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rug

(82,333 posts)
Mon Jun 17, 2013, 03:51 PM Jun 2013

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

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/

31 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Name Five Women In Philosophy. Bet You Can't. (Original Post) rug Jun 2013 OP
Dorothy Parker, Joan Baez, Maya Angelou, Angela Davis, Harper Lee. Scuba Jun 2013 #1
Show off. rug Jun 2013 #2
Are you sure you have any proof? xtraxritical Jun 2013 #3
Of course. rug Jun 2013 #4
Iris Marion Young ismnotwasm Jun 2013 #5
It was my honor to know Iris NoRWNJ Jul 2014 #19
This message was self-deleted by its author Tuesday Afternoon Jun 2013 #6
What do the letters at the end mean? rug Jun 2013 #7
This message was self-deleted by its author Tuesday Afternoon Jun 2013 #8
Argh! Luce Irigaray should have been off the top of my head ismnotwasm Jun 2013 #9
This message was self-deleted by its author Tuesday Afternoon Jun 2013 #10
I started to read "The Virtue of Selfishness" Fortinbras Armstrong Aug 2013 #12
OH Sweeney Nov 2014 #28
I don't think the bias is in philosophy. It's within societies. delrem Aug 2013 #11
Martha Nussbaum Htom Sirveaux Jan 2014 #13
Women in philosophy CloptonHavers Feb 2014 #14
That's 5 but they've all been dead longer than I've been alive. Chan790 Jun 2014 #15
A good list. Sweeney Nov 2014 #21
Patricia Churchland, Susan Blackmore, Rebecca Goldstein, Susan Haack, and Giovanna Borradori. - n/t Jim__ Jun 2014 #16
Sure, but it took you a year. rug Jun 2014 #17
:) Jim__ Jun 2014 #18
This message was self-deleted by its author Sweeney Nov 2014 #20
Let's ask Pascal. rug Nov 2014 #23
This message was self-deleted by its author Sweeney Nov 2014 #22
That is as sexist as it is melodramatic. rug Nov 2014 #24
This message was self-deleted by its author Sweeney Nov 2014 #25
And then, there's Sarah Palin. rug Nov 2014 #26
This message was self-deleted by its author Sweeney Nov 2014 #27
Susan Wolf, Valerie Tiberius, Simone Weil, Martha Nussbaum Stargleamer Jul 2019 #29
Here's seven lounge_jam Aug 2019 #30
There's no limit here on reviving old threads. defacto7 Oct 2019 #31
 

rug

(82,333 posts)
2. Show off.
Mon Jun 17, 2013, 04:30 PM
Jun 2013

Wait a minute. Strictly speaking only Angela Davis would be considered a philosopher.

 

rug

(82,333 posts)
4. Of course.
Mon Jun 17, 2013, 04:55 PM
Jun 2013

A philosopher is not a smart ass, a folk singer, a poet or a novelist.

She can however be a political theorist.

QED.

ismnotwasm

(41,921 posts)
5. Iris Marion Young
Mon Jun 17, 2013, 05:58 PM
Jun 2013

Simone de Beauvoir are as far as I can go without cheating right now, even though I'm missing some important ones

NoRWNJ

(33 posts)
19. It was my honor to know Iris
Fri Jul 11, 2014, 07:01 PM
Jul 2014

While she was at the University of Pittsburgh, where I taught part-time, while a full time teacher at Carnegie Mellon. I have great respect for her writings on political philosophy and public policy matters. It was a cruelty that she died so early in her career.

Here are a couple more -- mostly contemporary -- women philosophers (without cheating):

Phillipa Foote
Judith Jarvis Thompson
Iris Murdoch
Deborah Johnson
Val Plumwood
Patricia Werhane
Ayn Rand
Diotima (Greek "teacher" of Socrates)

best,

NoRWNJ

Response to rug (Original post)

Response to rug (Reply #7)

ismnotwasm

(41,921 posts)
9. Argh! Luce Irigaray should have been off the top of my head
Mon Jun 17, 2013, 07:29 PM
Jun 2013

Probably Judith Butler too, although I don't think of her as a philosopher for some reason, lets see Hypatia, although little is known about her,-- there's a bunch of names I've read essays from but don't know well

I've read Ayn Rand, I suppose she has to count.

Response to ismnotwasm (Reply #9)

Fortinbras Armstrong

(4,473 posts)
12. I started to read "The Virtue of Selfishness"
Tue Aug 13, 2013, 08:55 AM
Aug 2013

On the first or second page, Rand has a "definition" of altruism that no actual altruist would accept -- that which benefits others is good, that which benefits the altruist is bad. The first part of this definition is so simplistic as to be laughable. As for the second part, an actual altruist would say that an act which benefits the altruist and does not harm others is at worst morally neutral and is probably good.

Since she began her argument with the Straw Man fallacy, I saw no reason to continue.

Someone said about her, "I had a hard time with Ayn Rand because I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with the first 90% of every sentence, but getting lost at 'therefore, be a huge asshole to everyone.'"

Someone else wrote, "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

Yes, I suppose she is a philosopher. But her philosophy is crap.

Sweeney

(505 posts)
28. OH
Sun Nov 30, 2014, 02:04 AM
Nov 2014

No she doesn't. One does not do philosophy to pamper ones prejudice but to challenge prejudice.
Sweeney

delrem

(9,688 posts)
11. I don't think the bias is in philosophy. It's within societies.
Fri Aug 2, 2013, 12:12 AM
Aug 2013

It isn't always, or even most of the time, just a matter of whether someone has an idea and the ability to see it through to completion. It's almost invariably the case that sufficient patronage is the deciding factor. Darwin, for example, had sufficient patronage, in a field where less favored upstarts were also developing the ideas of natural evolution. In that case, in those days, the advantage didn't just lie with the male gender, but also with social station and patrons within political/academic society.

Htom Sirveaux

(1,242 posts)
13. Martha Nussbaum
Sat Jan 25, 2014, 07:23 PM
Jan 2014

Marilyn McCord Adams
Christine Korsgaard
Judith Butler
G.E.M. Anscombe

Yeah that was tough. Anscombe was a reach, considering she's been dead for over a decade.

EDIT: Susan Neiman!

 

Chan790

(20,176 posts)
15. That's 5 but they've all been dead longer than I've been alive.
Tue Jun 10, 2014, 09:30 AM
Jun 2014

1.) Hannah Arendt
2.) Mary Wollstonecraft
3.) Simone du Beauvoir
4.) Simone Weil
5.) Emma Goldman

Sweeney

(505 posts)
21. A good list.
Fri Nov 28, 2014, 03:13 AM
Nov 2014

If I didn't think intelligent women blessed by the bloom of beauty no matter how hard they might some times be to look at, I might never have opened my first philosophy book.
Aristippus had a daughter who taught after he died, and she was called- the light. Knowing little of the man I still recognize a kindred spirit. His girlfriend, the mother of his daughter, told him she was pregnant, and he said you could no more say it was me than tell which thorn had caught you when running through a thorn bush. Can you imagine what an ass he felt like when he came to accept rather than deny?

Jim__

(14,045 posts)
16. Patricia Churchland, Susan Blackmore, Rebecca Goldstein, Susan Haack, and Giovanna Borradori. - n/t
Sun Jun 22, 2014, 10:22 AM
Jun 2014

Response to rug (Original post)

Response to rug (Original post)

Response to rug (Reply #24)

 

rug

(82,333 posts)
26. And then, there's Sarah Palin.
Fri Nov 28, 2014, 11:52 PM
Nov 2014

I see you just joined DU. Welcome. If this is something you've thought about, check out these Groups:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1136

They can be pretty rough but they get more traffic than this Group.

Response to rug (Reply #26)

lounge_jam

(41 posts)
30. Here's seven
Fri Aug 2, 2019, 03:41 AM
Aug 2019

Although this is an old thread, and many names have been mentioned here, I'd like to add to this list.

Hannah Arendt, Veena Das, Sara Ahmed, de Beauvoir, Ayn Rand, Simone Weil, Martha Nussbaum

I don't think "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." That is essentialism of the crassest order. That this was said by the great old Hegel does not in any way lend credibility to this.

A Room of One's Own by Woolf is particularly relevant in this context. Women have been under-represented everywhere. And women are never "not working." Their domestic chores keep the political economy running.

defacto7

(13,485 posts)
31. There's no limit here on reviving old threads.
Mon Oct 7, 2019, 10:58 AM
Oct 2019

I'd actually encourage it. There are a lot of good reads down in the archives and some like this one that need updating. Thanks for the additions!

D7

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