Back from my holiday, I had planned first to blog on something not related to feminism (namely about the intuition-based methodology in philosophy and reasoning biases). But after Mark’s post of today, I figured this was a good time to 'not just fucking sit there' and talk about an idea I’ve been contemplating for a while in the spirit of the gendered conference campaign of the Feminist Philosophers.
Here’s the idea. I was thinking of how one could actually apply some additional ‘pressure’ on conference organizers on the matter of gender balance and keynote speakers. So far what we’ve been doing is talking about it in a nice, not-too-confrontational way, and I really think this is a very good approach. But what else could be done? So I came to the idea that conference organizers are highly sensitive to the willingness to participate on the part of the MALE keynote speakers they invite. Now, my impression is that at least some well-established, highly regarded male philosophers who receive constant invitations to be keynotes at conferences believe it would be important to promote gender balance in the profession. (I can think of at least some ‘big names’ who in personal communication expressed their concern with the issue.)
So my suggestion is that these people, when invited to be keynote speakers at conferences, could inquire as to whether the organizers intend to invite a significant number of female speakers for the same event as well. I’m not suggesting that they should outright decline the invitation if that’s not the case, but simply suggest that the presence of female keynotes is an important element for a variety of reasons etc etc., and perhaps suggest some names themselves. In other words, my idea is that, upon an invitation to be a keynote speaker, male philosophers should (or could) politely inquire into the gender proportion of the speakers’ line-up, and suggest that it would be important to have a significant number of women. Again, I don’t think 50% is a realistic figure at this point (at least not in most sub-areas of philosophy), but myself I always try to achieve at least something like 30% of female representation in the events I organize.
Does that sound like something feasible, something that could work out? Now talking to you, highly regarded ‘big shot’ male philosopher: is this something you’d be willing to try? Somehow it seems to me that this could be an interesting addition to the measures already being taken to redress gender imbalance in the profession. I’d appreciate your thoughts on the matter!
(Needless to say, it would be equally important to implement similar measures with respect to other under-represented groups among philosophers. But I am afraid that, with respect to these other groups, the situation of imbalance is so dismaying that we haven’t even gotten to the point where something like this could seriously be attempted.)
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