undergraduate philosophy In the third section, I explain why the philosophy of the Quartet was itself vital to our development and how it enabled us to begin critically engaging with the material presented in our courses. My fourth section introduces a phenomenon I call disassociated disagreement (DD) and uses testimonies from former members of the reading group to illustrate why this phenomenon is central to understanding the confusion that sometimes presents in students of philosophy. I then discuss a strategy for combating DD and illustrate how students’ seeming confusion can provide a pathway to unique and insightful philosophical perspectives. I conclude by situating my discussion within the broader framework of research into women's representation in philosophy and close by arguing that the concept of DD can be a potent tool for encouraging more philosophy undergraduates who belong to marginalised groups to pursue further study.
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Citing and following on from Pernas early work, the authors report ten years later that women are still at a disadvantage in the professorate. They represent only one quarter of full professors and promotions come more slowly especially at doctoral universities. One reason cited for the discrepancy may be that while faculty understand the path to tenure they may not have a complete understanding of what is required for full professorship or that this pathway may be obscure in some institutions. Another is that men focus more on research while tenured women focus more on teaching, building collaborative relationships across campus, mentoring, teaching, and service. Their study also revealed that women took on more demanding service duties such as directing undergraduate programs and did so earlier than their male counterparts slowing their climb to professor. They may have more visible roles while serving but move more slowly through the ranks since service is supplanting research, the key to promotion. The authors propose several solutions: converting non-tenure track positions back to the tenure track positions they once were prior to the economic decline, providing more mentoring and support for those seeking tenure and promotion and a cultural change, instituted by Deans, that stresses the involvement of all faculty in the administrative duties of the department.
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In many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines, women are outperformed by men in test scores, jeopardizing their success in science-oriented courses and careers. The current study tested the effectiveness of a psychological intervention, called values affirmation, in reducing the gender achievement gap in a college-level introductory physics class. In this randomized double-blind study, 399 students either wrote about their most important values or not, twice at the beginning of the 15-week course. Values affirmation reduced the male-female performance and learning difference substantially and elevated women's modal grades from the C to B range. Benefits were strongest for women who tended to endorse the stereotype that men do better than women in physics. A brief psychological intervention may be a promising way to address the gender gap in science performance and learning.
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In 2 studies that draw from the social role theory of sex differences (A. H. Eagly, W. Wood, & A. B. Diekman, 2000), the authors investigated differences in agentic and communal characteristics in letters of recommendation for men and women for academic positions and whether such differences influenced selection decisions in academia. The results supported the hypotheses, indicating (a) that women were described as more communal and less agentic than men (Study 1) and (b) that communal characteristics have a negative relationship with hiring decisions in academia that are based on letters of recommendation (Study 2). Such results are particularly important because letters of recommendation continue to be heavily weighted and commonly used selection tools (R. D. Arvey & T. E. Campion, 1982; R. M. Guion, 1998), particularly in academia (E. P. Sheehan, T. M. McDevitt, & H. C. Ross, 1998).
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The present article reviews evidence for the malleability of automatic stereotypes and prejudice. In contrast to assumptions that such responses are fixed and ines- capable, it is shown that automatic stereotypes and prejudice are influenced by, (a) self- and social motives, (b) specific strategies, (c) the perceiver's focus of atten- tion, and (d) the configuration of stimulus cues. In addition, group members' indi- vidual characteristics are shown to influence the extent to which (global) stereo- types and prejudice are automatically activated. This evidence has significant implications for conceptions of automaticity, models of stereotyping and prejudice, and attitude representation. The review concludes with the description of an initial model of early social information processing. Given a thimbleful of facts we rush to make general- izations as large as a tub. … Life is short, and the de- mands upon us for practical adjustments so great, that we cannot let our ignorance detain us in our daily transactions. (Allport, 1954, p. 9)
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Philosophy's adversarial argumentation style is often noted as a factor contributing to the low numbers of women in philosophy. I argue that there is a level of adversariality pecu-liar to philosophy that merits specific feminist examination, yet doesn't as-sume controversial gender differences claims. The dominance of the argu-ment-as-war metaphor is not war-ranted, since this metaphor miscon-strues the epistemic role of good ar-gument as a tool of rational persua-sion. This metaphor is entangled with the persisting narrative of embattled reason, which, in turn, is linked to the sexism-informed narrative of the "man of reason" continually warding off or battling "feminine" unreason. Resumé: On note souvent que le style combatif de l'argumentation en phi-losophie est un facteur qui contribue au nombre faible de femmes en phi-losophie. J'avance qu'il y a un niveau d'antagonisme propre à la philosophie qui mérite un examen spécifiquement féministe, mais qui ne suppose pas des jugements controversés sur les différents rôles attendus des hommes et des femmes. La prédominance de la métaphore de l'argument-comme-la-guerre n'est pas justifiée, car elle in-terprète mal le rôle épistémique qu'un bon argument joue comme outil de persuasion rationnelle. Cette méta-phore est embrouillée avec la tradition persistante de la raison combative, qui se lie à la tradition sexiste de «l'homme de la raison» qui détourne ou combat toujours la déraison «féminine».
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New facts recently discovered in the mind and behavioral sciences have the potential to transform both lay and expert conceptions of affirmative action. Drawing on recent findings in implicit social cognition (ISC) and applying a legal methodology called behavioral realism, the authors advance four arguments. First, evidence of pervasive implicit bias allows us to avoid problematic backward- and forward-looking justifications for affirmative action and instead focus on addressing discrimination here and now. Second, evidence of biased interpretation and stereotype threat suggests that merit is currently being mismeasured, and that more accurate measurement processes should be adopted. Third, evidence of the malleability of implicit bias suggests interventions different from the traditional social contact hypothesis, such as deploying debiasing agents. Finally, instead of an arbitrary deadline, a better terminus for various affirmative action programs is when our society reaches alignment between explicit normative commitments and measures of implicit bias. Through this analysis of the legal and policy implications of cutting-edge social cognitive research, the authors shed the freighted term affirmative action and produce instead a scientific and normative common ground in favor of fair measures.
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There is a deep well of rage inside of me. Rage about how I as an individual have been treated in philosophy; rage about how others I know have been treated; and rage about the conditions that I'm sure affect many women and minorities in philosophy, and have caused many others to leave. Most of the time I suppress this rage and keep it sealed away. Until I came to MIT in 1998, I was in a constant dialogue with myself about whether to quit philosophy, even give up tenure, to do something else. In spite of my deep love for philosophy, it just didn't seem worth it. And I am one of the very lucky ones, one of the ones who has been successful by the dominant standards of the profession. Whatever the numbers say about women and minorities in philosophy, numbers don't begin to tell the story. Things may be getting better in some contexts, but they are far from acceptable. The situation for women in philosophy has been changing over the past several decades and every woman's experience is different. I was in graduate school at Berkeley from 1979 to 1985. I have held tenure-track or tenured positions in five schools. I am now a full professor. But the rank of full professors is broad and there are many women, such as my wonderful colleague and role model, Judith Thomson, who entered the profession decades before me when the situation was very different from and, to my mind, much worse than mine. So, there has been progress. However, there are trends that have continued throughout my time in the profession, because I see evidence of them today. Why aren't there more women of my cohort in philosophy? Because there were very few of us and there was a lot of outright discrimination. I think a lot of philosophers aren't aware of what women in the profession deal with, so let me give some examples. In my year at Berkeley and in the two years ahead of me and two years behind me, there was only one woman each year in classes of eight to ten students. Eventually, the other four women dropped out, so I was the only woman left in five consecutive classes. In graduate school, one of my teachers told me that he had "never seen a first rate woman philosophy and never expected to because women were incapable of having seminal ideas." I was the butt of jokes when I received a distinction on my prelims, since it seemed funny to everyone to suggest I should get a blood test to determine if I was really a woman. In a seminar in philosophical logic, I was asked to give a presentation on a historical figure when none of the other (male) students were, later to learn that this was because the professor assumed I'd be writing a thesis on the history of philosophy. When I was at Penn as a junior faculty member and told a senior colleague that I was going to be married (to another philosopher, Stephen Yablo, then at the University of Michigan), his response was, "Oh, I'm so sorry we'll be losing you." That was in 1989. I mention these anecdotes (and there are many more) not in order to gain sympathy or because they are especially egregious, but because this sort of thing still happens all the time. When I was at the University of Michigan in the mid 1990s there were three consecutive graduate student classes with no women. When this was raised as an issue, the majority of faculty hadn't even noticed it. In many departments, women find themselves alone on faculties or in graduate school cohorts. Virtually all minorities in philosophy find themselves solos. Surviving as a solo is a painful and difficult process I'll discuss more below. Moreover, blatant discrimination has not disappeared. I've witnessed plenty of occasions when a woman's status in graduate school was questioned because she was married, or had a child (or had taken time off to have a child so was returning to philosophy...
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Double-blind peer review, in which neither author nor reviewer identity are revealed, is rarely practised in ecology or evolution journals. However, in 2001, double-blind review was introduced by the journal Behavioral Ecology. Following this policy change, there was a significant increase in female first-authored papers, a pattern not observed in a very similar journal that provides reviewers with author information. No negative effects could be identified, suggesting that double-blind review should be considered by other journals.
Femininity and Domination
  • S Bartky
Bartky, S. 1990. Femininity and Domination, New York: Routledge.