Haslanger/Alcoff/Langton/Antony/O'Connor - The Stone

09/20/2013

The Stone (Blog) from The New York Times Sept 2, 2013

This is a series of 5 short pieces about women in philosophy, following the resignation of a well-known philosopher Colin McGinn. I'll briefly summarize the main points of each piece:

Haslanger: The stereotypical philosopher is an old man with a beard. The numbers of women in philosophy is dismal. With that low amount of fellowship, nothing as overt as sexual harassment is needed to keep women from the field since 'alienation, loneliness, bias, microaggression, discrimination, etc' are also effective.

Alcoff: One problem with philosophy is the "ultimate fighting" intellectual combat approach. It enhances social imbalance like gender, seniority, race.

Langton: The caricature and stereotype of the philosopher can become a "stereotype threat" that engenders under-performance in non-represented groups. But the history of philosophy, as it is selectively taught, does not include the women and other contributors.

Antony: There is a "male fog of anxiety that floats through the halls of academia" over sexual harassment and other politically-correct initiatives. But frankly most of it all amounts to a growing consensus that men will have to change their ways, and will possibly be subject to light discipline or public embarrassment if they don't. But please don't threaten that this will somehow damage effective pedagogy; such a claim seems hysterical.

O'Connor: It is difficult to encourage women to enter philosophy due to how unfriendly it can be to them. This is a "double bind". A double bind is a barrier for entrance for some, and then simultaneously difficult/impossible for those who have gained entrance to fix the problems. It's men who need to do much more.