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Women in Philosophy

Darlene Deas

Over the last several years, I’ve been disheartened to read so much about how philosophy is hostile to women and that there simply aren’t enough women doing philosophy. While I’m not a philosopher, I care deeply about the discipline, hold it in high regard, and want to see it flourish.

Part of such flourishing is increasing diversity in both undergraduate and graduate programs, and, of course, women are a big part of that. But, the current approach of blame and shame, though it certainly has its place in a broader dialogue, is absolutely tone deaf in trying to recruit young women to philosophy.

Let me share my perspective with you via the Google search of “Women in Philosophy.”


The first 5 results are:

  1. The rather grim What is it like to be a woman in philosophy
  2. Women in Philosophy, which is a misnomer since it doesn’t talk about particular women in the discipline.
  3. This none too encouraging NY Times article, Women in Philosophy? Do the Math, which will certainly entice readers, but won’t draw more women to the profession.
  4. This piece: Name Five Women In Philosophy. Bet You Can't, but then only names one, Louise Antony.
  5. And, finally, the APA’s Data on Women In philosophy

Not a single one of these Google search results is encouraging to young women who may be thinking about a philosophy degree. Why would any woman consider joining philosophy if she reads through these links? Google search results indicate more attention has been paid to publicly shaming the discipline than trying to publicly and actively recruit young women.

The first link that discusses the work of female philosophers (#9 on the results page) is Women in Philosophy: a reading list. The opening paragraph on that page says: To celebrate Women in Philosophy as part of Women’s History Month, we have created a reading list of books, journals, and online resources that explore significant female philosophers and feminist philosophy in general.

The page focuses almost exclusively on feminist philosophy, and certainly there are young women interested in things other than feminist philosophy, aren’t there? Maybe epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, ancient, logic, science, mathematics, or some other area of specialization?

Then this link (#10) SWIP, that I had high hopes for, but appears to be mostly a collection of links on its front page for the status of women in the profession or links to feminist philosophy.

Finally, on the second page of results (#19), there’s this wacky article by Camile Paglia, Ten great female philosophers: The thinking woman's women. Ayn Rand makes her top ten. Really? C’mon.

I didn’t look beyond the 2nd page of results. I gave up trying to find information about women philosophers and their work. Most young women will do the same.

So, I’ll do my part for a discipline that has given me so much, by listing a few female philosophers here that young women may be excited to learn about:

Ruth Barcan Marcus

Judith Jarvis Thompson

Susan Haack

Phillipa Foot

Helena Rasiowa

G.E.M. Anscombe

Mary Midgely

Rosalind Hursthouse

Comments are open, so please add to the list of women philosophers and describe their work or provide a link. Perhaps some bright-eyed young woman interested in philosophy will happen upon our list and see the possibilities. 

Update: I’ve linked to five Google searches in male dominated fields, starting with philosophy, so readers can compare the different strategies being used to attract girls and women to the professions.

Women in Philosophy

Women in Chemistry

Women in Physcis

Women in Mathematics

Women in Engineering

Update: Hi Folks, I won't be publishing comments about McGinn. There are other places with open threads where you may do that. As for critical comments about Leiter. This isn't his post. If you want to make critical comments of Leiter do so on his open threads using your name. I will, however, continue to publish critical comments that don't include McGinn or Leiter.

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48 responses to “Women in Philosophy”

  1. Merrillcole

    I would suggest Angela Davis, Luce Irigary, Hélène Cixous, Judith Butler, Renata Salecl, and Chantal Mouffe. The interested reader can easily find each of them them through a web search, or, much better yet, in the library.

    Reply
  2. Philosophet

    With all due respect, I find this mighty offensive. Since you aren't, in fact, a woman in philosophy, perhaps you aren't the best person to lecture women who are in this screwed up profession on how to behave on-line and what sort of messages we should be sending.

    Trust me, a great deal more naming and shaming is merited.

    Signed,
    A Woman in Philosophy Who Really isn't in the Mood for This Today

    Reply
  3. Woman in Grad School

    "I didn’t look beyond the 2nd page of results. I gave up trying to find information about women philosophers and their work. Most young women will do the same."

    If you were trying to find information about women philosophers, you might have considered googling "women philosophers." Most young women are quite competent at searching for things on the internet and are fully capable of adjusting their search terms when one phrasing isn't pulling up what they intended.

    "Why would any woman consider joining philosophy if she reads through these links?"

    Because she really likes philosophy, and is willing to deal with problems in the discipline so she can pursue it? I read through all the "blame and shame" (?) online before choosing to apply to grad school, and I feel very grateful that I was able to make the decision to pursue philosophy with my eyes wide open to the difficulties I might face.

    Reply
  4. Darlene Deas

    To clarify, while I'm not a woman who does philosophy, I did spend time as a graduate student taking philosophy seminars. I'm also married to a philosopher, and my daughter is pursuing a degree in philosophy. The point of the post was to provide perspective on how the discipline may appear to those unfamiliar with the world of professional philosophy–namely young women, like my daughter, who are interested in the discipline. I hope you'll comment again with a list of women in philosophy that might be intellectually empowering and inspirational to young women.

    Reply
  5. Lady Philosopher

    I'm confused. Are you aware that the philosophical community just learned that McGinn's victim is filing a federal lawsuit? If not, this is an unfortunately timed post. If so, WTF?

    In any event, here's a tip: if you think Internet coverage of women philosophers is a downer, perhaps the burden shouldn't be on women to put on a happy and positive cyberface. Maybe instead men should be encouraged to stop harassing and discriminating against the "bright eyed" women who enter the field.

    Reply
  6. Paul Prescott

    Philosophet is right, Darlene. Your post is completely out of line.

    Reply
  7. Nicole Wyatt

    I disagree, vehemently, with Paul and Philosophet. Maybe we think that the problems are such that putting positive recruitment material on the top of the google hits is not and should not be our priority. Maybe we think it shouldn't be a priority no matter what, perhaps because we think that the only women we want to recruit are those who would respond to finding a host of sites addressing problems in the discipline by choosing another search term (really?). But having the stark difference between what happens when you search women in math vis women in philosophy pointed out to us is not out of line. After all, how often do we, as members of the profession, do such a search? IF recruitment of women to the profession is an aim, then we might well care about this.

    Now, I don't see the point of adding lists of women philosophers on Leiter's site — among other things, this will hardly change the google top 10. But, what is the point of being so hostile? If you don't think her observations or her suggestion are relevant, then just ignore them. Or make other ones. And do you really think that we have nothing to learn from people outside the discipline about addressing gender inequity? That seems …. implausible.

    Reply
  8. George

    Speaking from another field, it is interesting that "Women earning doctoral degrees in psychology outnumber men three to one (http://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2011/01/cover-men.aspx)." I have been a part of three different postgraduate psychology programs where women actually outnumber men four to one. Should more men be recruited to balance the scale? Shall we "name and shame" here too?

    Signed,
    A Man in Psychology Who Really is in a Decent Mood Today

    Reply
  9. Grad Student

    The post by "Philosophet" is extraordinarily condescending. Only women in philosophy can comment on the situation of women in philosophy? A suggestion calling for constructive feedback is "lecturing"? We should just "trust you" that "more naming and shaming is merited"? Or is this only because you are "Really Not in the Mood for This Today"?

    I take the point of the post to be that, going forward, we should do what we can to highlight what exists in the field today to try to make it more attractive to women considering philosophy. Sure, the state of the field may not be good, but should the response be a bitter lashing out against anyone who dares try to improve the situation? The resistance here seems to represent a wariness of encroaching on "turf" that only some people have the right (based on what? gender?) to comment on. This mentality reinforced, rather than erodes, the gender barriers that make philosophy appear unhealthy as a discipline.

    Very sad.

    Reply
  10. Lisa Shapiro

    For at least two decades, philosophers working in the history of philosophy, and especially early modern philosophy, have been working at rehabilitating the work of women philosophers. I encourage you, your daughter, and others, to have a look at Mary Ellen Waithe's A History of Women Philosophers for a helpful and wide ranging survey. More recently, two connected projects have websites up with a range of resources: projectvox.library.duke.edu and http://www.newnarrativesinphilosophy.net There is nothing like a little historical perspective!

    I might also add to the list of women philosophers from the 20th (and 21st) century: Annette Baier, Jennifer Hornsby, Susan James, Cora Diamond, Susan Stebbings
    I would particularly encourage anyone interested in these issues to read (or reread) Baier's 1990 APA Presidential Address — A Naturalist View of Persons http://www.jstor.org/stable/3130139?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents In the first paragraph she shouts out to women philosophers, whose names are no doubt not familiar: Mary Calkins, Grace de Laguna, Katharine Gilbert, and then Alice Ambrose Lazerowitz

    Reply
  11. Anonymous

    I am grateful for Darlene's post and her interest in this issue. Here are a few women philosophers for the list:

    Pat Churchland http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/pschurchland/index_hires.html

    Nancy Cartwright
    https://www.dur.ac.uk/philosophy/staff/?id=10659

    Margaret Wilson
    https://philosophy.princeton.edu/about/past-faculty/margaret-dauler-wilson

    Reply
  12. V.L.

    There are plenty of female intellectuals who lend lustre to the study of philosophy. Hannah Arendt, Martha Nussbaum, Seyla Benhabib, Christine Korsgaard, Kathyrn Pyne Addelson, Rebecca Kukla, Cynthia Freeland.

    If we wish to inspire more young people to study philosophy (female or male), I think we should also include women who did degrees in philosophy but are more known as writers (Simone Weil, Simone de Beauvoir, Iris Murdoch), or who did not get a PhD in philosophy but work in history and philosophy of science (Evelyn Fox Keller, Donna Haraway), or who work in philosophy of law (Catherine MacKinnon), or who work in the continental tradition (Judith Butler, Avital Ronell, Luce Irigaray, Helene Cixous).

    Reply
  13. Renee Bolinger

    There are some great positive resources out there; one that I particularly like is a blog run by Meena Krishnamurthy, 'Philosop-her' (http://politicalphilosopher.net/). One of the things the blog does especially well is foregrounding an interesting variety of philosophical work, while providing visibility for work being done by women in philosophy now. Another, with a more historical focus is Project Vox (http://projectvox.library.duke.edu/pg/), which aims to recover the work done by women in philosophy in the Modern period, but which is overlooked by the philosophical canon.

    Whether content ends up on the first few pages of a search is partly determined how often content is linked to, and how frequently the search terms appear in the body text of the page. It's a simple, small thing, but linking to these sites could help provide a signal boost that raises their profile as compared to the state-of-the-discipline pieces. I do think it's important that women who are considering grad school in philosophy do so knowing what kind of issues they'll be facing, but assuming that they are informed and are looking for interesting figures to take as role models or inspiration, these sites may be a good start.

    Reply
  14. Sara L. Uckelman

    For those young women interested in logic, cf Women in Logic which is a great resource. Those also interested in the history of logic can find more info about this intersection at Women and Logic in the Middle Ages. For resources, the four volume History of Women Philosophers edited by M.E. Waithe is fantastic, as well as An Unconventional History of Western Philosophy: Conversations Between Men and Women Philosophers edited by Karen Warren.

    As for specific contemporary women philosophers, how about Alison Wylie and Anna Marmodoro?

    Reply
  15. Brian Mulligan

    Any chance of a list of "Women in Heavy Metal".

    I once went to a presentation by a woman engineer on "Women in Engineering" whose main point was – "stop pressuring women into engineering – they may not find it that interesting" (none of us would have been brave enough even to ask that question)

    As someone who was interested in philosophy as a teenager, I'm glad I became an engineer.

    Reply
  16. Meena Krishnamurthy

    I'd like to mention the blog that I organize called, Philosop-her (http://politicalphilosopher.net). The blog is devoted to showcasing rigorous work by women in philosophy. There are substantive posts almost every week by women working in different areas of philosophy.

    Reply
  17. Unknown Philosopher

    I think this is a fantastic post, and I can't even begin to wrap my mind around the more critical responses you have received. Appalling.

    Some more for the list:

    Martha Nussbaum
    http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/nussbaum/

    Julia Annas
    http://www.u.arizona.edu/~jannas/

    Deborah Modrak
    http://www.rochester.edu/college/phl/people/faculty/modrak_deborah/index.html

    Reply
  18. Paul Prescott

    I can’t speak for philosophet, but I would like to clarify the grounds of my objection to the post. We have a serious problem with inappropriate conduct in the profession, including sexual harassment, and worse. It is simply not the case that women are underrepresented in philosophy because the “What It Is Like To Be a Woman In Philosophy” blog is a top Google hit, as the post appears suggests. Nor is it the case that women are underrepresented in philosophy because the misconduct in the profession is now coming to light, as the post appears to suggest.

    In order to address the misconduct in the profession, we *must* focus attention on the misconduct, and *not* on the people calling attention to the misconduct or speaking out about it. There is a great deal of misconduct in philosophy that has long been tolerated in silence. That misconduct is not being “blamed and shamed” now that it no longer being tolerated. To see what is transpiring as “blaming and shaming” is – I believe – to identify with the perspective of those committing the misconduct, rather than those suffering from it. Our clear and unambiguous responsibility as a profession is to identify with and support the members of our profession who are being harmed, and not the members of the profession who are harming them.

    All of this, of course, is compatible with the goal of building a recruitment profile comparable to that found in other academic professions (which, as people are pointing out, is already happening).

    Reply
  19. anon

    I wonder: do the current "feminist philosophers" really aim to recruit more women in the profession, given the negative tone rightly pointed out by Ms Deas? Perhaps their highest priority is to gain professional advantage for themselves (conference invites, promotions, etc.) and make sure that the few women we recruit are encouraged to operate within a specific kind of feminist philosophy framework.

    Reply
  20. Darlene Deas

    Paul, my post does not suggest that women are underrepresented in philosophy because those issues have come to light. What it does claim is that more attention (publicly) is being paid to taking philosophers to task for bad behavior than actively and publicly recruiting young girls (think high school) and women (college students) to the profession. Yes, apparently some resources exist, but someone with general interest may not be able to easily find those resources. Why is that? Is that good for the discipline?

    As for your assertion that I'm identifying with the perspective of people guilty of misconduct that's a complete non sequitur.
    Imagine this exchange…

    Me: Every time I go to the grocery store I only find apples. I'd really like to be able to find bananas without having to rummage around in the storeroom.

    You: Why do you hate apples?

    Me: I don’t hate apples, but I can’t use them to make banana pudding.

    You: But you can make apple pie with apples, and that ‘s far more important that being able to make banana pudding.

    Me: Apple pie is fine, but what I really want today is banana pudding.

    You: If you don’t want apple pie, then you hate apples and prefer bananas.

    Me: OMFG. I don’t hate apples. (Read: I don't support harassers).

    Reply
  21. Derek Bowman

    For those interested in the ethics of recruiting women and members of other unrepresented groups into philosophy, I recommend Bat-Ami Bar On's paper and subsequent discussion here: http://sgrp.typepad.com/sgrp/2015/09/bar-on-asks-should-we-occupy.html

    Reply
  22. Michael B

    Has anyone done a well-designed survey of a representative sample of girls and women at various ages asking why they don't go into philosophy as a profession? I wonder how the reasons compare to, say, women who chose to avoid university altogether.

    Reply
  23. Philosophet

    For you to post this on the very day that most philosophers learned that McGinn's accuser is filing a lawsuit due to the egregious sexual harassment she suffered is, at best, profoundly tone deaf.

    Lots of people have complained about how "negative" sites like "What is it like" are and blame women for not being more positive. This is not a new observation. I'm tired of being told to be positive, and I think young people contemplating any profession need to have a clear sense of the problems with the field. Inspiration is cheap, and many young people are instinctively optimistic about their prospects. I don't think the solution to the problem of women in philosophy is to highlight the achievements of women (although this is valuable for other reasons for people already in the profession). And, as you see from the comments, there are excellent sites that highlight the achievements of women.

    If we want more women in philosophy (and many philosophers *don't*), then the best way of doing that is to change the culture of philosophy so that the enthusiastic young women who enter our courses stay in the field (and don't end up needing to file federal lawsuits because of how they are treated).

    Reply
  24. Darlene Deas

    Philosophet, there are other things in the discipline to talk about than McGinn and the lawsuit. I'm particularly interested in how the discipline is reaching girls and women BEFORE they get to university. I'm not sure a 14 year old girl interested in philosophy would be able to wade through the links I posted to find something that would be relevant to her interest. But, perhaps you have no interest in reaching girls early on. And, incidentally, one way you change the culture is to provide a place for young women to learn about the discipline that allows them to see themselves as philosophers.

    Reply
  25. PJW

    L.A. Paul
    Rebecca Goldstein

    Reply
  26. Eddie

    The premise for this post strikes me as strange. The results of "the [sic] Google search" reveal facts about SEO, not in the first place facts about "the current approach" of the profession to something. I don't think it's surprising, given the state of things, that there are heavily-trafficked and linked sites that are more about the "grim" side of philosophy and gender.

    If you think that this is to make too much of a distinction between the state of a discipline and the state of a discipline's SEO, please Google something you know a lot about and compare the results to your knowledge of it.

    Young women I've met in the discipline learn about philosophy by doing Google searches etc. for things like "philosophy," "philosophy of mind," "panopticon," and so on, rather than for things like "women in philosophy." I have more often thought that young women had an unrealistically rosy picture of the women-in-philosophy situation than an unrealistically grim picture of it.

    Reply
  27. s. wallerstein

    Being a non-philosopher myself, I perhaps lack the philosophical tools to understand why a non-philosopher should not comment or can not comment or is unable to comment or lacks the wisdom to comment on the state of philosophy or specifically on the situation of women in philosophy. By analogy, not being a citizen of Saudi Arabia myself, it would be out of order or out of place for me to comment on the situation of women in Saudi Arabia.

    Generally, it is recognized that at times outsiders have certain insights into inside situations. For example, that's one reason why people with family problems go to family therapists, who are not members of their family.

    Reply
  28. Grad Student

    I see that Philosophet has conveniently ignored the problems others here have pointed out about her original post and has proceeded to put her head down and ignore the germane issues in her second post. Having "pet projects" is fine; insisting everyone address them in the same way is myopic.

    It's ironic that we need to remind fellow philosophers how important it is to keep in view the big picture of the discipline, which does not mean we ignore individual instances of wrong.

    I agree with the others who have posted here that the comments by Philosophet are wildly off the mark, and hope the non-philosophers here don't take her as representative of our willingness to be open to the feedback of outsiders.

    Reply
  29. Michael B

    "If you think that this is to make too much of a distinction between the state of a discipline and the state of a discipline's SEO, please Google something you know a lot about and compare the results to your knowledge of it."

    Actually this might not be so big a mismatch as you think – but for reasons that are grist to your mill. Google presents different people with different results. I believe it's called 'bubbling'. So, based on your search history, you get certain results. If you have visited lots and only (say) left-leaning news sites, you will get different results for the same headline as someone who has visited lots and only right-leaning news sites. Etc.

    So, yes: Google results are not too representative. For this reason, and privacy, I use DuckDuckGo.

    Reply
  30. Michael B

    Just want to echo this sentiment. Unless it is completely inward-facing and claims about ivory towers are true, most of philosophy seems to be telling other people how to do their jobs, better. I don't think that's illegitimate. I left philosophy and moved into statistics and, methodological research aside, that's what statisticians get paid to do. But is there something peculiar about philosophy that means the opinion of a woman who likes philosophy but is not in the academy, is not relevant to the issue of women who like philosophy but are not in the academy?

    Reply
  31. anonymous

    I think I've been blessed to study and work with a number of great female philosophers in my short time in the profession. As someone that works in the history of early modern philosophy and action theory, I can only speak to a small slice of the field, but the names that come to mind are (these are not ranked, just listed in the order that they came to mind; I've also tried not to reproduce people that others have mentioned):

    1) Eleonore Stump
    2) Candace Vogler
    3) Helen Steward
    4) Angela Smith
    5) Nomy Arpaly
    6) Pamela Hieronymi
    7) Julia Jorati
    8) Meghan Sullivan
    9) Linda Zagzebski
    10) Jennifer Lackey
    11) Victoria McGeer
    12) Elinor Mason
    13) Coleen Macnamara
    14) Martha Bolton
    15) Laura Ekstrom
    16) Nancy Cartwright
    17) Susan Wolf
    18) Marilyn Adams
    19) Kathleen Vohs (not technically a philosopher, but some of her work is widely cited in recent free will stuff)
    20) Victoria McGeer
    21) Dana Nelkin
    22) Adina Roskies
    23) Elizabeth Harman

    Many of the people on this list have done major things in their respective fields. Stump, Adams, and Bolton are both extremely talented, high level philosophers that have had a major impact on historical scholarship. Cartwright has spearheaded a movement in philosophy of science, Steward in the metaphysics of agency,Zagzebski in virtue epistemology, and Wolf had a major impact (diminishing now, though her 1990 book still gets a decent number of citations in recent articles) in the moral responsibility literature. Perhaps others have had similar experiences in other sub-disciplines?

    Reply
  32. Jamie Dreier

    Thank you Darlene Deas, this is a good idea.

    Dorothy Edgington.

    Does the anchor tag not work in these comments? Here's the obvious link:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Edgington

    Reply
  33. Tricia

    Hi, Darlene.

    THANK YOU for this post! I can't tell you how long I've waited for a conversation like this to be taken seriously. Don't listen to the haters. You are right on the money.

    I see many familiar names in the comments thread of people who are heavily psychologically invested in a particular ideology. To them, it's unquestionable that harassment is a major problem in the profession, even though they tend to admit when pressed that they have no real evidence for there being any more of a problem than in any other discipline or profession. It's also unquestionable to them that this 'epidemic' of harassment is THE reason why there aren't more women in the profession, even though we now know that the low numbers of women are already to be found in freshman classes and clearly have far more to do with predispositions and presuppositions that women have prior to setting foot in the philosophy classroom. But these people are more than indifferent to being pressed on these issues. They're positively hostile to it.

    And how do they seek to respond to the low numbers of women in philosophy? By doing things to invite women in, and to popularize the great things that female philosophers are doing in all fields, as you're trying to do here? No, the exact opposite. They devote their time to competing with each other to see who can say the worst things about how sexist philosophy is, even without any reliable statistical evidence to back them up, so that when anyone hears about philosophy nowadays they hear nothing but how many prominent scientists think that what we're doing is a waste of time and how horrible it is for women (even though many women in the discipline don't agree at all and feel misrepresented by these characterizations but are afraid to speak up in the current climate). And then feminist philosophy is touted as being a great antidote to this somehow, in addition to being the only promise of a 'safe place' for women in the discipline.

    This story and way of responding to it have been grabbed at with an almost religious zeal by many. To question the narrative is unthinkable. And according to the narrative, the only way to solve the problem of women being underrepresented in philosophy is to cleanse the discipline of its evildoers and evil thoughts. In the meantime, we must rally together and loudly decry the evil things that are going on. Promoting the discipline in the eyes of talented women who might become interested and come to make a positive contribution in a happy environment? That can wait until the cleansing is finished. And the cleansing will not be complete until absolutely all cases of sexual harassment have been made impossible. And that utopian goal is surely just around the corner. Just wait another month or so, and we'll finally have all the evildoers ousted. Well, maybe another year or decade or century, but then it'll all be done and we can responsibly invite new women in to join the ranks of Ruth Barcan Marcus and Christine Korsgaard. Until then, we need to burn and scour out the evil and let the public see the holy fire of purification.

    This is what you're up against, Darlene. The people who are reacting with intense anger to your perfectly sensible suggestion and (laughably) find your post 'objectionable' are not accustomed to dealing with outsiders like you who naively suggest reasonable ways of dealing with issues, and they're frustrated that you haven't been conditioned by the social pressures that those of us in the profession are now all too familiar with. This is why they're railing against you as an outsider.

    Take no notice. And keep being wonderful and for God's sake, keep talking and blogging about your ideas. We really need your breath of fresh air here. We're trapped in a very unhealthy conversational environment and won't make it out without some good outside perspectives. Please don't be silenced.

    Reply
  34. Woman in Grad School

    Sorry, I did not mean to suggest that we should only want to recruit women who would be unfazed by learning about the problems in the discipline (!). The search results were in part presented as a problem because young women will be *unable to find information* on women philosophers. I do not think that is true. I think it would be an unusual search term to use if you were searching for women philosophers instead of information on the state of the discipline, and I think anyone that did use it would be able to adjust their search term easily enough.

    Maybe the results are a problem because young women will be *discouraged*. That may be true, but I think it's importantly different: the problem then isn't just that young women *aren't seeing* lists of women philosophers, but at least in part that they *are seeing* discussion of problems in the field.

    Darlene, I'd like to apologize for the churlish first response. I can see that this was well-intentioned, and there was no need for the hostility. My reading of the post was colored by the fact that it was posted in the immediate wake of the news about the McGinn lawsuit. There are, of course, "other things in the discipline to talk about," but that doesn't change the fact that it looms behind any discussion about women in philosophy right now. It's very natural to read comments about "the current approach of blame and shame," and how "more attention (publicly) is being paid to taking philosophers to task for bad behavior," as responsive to the lawsuit and discussion surrounding it.

    Part of the disconnect is probably due to the fact that you're a guest blogger. I think this would be a spectacularly inappropriate post for a regular blogger to make right now. But you only have your platform for a limited time, and so it was a mistake to take your post, because of the timing, as a response to the McGinn news. I'm sorry about that.

    I hope that you will understand that it's not that we have "no interest in reaching girls early on." We're just focused on something else right now.

    Reply
  35. Tricia

    Hm… it would be "a spectacularly inappropriate post for a regular blogger to make right now" because there's recently been a lawsuit against a university somewhere for not doing enough to stop a professor from apparently sexually harassing a student?

    When WOULD you think it would be anything other than 'spectacularly inappropriate' for someone to mention online that there's a problem with the kind of publicity philosophy is getting, WiGS? Do we need to wait until the lawsuit is over, and the results are announced? If the student wins, won't it be 'spectacularly inappropriate' because someone might take the post as backlash against the student's victory? If the student loses, won't it be 'spectacularly inappropriate' because it'll be another instance of kicking a victim while she's down? I guess we need to wait a good few weeks, if not more, until the lawsuit is over. Then it might be permissible to suggest that we can better solve the problem of women being underrepresented in philosophy by actually making the discipline inviting to them instead of just lining up to see who's tuned in enough to describe it as the most sexist.

    Because we can be pretty sure that there won't be any more sexism or sexual harassment accusations anywhere in the world against someone in philosophy, right? And if that does happen, or if we hear anything new about some of the older cases, then a new period of respectful silence will come into effect and it will again be 'spectacularly inappropriate' to suggest alternative narratives.

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  36. newfie931

    Elizabeth Anderson at Michigan
    Michelle Kosch at Cornell
    Sally Haslanger at MIT

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  37. Paul Prescott

    Several points in reply:

    First, the wording of the post does have the implicatures I pointed out, regardless of whether the author of the post intended them. (I’m glad to hear you did not.)

    Second, one cannot both interpret people speaking about harassment as “blaming and shaming” and claim not to support harassers. To interpret people speaking about harassment as “blaming and shaming” is to support harassers. Or at least, that is what I attempted to suggest.

    Third, philosophet is surely correct that the timing of the post was, at best, unfortunate. Given that fact, it strikes me as understandable that it provoked a strong response.

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  38. Anonymous

    Paul Prescott, in your second point, you employ a false dichotomy to imply that our guest blogger *supports harassers*.

    That is outrageous. It is also an instance of poisoning the well in order to impugn a message that you happen not to like. Whether or not you like it, please be fair. Remember that this is a philosophy blog and that we nust conduct ourselves like philosophers on it, even if faced with claims we don't agree with. Also please remember that you are talking to a real human being who has identified herself by name. She doesn't deserve to be insulted like this.

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  39. Daniel A. Kaufman

    Paul Prescott wrote:

    First, the wording of the post does have the implicatures I pointed out, regardless of whether the author of the post intended them.

    KEYWORDS:
    Primary Blog

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  40. unfortunately anonymous

    "Second, one cannot both interpret people speaking about harassment as “blaming and shaming” and claim not to support harassers. To interpret people speaking about harassment as “blaming and shaming” is to support harassers."

    If you aren't with us, you're against us!

    It is a sign of how frenzied the moral panic has become, that to question the tactics is to support the enemy. For a thoughtful takedown of this us versus them thinking see:

    http://philosophymetametablog.blogspot.com/2015/10/october-armor.html?showComment=1445219084422#c8077827209423648621

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  41. Woman in Grad School

    This is not any random issue regarding women in the profession other than the McGinn case. It's a claim that the public conversation (or at least the search engine indexed conversation) needs to shift from "blaming and shaming" and "taking philosophers to task for bad behavior" to things that are more encouraging to young women interested in philosophy. I do think that "we need to focus more on encouraging young women and less on taking philosophers to task for bad behavior" would be a spectacularly inappropriate *response* to the case, and I think it would be fairly read as a *response* if a regular blogger posted it right now.

    This thread seems more in the realm of "ordinary disagreement on the internet" than someone being "savaged in the manner of some social justice warrior, twitter mob." Speaking of hyperbole…

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  42. Paul Prescott

    Anonymous claims that I should "remember that this is a philosophy blog and that we nust conduct ourselves like philosophers on it."

    Here is my reply: Confronted with a forced choice between being a decent human being and conducting myself like a "good philosopher," I will choose the former every time. But I don't believe I am forced to make such a choice. Nor do I believe that anyone is.

    I have already explained why the use of the terms "blaming and shaming" is problematic.

    I agree with Dan Kaufmann that I initially made a hasty (if understandable) accusation.

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  43. AnonStudent

    Carolina Sartorio is one of the finest metaphysicians working today.

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  44. Eddie

    Michael B: This was why I inserted the "[sic]" after the definite article in "the Google search." The attentive reader will also notice that facts about the author's browser and previous queries show up in the URLs for the searches appended to the post. One wonders how much of our culture of blame and shame should be attributed to the profession's unfortunate reliance on Safari.

    But: hooray for raising the visibility of female philosophers. Given the strong SEO this blog has, I expect this post to do well in future searches, and the lists compiled here ought to be useful.

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  45. AnonHuman

    In my opinion, Carolina Sartorio is of the finest metaphysicians working today.

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  46. CW

    Ann Cudd

    http://www.anncudd.com/

    Sally Scholz

    http://www40.homepage.villanova.edu/sally.scholz/

    Reply
  47. Scott

    Darlene, I'm glad your response to 'Professor Plum' at Daily Nous got through. Mine, like others defending you I presume, did not get through Justin Weinberg's typically biased censorship practices. Here was the latest comment Justin didn't deem appropriate for his readers to look at, in case anyone doubts the continuing importance of relying on Leiter Reports rather than Daily Nous to fairly host these important discussions:

    "Professor Plum, can you please cite some examples of these claims you’re making? They really seem like common misperceptions of what’s happening in these conversations.

    There is at least one very crass commenter on the blogs who has suggested that women in general, and a few women in particular, have gained professional benefits by sleeping with someone. While those comments are clearly inappropriate and I also want them to stop, I’ve noticed that many people have invented a backstory for this rude blogger in which he is unemployed and bitter about his lack of success on the job market, and is blaming these women for taking positions that he feels would otherwise have gone to him. Others have taken this speculative story much further and started saying that there’s a whole bunch of unemployed men out there who are blaming their own job-market failures on women sleeping with men. But I’ve seen absolutely no evidence that this is what’s motivating the person or persons making these rude comments. Have you got any? Is there any instance at all you can show us of someone saying, “I would have had a job right now if it weren’t for these women sleeping with powerful men”? Or is this, as I suspect, entirely speculative on the part of you and others?

    "It also seems that the third point you make is based on a fiction. You seem to be referring to the recent blog post at Leiter Reports, wherein a (female) guest blogger made the case that we need to make a positive case for philosophy to women rather than constantly portraying it as a horrible place for women to be if we want to increase the number of female philosophers (which you should be concerned with, since you say in your first point that male domination is a serious problem). That female guest blogger then said, 'Part of such flourishing is increasing diversity in both undergraduate and graduate programs, and, of course, women are a big part of that. But, the current approach of blame and shame, though it certainly has its place in a broader dialogue, is absolutely tone deaf in trying to recruit young women to philosophy.'

    "Is *this* what you mean as someone “having the audacity to blame and shame on the very day [actually, not the very day] that news of the case broke”? Is *this* really something to be used as an example of dismissing an accuser for being an attention-seeker? Or are you talking about a different recent post (and if so, which one?). If, as it seems, you mean this one, then please have a look through the thread that follows. You’ll see that you’ve significantly misrepresented what’s going on.

    "Those are just two examples."

    P.S. to Paul Prescott: are you seriously maintaining that a decent human being *or* a good philosopher would repeatedly suggest that someone writing a piece as obviously well-intentioned and innocent as what Darlene has written here is arguing in support of sexual harassers? That is really beyond the pale. I have no doubt that you see yourself as a decent human being and a good philosopher, but I must really suggest that you consider the merits of your actions a little more objectively.

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  48. Darlene Deas

    I’ll close comments now as I think the post has run its course. I do want to take a few moments to thank all of you who joined in the spirit of the post and added women or resources to the list. I was excited to see names and resources with which I was unfamiliar.

    I also want to thank those of you who felt compelled to defend me. Don’t fret over how the negative comments may have affected me (they didn’t), and I’ll continue to happily guest blog here until the end of the week.

    And, finally, this may be of some interest: in the sixteen years I’ve been orbiting the profession (see my earlier Leiter post) first as a graduate student and later as a spouse, I’ve never been told by any philosopher that I have no right to speak about philosophical issues or the profession–until I was told just that by a (female) philosopher here on this blog. I’d also like to point out for those who think a woman who isn’t a philosopher has no right to speak on certain issues about the profession, that the current director of the APA, Amy Ferrer, is a woman without a degree in philosophy.

    —–
    KEYWORDS:
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