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More on the SPEP Guide’s “Climate for Women” Section: “not only untrustworthy, but potentially damaging”

Brian Leiter

Philosopher Rebecca Kukla (Georgetown) writes:

It seems to me that there are lots of reasons to be deeply suspicious of the area rankings here.  BL and FW point out plenty of weirdnesses, and one could cite way more.  Since there are no faculty lists published, one can't judge how accurate the starting data was, and there are reasons to suspect that some of the information used is not very current. For example, the advisory board contains dead people, and some of the rankings are only comprehensible if you assume that out of date information about who is in a department and available to supervise students was used. Lack of transparency makes it impossible to check for this type of source of error. 

But I am much more concerned with the 'climate for women' rankings.  We have no idea who answered these questions, how many responses there were for each department, exactly what questions they were asked, why we should believe the people who answered them had any good basis for an opinion, or why we should think, if they do have a strong opinion about a department, that they can serve as impartial judges of it.  Nor, again, do we have any faith that the information they were working from was current.

This matters a lot because (a) the climate for women matters a lot, and (b) there is no obvious competing source of information.  When it comes to departmental quality, we can each consult the Gourmet Report (and weight it how we like), or check the faculty list ourselves and do some strategic googling and reading.  But when it comes to something as amorphous as 'climate for women' all we can really do is look at this list, or draw upon the lived experience that comes with being in a department for a long time.

There's a substnatial risk to female students if a department is listed as recommended, but in fact has real problems that respondents didn't know about or weren't willing to admit to.  The potential damage to departments listed as problematic is obvious, and we just can't tell how strong the evidence for that listing was.  There's also what I think is a serious and unfair risk to departments that may have a really good climate for women, and may be struggling very hard to attract female grad students, that get left off the list altogether just because the respondents didn't happen to have the kind of personal relationships it takes to know what's going on there. 

To give just one example: My institution (Georgetown) isn't mentioned at all on this list, as either good or bad.  In fact, I have been in several departments during my career and I am amazed at how wonderful the climate is for women here.  We have 8 women on the faculty, 7 of whom are tenured senior faculty.  We have a thriving community of female grad students, and regular course offerings on feminist and feminist-friendly topics.  We have regular workshops and working groups on gender issues in philosophy – and many men in the department voluntarily make it a priority to participate in and even organize those.  Collaborative work – often across traditional subdisciplinary boundaries – is exceptionally common in the department, and routinely includes women. The department is remarkably harmonious, supportive, and friendly.  Our retention rate is good, faculty-student interaction is high, mentoring is taken seriously both formally and informally, and people are just generally happy.  

But we are not on the list, and I suspect this is just because, quite understandably, none of the people who happened to be asked to rate departments were in any position to know what life is like on the ground here.  And why should they?  No Georgetown people were asked to give their opinion.  On the other hand, I know of plenty of examples of women who have found the climate challenging at various departments on the 'recommended' list.

In sum, I think this list is not only untrustworthy but potentially damaging. I hope that people will subject it to critical scrutiny and not just let it earn some sort of status as official information.

Thoughts from other readers about the section on 'climate for women'?   Signed comments only:  full name in the signature line, plus valid e-mail address.

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48 responses to “More on the SPEP Guide’s “Climate for Women” Section: “not only untrustworthy, but potentially damaging””

  1. Dave Baker

    There are certainly some glaring omissions on the "Strongly Recommended" list. From what I know of the department, UNC Chapel Hill should be there.

    Reply
  2. Dave Baker

    A better place to look for information about climate would be the Society for Women in Philosophy's women-friendliness recognition awards: http://www.swipuk.org/women-friendly/

    Reply
  3. Kathryn Norlock

    A very good place to look for information is also the APA Committee on the Status of Women report, "CSW Women and Feminist Friendly Graduate Programs." This has been maintained for several years now, chiefly through the efforts of Christina Bellon, and is always available on the committee's website:

    http://www.apaonline.org/documents/governance/committees/GradPrograms2010.pdf

    Reply
  4. Rebecca Kukla

    Dave: I agree, although it's worth noting that the SWIP list (to its credit) doesn't purport to be either systematic or complete.

    Reply
  5. Matthew Smith

    It strikes me that the primary data points to use in assessing "climate for women" in a department are the following (not in order of importance):

    1. Number of tenured female faculty
    2. Number of untenured female faculty
    3. Rate of tenure of female faculty vs. rate of tenure for male faculty
    4. Number of female graduate students
    5. Number of female PhD's in past 10 years
    6. Number of female PhD's in past 10 years who have gone on to TT jobs

    (I am not trying to fetishize decades or anything, but it's a useful round number of years – go for a prime number of years if you want, but nothing too short or too long.)

    You might even do something really flatfooted and add up the numbers to give some sort of raw score (how do you add #3, though?). The higher the score, the better the department. Or weight each category or something. I dunno. But, this seems like a good place to start – better than *purely* subjective assessments, to be sure.

    Reply
  6. Bryce Huebner

    Just a quick addendum to Matt's list of data points. It would also be important to know (which I'm sure Matt was just taking as obvious) whether there are sexual predators in a department. That, of course is the most extreme end of a spectrum, and it would also be important to know whether there are male faculty who are inclined to sexualize the women in a department, or whether there is a culture in which problematic comments about women are tolerated. All of these things are sure to contribute to the experience of a woman in a department, and they are things that are only likely to be learned about by talking to women who have an on the ground experience with a particular department.

    Reply
  7. Wayne D. Riggs

    I was, naturally, dismayed to see my department at the University of Oklahoma included on a list of four departments in the country whose climate for women “needs work.” While it is undoubtedly true that our climate could be improved, I am quite sure that we do not deserve such distinction amongst our peers. Very few philosophy departments have a completely welcoming and nurturing climate for their graduate students who are women or who otherwise have the distinction of being underrepresented in our profession. Of course, since no evidence is offered for placing the institutions named on the list, there is no way to know why, exactly, we were selected. I understand the reasons that such evidence might not be made public, and I really am not complaining about that, merely pointing out that it is difficult to speak to charges that are so damaging yet unspecific.

    Our department has become much more aware in recent years of the kinds of problems that plague the discipline and individual philosophy departments. This is largely thanks to the work of people like Sally Haslanger and the folks who run blogs like Feminist Philosophers and, more recently, What Is It Like To Be A Woman In Philosophy. Over the last five years or so, our department has made a concerted effort to make our department a more welcoming one for women and other underrepresented groups in our profession, at all levels. I won’t go into all the things we have done (though I do intend to post soon to the “What We’re Doing About What It’s Like” blog), but our biggest challenge is to get more women applicants to our graduate program, and more women philosophy majors. While I completely understand the motivation behind the SPEP/SAP rankings, and welcome the attention to the problems women face in our profession, we will now have a harder time getting those women applicants, and hence a harder time making our department a place where our women graduate students do not immediately suffer from solo status when they arrive.

    I recognize that there are philosophy departments whose department culture makes it difficult for women to succeed or, indeed, be something other than miserable, while completing their education. And at some departments, these problems persist for years unaddressed and, often, unacknowledged. I cannot speak to whatever impressions have caused those who filled out the survey to give our department low marks for its climate for women. And I certainly do not mean to suggest that our department has perfected our culture, procedures, etc. But we are keenly aware of these issues in the discipline, and have been devoting considerable time, effort, and departmental resources to improving our department. In light of all this, it is disheartening to see that, not only has our reputation been tarnished, but our efforts to become ever better in this regard have been seriously undermined.

    Wayne D. Riggs
    Philosophy Department
    University of Oklahoma

    Reply
  8. Rebecca Kukla

    Right, what Bryce said – plus subtler but really important things such as whether women's contributions and voices tend to get discounted in the department and in classes, whether the kinds of things they are interested in working on are taken seriously, whether the local community is supportive rather than fractured, etc. I think a survey of the sort Matthew Smith suggests would be VERY valuable – but it should not be taken as operationalizing women-friendliness, even though it would give a helpful partial picture of that.

    Reply
  9. Matthew Smith

    I agree with Bryce – any clear evidence of sexual predation ought to be made public. He is correct that I took it for granted.

    Let me be clear that I did not propose the data collection as a way to measure **directly** the women-friendliness of a department. I only meant to say that it is a somewhat less subjective measure than asking people's opinions about this department or that department. I think that many women applying for grad school would find the data set I proposed useful. I certainly found the more inclusive data sets about job placement, and ratio of TTF to TF to be useful in my decision about where to go to grad school (although I also considered the quality of the music scene in my deliberations – please don't tell anyone).

    Re: Prof Kukla's suggestion.

    I am a little suspicious of the possibility of fair and useful data collection when it comes to the subtler questions Prof Kukla mentions. While these are no doubt importnat, it is extremely difficult even to specify what counts as faculty "taking seriously" someone's dissertation (what if the relevant faculty at University X simply don't care about the topic and are poor teachers, having nothing to do with hostility towards women?). It is extremely difficult to determine what motivates another person in their failure to engage a student.

    This is not to discount the significance of these phenomena to the experience of a female student and faculty member though. Let me stress that.

    My point is merely to raise some concerns about the process by which data on these phenomena may be collected.

    Reply
  10. Kenny Easwaran

    One further thing I found slightly confusing about that page: it wasn't clear whether "Needs Improvement" is supposed to single out departments as being worse in climate for women than all unlisted departments, or whether it just means, "we believe that these departments need improvement, and just have no idea one way or another about any department we failed to list".

    It would also be a somewhat intriguing coincidence if the four departments with the worst climate for women happened to be the three on top of the Leiter ranking, and one unranked department.

    Reply
  11. Sally Haslanger

    If people are concerned about the process (note that the site being referred to is a test site), then why not ask the authors of the Guide? Why blast something without full information and without waiting until the authors deem it ready to release? Why not make a constructive contribution to an ongoing effort? Could we all step back a moment to think about how to be collaborative rather than damning of a reasonable effort to supplement the dominant information available?

    Note too that it isn't a SPEP guide. It is an independent guide.

    BL COMMENT: I think many people are justifiably upset that this 'information,' including unsubtantiated and potentially quite damning criticism of four named departments, has been on a public website for months now. Calling it a 'test site' is really not an adequate defense. The reasons for thinking the "SPEP Guide to Philosophy Program" is a more apt label were already noted, and certainly the listings of departments with friendly climates for women confirms the worry.

    Reply
  12. Samantha Brennan

    I wonder why my department is listed as 'strongly recommended' in feminist philosophy but not mentioned at all in terms of women friendliness. Odd. I think we're a terrific department for women to pursue graduate degrees in many areas, not just feminist philosophy. But I do note that this a test site and that it might be more transparent in its final version.

    Reply
  13. Rebecca Kukla

    Sally: I really do think my original post, and the very sensible follow-up discussion so far, is full of 'constructive contributions'. Just because something is a criticism doesn't mean it isn't constructive. (There's a phrase for those.) As for why we should express our worries publicly now, even if this is a 'test' site: I hope that my post and Wayne Riggs' comment made quite clear some reasons for that.

    Matt: I entirely share your suspicion concerning 'fair and useful data collection' on the subtler stuff. You'd need to throw some very serious qualitative methods and resources at that, and even then it would be difficult to do it well. A more objective, quantitative measure along the lines you suggest would thus be very welcome … again, as long as we don't take it as operationalizing woman-friendliness as a whole.

    Reply
  14. Bryce Huebner

    Sally,

    I am a bit confused about what it is that you are seeing in any of the comments that have been made here that you are claiming is not constructive. Yes, the claims that are being made are critical, and yes they are suggesting that there are fundamental flaws in the methodology that is reported on the website. But, so far as I can tell, everyone who has posted here has been attempting to make a constructive contribution to the analysis of the 'Pluralist Guide' and it's claims about the chilliness of the gender climate in various departments. The document that has appeared as the 'Pluralist Guide' looks to pose a real threat to departments who are not mentioned or who are mentioned in a negative light. Moreover, and more importantly, it looks to pose a real threat to incoming female grad students who may end up in a place that is noted as having a good climate when it may not. These threats place a real burden on the authors of this guide to take every precaution possible in making their evaluations, given that this is the most accessible document of this sort around, and given that the issues that it raises about gender climate are so important. I take it that this is the reason that Rebecca thought that it was so important to carefully note the methodological flaws in the document.

    Also, I keep hearing this referred to as a 'test site', and i see the term 'testsite' in the web address. However, I am completely at a loss for why I should see this as a test site as opposed to a website that happens to have 'testsite' in its address. There is no point on the homepage of the 'Pluralist Guide" that makes this claim, and there is no indication that the authors of the guide have not deemed it ready to release. We all know how the web works, and we all know that once things go live on the web they are accessible and that they will be treated as live sources of information. So, can you please explain why you think that this should be treated as anything less than a live release of the guide? I am happy to be corrected, but if this is not intended as a live site, I think that the authors of the website should take much more care in making it clear that this is indeed nothing more than a test site (whatever that may mean).

    Reply
  15. Brian Leiter

    I do not think a particular group of philosophers should be permitted to coopt the label "pluralist" for what is a non-pluralistic intellectual or philosophical agenda, so I intend to continue to refer to this document as the "SPEP Guide," since overwhelmingly its 'advisory boards' consist of philosophers involved with SPEP or SAP. (The one exception, as I have noted in an update to the original post, is the section on critical philosophy of race. The advisory board for "Feminist Philosophy" is about half-and-half.) "Pluralism" was, of course, the flag under which the SPEP revolt in the Eastern APA 30 years ago travelled under. I think it is particularly important to be clear about the SPEP imprint on this guide because of the potential to do real damage to students interested in the Continental traditions in philosophy, for reasons noted in my original posting.

    Reply
  16. Mark Lance

    It seems to me that we need a serious survey of the women participating in graduate programs – including those who have left recently. While all the points Matt raises are completely fair, we are in the end measuring "climate" which is a social-psychological phenomenon. If, say, half the women in a department think that the issues they are interested in are not generally taken seriously, that is pretty important. If a third of the women admitted to a program leave because they think that the program is hostile to them, that is pretty important. It may be very hard to sort out what leads to such feelings. As Matt says, motives are hard. Maybe it has nothing to do with hostility, or even anything to do with sexism. But to a large extent that is irrelevant if the goal is to assess the climate, as information for potential students trying to sort out whether they are likely to be happy at the department. If I got such responses for my school, I would drop all non-essential projects to try to get to the bottom of and fix the problems. If I got such a response for another school, I would not recommend that students apply there, and would warn those who did.

    Compare this sort of assessment to one based on "[posing] the climate question [Which departments are likely to provide a welcoming climate for students from underrepresented and traditionally excluded populations?] to experienced observers of the paths that people from underrepresented gender, racial, ethnic, and sexual identity populations take through the profession." (quoted from the "methodology" section of the Pluralist Guide.) It seems that the latter methodology is virtually certain to generate the sorts of problems that Rebecca is pointing to here.

    Reply
  17. Sherri Irvin

    Like my colleague Wayne Riggs, I was disheartened to see my department listed among the four identified as having a negative climate for women. I agree with his remarks above, and I would like to add a few details about our recent efforts in this and related areas, and the fruits they have borne.

    For our most recent tenure-track hire, we overhauled our hiring procedures (completely eliminating APA-style interviews, among other measures), expressly for the purpose of minimizing the operation of implicit bias.

    We have brought more women into the department as faculty, which we expect will contribute to an environment that is more supportive for women students. Three of our last 4 tenure-track hires have been women, 2 of whom are now tenured. Three of our last 5 visiting assistant professors have been women.

    We have made a concerted effort to identify and recruit qualified women students, and 50% of our PhD students admitted over the past two years have been women.

    We created a committee on Recruiting and Diversity, of which I am chair. We have added sessions about department climate (with discussions of implicit bias, microaggressions, solo status, stereotype threat, and related concepts) to the proseminar all graduate students take in their first semester, and have generally worked to be more vigilant about microaggressions and other factors that create a chilly or hostile climate for women and members of groups underrepresented in philosophy.

    We have developed new undergraduate courses in feminist philosophy and philosophy and race, hired a junior faculty member with an AOS in feminist ethics, and invited colloquium speakers who specialize in feminist philosophy, philosophy of race, and Native American philosophy.

    It is hard to know how we ended up on the list. However, it seems possible that it is due, in part, to efforts that we have made to improve our department climate: these include seeking out help and resources and initiating discussions with people at other universities about these issues. It is deeply troubling that our openness about our efforts may have exposed us to this sort of pillorying (though, again, there is no way to be sure). I can imagine that this listing may have a chilling effect on openness among other departments that are trying to address problems, thus hampering their efforts.

    I would be interested, as Sally Haslanger suggests above, to hear more from the authors of the guide. But in looking at the web site, I haven’t been able to ascertain who they are. There are long lists of advisory board members, but, as far as I can tell, no indications of who collected, interpreted and published the data. It’s possible this information is provided on a page I missed, but if so it certainly wasn’t easy to find.

    Sherri Irvin
    Department of Philosophy
    University of Oklahoma

    Reply
  18. James Harold

    Here is a somewhat different criticism, intended to be constructive. I would address this directly to the authors, but, as Sherri Irvin notes, it's not clear who they are.

    The Pluralist's Guide has two distinct aims, and I'm not sure it's a good idea to pursue them both together. It intends to be a guide to "1) where any student might productively cultivate an interest in American Philosophy, Continental Philosophy, Critical Philosophy of Race and Ethnicity, Feminist Philosophy, and GLBT Studies; and 2) where students from traditionally under-represented populations might reasonably expect to find a welcoming environment (as much as philosophers, or graduate programs, are ever welcoming)."

    These are both worthy goals. While the Philosophical Gourmet Report does some of (1) (it ranks continental, feminist, and American philosophy), it is good to have more than one set of rankings. And the other aim is even more important — as sites like http://beingawomaninphilosophy.wordpress.com/ suggest.

    But these are two different forms of pluralism. (This is not a comment on or response to Brian Leiter's objection to their use of the term.) The first is pluralism by area: the site's authors want to rank departments in terms of their strength in specific areas, such as feminism, race theory, and American pragmatism, which are often regarded as outside the core areas of study in many philosophy departments. The second kind of pluralism is *social*, pertaining to the gender, race, or sexual orientation of the potential grad student, not his or her area of study.

    The authors of the site recognize this, and they seem to have conducted separate surveys. They say this about their methodology: "We posed the substantive question to experts in American philosophy, Continental philosophy, Feminist philosophy, and the critical philosophy of race and ethnicity. And we posed the climate question to experienced observers of the paths that people from underrepresented gender, racial, ethnic, and sexual identity populations take through the profession."

    But just how separate were the pools of people surveyed? How were the "experienced observers" in the last sentence identified? The worry is that since the authors of the site and the people surveyed for the "substantive question" represent only a relatively small number of philosophers (those with expertise in those select areas — Continental, race, LGBT studies, feminism, American pragmatism) at only a minority of departments, the "experienced observers" were drawn from the same pool. In fact, if this were not the case, the fact that so many departments on the "recommended" list of "climate for women" were also "strongly recommended" for continental philosophy would be very surprising. I would certainly like to know how many of the "experienced observers" had philosophical expertise *outside* of the areas with which the first part of the survey concerns itself. (E.g., how many logicians? How many trained in the "analytic" tradition?) As Rebecca Kukla noted, I strongly suspect that if a wider pool of "experienced observers" were surveyed, many more departments would be "recommended for women," even though those departments do not have traditional strengths in, e.g., Continental or American pragmatism.

    By treating these two different forms of pluralism as though they were naturally linked, the site suggests that women will be treated well in grad school if they pursue Continental philosophy or feminism, but not if they pursue logic or metaethics (unless they do so at MIT). This is a pernicious association, and I doubt that the authors intended it. It also begins to look like a bit of self-promotion: there is great overlap between the advisory board memberships and the departments with recommended climates.

    The best course, I think, would be to separate these two projects completely: different sites, different advisory boards, and so on. Each project could be fruitful on its own, with more transparency and improvements to the methodology.

    Reply
  19. Sally Haslanger

    I was specifically commenting on the issue of process and transparency. If people want to know what the process was, why not ask? I don't object to criticism. I was thinking that we can communicate with people who are involved in the initiative to see how they designed it, what their arguments supporting it are, and why they think what they've offered addresses a serious need. Posting criticisms on a blog isn't the best way to communicate in my experience, especially when the criticisms are based only on the product and yet criticize the process and many other things merely hypothesized. Complicating the communicative context further is the fact that this is a blog that some people in the profession hate, especially those whose interests are being considered in developing the alternative. One of the reasons why they hate it is that there is so often such an uncooperative tone to working on issues that matter to them, and in fact to all of us. And one reason people don't like to disclose themselves is that sometimes if they make the least little complaint against the dominant way of doing things, they get hammered. I now see that it is difficult to figure out who has produced the guide. I know who has been working on this initiative (it does not come from me) and I will see if I can disclose their full information. More soon.

    Reply
  20. Sally Haslanger

    I also want to note that the Philosophy Department at the University of Oklahoma has been tremendously committed to identifying and addressing gender issues. It is terribly unfortunate if, as Sherri notes, those who are willing to identify issues in their department and take action are penalized as a result. It would have exactly the opposite effect that the profession needs.

    Reply
  21. Matt Burstein

    Linda Alcoff, who was one of the people who worked (for four years, apparently, with Paul Taylor and Bill Wilkerson) on the "Pluralist Guide" has some information up here:

    https://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/linda-alcoff-on-the-pluralists-guide/

    For my part, I found Alcoff's notes not particularly enlightening or helpful — especially regarding items 4 (women friendliness of departments) and 5 (incompleteness of findings), and *especially* in light of the rather compelling and insightful comments posted here. Naturally, I'm not faulting her for failing to respond to these comments in an email she wrote prior to their existence; however, the problems with the pluralist "guide" are so large and so deep that it is a bit shocking that anyone would miss the problems with transparency (and accuracy) or want to stand by it as a product.

    Reply
  22. Helen Yetter Chappell

    I am a female grad student at Princeton (just finished my fourth year). My comment is very long, so I'll split it into three sections: (1) Problems I see with the "Climate for Women" aspect of the survey, (2) a description of the extremely positive experience I've had as a woman at Princeton, (3) suggestions for a new survey of program climates.

    _Serious Problems with the Survey_

    Surveys can be valuable ways of getting information…when you ask people who are in a position to make informed decisions. For this reason, it's reasonable to ask e.g. experts in feminist philosophy where the best places to study feminist philosophy are. By the same token, if you want to get reliable information about the current climate for women in, say, the Princeton philosophy department, *you need to ask people who are experts on the current climate for women in the Princeton philosophy department*.

    Who are experts on the current climate for women in particular departments? The current and recent women of those departments! *Caring* about the current state of women in those departments doesn't make you an expert, having been at one of the departments in 1995 doesn't make you an expert, knowing people who were once at the department doesn't make you an expert.

    So far as I know, none of the female grad students at Princeton were asked about the current climate of the department. (Had they asked the people who are experts on this matter, Princeton might well have wound up on the "Strongly Recomended" side.) If the people who are experts on this matter are *not* the ones being surveyed, then I assume the information this survey is based on is either (1) old or (2) hear-say. Either way, it is not reliable. (For all I know, Princeton may not have been a good place to be a woman in the 1980s, 1990s, even early 2000s. But none of that is relevant to whether there "*are causes* for concern about gender equality" for "this year (2010-2011)". Even as a rising 5th year grad student, I'm old enough to know that program climates can change tremendously with grad student turn-around and new hires. What a program was like in 1995 says nothing about what it is like today.) It seems to me that the result may be down-right harmful: having the result of giving legitimacy to rumors (which themselves tend to be based on old information and hear-say), and wrongly driving women away from programs that are great places to be.

    (It would be good if whoever was responsible for the design of this aspect of the Pluralist's Guide could speak to the actual methodology here. Who was surveyed? Were the same people surveyed about all of the programs? What qualifications did they have to assess the current climate for women at these programs?)

    Reply
  23. Helen Yetter Chappell

    _Princeton Philosophy and Women_

    I want to say something about my experience as a woman at Princeton to combat the negative view that the Pluralist's Guide is giving of my department. (Please note: I don't intend to speak for the other women at Princeton, only for myself.)

    One of the things I loved when I first came to Princeton was that the female grad students were so supportive of each other. All the female grad students would get together every few months to hang out, eat desserts, de-stress, whatever. I felt like I learned a lot about what was expected of me in the program and how normal all my grad school anxieties were by talking to other women in the program. It was fun, and it helped me to feel like I belonged.

    Another instance of women supporting each other: My first year, an older female grad student knew that I was too nervous to ask a professor to do an independent study with me. She took me under her wing and aranged to do an independent study with me and a senior faculty member. It was a fantastic experience that wound up leading to my dissertation project.

    Recently, a female faculty member has set up (department funded!) semesterly dinners for all the female grad students and faculty. These are also a terrific opportunity to chat and vent, as well as getting to know the female faculty better informally.

    The department is extremely family-friendly. There always seems to be a baby to play with in the lounge, professors bring babies to seminars and lectures. This obviously doesn't solely impact women, but I feel like having babies around the department also helps to shape the atmosphere and make it more friendly and caring overall.

    I have never expereinced any overt sexism at Princeton. Yes, I've occasionally encountered things that could be instances of implicit bias. Perhaps I make a comment and it's ignored, or a point is responded to more positively in the mouth of a male grad student. But this is rare, and the way that my fellow grad students have responded in these situations (at least over the past 3 years) makes me really happy to be at Princeton. Example: Once a comment I made was met by silence, and completely ignored. I felt horrible. But after the break in the class, a male grad student reintroduced the point: "Helen made this point before the break that I thought was really interesting, and you didn't respond to it. I thought we could go back to her point." Everyone is also (normally) really good at giving credit where credit is due. If I make a point, and a male grad student later makes the same point, he will almost always say "I think this is a rephrasing of the point Helen made earlier". I feel like I'm taken just as seriously as a philosopher as male grad students are, and like I'm given credit when due.

    The grad student body as a whole is also really good at giving feedback and sharing ideas, which I think makes for a great community overall. We have student-run talks, an active draft-sharing website, all sorts of student-based support to give support to those on the job marktet. And I think having a good climate overall is good for women.

    Finally, we have some truly amazing female (and male, too!) faculty at Princeton — amazing not just as philosophers, but also as mentors. I feel extremely blessed to have advisors (as well as other faculty mentors), who support me as a philosopher and also as a person, and who really believe in me.

    (For all I know women at NYU, Rutgers, and OU may have had similarly positive experiences.)

    Reply
  24. Helen Yetter Chappell

    _Proposal for a Helpful Survey of Gender-Climate_

    I agree with Mark Lance (and doubtless with the creaters of the Pluralist's Guide!) that it would be extremely valuable to have a reliable source of information about the climate of graduate programs for women. Here are a few off-the-top-of-my-head suggestions:

    – Do a yearly or every-other yearly survey (program climates can change with grad student turn-around, retirements, and new hires — this data may go stale quickly)

    – Survey: (1) current & recent (e.g. withing 1-2 years post-PhD) female grad students, (2) current and recent female faculty — survey them *on their instution only*

    – Survey should be anonymous, but with separate links for all recipients to ensure no one takes it multiple times

    – Collect quantitative data on: overall climate for women, supportiveness of female grads, male grads, female faculty, male faculty, overt sexism, family-friendliness

    – Allow for written feedback

    – The website shouldn't attempt to rank departments, but rather to give the medians and means (maybe with and without outliers removed?) for all of the questions

    – Be totally clear on the data website about methodology and who to contact with questions

    If people from the Pluralist's Guide (or anyone else!) wants to try doing a serious survey of program climates, I'd be happy to help with ideas or leg-work! I'm just a bit too swamped right now to take the lead creating such a thing.

    Reply
  25. Sally Haslanger

    FYI, as promised. I have permission to reveal the names of Linda Alcoff and Paul Taylor as organizers of the Pluralist Guide. Please send your thoughts and questions to:
    pluralistguidetophil@gmail.com

    Reply
  26. Brian Leiter

    This is in reply to Sally Haslanger’s comment at 3:02 pm.

    It was not long ago that Sally e-mailed me to thank me for my cooperation in publicizing her important paper about the situation for women in philosophy. Now I have become “uncooperative” because I’ve taken issue with a web site that posts unsubstantiated slurs on four departments, three of which are the top three in the PGR. The only well-ranked PGR department not to come in for such anonymous hammering is MIT. My impression is some people are quite upset about this—some might even think it “uncooperative” and uncollegial to be part of such an enterprise–but perhaps the e-mails I get are unrepresentative.

    I am not quite clear what the “issues that matter” are to the creators of the Guide on which I or others have failed to be cooperative. Three of the areas covered by the Guide—feminist philosophy, American philosophy, and 19th- and 20th-century Continental philosophy—are covered in the PGR, in some cases in rather great detail and via a transparent methodology, with evaluators and their institutions named. So whatever the Guide is doing on those fronts, it isn’t filling a gap, but, as I said originally, presenting a very different take on these fields, one largely reflecting the views of philosophers in SPEP and SAP (90% of the Continental “advisory board” members are part of SPEP, as are two of three organizers of the Guide; to the best of my knowledge, all the American philosophy evaluators are part of SAP). There’s nothing wrong with that, as I said originally: it’s a good thing to do to get their view out there, but the Guide should be clearer about what it is.

    If, however, adjudging a lot of the work on Continental philosophy at the programs “strongly recommended” by the SPEP Guide as “not very good” is “uncooperative,” then I plead guilty and gladly. I care about scholarship on the Continental traditions in philosophy–these include some of the philosophers that are most important to me–and I would be sorry if students with the potential to do wonderful work were misled intellectually and professionally. What puzzles me is that, from what I know of Sally Haslanger’s work, she could not possibly have a different opinion of a lot of this work, though perhaps, since this is not her field, she is not familiar with it.

    The one area where the Guide adds substantial new information is on philosophy of race. As I noted in an update to my original post, that seems the least SPEP-determined part of the Guide. (The section on LGBT issues is a bit thin, at present, so hard to assess.)

    Perhaps the reference to cooperation only concerns the criticisms of the "climate for women" section. I think others have already spoken to that concern.

    People get "hammered" on this blog for being anti-gay bigots, reactionaries, war-mongers, Straussians, Randians, and promulgators of “Jewish poker” philosophy (to borrow Michael Rosen’s term), but I can think of no incident in which someone was hammered for “the least little complaint against the dominant way of doing things.” That is nonsense, and I hope we won't have any more of it here.

    Reply
  27. Rebecca Kukla

    Sally: with all due respect (and it is hard to overstate how much respect I in fact have for you, as both a philosopher and as a voice for women in the profession) –

    You write that "One of the reasons why they hate [this blog] is that there is so often such an uncooperative tone to working on issues that matter to them, and in fact to all of us" and the clear Gricean implicature is that people on this thread are taking such an 'uncooperative tone'. But I just literally don't see it. People are giving very specific, thoughtful criticisms, and making all sorts of wonderful suggestions for how to do things better, and there's been an absolutely consistent acknowledgment that the general goal of carefully documenting the climate for women in various departments is an important one. Other than the fact that there are criticisms being raised, I simply don't see any uncooperative tone at all here.

    You also say -and presumably this is directed in the first instance at me – that "the criticisms are based only on the product and yet criticize the process and many other things merely hypothesized." But this just isn't fair, for two reasons. For one thing, I was commenting in part directly on the process as described on the web page, and several others have too. For another, one can't neatly separate product and process here. It was totally central to my point that what we have on that website is a *product* which is at best much less useful than it could be and at worst seriously and unfairly damaging precisely because the *process* is not transparently represented in the product. The opacity of the process IS part of the product. Users should not have to make back-door inquiries to find out how many responses a school got, who was asked, what questions were asked, etc, before they decide whether or not to take the guide as a useful source.

    In any case, as long as the basic method is to ask people about the climate in departments they have't been in, with all the room for rumor, distortion, and data so paltry as to allow no generalizable conclusions that goes along with that, I think that I will find the guide more dangerous than useful. A radical overhaul of the method, perhaps along some of the lines helpfully suggested by commenters above, is required.

    Oh, and mad props to Helen for the lovely, heartening, and thoughtful series of posts!

    Reply
  28. www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=711347066

    I'd like to urge departments like Oklahoma that are taking steps to improve things for women to submit posts describing these and identifying themselves to What We're Doing About What It's Like: http://whatweredoingaboutwhatitslike.wordpress.com/. This offers you a pubic forum to make your commitments and actions clear, and it also offers a place to collect and share ideas about useful things to do. Posting there will be good both for your department and for others, who can benefit from reading what you're doing.

    Reply
  29. Nathan Jun

    Over and above the methodological shortcomings of the "Pluralist's Guide," (and I agree it has several), could it be that many if not most of its critics simply do not take seriously or, worse, actively disdain the philosophers, programs, approaches to doing philosophy, etc. represented therein? There is a view, prominently represented by Professor Leiter, inter alia, that there is no such thing as an "analytic/continental" divide in Anglophone philosophy, that there is only "good" and "bad" philosophy (some of which concerns post-Kantian continental philosophy, obviously), and that the philosophers/programs/approaches to doing philosophy represented in the Pluralist's Guide are (mostly) just instances of "bad" continental philosophy. If it is the case that many if not most of the PG's critics share this view, or something fairly close to it, then why would take ANY version of the PG seriously or treat it with anything other than disdain? I imagine a version of the PG that replicates the methodology of the PGR would still be dismissed simply on the grounds that it represents the views of (mostly) "bad" philosophers about (mostly) "bad" programs. Or am I missing something?

    BL COMMENT: That is at least my view about the Continental philosophy section, but that doesn't lead me to dismiss it, just to object to the "pluralist" label being appropriated for some not very good philosophical and scholarly work. I can't speak for what others really think about these issues, though correspondence suggests some others share this view. On the other hand, I think different concerns have been raised about other portions of the SPEP Guide, that are unrelated to the question fo the quality of the work at the recommended programs.

    Reply
  30. Nathan Jun

    Right — I agree that the "Climate for Women" issue can and should be addressed independently of the rest of the guide. I agree with most of what has been said about this section of the guide; even those who are generally supportive of the rest of it should be able to recognize the problems with this section, in my view.

    Reply
  31. Sally Haslanger

    I apologize to Rebecca and others for implicating that they should not be criticizing the new guide and for being testy about the issue of uncooperativeness. I work very hard to communicate across huge philosophical, methodological and political differences, and sometimes I just get frustrated when it seems like groups I respect and care about are taking aim at each other. But rereading the thread, I can see that although there are deep communicative divides, it was not helpful to say some of the things I did. I'm sorry. I do think that the profession needs in-depth discussion about these difficult topics and what actions are helpful and what not. And I didn't intend to stifle that. I just want there to be good meaningful — even if difficult — conversation, and I recognize that some of the earlier posts are part of that.

    At the same time, however, I resent Brian's suggestion that MIT got off light somehow because of some back room efforts on my part, or that I have somehow contradicted myself because I appreciate some of his efforts but not all of them.

    I disapprove of much of what the Philosophical Gourmet stands for, but I participate because I believe it is important to have a broad range of responses; likewise, even though I disagree with many aspects of the Pluralists Guide, I believe it is important to have a broad range of responses. I value efforts to gain information, though it is always difficult to be sure that information will be used as hoped or envisioned. I too have criticisms of the Pluralists' Guide and I am in communication with those who have developed it about some of them.

    Moreover, MIT isn't actually the only Leiteriffic school that is not on the "needs improvement" list, and the kind of tone in Brian's message is exactly the sort of thing that many find problematic and others involved in this thread are clearly working hard to avoid.

    BL COMMENT: Sally, I believe the tone of my response was correctly matched to (perhaps even more mild than) the tone and substance of your comments to which I responded, comments which were insulting, on a variety of levels, to me and to others, but for which you have now graciously apologized. I apologize as well for my tone, and am happy to have the discussion return to matters of substance.

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  32. Iain Thomson

    I apologize if this comes across as self-serving, but from my perspective the Pluralist Guide’s claim to represent “pluralism” is undermined by the complete omission from its continental recommendations of our small but dedicated doctoral program at UNM. I think we are one of the very best places in the country to study such major contemporary continental thinkers as Badiou, Derrida, Heidegger, and Zizek, as well as movements like phenomenology and critical theory. We have overlapping strengths in the history of philosophy and a long pluralistic commitment to productive dialogue between not only continental and analytic but also American and Eastern philosophical traditions. (We have also been trying to hire in other areas, including feminist philosophy.) It’s sad when philosophical traditions allow themselves to become as polarized as the political talking heads on TV, and one of the best ways to resist that is indeed to practice the genuine pluralism of an ongoing dialogue between traditions. Of course, for the same reasons, I would also like to see our program better represented in the Philosophical Gourmet report, but at least we are mentioned here in continental.

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  33. Rebecca Kukla

    Sally – not only do I accept the apology, I completely and totally empathize with the impulse to lash out in frustration at how colossal of an effort it takes to communicate effectively with hoards of cranky philosophers. Indeed I think I've been giving into that impulse too much for the last 24 hours over at another widely read blog. Thanks for all you do for and in the discipline.

    Reply
  34. Alastair Norcross

    In response to the criticism that this blog often has an uncooperative tone to issues that matter to the philosophers behind the alternative guide, I would like to remind people of a fairly recent success story directly attributable to this blog. It was as a direct result of two lengthy and mostly cooperative discussions on this blog about the APA's anti-discrimination policy as regards the treatment of LGBT members of the profession that some of us introduced a motion at the Pacific APA. The motion called for the APA Board to rethink the anti-discrimination policy, in light of the distressing fact that some institutions that transparently discriminate against LGBT persons were advertising in JFP without incurring any kind of censure. The motion passed unanimously. The APA Board revised and strengthened the policy. That was, at least, a step in the right direction on an issue that those behind the Pluralists Guide clearly care about, as do most other philosophers.

    Reply
  35. Meghan Sullivan

    Adding to Helen Yetter's post…

    I'm a recent graduate of the Rutgers Ph.D. program and a woman. Rutgers, like every other large top department, could do more to recruit a diverse faculty. But I see no other reason why it should belong on a "needs improvement" list. I felt that I had outstanding professional mentoring from the faculty there. There is a large community of very supportive, brilliant, and fun women graduate students. There is an open and democratic culture, where students and faculty talk about gender. And in advising women undergraduates where to pursue Philosophy, Rutgers would typically be one of top recommendations.

    Department cultures change quickly, folks have a wide range of experiences in graduate school, and sometimes rumors have a life of their own. I'd like to echo Helen's sentiment. If you want to know what a department is like for women, be sure to ask a broad sample of those that currently work and study there. And I'd be suspicious of reports that a department isn't "women friendly" when it is unclear where the evidence originates.

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  36. Charlotte Witt

    I am not a member of SPEP or SAP but am on the Pluralist's advisory board for feminist philosophy. I agreed to weigh in because I thought that feminist philosophy and the philosophy of race were not fully represented in the Leiter Report. I understand that some will disagree with this view but I don't think that anyone could look at the list of pluralist's advisors and claim that they were unrepresentative of feminist philosophy (analytic, continental or other). The issue of "women friendly" departments is complicated with a number of possible attributes in play, but I think it is not a bad thing to have this topic under active discussion within the profession.

    Reply
  37. Ruth Chang

    I was disappointed to learn that my department, Rutgers, has been listed as one of four departments whose climate for women "needs improvement". Many of us here, including but not limited to the women faculty, have been working hard over the years to create a supportive and congenial environment for women graduate students at Rutgers, and I think that the department has improved dramatically in this regard. I worry that this report undermines what we have achieved and to make it harder for us to continue on our path to making Rutgers one of the very best places for women to study mainstream analytic philosophy.
    Here are a few facts. Our women grad students are 36% of our total graduate student population. We continue to improve this. Our most recent two incoming classes were respectively 50% and 37.5% women. Our most recent placement in tenure track jobs this year was 80% women (4 out of the 5 tenure track jobs were secured by our women grads, including at USC and Notre Dame). Perhaps most relevant is the fact that we take a 'climate' survey every now and again with female graduate students responding anonymously to very direct and probing questions about subtle forms of discrimination and about the general climate for women in the department. The last one was a few years ago, and as one of the female faculty reading the results, I can report that the responses were overwhelmingly positive and very enthusiastic — the women graduates were very happy, and many of them volunteered their view that Rutgers was the *best* place for a woman to become a first-rate analytic philosopher. Not a single respondent complained of gender discrimination, a hostile environment, or of being generally unhappy at Rutgers. Indeed, what I recall is that something like a supermajority said that they really "loved" being at Rutgers.

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  38. Matthew Smith

    The observations of Helen Yetter Chappell, Ruth Chang and Meghan Sullivan speak strongly in favor of using verifiable data in assessing climate for women and rather against Mark Lance's recommendations in favor of continuing to publicly excoriate departments on the basis of (what are to the readers) anonymous reports of a poor climate for women.

    I want to stress that I am not suggesting that the numbers tell the whole story. I am saying that the whole story is extremely difficult to capture and represent in a fair and reliable way.

    The best route – the one that would probably better fit Meghan Sullivan and Ruth Chang's impressions of Rutgers, for example – is an admittedly limited approach that uses verifiable metrics. This may limit the amount of information, but it will be information that is reliable and it will be fair to widely publish assessments of departments on the basis of such information.

    Ruth Chang's point about Rutgers' project of collecting information from students on their impressions of the climate also seems extremely important. Perhaps instead of asking people to anonymously report whether they have heard bad things about some place, we can ask departments to report on whether they take Rutgers-like affirmative steps to engage with the female students about the climate. The data-set about placement, etc., plus information like that which Ruth just shared with all of us would almost certainly be far more valuable than the spongy accusations contained in the "climate for women" section of the SPEP report.

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  39. Mark William Westmoreland

    Brian (or anyone with knowledge of the following),

    I understand your reasoning for calling this a SPEP report. Honestly, I think this is quite unhelpful. One reason being that this Pluralist Guide, to my knowledge, is not an extension of the organization SPEP nor does it speak for all memeber of SPEP and to label it as such is misleading. Do we happen to know how many persons on the advisory boards are members of the APA or any other major philosophical organization? I seriously don't know the answer to this, but it seems to me to be useful information if we are going to place a label on it.

    BL COMMENT: If there are SPEP philosophers who do not endorse the SPEP rankings of Continental philosophy programs, please let them speak up. Most SPEP philosophers are also members of the APA, or that has been my impression, especially since every other year the Eastern Division has a SPEP President due to block voting by the SPEP members of the APA. But the APA is not an ideological organization in the way SPEP quite explicitly is, that is, the condition for membership in the APA is *not* that you endorse or promote particular traditions in or styles of philosophy.

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  40. Nathan Jun

    For the record, I am a member of SPEP, and I RESPECTFULLY disagree with Professor Leiter's opinions on continental philosophy in general and SPEP in particular. That said, I have far too many misgivings about the methodology employed by the Pluralist's Guide to endorse its rankings, although I endorse the broad idea of such a guide in principle. I welcome the opportunity to offer prospective grad students an alternative point of view regarding the study of continental philosophy–provided such an alternative is formulated in a responsible manner–but I do not think it is a good idea to tie this project simulaneously to evaluating the "climate for women" in philosophy departments.

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  41. Mark Lance

    "Mark Lance's recommendations in favor of continuing to publicly excoriate departments on the basis of (what are to the readers) anonymous reports of a poor climate for women."

    What the hell? Where did I say a single word about publicly excoriating anyone on the basis of anything. I suggested a survey. I'm seriously trying to figure out what you are objecting to Matt. The 'public excoriation' part is a patent invention of yours as anyone reading my post above can see. Perhaps we could start a civil discussion with an apology for putting words in my mouth.

    But if you take that out, what is left of your objection? All I can guess is that you are saying that it is a bad thing for reporting to be anonymous – "on the basis of (what are to the readers) anonymous reports of a poor climate for women."
    But in addition to the fact that you immediately contradict this by endorsing the Rutgers project of doing an anonymous survey as "extremely important" – so you dislike the idea of an anonymous survey and prefer, instead, an anonymous survey? – the idea that such surveys should not be anonymous is absurdly reckless. Do you really expect to get good information if no student can report on negative aspects of a departmental climate without their name being used publicly? Can you possibly be so blind to the potential dangers involved in that for the student?

    In any event, the kind of survey that Ruth is speaking of here is precisely what I'm endorsing be done systematically across the profession and I congratulate Rutgers on taking this important step.

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  42. Michael Johnson

    I've been a Rutgers graduate student for 7 years now (I know, I know, I'm defending soon though). I'm a man, so I cannot speak for the women in the department, but I can speak from my own experience and observation.

    We're a very tight-knit graduate community; there's no one here I wouldn't call my friend; most of the graduate students attended my (recent) wedding; I love these people. In all my conversations with my women friends here, I have not heard of a single case of harassment or discrimination against women.

    We (the graduate students) have bi-annual meetings to discuss graduate issues and elect people to do various tasks (organize the Princeton/ Rutgers conference, organize the grad student talks, etc.) I can't recall anyone ever bringing up harassment, discrimination, or even a poor climate for women at such meetings. Ditto for the annual meetings between the grad students and the grad director. Ditto for the monthly faculty meeting, where we have a graduate representative who voices grad student issues to the faculty. There's also an annual (bi-annual?) women's dinner (or other social event). My wife attends them– she hasn't reported anyone's dissatisfaction with the program to me. All of my experiences (as a man, and again I cannot pretend to speak for the women in the department) are consistent with what Meghan and Ruth have said above.

    It would sadden me deeply if prospective grad students didn't apply to, or didn't accept an offer from, Rutgers on account of utterly unsubstantiated/ antisubstantiated rumors. As I said, the community here is wonderful, and the past 7 years have been the best years of my life.

    I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that a total of 0 current faculty and 0 current graduate students at Rutgers were consulted in the "climate for women" section of this "pluralist's" guide. The guide's authors should be ashamed, and they should apologize. They are actively retarding the cause of women in philosophy by disseminating unsubstantiated rumors that could lead promising young women scholars away from those institutions best suited to give them a top notch education and get them a job.

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  43. Jennifer Nado

    Another female Rutgers grad student chiming in – if there was any consultation of female graduate students currently at Rutgers underlying this report, I wasn't aware of it. I don't recall receiving any surveys or other requests for information, nor do I remember hearing other women in the department discussing any such.

    I've been tremendously happy with my experience at Rutgers, and have never encountered any gender discrimination during my time here.

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  44. Susanna Schellenberg

    As the most junior female faculty member of the Rutgers philosophy department, I would like add my two cents to the posts of Meghan Sullivan, Ruth Chang, Michael Johnson, and Jennifer Nado. I can attest that Rutgers has an excellent climate for women. The numbers speak for themselves: not only do we have a high percentage of female graduate students, they are unusually successful in getting tenure track jobs (for details see Ruth Chang’s post above). Moreover, in every seminar, colloquium talk, and reading group, I have participated in at Rutgers, female graduate students were among the most vocal, if not the most vocal members. Due to the effort of faculty members and graduate students who have been here longer than I have, the current Rutgers philosophy community is vibrant, inclusive, and welcoming. Female undergraduates aiming to work in any of our many areas of strength are well advised to apply to our PhD program.

    BL COMMENT: I think it is quite clear at this point that Professors Alcoff et al. and others responsible for this travesty should apologize. We will see whether they have the professional dignity and integrity to do so.

    Reply
  45. jenny

    Ruth– Your climate surveys of current postgrads sound like a great idea, and one other should emulate. Perhaps you could post about it over at What We're Doing About What It's Like: http://whatweredoingaboutwhatitslike.wordpress.com/ ? It would be especially useful if you could include the questions that you ask.

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  46. Ruth Chang

    Jenny-Good idea. I'm doing that now. Thanks for thinking of this. I hope other depts will consider doing climate surveys; we at Rutgers have found them really helpful. Ours are rough and ready, and all I have on my computer are what I think are drafts (such is the state of my computer!). Perhaps someone will devise a standardized survey that all departments could use.

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  47. Rae Langton

    A delayed reaction to some of the debate about the ‘Pluralist’s Guide’: hurray for the many constructive suggestions about how to help achieve the goals at stake here, and for the spirit of co-operation that seems to be emerging after some initial hostilities. On an autobiographical note, I want to add that impressions about specialisms and climate don’t always capture what a grad student can learn. My own interest in feminist philosophical work was sparked at Princeton 1986-90, as I’ve described elsewhere (see below). Of the philosophers mentioned in this bit of ancient history, some are no longer at Princeton, while others from the immensely encouraging Australian philosophical community are now there. But one way or another, there are many Princeton people to thank. (Obviously, I’m speaking on the basis of just my own experience.)

    “When I arrived at graduate school in Princeton, many years ago, I had no thought of working on political philosophy, or moral philosophy, or feminist philosophy. My sights were set on metaphysics, and the history of philosophy. I had come from the University of Sydney, which then had two philosophy departments, who were still at war with each other about the nature of the subject, along an old continental vs. analytic battle-line. I spent time in each, and gained the impression from both sides that feminists did not engage with analytic philosophy, and analytic philosophers did not engage with feminism. I’m grateful to each department, one for stirring an interest in existentialism, the other for helping me become a better philosopher, and sparking my enthusiasm for metaphysics and the history of philosophy. It was only at Princeton, though, that the startling thought first occurred that I might have something to discover—might even have something to say—as a feminist and a philosopher. It is not, perhaps, the most likely venue for such a revelation, but what made it possible at that time were four teachers, to whom I am much indebted.

    Will Kymlicka, then a visitor, opened my eyes to political philosophy, and feminism’s contribution to it. Michael Smith, in a seminar on philosophy of law, provided occasion for me to vent my indignation about the double-thinking of Ronald Dworkin, and helped me channel it into a more respectable form. These two encouraged me in practical ways to convey my thoughts to a wider audience, despite my initial incredulity at the prospect. Through their seminars, I was introduced to the work of Catharine MacKinnon, which shattered my relative complacency. Susan Brison, also a visitor, was actively writing about the pornography issue from a feminist perspective, and gave much-appreciated encouragement. Sally Haslanger brought tremendous energy and commitment to the challenges of living and thinking as a feminist philosopher; she continues to be an inspiration, to me and to so many others lucky enough to know her.

    For the years thereafter I owe thanks to the friendly and collegial philosophical communities in Australia, first at Monash University, then at the Research School of Social Sciences at the ANU, where the virtues of curiosity, good humour, encouragement and incisive criticism were all routinely manifested.”

    (From the ‘Acknowledgements’ section of a recent book.)

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  48. Eric Rasmusen

    This makes me think of a survey my private children's school just did on bullying. We didn't survey the teachers at another school, or even the teachers at our school. We surveyed the students. We asked the same questions of boys and girls, but listed the results separately. That way we could see both (a) if bullying went on, (b) whether it was worse for boys than for girls, and (c) what form it took for both. And, of course, this rightly ignores whether or not our school has teachers who write articles on bullying and whether we have a fine statement condemning bullying.

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