"What I support are aggressive means for confronting the fact that too many philosophy conferences and volumes are exclusively male. I had originally liked (and I continue to support) the Gendered Conference Campaign's nonconfrontational approach, which highlighted those conferences and volumes that are exclusively male, without raising the issue of the causes of this sort of non-inclusivness -- with the twin aims of raising awareness of this issue, and getting good-hearted people to adopt a more inclusive policy going forward. Still, given the extent of philosophy's "gender problem," I believe that something further can and should be done -- especially by those of us who are in a good position to change things (e.g. mid-career or above). A proposal to have people commit to not accepting invitations to events/volumes that are not gender-inclusive strikes me as a great idea in this regard; this aspect of your petition resonated with me. Admittedly, one might reasonably worry (as some have) about the precise form that the commitment takes. For this reason I wonder whether your petition might be more effective if it called on people to decline invitations from conferences/volumes that are "unrepresentative" in their gender-inclusiveness, rather than using the numbers you used ("We call on all senior male philosophers to refuse invitations to keynote at conferences with two or more keynotes none of which are women.") Still, I do not want this worry (over the best way to formulate an actionable and realistic goal) to obscure the fact that I wholeheartedly endorse your petition's main idea to get folks -- again, especially those of us who are mid-career or beyond -- to put our money where our mouth is, by having some way to signal in advance that we do not accept invitations that are not properly representative gender-wise. (I say this having learned the lesson the hard way: it was brought to my attention that I accepted several such invitations in the last two years alone. While I have honored and will honor those commitments, I have resolved not to do this again.) This sort of "signaling" will help our community change more rapidly than it otherwise would. For this reason I would urge my philosophy colleagues to consider making some sort of commitment to inclusiveness in the invitations they accept."--Sandy Goldberg (Northwestern)
The petition is here (with nearly 800 signatures); the call for action is here; the Gendered Conference Campaign is here.
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