What We Lose When We Don't Read Female Philosophers
Is Philosophy Too "Stupid" For Women? (updated)
Women in Philosophy: What Needs to Change?, a collection of essays edited past Katrina Hutchison (Macquarie) and Fiona Jenkins (ANU), is reviewed by David Papineau (KCL, CUNY) inThe Times Literary Supplement. Papineau reviews the book with the question in mind of why in that location are so few women in philosophy. Things are not as overtly sexist as they were in the bad old days, he notes, and so he entertains various other explanations. One is that philosophy is more likely to seem like a waste of time to women:
To take an analogy – which I hasten to add is limited – consider professional snooker. Even though women are eligible to compete as professionals, none is ranked in the meridian hundred. The 6-times world champion, Steve Davis, has no incertitude most the reason. It is not that women are incapable of the highest levels of skill. It is rather that every bit a group they are disinclined to devote obsessive try to "something that must be said is a complete waste of time – trying to put snooker balls into pockets with a pointed stick". As Davis sees information technology, "practising viii hours a twenty-four hour period to get to globe championship level" ranks high amongst the "stupid things to do with your life".
Perhaps Davis has a rose-tinted view of his colleagues. Information technology would be surprising if the world of professional snooker were uniformly welcoming to women aspirants. And no dubiety a few successful role models would swell the number of women in the professional game. But suppose that there is something to Davis'due south theory, and that, fifty-fifty if these problems were solved, the mind-numbing rigours of exercise would still dissuade most women. Would this be bad? It is hard to run across why. The rewards for the pinnacle snooker players are considerable. But, if they come at the cost of a lifetime spent hitting coloured balls, and if women are less prepare to pay this toll than men, so who is to say they are wrong?
In some sought-afterward areas of employment, membership of a disadvantaged group can itself be a qualification, alongside whatsoever other abilities candidates may have. At that place are obvious reasons for wanting political institutions to include a suitable proportion of women and other under-represented groups. A like case for affirmative activity can exist argued more widely, fifty-fifty for such technical professions equally law and medicine. Skilful exercise in these areas oft demands familiarity with the problems of marginalized groups, every bit well equally purely theoretical expertise. However, this line of idea has no obvious application to philosophy, or to snooker for that matter. On the confront of things, neither profession has the function of representing detail groups.
Even if we assume that women are voluntarily selecting themselves out of philosophy, as in snooker, and that there is no special social need that warrants affirmative action, equally there may be in police and medicine, it does not yet follow that philosophy's gender imbalance is beneficial. The crucial question is whether the costs that are turning women away are essential to the philosophical enterprise. Hours of practice may be a sine qua non for high-level performance in snooker. But the hoops that women philosophers need to go through may be irrelevant to philosophical excellence, and be serving simply to reduce the supply of able philosophers.
Papineau then discusses the research by Sarah-Jane Leslie and others regarding how philosophy and other disciplines in which "raw talent" is thought necessary to succeed have fewer women. He adds:
I wonder whether a nonetheless further mechanism might not exist doing nearly of the harm. Philosophy and economics are both distinguished from similar disciplines by a marked tendency towards scholasticism. Much work in both subjects focuses on technical minutiae whose relevance to larger issues even the experts are hard pressed to explicate. Of course, serious academic piece of work need not e'er be transparent to the general public, but much in philosophy and economics isn't fifty-fifty of interest to those in adjacent sub-disciplines. Ane doesn't have to exist an enthusiast for "touch" to doubtable that the primary point of much of this technical work is to enable young scholars to display the kind of super-smartness that their elders and then prize. Placing a premium on brilliance creates a pressure to work in a manner that requires information technology.
This may plow women away from the brilliance-prizing disciplines, non considering they can't play the game, just because they won't. Almost immature people come up into philosophy and economic science considering they desire to address important bug, not to make the next move in a technical exercise. When they detect that they need to dance on the head of a pin to get a job, women and men are likely to react differently. Where many men volition relish the competitive challenge and relish the game for its own sake, many women will see information technology equally the intellectual equivalent of putting balls in pockets with pointed sticks, and conclude that they could be doing something better with their lives.
If this is the right diagnosis for the scarcity of women in philosophy, it raises key questions well-nigh the nature of the subject.
He sums up his view:
The first task is to deal with the easy bug, and make certain good women philosophers are not existence turned away for bad reasons. Then there is the admittedly harder job of deciding which topics deserve sustained philosophical attention and which exercise not. Simply once these matters have been dealt with, at that place seems no further reason not to permit the gender numbers fall where they may.
The whole review is here.
UPDATE(seven/24/15): The TLS has published messages to the editor in response to Papineau'due south review. Ane is from from Kate Manne (Cornell):
Sir, – I was disappointed by David Papineau's review of Women in Philosophy: What needs to change? edited by Katrina Hutchison and Fiona Jenkins (July 17). Papineau points out that women's underrepresentation in our field may have a benign explanation. This is of form possible. But information technology is not very probable, as a glance at some of the recent feminist scholarship in this area would serve to point – including, notably, piece of work in the very book which Papineau was reviewing, much of which received a surprisingly cursory treatment from him.
Work which played an of import function in inspiring the volume – and is cited repeatedly throughout, including in the second judgement of the introduction – also sheds some light here. In a now famous paper, "Changing the Ideology and Civilisation of Philosophy" (2008), Sally Haslanger argues that women'south under-representation in philosophy is plausibly due partly to the fact that disciplinary norms and gender norms oftentimes put women at crosspurposes. For women have less social permission to engage in the kind of ambitious intellectual combat which remains (for better or, probably, worse) standard in our discipline. Women are implicitly expected to manage social dynamics, non to endeavour to win arguments or evidence others to be mistaken.
Papineau opines that in philosophy, as in snooker, men volition tend to "relish the competitive challenge and enjoy the game for its own sake", whereas women will be drawn to pursuits with more than instrumental value. Simulated modesty about the worth of our discipline bated, Papineau ignores the fact that many women conspicuously want to play the game – or would do, were we not subject area to hostile and punitive reactions in doing so. Every bit a result, being a woman in philosophy is frequently stressful and unpleasant – as the experiences shared on the well-known blog "What is it like to be a woman in philosophy?" amply demonstrate.
The same sorts of mechanisms likely serve to exclude members of other historically subordinated social groups, e.1000., non-white, nonaffluent people, from philosophy likewise. (The number of black philosophers, especially working in anglophone departments is staggeringly low.) As Kristie Dotson has argued, in another influential newspaper, "How is this Paper Philosophy?" (2012), the culture of justification so prevalent in our subject area plausibly plays an of import function in this besides. It disproportionately disadvantages those who do not bask the presumption that they have something to say for themselves.
There is also the fact that disagreeing with, challenging and correcting people is an inherently hierarchical do. I is typically not supposed to suspension the ranks of gender, race, or class in doing and so, in the class of ordinary social life. And in philosophy, more in any other discipline, attempts at intellectual throw-down are routine, even required – as Papineau recognizes, in noting that philosophy is unusually adversarial among humanities disciplines. Unfortunately, he fails to subsequently observe that this gives philosophy the potential to exist exceptionally liberating for members of non-privileged groups. Information technology is i of the ways to gain the intellectual resources to criticize and turn down bad ideology, and resist oppressive social norms, pr,actices and institutions. Then it matters to those of united states in the field of study that we are here. And it matters for the growth of progressive social movements. This obviates Papineau's conclusion that the lack of a gender residue in philosophy is not in itself a problem.
The sooner we admit that some people pay higher social costs than others for challenging intellectual authority figures – hint: information technology helps if you look like one – the sooner we volition be able to make progress towards the egalitarian goal of enabling anyone to challenge anyone else, intellectually. This, in my view, is one of the main things that would need to alter in order to attract and retain the philosophical talent of many non-privileged people we are currently losing. And information technology volition be a shame for our discipline, and social justice, if nosotros fail in this.
KATE MANNE
Department of Philosophy, Cornell University.
The other is from Amia Srinivasan (Oxford):
Sir, – David Papineau writes that "good practice in [politics, law and medicine] oft demands familiarity with the problems of marginalized groups", but that "this line of idea has no obvious awarding to philosophy". This is news to me. I would have idea that theorizing well nigh, say, inequality, pornography or racial hate crimes – to take a few central topics of philosophical interest – might require 1 to know something about being poor, a woman, or non-white. Insofar every bit philosophy is in the business of getting the world right, it would seem useful to have more than philosophers who are acquainted with some of its less savoury aspects.
AMIA SRINIVASAN
All Souls College, Oxford.
(image: detail of "Paar im Gespräch" by Simon Glücklich)
Source: https://dailynous.com/2015/07/15/is-philosophy-to-stupid-for-women/
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