Women in philosophy

This article is about the state of the discipline. For a list of women philosophers, see List of women philosophers.
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Women have made significant contributions to philosophy throughout the history of the discipline. Ancient examples of female philosophers include Maitreyi (1000 BCE), Gargi Vachaknavi (700 BCE), Hipparchia of Maroneia (active c. 325 BCE) and Arete of Cyrene (active 5th–4th centuries BCE). Some women philosophers were accepted during the medieval and modern eras, but none became part of the Western canon until the 20th and 21st century, when some sources indicate that Simone Weil, Susanne Langer, G.E.M. Anscombe, Hannah Arendt, and Simone de Beauvoir entered the canon.[1][2][3]

Despite women participating in philosophy throughout history, there exists a gender imbalance in academic philosophy. This can be attributed to implicit biases against women. Women have had to overcome workplace obstacles like sexual harassment. Racial and ethnic minorities are underrepresented in the field of philosophy as well. Minorities and Philosophy (MAP), the American Philosophical Association, and the Society for Women in Philosophy are all organizations trying to fix the gender imbalance in academic philosophy.

In the early 1800s, some colleges and universities in the UK and US began admitting women, producing more female academics. Nevertheless, U.S. Department of Education reports from the 1990s indicate that few women ended up in philosophy, and that philosophy is one of the least gender-proportionate fields in the humanities.[4] Women make up as little as 17% of philosophy faculty in some studies.[5] In 2014, Inside Higher Education described the philosophy "...discipline’s own long history of misogyny and sexual harassment" of women students and professors.[6] Jennifer Saul, a professor of philosophy at the University of Sheffield, stated in 2015 that women are "...leaving philosophy after being harassed, assaulted, or retaliated against."[7]

In the early 1990s, the Canadian Philosophical Association claimed that there is gender imbalance and gender bias in the academic field of philosophy.[8] In June 2013, a US sociology professor stated that "out of all recent citations in four prestigious philosophy journals, female authors comprise just 3.6 percent of the total." The editors of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy have raised concerns about the underrepresentation of women philosophers, and they require editors and writers to ensure they represent the contributions of women philosophers.[8] According to Eugene Sun Park, "[p]hilosophy is predominantly white and predominantly male. This homogeneity exists in almost all aspects and at all levels of the discipline."[2] Susan Price argues that the philosophical "...canon remains dominated by white males—the discipline that...still hews to the myth that genius is tied to gender."[9] According to Saul, philosophy, the oldest of the humanities, is also the malest (and the whitest). While other areas of the humanities are at or near gender parity, philosophy is actually more overwhelmingly male than even mathematics."[10]

  1. ^ Duran, Jane. Eight women philosophers: theory, politics, and feminism. University of Illinois Press, 2005.
  2. ^ a b "Why I Left Academia: Philosophy's Homogeneity Needs Rethinking – Hippo Reads". Archived from the original on 9 June 2017.
  3. ^ Haldane, John (June 2000). "In Memoriam: G. E. M. Anscombe (1919–2001)". The Review of Metaphysics. 53 (4): 1019–1021. JSTOR 20131480.
  4. ^ "Salary, Promotion, and Tenure Status of Minority and Women Faculty in U.S. Colleges and Universities."National Center for Education Statistics, Statistical Analysis Report, March 2000; U.S. Department of Education, Office of Education Research and Improvement, Report # NCES 2000–173; 1993 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF:93). See also "Characteristics and Attitudes of Instructional Faculty and Staff in the Humanities." National Center For Education Statistics, E.D. Tabs, July 1997. U.S. Department of Education, Office of Education Research and Improvement, Report # NCES 97-973;1993 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF-93).
  5. ^ U.S. Department of Education statistics in above-cited reports seem to put the number closer to 17%, but these numbers are based on data from the mid-1990s. Margaret Urban Walker's more recent article (2005) discusses the data problem and describes more recent estimates as an "(optimistically projected) 25–30 percent."
  6. ^ "Unofficial Internet campaign outs professor for alleged sexual harassment, attempted assault". insidehighered.com.
  7. ^ Ratcliffe, Rebecca; Shaw, Claire (5 January 2015). "Philosophy is for posh, white boys with trust funds' – why are there so few women?". The Guardian.
  8. ^ a b "Women in Philosophy: Problems with the Discrimination Hypothesis – National Association of Scholars". www.nas.org.
  9. ^ Price, Susan (13 May 2015). "Reviving the Female Canon". theatlantic.com.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference salon.com was invoked but never defined (see the help page).