Progress?

Am I dreaming or is there a big improvement lately in the number of women who are keynote speakers for graduate student conferences? I confess that I delete the messages quickly, but I’m anecdotally struck (if that’s an expression) by an increase. Has the gendered conference campaign had some impact at this level?

What PIKSI is doing about what it’s like

PIKSI is currently accepting applications for the 2012 institute!

This seven-day institute is designed to encourage undergraduate students from under-represented groups to consider future study in the field of philosophy. PIKSI will emphasize the on-going project of greater inclusiveness that is transforming the discipline, inviting students to be participants in the conversation.

PIKSI will be permanently housed at the Rock Ethics Institute on the campus of the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania. The director and the theme will change on a regular basis.

If you know promising undergraduate women or men from underrepresented groups such as African Americans, Chicano/as and Latino/as, Native Americans, Asian Americans, LGBT persons, economically disadvantaged communities, and people with disabilities, please call this program to their attention. In addition, please consider serving as their “sponsor.” Faculty sponsors mentor students, helping them to prepare their applications, and, when possible and appropriate, work with the students after the Summer Institute to help further the gains the students have made.

Transportation to and from the institute, room and board, and a small stipend will be provided for participants. While we expect that most students will come from four-year colleges, promising students from two-year institutions are also welcome.

What Renford Bambrough Did About What It’s Like

<a href=”http://www.newappsblog.com/2011/11/women-in-philosophy-science-and-engineering.html#more”>New Apps has a lovely post up:</a>

<blockquote>The point “there are tons of top scholars in this field who are women” reminded me of what Renford Bambrough once did, as editor of the journal Philosophy. There were then (as there are now) ‘tons of top scholars’ in philosophy who are women. He had some papers by women ready for publication in the next issue, and he saw that, with some other accepted papers, that had been scheduled for later publication, he could (by altering date of publication) publish an all-women issue. The point was to bring out that we don’t notice an all-men issue of a philosophy journal. Publishing an all-women issue brings to our attention our failure to notice that all the authors of papers in some issue of a journal are men, our taking that to be just normal and unexceptionable. He should be regarded as an honorary posthumous member of the GCC. (The issue was vol. 53, no. 204, in 1978.)</blockquote>

 

 

Taking gender equality seriously

I just want to say thanks to all the folks who are doing something about what it’s like for women in philosophy- whether they realize it or not.

Recently, a fellow student went to a professor when he thought myself and some other female graduate stuents were being treated unfairly on account of our gender; I’ve noticed one of my professors regularly makes use of female pronouns in class; in a reading group I participate in (as the only female), a fellow participant pointed out that an example in a paper we were reading was rather sexist, and another raised an objection to an argument, citing feminist philosophers; and one of the upper-year female graduate students has made an effort to reach out to the new female students in the program, and has made her help available should we need it.

Knowing that I have colleagues that take women seriously, that take feminist philosophy seriously, and that take gender equality seriously, makes it that much more bearable when facing those who don’t. So, thank you!

“Truth Values”: the Performance

For the logicians who read this blog, and other interested parties see:

“Truth Values: One Girl’s Romp Through M.I.T.’s Male Math Maze

Created as a response to former Harvard President Lawrence Summers’ now infamous suggestion that women are less represented than men in the sciences because of innate gender differences, Truth Values: One
Girl’s Romp Through M.I.T.’s Male Math Maze is a true-life tale that offers a humorous, scathing, insightful and ultimately uplifting look at the challenges of being a professional woman in a male-dominated field. Performed barefoot on a bare stage with only a chair and small table, writer/performer and “recovering mathematician” Gioia De Cari brings to life more than 30 characters in a hilarious and deeply touching performance that has earned raves from critics and stirred audiences to standing ovations.

Truth Values is an ideal conversation starter about issues concerning women in math and science. An impressive collection of academic luminaries has been attracted to participate in talk-backs held thus far, including Michael Sipser, Department Chair, Mathematics, M.I.T.; Nancy Hopkins, Professor of Biology, M.I.T.;
Melissa Franklin, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics, Harvard; Margaret Geller, Senior Scientist, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory; Abigail Stewart, Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, and Virginia Valian, Professor of Psychology, Hunter College, and author of Why So Slow?
The Advancement of Women.

On using female pronouns

This is a shoutout to all the guys out there who use the female pronoun in philosophical conversations about hypothetical cases, such as, “Consider a mathematician who believes there are infinitely many primes, and suppose further that she has nominalistic sympathies…”

Thanks! It really helps to dissipate that “outsider feeling.”

What Northwestern is Doing About What It’s Like

Axel Mueller writes:

Under the somewhat silly but effective name “WiPhi” (pronounced ‘wye-fye’, like the wireless technology certificate), at the department of philosophy at Northwestern, we started an initiative. “WiPhi” stands for ‘Women Into Philosophy’, so it captures [when read as a directive] the desire to get more women to join who really would like to do philosophy as well as [when read descriptively] the only entry-requirement and common trait of those already in philosophy, viz. being into philosophy. Finally, it could also be read as a directive to search for the readings, writings, work, contributions of women to philosophy and bring them into, e.g., one’s curriculum or syllabus. I told you it was sort of silly. Here’s what the initiative consists in: (1) An all-women, cross-career-stage group that holds quarterly ‘plenary’ meetings that the department is committed to funding as regards coffee and snacks; these group-meetings have no particular structure prescribed, but we suggested that they choose something either reading-group or work-group like, or may be even a theme connected to class-material that the group would like to get a deeper insight into. Getting the female graduates and faculty on board was, as one might imagine, easy, but getting female Undergrads/majors involved is more of a challenge; I could count on the support of the Undergraduate Philosophy Society and our female staff to send around messages, reminders, and so on, to publicize and make known the presence of this initiative. As of now (a month into the thing), numbers keep growing as word gets out. (2) In between these plenary meetings, we hope for a natural “buddy-system” to grow between the more senior and the younger women in the group that provides for continuous cohesion and mutual support among the members, and thus to foster the emergence fo some sort of group-identification and -structure. (3) To set a claer and unmistakable sign of the department’s commitment for women in philosophy, and also to stimulate a middle-term project for the emerging group to work on, we have secured funding for a lecture, towards the end of the academic year, of a Great Women in Philosophy, whom the group selects, invites and hosts. The particulars of the hosting process here are important, as the group will interact with this great woman philosopher in a brunch, a dinner and a workshop for WiPhi members only, before the speaker gives the aggressively marketed public “Gertrude Bussey Lecture” (Gertrude Bussey was the first female PhD, in fact, the first PhD awarded at NU philosophy, and she became president of the WILFP [Jane Addams' institution], so that we have a role model right at the start, and a story to tell, but also to live up to and a narrative of women in philosophy at NU to continue and re-create). These activities, as well as the speaker honorarium and accommodation are sponsored, again, by the department (although I am currently casting around for more involvement by the Humanities Center, the College and the University) but to be entirely determined by WiPhi itself. (4) We (erm, that’d currently be mainly me, but hopes are that this gets on its own feet soon) also take care of continuously keeping the community at the department aware that WiPhi is around, in order to let it be known that the fly in the ointment of male-dominated environs isn’t tired yet. As to the atmospheric change, this proved to be quite important, since it’s an easy to capture element in the environs, which increases the energy of female passers-by and members of the community and discourages conitnuing male misbehavior or unawareness on the basis of just going on as usual. (5) Finally, we are also lucky to begin this initiative at the point where oe of our graduates, Rebecca Mason, acts as the host organizer of the Midwestern SWIP in November, which, in featuring speakers at all career-stages, has already been found by the members of WiPhi I talked to as a major and much anticipated event. (Lesson: hosting some sort of conference, talk, event seems to be most envigorating for UG students, since it makes them aware of beign part of something that’s bigger and more academic and important than a simple department coffee-klatsh.)

Let me know of ways to improve this, and to add or subtract infrastructure. I just wanted to post this so others may see that with a couple of relatively small and simple commitments and infrastructural tweaks, a lot can happen. Of course, it always takes some energetic people; but be sure: the energy is around, it just needs to be tapped into. E.g. our (all-female, what would you extpect, …) staff is totally on board and enthused, and this percolates really quickly to students (along the “have you already heard of” mechanism); one of them created our logo for the messages and postings, etc. It just takes a starting, and then awareness and mindfulness to capture just how much want there is for things to change. Given the obviousness of the 30% vs 70% distribution, this degree of want is high, guaranteed.

Making female students feel included

A senior male faculty member in my department goes out of his way to ask follow up questions in colloquium when myself or another female M&E graduate student speaks up. He and another junior male faculty member often make a point of socializing with the female graduate students in a way that explicitly demonstrates how very much a part of the department, and in particular, the M&E cohort, we are. The department isn’t perfect — but the overtness of those relationships between female graduate students and male M&E faculty makes the department feel overwhelmingly safe, regardless of the few ill-behaved philosophers. They ask us what we think, they back us up when we speak up, and they identify with us as philosophers, in both formal and informal settings. It’s awesome.

Cross-posted here.

On speaking up

A small but happy story: A male acquaintance of mine recently said something very inappropriate to a female friend. All three of us are grad students (I’m also a woman), and his comment was in a professional setting and was way out of line.

My friend was very upset, and so was I when she told me the story. But I felt that the guy really didn’t understand why what he had said was problematic, and that he deserved to have a chance to understand. After that, I felt, how he reacted was on him.

So I decided to talk to him about it. I was VERY nervous about this, and I felt totally awkward at first. (And I’d already spent a few weeks feeling like I should broach this subject, but chickening out, and feeling worse and worse about it.)

But I explained to him why I thought what he had said was really damaging, and told him a personal story about how my own intellectual confidence had been negatively affected by an experience that, while different in its particulars, also involved having my gender suddenly made very salient to me in an academic setting.

And he totally got it! He felt very embarrassed, ashamed even, and apologized quite sincerely to my friend. I respect him for how he reacted. And my friend and I both ended up feeling very good about the experience. Sticking up for her, even though it felt frightening, has now made me feel more confident too.

I’m telling this story in the hopes that it will help someone who might be feeling like I was for all those weeks, when I wanted to say something but didn’t have the confidence. Sometimes it goes well.

Seeking out women speakers

As a graduate student I prefer to remain anonymous, but I wanted to share an encouraging story concerning conference speakers.

Last (academic) year a male colleague and I organized a conference meant to create a dialog between philosophers and members of another (also predominantly male) discipline. Though about half of our accepted papers were from female speakers our two keynotes were both male. When we began organizing a second version of the conference for next year my colleague insisted that we seek out at least one female keynote speaker. I was impressed with his diligence in tracking down an excellent female scholar (especially given how few people period are publishing in relevant areas) and with the fact that he addressed the issue without any pushing or cajoling from me.