Name Five Women In Philosophy. Bet You Can't.

[rug]

NPR | June 17, 2013 10:32 a.m.
Contributed By:
Tania Lombrozo

Last Friday I found myself in a lovely lecture hall at Brown University with some 50 philosophers and psychologists attending the annual meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, affectionately known as "SPP." Daniel Dennett was in the seat just ahead of me; additional luminaries were scattered about the room. A quick count revealed about equal numbers of men and women in the audience — an unusual figure for an event in philosophy, where women make up less than 20 percent of full-time faculty.

That was precisely the topic we'd gathered to discuss: the underrepresentation of women in philosophy, where numbers mirror those for math, engineering, and the physical sciences, making philosophy an outlier within the humanities.

There's been no shortage of speculation about why. Perhaps, to quote Hegel, women's "minds are not adapted to the higher sciences, philosophy, or certain of the arts." Perhaps women are turned off by philosophy's confrontational style. Perhaps women are more inclined toward careers with practical applications.

But the most plausible hypothesis is that various forms of explicit and implicit bias operate in philosophy, as they do within and beyond other academic disciplines. Unfortunately, though, this explanation refines our question rather than answering it.

http://www.opb.org/news/article/npr-name-five-women-in-philosophy-bet-you-cant/