Though social-economic class is hard to pin down, I suspect that low SE class is one of the greatest barriers to entry into the profession. How many philosophers grew up in poverty? How many philosopers had no parent attend post-secondary education? How many philosophers’ parents were factory workers?

Just want to add that I also come from a very low SE class. I also feel totally isolated by philosophy. Hell, I feel isolated by academia in general.

It strikes me that the categories of “traditionally underrepresented groups” listed by the UPDirectory is emblematic of the Left’s disastrous substitution of identity-politics for class-politics over the last half-century. The end result of this substitution, however well-intentioned its proponents are, is the recent celebration of Walmart for elevating a black woman to the position of Vice President (or some similar high-managerial position), and of union-busting, farmer-crushing Starbucks for supporting gay marriage. But perhaps I am being too cynical.

Except for what I learned from reading a bit of Marx when I first began University, I didn’t really understand what class was for a long time. In retrospect I think it explains many of my social experiences and frequent sense of alienation in academic philosophy. Money was not an issue, but my parents would not have considered spending it on education. Lucky for me, high quality public education with low tuition costs was available in my state at that time in history. Neither my parents, nor cousins or aunts or uncles, had any post-secondary education till after I did. I was the first one in my family to go to university, let alone graduate school. My parents still have a pretty vague idea about what a PhD is, or why someone might move around the world in pursuit of academic posts. On the other hand, perhaps because I was already going against the grain with respect to class expectations, I suspect (though there is no way to measure this obviously) that it did not feel as difficult for me to go against the grain with respect to gender expectations as it might feel for some other women. Or maybe it was difficult but I was already used to being an outsider, so it seemed familiar, expected.

There are fewer theists in philosophy (about 15%) than there are women (about 25%). Are theists an underrepresented group?

Is this getting a bit ridiculous? Look. If there is one class of people who can demonstrate that they victims of discrimination it is political conservatives. Also, I have had quite a few friends who were raised (and some continue to be) devout members of their respective faiths, they too feel like outsiders in most mainstream areas of philosophy. I have heard this myself from religious Lutherans and Mormons. Jews certainly have a funny relationship with academia too. One certainly does not see many Orthodox Jewish philosophers around. They have been historically discriminated against by virtually all universities on the planet, though the secular among them seem well enough represented at this point. In the US, military veterans have been discriminated against in general and certainly by academia. I know some Arabs feel marginalized by US society and American and European academic life too. People whose native language is not English have been grumbling lately. Add in females, homsexuals, non-cis people, the transgendered, individuals who are clearly identifiable as members of a racial minority (blacks, hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, etc), disabled people, immigrants, illegal immigrants, stateless people, the poor (who I suspect feel more marginalized in the UK than the US) and miscellaneous disenfranchised people and assorted victims, and we now have a whole lot of lists.

Why not just ask philosophers to put their names on a spreadsheet together with a list of things they believe they have been marginalized for? This way we can have it all in one place and you never know, we might discover that some of us feel excluded for reasons no one ever expected.