A professor writes:
I get the sense that women are disproportionately serving in their institutions, if not in their profession. I suspect that most of this is the result of nothing but the very best intentions - in fact, the kind of intentions that the GCC is promoting: namely, that women be represented significantly in professional activities. People think consciously about how a committee, or a task force, or some other form of service ought not consist solely of men. However, because women are under-represented in the profession and in many institutions, this means that women are asked more frequently to serve. It's a matter of a wonderful intention gone awry. I am worried about this on three fronts. Most practically, if women say 'yes' to these invitations as often as men do, with the same practical considerations as men do, they will nevertheless serve more often than men do. Second, how does this figure into the kind of arguments we are seeing about women having been invited to this or that, but declining? People haven't been asking why these women are declining. Third, as you note, a conference organized by a woman with an unfortunate all-male main speaker lineup is better on the whole (given our present circumstances) than a conference organized by a man with an unfortunate all-male male speaker lineup. However, if women serve disproportionately, for example, in terms of organizing conferences, can the kinds of solutions we are offering exacerbate the problem? That is, are women disproportionately involved in organizing philosophical spaces in which they are not represented as main speakers? These really are questions, not statements.
Thoughts from readers? My sense is that women do serve disproportionately in their institutions and in the profession. Mark Lance had some similar thoughts on this. He pointed out that approximately half of the undergraduate students are women. Young women tend to gravitate to female faculty as mentors. So female faculty will tend to be busier than their male colleagues with letter writing, meeting students in their office, and so on. Like the reader, Mark also noted that many committees want to ensure that women are represented. So the few women in each department will tend to serve on more committees than their colleagues.
A further interesting point mentioned by the reader is that it could be that women sometimes turn down invitations to speak because they contribute more to the profession than their male colleagues. For example, if they are more actively involved in organizing conferences, then they might not have the time to accept invitations to travel and give talks.
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