I have not read what you linked to, but plan to.

I work in another academic field that has quite a bit more woman representation yet retains a cadre of old-school male-orientation.

However, Philosophy as a boys-only club does not surprise me one whit. I have LONG been aware of this.

Here's what I've been able to gather, from both tacit attitudes and colleagues' outright statements: "Women are more detail-oriented. Women are less interested in the 'big picture,' in the big existential questions. Women evolved sharp senses to pick up on minute changes in her offspring, or in possble threats to her babies. Men, on the other hand, are the dreamers. The idealists. The visionaries. They are the Socarates and the Foucaults and the Lewises. They're the aestheticists and the art crtics and the theologians. Women sweat the small stuff, while men Think Big."

I just graduated college with a minor in philosophy. This post absolutely rings true to me.

The worst examples of this, for me, are when people assume that my boyfriend, who majored in philosophy,either helped me through my coursework or was the reason I tried it in the first place. The truth is, I had started my coursework in philosophy before I'd ever met him, and had excelled in high-level classes. I continued to take challenging classes after we started dating (sometimes with him; sometimes getting better grades, even).

I think the fact that some of the classical philosophers (that are considered saintly to many philosophy students and professors today) are blatantly misogynist has something to do with it. to bring up the fact that a theory is anti-woman is to induce rolling eyes from classmates, and a plea to ignore that part, as if it's somehow totally unimportant (just like my contributions to class).

You're right. Philosophy is definitely a male-dominated field and few people bat an eye about it. I don't know if that's just because it's a smaller field than math, science or technology or what is going on. Good for you and Haslanger on calling attention to this lack of female representation.

I took a philosophy course my junior year of high school. Having been raised in an all-life-encompassing conservative religion that said you were being influenced by the devil if you questioned the religion or the leaders, this was the first time I had a person in authority show me there were other ways to think about life, morals, religion, god, etc and that it was good to question beliefs. That class truly changed my life and helped give me courage to act on my doubts about the religion and leave it completely.

And you know what else happened in that class? There were about 15 of us, and only 3 of us were female. The other 2 girls were more outspoken than I was and almost EVERY time they spoke a group of guys in the class would snicker and ridicule them. It was enough to keep me from ever opening my mouth unless I felt confident of what I was going to say and I would get really nervous before I did speak. I'm not assertive enough :( The teacher was great but he didn't do a good job of making the guys act respectfully even though respecting others was brought up the first day of class. The guys didn't laugh and make comments when other males spoke, only the females, so they seemed to be purposefully making it an unwelcoming environment for women.

It's a real shame that more women aren't in the philosophy field because I think it can be so intellectually stimulating and why should mostly just men have that experience and because we need more women's voices out there - I think every single philosopher we studied in the class was male :/

Traditional philsophy as it has long been taught in Western academies has also almost completely devalued/glossed over/outright ignored the philosophies of non-European civilizations. It' s my understanding that some comparitive phil classes now offer token Chinese, Indian, and Arab or Muslim philosophers, but all are named "great men," as though highlighting that philosophy developed by an anonymous collective of a non-Euro indigneous group (Native American, etc.) is not "philsophy." T

After all, that stuff is just "cultural;" only famous men of European--and, okay, okay, a few non-Euro but still urban and agricultural--societies have "philosophy."

The issue of what historical stuff should be taught is really messy -- on the one hand, it's understandable that one could cringe a bit at the extreme european-male-ness of pretty much all of the figures that are taught in History of Philosophy classes. On the other hand, these are the people whose ideas created the very foundation on which we stand today in contemporary philosophy, and in order to understand our current position as western philosophers, it is more important to read the Platos and Kants of the world than it is to read non-European philosophy, or to dig up philosophy by women that may be interesting but was ultimately obscure and uninfluential. I stand by the teaching of philosophical history via the "classics," because I don't think one can really understand what's going on without them. (And certainly, how are we supposed to understand reactions TO them without knowing what they are in the first place?) However, I notice and I don't like how easily the atmosphere in a classroom or department or even the entire field can slip so easily from this affirmation to the notion that all philosophers have to look and act like philosophers of years past -- you'd think those who are required to be at least basically familiar with logic would be better than that.

Note also, though, that "History of Philosophy" as a sub-field apparently tends to be friendlier towards women than (and women are pushed to study it instead of) the "hard stuff" like Metaphysics, Epistemology, or Phil of Mind, all of which are very contemporary and doesn't require too much research into dead white guys (once you've sufficiently understood the background of your discipline), and yet people actually have trouble coming up with the name of a single major figure in Phil of Mind who is a woman.

I am so glad somebody brought else brought this up...

I have my MA in Philosophy, and could still choose to complete the PhD program that I was most of the way through when I quit grad school. I teach Philosophy part time, but am currently pursuing IT certifications (another male-dominated field) so I can get a benefited job on campus while teaching part time instead. The reasons for not finishing my PhD are varied, but mainly it's a really discouraging prospect, as tenure-track positions for people with my areas of specialty are few and far between, my family situation makes a move really complicated, etc.

In my experience it is true that Philosophy is a fairly hostile environment for a person who's socialized as a woman. Philosophy has been characterized as a contact sport, and this seems pretty accurate to me. I thrive in a highly-charged academic environment like this, but obviously it’s not for everyone, especially those who have been socialized to defer to others.

Beyond that, there is a very strong systemic bias in favor of white males, or the ideal of the white male anyway. Analytic Philosophy (the dominant model in the US and Great Britain) worships reason and rigorous argumentation. Since women are still regarded as being emotional, grounded in the particular, etc. it follows that they would be excluded from this world of "pure" (ha!) reason. In my experience this is not conscious or intentional – it’s just an implicit part of their world view that manifests itself in a kind of systemic discrimination. Of course this dynamic is not unique to Philosophy by any means.

Add to that the difficulties that women face in academia in general. Men achieve tenure much faster and more often than their female counterparts. Most of them have small children, or are just starting families in the early parts of their academic careers, but this doesn’t affect their tenure timetable at all. Of course this is not the case for women. Add to that the fact that many female academics are partnered with other academics – that’s just who you tend to date in grad school. Knowing that a woman is married to another professor makes the search committee less likely to offer her a position, based on the assumption that he won’t quit his job to move for hers, I guess. However, when the search committee knows that a male candidate is partnered with another academic, this doesn’t deter them from offering him a job at all. Apparently they assume that she will quit her job to follow him… I’m sure there are many other factors as well. I was in a graduate class of 9, and I was the only woman. The next class had 1 woman, and the year after that there were 2. I encountered a few minority students in grad school – Asian and Hispanic. So I can definitely concur with this article. I think most women in Philosophy have probably been scared to say anything about this for fear that they’ll sound whiney and irrational, but it’s definitely time to demand a change. That’s not the only change that needs to take place in the Philosophy department, but that’s a whole other post…

Thanks for posting this and for all the interesting comments. I have a B.A. in philosophy. To graduate, we had to take a written exam and write, present and defend a senior thesis.

When the (white male) chair of the philosophy department told me that I passed the written exam, he said that my test was one of the best he'd graded in his seven years of teaching at the school -- but he followed that by saying that he "couldn't believe it" when he found out it was mine (the tests were labeled with numbers, not names when graded). I felt very insulted. I would have prefered he just said I passed and left it at that.

In the years prior, whenever I (or other students) would point out sexism in a text he wouldn't allow any time for class discussion about it or its implications. He would either dismiss it with "Some people think that," or say we needed to talk about xyz instead. Keep in mind though that there was always time for his "pet" students to spend talking about their time in high school, arguing about philosophers and concepts not even related to his classes, etc.

The former (white male) chair, a slightly older guy, had a similar dismissive attitude toward female students. I don't even think he listened to my thesis when I was presenting it, as you will see.

I wrote about how the traditional canon of western philosophy/religion is build on claims of superiority over an "other," whether it be women, children, poor men and men of color, animals and or the earth. It is then claimed that this so-called superiority justifies domination. This "great thinkers" set themselves outside of nature, as rational subjects who got to objectify and use other beings because they were superior to them. (Think of in Genesis God telling Adam that all beings/the earth existed for his use, including Eve or Aristotle making similar claims). I argued that we must get rid of this whole paradigm and the logic of domination which justifies oppression based on masculine/feminine value dualisms, like reason/emotio, man/woman, culture/nature, including in relation to the earth and animals. I proposed a new concept of moral community, which, similar to Riane Eisler's partnership model, is not based on opposition, superiority and domination. In connection with this I argued that under the partnership paradigm people have a moral responsibilty not to eat factory farmed meat on the grounds that it harms people, the environment and the animals involved unneccessarily.

The former chair's response to this was: "If there was a virus that came from outerspace that caused people to be child molestors, could we kill the virus?"

I felt like he had completely trivialized months of work. Luckily the female professors in the department were both amazing and supportive feminists and basically told him to shut up.

I agree, women are seen as a joke when it comes to philosophy and speaking our minds. I have gotten really weird looks from people when I tell them that I'm going to major in philosophy. Sometimes it is so hard for you to speak what you think, because anything you say people might look at you with your "biological destination type of look" like women can't think. It is really hard to argue with people who have a narrow mind filled with sexism. Is as if your talking to a wall. Because no matter what you say their conditioned by roles and they immediately judge you.It's sad to admit that male philosophers aren't as smart as they seem, since it always seems that almost all male philosophers want to hold a higher place amongst women. I mean what kind of philosopher are you, when you immediately think your higher then someone else? can you even create or think anything else after having being consider the best? Can you even learn from a wider point of view when your mind is closed to gender differences, roles, and other things? Why don't I find Simone de Beavuoir in the Philosophy section like I do in women's studies. That's what troubles me too. I hate the fact that philosophy doesn't really want to welcome feminism like they do other philosophies.

"I mean what kind of philosopher are you, when you immediately think your higher then someone else?"

Hahaha, well, the normal kind I guess -- in my experience, most high-level academics are prone to occasional bouts of arrogance from time to time (I mean in general, not necessarily regarding gender). But yeah, it does seem like a good philosopher wouldn't buy into the "noble lie" so easily, as it were.

I read the Sally Haslanger paper. And I have to say I liked it a lot, but it kind of made me more scared to get my philosohy major. I'am 17 years old and Hispanic and I'm sure there won't be a lot of women in my philosophy class so it was kind of scary reading it. I'm guessing that is exactly how I'am going to feel when I want to argue with other students that are mostly white male, you know the feeling of tongue tied and anxiety and all of that mind blocking stuff. Especially being a very introverted person. But overall I agree with the paper of Sally. She makes good points on how some men in philosophy are really biased towards women. So who in here has studied philosophy? And if you have , what would you recommend on your past experiences in standing up for your self against the sexism in philosophy?

I have, and I guess the main advice I have is pretty simple: first, the most common manifestation of the sexism I experienced was just in terms of the sheer time people spent talking, e.g. women get interrupted all the time, "shut down" in conversation, etc, even more often than is usual in philosophy classes. Don't let this happen -- if you have a question or an opinion you'd like to test out or any other contribution you think is worthwhile, get it out there and don't back down just because some dude is talking over you. Secondly, pick your battles -- don't get too discouraged over these everyday frustrations, throw yourself into and love your work, make friends with other women and talk to them about the situation, and DO know the proper channels to follow if you feel like something notably inappropriate happens.

But yeah, mostly, just learn how not to mince words, and don't back down.

On the Simone de Beauvoir issue, it's not widely known that she scored better than Sartre on the exit exams they took, but because of his fragile ego, she agreed to let him be listed first in the graduating class. I've also heard (from a former professor who studied with some of their contemporaries in his youth) that many of the ideas that are thought to be Sartre's came from de Beauvoir originally. Apparently she didn't care if he wrote about them and was credited with them. So it's kind of ironic when people spend so much time reading and talking about his work while ignoring her completely...

As for being a female Philosophy student: you just have to be really assertive. Be prepared to argue strenuously for your position, and develop a thick skin. As a woman you've been socialized to be cooperative and nurturing and all that bullshit (sorry), but you've got to let that go in the Philosophy department. The intense debates that go on can be a bit intimidating at first, but they're also incredibly stimulating - like nothing else, in my experience. So tell yourself: "it's not personal" when someone is attacking your position, and don't let it hurt your feelings or silence you. Remember, you're surrounded by people (men) who have been socialized to speak up, say what they want or think, and expect to automatically be listened to. Why shouldn't you have those same expectations?

Good luck!