{"id":4471,"date":"2009-11-16T10:20:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-16T18:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.philosophyforchildren.org\/women-in-philosophy\/"},"modified":"2009-11-16T10:20:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-16T18:20:00","slug":"women-in-philosophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/women-in-philosophy\/","title":{"rendered":"Women in Philosophy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There has been an ongoing discussion on the <a href=\"http:\/\/leiterreports.typepad.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/more-on-gender-imbalances-in-philosophy.html\">Leiter Reports blog <\/a>about the under-representation of women in academic philosophy. The speculations about the reasons for the dearth of female philosophers include the following possibilities: (1) that the way in which philosophers talk about our profession (using language about arguments, defending our positions, attacking our opponents\u2019 assumptions, etc.) puts off women who tend to be less aggressive and competitive; (2) the perceived impracticability of philosophy and the lack of a clear path to a non-academic job;  (3) the lack of female role models; and (4) the lack of a serious effort by the profession to reach out to women.<\/p>\n<p>It continues to puzzle me why more women don\u2019t study philosophy, though I tend to believe that the final two reasons above offer far more promising explanations than the first two. I\u2019ve been thinking, though, about my own experience teaching pre-college students. Over the past ten years I\u2019ve probably had a dozen or so experiences in which a student (anywhere from age 10-17) has told me, \u201cI think I\u2019d like to be a philosopher when I grow up.\u201d And they have all, 100% of them, been girls. I\u2019m not sure what that experience adds to this discussion, but it does at least give some weight to the idea that female role models make a difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There has been an ongoing discussion on the Leiter Reports blog about the under-representation of women in academic philosophy. The speculations about the reasons for the dearth of female philosophers include the following possibilities: (1) that the way in which philosophers talk about our profession (using language about arguments, defending our positions, attacking our opponents\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/women-in-philosophy\/\" class=\"more-link\">&#8230;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Women in Philosophy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[195],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wondering-aloud"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Women in Philosophy - PLATO - Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Women in Philosophy - a post from PLATO - The Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/women-in-philosophy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Women in Philosophy - PLATO - Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Women in Philosophy - a post from PLATO - The Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/women-in-philosophy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"PLATO\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/PLATOPhilosophy?fref=ts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-11-16T18:20:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/poc_logo.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"523\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"439\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jana Mohr Lone\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@WGAdmin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@platoorg\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/women-in-philosophy\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/women-in-philosophy\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jana Mohr Lone\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/73f61769c3bfdaeefc1633dd9cc8d59c\"},\"headline\":\"Women in Philosophy\",\"datePublished\":\"2009-11-16T18:20:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/women-in-philosophy\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":226,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/women-in-philosophy\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/poc_logo.png\",\"articleSection\":[\"Wondering Aloud\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/women-in-philosophy\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/women-in-philosophy\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/women-in-philosophy\\\/\",\"name\":\"Women in Philosophy - 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