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[readandwept]

Do any philosophers here want to weigh in on this?

[tenured_feminist]

I'm guessing that anyone with any inside knowledge doesn't want to be associated with the whole mess.

[oldfullprof]

They seem to write less of the philosophy and pop culture crap than the men do.  Also true in sociology. 

[readandwept]

I'm guessing that anyone with any inside knowledge doesn't want to be associated with the whole mess.

Yeah, it sure does sound like a mess. And my anecdotal sense is that philosophy is a field that really needs some good attention to the status of women in it, too. Sigh.

[ddonald]

Note also, though, that “History of Philosophy” as a sub-field apparently tends to be friendlier towards women than the “hard stuff” like Metaphysics, Epistemology, or Phil of Mind, all of which are very contemporary and doesn’t require too much research into dead white guys (once you’ve sufficiently understood the background of your discipline), and yet people actually have trouble coming up with the name of a single major figure in Phil of Mind who is a woman.

[amberheadlights]

I'm a woman in a philosophy graduate program. I'll weigh in...

First, the conflating of feminism with women in philosophy does seem to be a fairly common phenomenon, both among women doing feminist philosophy and from males in the profession. I've always found it a bit off-putting and, ironically, a bit sexist to assume that male graduate students will do research in a wide spectrum of sub-fields but that I, as a woman, will only do research related to the issues around my gender.

That said, sexism in philosophy seems to be fairly widespread and runs the gamut from subtle to egregious and (at least some places) higher attrition numbers among female graduate students continue to be a problem. Often, the solution seems to be to get more feminist speakers, hire more feminist faculty and admit more women to the graduate program. A lot of times, this seems like little more than PR: the focus is on the appearance of concern for feminist issues rather than creating a women-friendly climate per se.

More than anything, I think the authors of the study erred by not polling female graduate students. They allude to concerns about unreliable results due to some women being afraid to answer honestly on anonymous surveys. However, I don't see why, with all of the resources provided by modern technology, they couldn't have set up some sort of system that would both include more programs in their studies and allow for the actual experience of female grad students in the programs they're purporting to evaluate.

[readandwept]

Thanks for this reply. After I posted this before and didn't get many replies, I googled around and read an incredible thread about shenanigans at the University of Oregon. (Unfortunately I don't remember the name of the blog where this was.) It definitely does seem like there were some major debacles here. On the other hand, it also seemed like lots of people were trying to improve the field for women, which is great. Let's hope it's not all just PR!

[femmawatts]

I'm not in Philosophy myself, I have joint appointment in Gender and English, but one of my good friends is philosophy prof, and the stories I hear sometimes are just so sadly outrageous.  She mentioned to me recently something about being at a conference and over hearing some professor telling one of his grad students to try and find some female grad students that they could both wine, dine, and you know what latter.  I know this sounds insane (or should sound insane), but she said that this kind of thing happens more than most people think.  She has also mentioned something about a small forum that discusses just this topic.  I'll have to see if I can get the name from her.

[readandwept]

She mentioned to me recently something about being at a conference and over hearing some professor telling one of his grad students to try and find some female grad students that they could both wine, dine, and you know what latter.  I know this sounds insane (or should sound insane), but she said that this kind of thing happens more than most people think. 

WOW. I'm in a social science field and I... can't even imagine this. I hope I am not just naive.

[femmawatts]

Here's the Forum/Blog that my colleague mentioned http://beingawomaninphilosophy.wordpress.com/.  It seems well worth looking at.   

[penthesilia]

As far as I'm concerned, we all have God given minds and there's no boundaries to restrict anybody in contributing their own share.