The announcement for the conference “Philosophy of Biology in the UK” has been circulated on Philos-L (as far as I can see, no website for the event yet). Sadly, it is yet again a conference with an all-male lineup of keynote speakers (five, to be exact). Since reading the announcement, I’ve been trying to think of UK-based female philosophers of biology, but (except for the two women involved in the organization of the event) could only come up with names of people working elsewhere (admittedly, not really my field, so there may well be obvious people I am failing to remember; plus, I was interpreting 'philosophy of biology' in a fairly narrow way). There is a good number of female philosophers of biology doing interesting work, but admittedly I was mostly thinking of people based in the US. (Notice however that one of the keynote speakers is listed with an Australian affiliation, so presumably the UK restriction is not that strict.)
So perhaps women are even more under-represented in philosophy of biology than in other sub-fields of philosophy, in the UK in particular. (I find it particularly puzzling in light of the fact that biology is actually an area with a much better gender balance than philosophy itself.) Does this make a conference with the title “Philosophy of Biology in the UK” and an all-male lineup of speakers more acceptable? I submit that it does not, in fact much to the contrary. Such a lineup not only reflects but in fact also reinforces the sociological phenomenon in question (if indeed it is a real phenomenon); it is precisely in situations like this that ensuring a non-all-male lineup arguably becomes even more important.
So here again, I suggest that conference organizers must try their best to be creative: perhaps by inviting the up-and-coming female philosopher of biology who is doing great work but is not yet seen as one of the senior people in the field, or perhaps by inviting a biologist whose work intersects with philosophy (the description of the workshop says: “to bring together UK researchers whose work intersects philosophy and biology”). Naturally, it may well be that women were invited but declined, but as argued before here at New APPS and elsewhere, that’s somewhat besides the point: the outcome is still problematic.
Since this is advertised as the first in a series of conferences, it is to be hoped that future installments will not follow the lead of this first event, and will have a more prominent presence of female philosophers (two of the organizers are women, btw). It is also to be hoped that female philosophers of biology will not be discouraged by the all-male lineup and will submit papers, given that (despite the absence of female keynotes) it looks like it will be a great event.
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