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Original poster

someone used their privilege to do something!

60 replies

chibi · 14/08/2012 18:00

two philosophers have used their professional standing within their community to take a stand and not accept invitations to participate in male only events, see here

they have also challeneged their colleagues to do the same

it is a v male dominated field, but apparently 20% are women - they aren't all stupid, or too busy washing their hair, or phobic about public gatherings Hmm

how great would it be if this extended into other fields - i am thinking of the recent amnesty event that was all-male see here

this is how paradigms get shifted, i think Smile

OP posts:
Original poster
chibi · 15/08/2012 13:55

i am not a female philosopher, but i am going out on a limb here and speculating that not being invited to conferences might mean not networking with peers, thus not being 'known' thus not being invited to collaborate on articles, and thus not getting published in trade mags

i think this could indeed have a negative impact on your career

OP posts:
LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/08/2012 13:50

What makes you assume there's no 'actual' impediment to the careers of female philosophers?

There are well known impediments to the careers of female academics in general, I doubt philosophers are any different.

Uppercut · 15/08/2012 13:37

If there's no actual impediment to the careers of female philosophers as a consequence of these all-male conferences, then so what if only 20% of academics in this field are female?

LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/08/2012 13:02

What am I supposed to be proving? And why should I?

These academics boycotted male-only conferences. Personally I think that was rather a good thing to do, especially in a subject where only one in five academics is a woman. Need there be more to it than that?

Surely it is a matter of personal experience - they felt it was the right thing to do, they did it. Maybe if we'd been there, we'd have felt the same, maybe not.

Uppercut · 15/08/2012 12:58

I don't "think", i.e. idly speculate, anything of presumed gender-based discrimination within academic philosophy because I don't have any evidence based knowledge on the matter. Unfashionable as my stance may be, I'm not going to assume the evil masterminds at Patriarchy HQ are behind every single gender imbalance in the world.

If in this case you can prove otherwise then by all means do so.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/08/2012 12:36

You think only 1 in 5 of these academics are women for no good reason, then?

Uppercut · 15/08/2012 12:25

"As long as these all-male gatherings aren't so prevalent that they become detrimental to the careers of female academics , then I see no problem."

Implications are ten-a-penny, evidence is a little harder to come by.

I didn't see any of the latter in the article.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/08/2012 12:04

I understood the article to be implying they did feel these all-male gatherings were too prevalent. I think if only 20% of the field are women, all-female gatherings would be rather different - because women aren't numerically dominant.

Uppercut · 15/08/2012 11:12

As long as these all-male gatherings aren't so prevalent that they become detrimental to the careers of female academics, then I see no problem. Equally I'd have no objection to all-female conferences, with the preceeding caveat in place.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 14/08/2012 19:53

Good for them!

I don't like the argument that all-male conferences are fine because the organizers might have invited women who couldn't make it - you have to question why the women couldn't make it!

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