Philosophers’ volume 16, no. 6 1. When do women leave philosophy? Imprint march 2016 In 2012 in the United States, for every 100 men graduating with a col- lege degree, 141 women graduated.1 For decades now, more women have been enrolled in American universities than men. Yet, during these same decades, the proportion of women who major in philos- ophy has remained stagnant, hovering below one-third. So, while al- WHY DO WOMEN LEAVE most 60% of college graduates are now women, only 30% of philoso- phy majors are women (Department of Education, 2013; Paxton et al., 2012). In the humanities, religion and theology (35.6%) is the closest PHILOSOPHY? SURVEYING major to philosophy when it comes to the underrepresentation of fe- male majors. Among all majors, the only ones with similarly low ratios are economics (31%), physics (19.7%), computer science (22%), and en- gineering (20%).2 STUDENTS AT THE With women getting just 30% of philosophy bachelor’s degrees, it’s no surprise that the ratio of women to men is so low among philos- ophy graduate students (30%) and professors (20.7%) (Paxton et al., INTRODUCTORY LEVEL 2012; Norlock, 2012).3 The underrepresentation and treatment of fe- male graduate students and professors in philosophy has, for good rea- son, received increasing attention in recent years. But there has been limited discussion, and very few empirical investigations, of why so Morgan Thompson∗, Toni Adleberg†, Sam many women say goodbye to philosophy just after being introduced to it. In this article, we offer our initial attempts to gather data to test Sims‡, Eddy Nahmias§ various hypotheses aimed at answering this question and to suggest University of Pittsburgh∗, University of California, San Diego†, 1. Project was conceived by TA and MT; survey was written and data collected ‡ § by MT, TA, and EN; statistical analyses were conducted and described by SS; Florida State University , Georgia State University paper was written by MT and EN. 2. Data compiled by Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System and accessed via WebCASPAR (https://webcaspar.nsf.gov/) using the 2013 © 2016, Thompson, Adleberg, Sims, and Nahmias NCEJ data set. 3. There is no systematic data on the gender proportion of graduate school ap- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons plicants or of first-year graduate students in philosophy. The number of faculty Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License includes both full-time and part-time instructors. Women make up only 17% of full-time faculty in philosophy departments (Norlock, 2012). The proportion <www.philosophersimprint.org/016006/> of female graduate students in philosophy is lower than all fields except for music theory and composition, physics, and engineering and roughly equal to mathematics and religious studies (Healy, 2011). thompson, adleberg, sims, and nahmias Why Do Women Leave Philosophy? some ways to increase the number of women who continue in philoso- Men and women likely enter college and their introductory philos- phy after their introductory courses, ideally while also improving the ophy classes with different opinions about, and levels of interest in, philosophy classroom for all students.4 the philosophy major.6 However, because philosophy is rarely taught Paxton, Figdor, and Tiberius( 2012) investigated the underrepresen- in high school in the U.S., most students’ first exposure to the sub- tation of women across various levels in the profession. In their sam- ject is in their introductory college course, and most students likely ple of over 50 universities, they examined potential drop-off points in choose to major in philosophy — or not to — only after taking such women’s representation in philosophy: between introductory courses a course. Hence, introductory philosophy courses are likely to be the and majoring, between majoring and going to graduate school, and most significant point in turning students toward, or away from, phi- between attending graduate school and becoming a faculty member. losophy. For these reasons, we primarily examine hypotheses focused They found that the only statistically significant drop-off in women’s on college-level courses, though some of them may be useful in influ- representation was between the introductory courses (43%) and ma- encing perceptions of philosophy at the pre-college level. We focus on joring in philosophy (35%). This finding suggests that women dispro- what happens in the Introduction to Philosophy classroom because we portionally drop out of philosophy after taking one or two courses. At believe that this is one of the most useful places to intervene on various Georgia State University (GSU), where we did our research, we found a factors that may increase the number of women who want to continue similar trend. Although women take Introduction to Philosophy (55%) in philosophy. We think intro-level instructors are in a unique position at a rate proportional to women’s undergraduate enrollment at GSU to set the tone for students regarding what philosophy is, how it is (60%), women make up a significantly smaller proportion of philoso- done, and what it is good for. We also believe that finding ways to phy majors (38–41% from 2006–2011).5 make introductory courses more interesting and appealing to women 4. The initial focus of our research was on gender disparities in philosophy, 6. See Baron, Dougherty, and Miller( 2015) for evidence that women in Aus- but we also used our study to examine hypotheses for why Blacks are less tralia enter introductory philosophy classrooms already less interested in ma- likely than Whites to major in philosophy, presumably one of the contributing joring compared to men. In work examining why women are less interested factors to the dismally low proportion of Black graduate students and faculty in philosophy than men before college, Dobbs( 2015) reports data from the in philosophy (see Botts et al. 2014). Our initial data suggest that there are Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) showing that from 2004–2009, out some overlapping problems and solutions to the gender and race disparities, of over 2 million students (55.7% women) enrolling in U.S. colleges and uni- but we also think there are important differences. Finally, there may be some versities, 4,838 men and 2,463 women declared philosophy as their intended problems and solutions uniquely impacting Black women. Issues regarding major (totaling just 0.33% of the students surveyed). Hence, of the (very few) race are discussed in a separate paper, see Thompson, Bright, and Kummerfeld students entering college with the intention to major in philosophy, only 33.7% (ms). For a discussion of one empirical test for intersectional hypotheses, see are women. Very few high schools teach philosophy, with the exception of some Bright, Malinksy, and Thompson( 2015). private schools and International Baccalaureate programs that offer a course 5. Interestingly, the proportion of women philosophy majors at GSU has called Theory of Knowledge. A few high schools offer Philosophy clubs, and trended upward since 2011 and is currently at 52%, explained by a roughly there exist some excellent outreach programs (e.g., the Outreach Program at the proportional increase in the number of women majoring and decrease in the University of North Carolina, Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization number of men majoring. This period corresponds to the period when we de- (PLATO), High-Phi, Ethics Bowl). Aymelek( 2015) and Chan et al. (ms.) pro- veloped and carried out the research discussed below, including more discus- vide qualitative evidence that women who continue in philosophy were often sion among the instructors of Introduction to Philosophy about attempts to exposed to philosophy before beginning introductory coursework. We discuss increase the diversity of the major and the proportion of women on the syl- in Section 5 possibilities for altering the image and gender schema of philos- labus and showing a presentation on the value of philosophy in every Intro ophy such that it might influence students’ impressions of the discipline even class (see Section 4.4 below). before they get to college. philosophers’ imprint - 2 - vol. 16, no. 6 (march 2016) thompson, adleberg, sims, and nahmias Why Do Women Leave Philosophy? will likely improve the courses for everyone and that it is the most sulting in a looping effect (Saul, 2013) — the speculative mechanism effective way to increase the number of women in philosophy at all by which fewer women continue in philosophy due to the already low career stages. number of women in the field, which in turn perpetuates the low num- bers of women in the field. When talented women leave philosophy 2. Why it’s problematic that women leave philosophy (opting instead to study psychology, sociology, literature, education, Before we consider what causes, and what might be done about, the etc.), the philosophy profession loses out on the high quality of work underrepresentation of women in philosophy, we want to say a little that would have been performed by those individuals had they contin- about why it is problematic. ued in philosophy. First, women may be underperforming in philosophy or simply Some feminist philosophers have argued that diversifying the de- avoiding philosophy classes altogether because of stereotype threat, mographics of philosophy will bring with it more diversity in philo- which occurs when implicit or explicit stereotypes about one’s self- sophical content and methods. It is an empirical question whether identified group (e.g., gender or race) influence one’s performance. women philosophers disproportionately prefer certain areas of philos- Psychological research shows that women experience stereotype threat ophy, methodologies, or topics. But if these philosophers are correct, (see Section 5) in a number of contexts, especially when they are un- then philosophy may be missing out on a variety of fruitful method- derrepresented, which in turn makes women perform worse than they ologies, arguments, and research questions.