Where are the Women in Philosophy?

"[T]he relation of male to female is by nature a relation of superior to inferior and ruler to ruled.” This quote is from Aristotle, arguably the greatest philosopher of all-time, in his book Politics. These beginnings of philosophy suggest why there are a paucity of females in philosophy.

When discussing women in philosophy, the two philosophers that come to mind are typically Hypatia and Simone De Beaviour. However, there are a multitude of names that are brought up when discussing male philosophers.

It is important to recognize that in 404 B.C.E women did not have the same rights and opportunities that women have now. Women were not allowed to go to school or practice philosophy as they were supposed to be in the home raising children.

However, there are still few women in philosophy today. Women make up less than 20 percent of full-time faculty in philosophy departments. In philosophy classes, the amount of female students decreases as the difficulty of the subject matter increases. While it is typical for some fields to cater more to a certain gender, this lack of female involvement is expected in STEM fields and not in liberal arts or humanities, which tend to be female dominated. There has been a lot of speculation as to why philosophy is the outlier in the humanities.

In an article by National Public Radio, “Name Five Women In Philosophy. Bet You Can’t,” it was reported that female students felt less able and likely to succeed in philosophy. They were also less comfortable participating in class discussions and less inclined to take another philosophy course or to pick up philosophy as a major or minor.

There is also a high possibility for women being deterred from pursuing philosophy after a mandatory introductory course. Women are seeing a lack of representation and possibly can not relate to the theories they are being taught.

Additionally, most women that do go into philosophy will chose to focus their studies and research in feminism versus other branches of philosophy. While it has been made obvious that there are still great efforts to be made in feminism, why aren’t women focusing on logic or ethics instead? Both provide the socially applicable aspect that feminism does.

In a series of essays published by the New York Times in 2013 on the topic of women philosophers, Sally Haslanger, a philosophy professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the president of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, wrote about her struggles as a female philosopher.

Haslanger said that Any notification of her career as a philosopher would be followed with laughter. “Once when I queried why the laughter, the response was, ‘I think of philosophers as old men with beards, and you’re definitely not that! You’re too young and attractive to be a philosopher,’” said Haslanger. “I’m sure he intended this as a compliment. But I stopped giving the answer ‘I’m a philosopher.’”

It is difficult to find a solution to the absence of women philosophers. While efforts are made in getting more women interested and encouraged to enter a STEM field, this humanities field is in dire need of more women.