gender
TagProportion of Philosophy Majors Who Are Women Varies Widely Across Schools
The following is a guest post* by Eric Schwitzgebel, professor of philosophy at University of California, Riverside. It first appeared at his blog, The Splintered Mind. (more…)
Diversity in Philosophy Journals
The Pacific Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association (APA) will include a session on diversity in philosophy journals, with several speakers and an additional panel consisting of representatives from nearly 20 academic philosophy journals. (more…)
Why Women Choose To Continue Studying Philosophy — Or Not
Two attitudes help explain why some women choose to not continue studying philosophy, according to research recently published in Analysis.
Analytic Philosophy’s Egalitarianism and Standpoint Epistemology’s Privileging
“My views about how to do metaphysics as a feminist are undergoing a radical transformation… chiefly because of the Hypatia affair.” (more…)
The Perception of Philosophy as Masculine
A recent study looks at whether perceptions about how “masculine” philosophy is can help explain the gender disparities in the field. (more…)
Are Women Philosophers Underrepresented in Top Ethics Journals? (guest post)
The following is a guest post* by Maggie Dalecki (Manitoba), Meena Krishnamurthy (Michigan), Shen-yi Liao (Puget Sound), and Monique Deveaux (Guelph), based on research presented in “The Underrepresentation of Women in Prestigious Ethics Journals,” forthcoming in Hypatia. (more…)
Descartes Did Not Invent Modern Philosophy
Christia Mercer (Columbia), writing in “The Stone” at The New York Times:
René Descartes has long been credited with the near-single-handed creation of modern philosophy. Generations of students have read, and continue to read, his famous “Meditations” as the rejection of medieval ways of thinking and the invention of the modern self. They learned that he doubted..
Philosopher Calls for Interdisciplinary & Empirically Informed Study of Black Manhood
In an interview at Inside Higher Ed, Texas A&M philosophy professor Tommy Curry (who was the recent target of harassment and death threats, recall) discusses some of the ideas in his recent book, The Man-Not, which calls for a distinctive kind of black male studies he says is rejected by others in the humanities.
Area of Specialization, Gender, and Placement: a Close Look at the Data (guest post by Carolyn Dicey Jennings)
The following is a guest post* by Carolyn Dicey Jennings, assistant professor of philosophy and cognitive science at UC Merced and principal creator of Academic Placement Data and Analysis (APDA). A version of this post first appeared under the title “Permanent Placement and Area of Specialization for 2012-2016 Graduates” at the APDA site.
Women in Philosophy Journals: New Data
There are new findings on the presence of women in academic philosophy journals:
- Though approximately 25% of philosophy faculty in the United States are women, only 14-16% of the articles that appear in the discipline’s top journals are by women.
- Journals which do not use anonymous review seem to have a higher percentage of women authors than journals which ..
Hypatia’s Editor And Its Board President Defend Publication of Tuvel Article
“I firmly believe, and this belief will not waver, that it is utterly inappropriate for editors to repudiate an article they have accepted for publication… Editors must stand behind the authors of accepted papers. This is where I stand. Professor Tuvel’s paper went through the peer review process and was accepted by the reviewers and me.” (more…)
Focus On The Fire, Not The Spark (guest post by Sally Haslanger)
The following is a guest post* by Sally Haslanger, Ford Professor of Philosophy and Women’s & Gender Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, regarding the recent Hypatia controversy.
Does Referee Gender Make a Difference?
Once again, Jonathan Weisberg (Toronto), one of the managing editors of Ergo, looks at the journal’s data to see what, if anything, can be learned from it. This time, he focuses on what difference the gender of an article’s referee makes. (more…)
Prestige Segregation by Gender in Philosophy
The distribution of genders in graduate education in the United States vary by field. Does that distribution change at all when the focus is just on the most prestigious graduate programs? A new study by Kim A. Weeden (Cornell), Sarah Thébaud (UC Santa Barbara), and Dafna Gelbgiser (Cornell), “Degrees of Difference: Gender Segregation of U.S. Doctorates by Field and..
That Philosophy Is A “Cushy Gig” Explains Some Of The Profession’s Problems
Philosophy is largely male, white, cis, straight, able-bodied—why? Well, maybe it has little or nothing to do with philosophy.
That appears to be the view of philosopher Albert Atkin (Macquarie), in response to Richard Marshall when he raises the topic of diversity in philosophy in an interview at 3:AM Magazine. (more…)
Philosophy Departments and Journals Ranked by Gender Data at New Website
A new website presents data on women in philosophy in a novel manner: it orders departments by number of women faculty and journals by number of women authors. (more…)
Data on Diversity in (mostly) US Philosophy
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has released a new report on its membership demographics over the past three years. Has philosophy become more demographically diverse during this period? It’s not easy to tell from the data.
Gender & The Philosophy Job Market
“The odds of women obtaining a permanent academic placement within two years is 65% greater than men when all else is held constant,” according to an analysis discussed by Carolyn Dicey Jennings, Patrice Cobb, and David Vinson (UC Merced) at the Blog of the APA.
Jennings and Vinson do not argue for any particular explanation of this finding, but note three possibil..
Philosophy Degrees: How Many Are Awarded, And To Whom?
Humanities Indicators, a project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has released new degree-specific data on various humanities subjects, including philosophy. Here are some of the findings. All data and images below are from the Humanities Indicators site. (more…)
Philosophy Placement Data and Analysis: An Update (guest post by Carolyn Dicey Jennings)
The following is a guest post* by Carolyn Dicey Jennings (UC Merced), who has led a team of academics in producing and organizing a trove of data related to the graduation and placement records of English-language philosophy Ph.D. programs (previously). The team just published an update to its 2015 report, “Academic Placement Data and Analysis” (APDA). Among other ..
Penn State’s Efforts at Diversifying Philosophy
Five black women earned Ph.D.s in philosophy from Penn State this year, according to an article at The Chronicle of Higher Education (currently paywalled) that looks at the efforts the philosophy department there has been making to diversify philosophy.
The Chronicle reports that:
According to the latest federal data, of the 370 American citizens and permanent..
Demographic Data on U.S. Philosophy Faculty
Trends show a slow decrease in the extent to which U.S. full-time philosophy faculty at four-year institutions is male and white, according to data obtained from the National Center for Education Statistics by Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) and posted at The Splintered Mind:
Gender data:
1988: philosophy*: 91% male (vs. 75% for all fields).
1993: philosophy..
Bias, Subjectivity, and Superficiality in Philosophy
The philosophy profession in the United States is overwhelmingly male and white. What explains this? In an essay in The Los Angeles Times, Myisha Cherry (UI Chicago) and Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) offer an explanation:
One of the main causes of homogeneity in philosophy, we believe, is subjectivity and bias in the evaluation of philosophical quality.
They ..
Philosophy Job Placement Data Update
Carolyn Dicey Jennings (UC Merced) posts that the final report for the Academic Placement Data and Analysis project is complete. She’ll eventually be posting more about it, but I repost some of the information from the report below. One thing worth noting is that though 169 programs were contacted, only 87 added or updated information to the project database. If you..
Philosophy of Sex and Gender Course Suggestions
Jessica Wolfendale (West Virginia) writes in:
I am putting together a course proposal for an introductory Philosophy of Sex & Gender course, and I would appreciate any suggestions regarding how best to structure the course and what content to include, as well as advice about what did/didn’t work in similar courses.
Readers?
Goswami Lawsuit Against DePaul to Proceed
Namita Goswami was denied tenure in the Department of Philosophy at DePaul University in the 2009-2010 academic year. She claimed that discrimination played a role in the decision and sued. Her story was covered a few years back in Inside Higher Ed:
“I was teaching exactly what I was hired to do and it was used against me,” said Goswami, a native of India who all..
Using Initials to Hide Gender
There is some evidence that women scientists use their first initials, rather than their first names, at a greater frequency than men do in their publications. It would not be surprising if this were also true in philosophy and some other non-science disciplines. Reasons for women using initials might include worries about sexism in non-fully-anonymized peer review,..
“Philosophy is for posh, white boys with trust funds”
Seven philosophers are interviewed in The Guardian in the wake of a recent report by the UK’s Equality Challenge Unit that found that “among non-Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects, philosophy is one of the most male-dominated, with men accounting for 71.2% of the profession” in the UK. They were asked “Why aren’t there more female philosopher..