Glad this paper made your post! I thought it was right up your alley.
One thought I had about why continental phil might be more open to feminist philosophy/philosophy of race, etc. stems from the following:
"As we saw before, the schema for philosophy presents it as hyper-rational, objective, masculine. The schema for feminist philosophy surely associates it with women and femininity and codes it as emotional, political, and non-objective."
Continental philosophy, postmodernism especially, set about to deliberately challenge the illusion of the legitimacy of the priveleged position of hyper-rationality and a-political objectivity. It has embraced, even in non "feminist" work, the value of the emotional, the role of the political, and has questioned the possibility of objectivity. So it makes some sense that Continental philosophers would be (somewhat) more open to feminist and race based analyses of philosophy. (I say somewhat because I know of one continentally influenced program at one competitive liberal arts college that has no women professors because they "just can't find a qualified one"; and then there are the Heideggerians at one PA University who think that feminist readings of Aristotle are bad because they're interpretive and hence biased...Heideggerian readings are not interpretive? Hello?)
Okay, so now I'm rambling. My one other thought is how interesting it is that the styles of analytic argumentation better fit the Sophistic ideal than the Socratic. We've not come a long way, have we?
Whoops, thought number three. The concept of "schema" was very welcome, because it works better than "stereotype" in trying to explain what's wrong with so much in evolutionary psychological explanations of gendered behavior (what women want, what men want, why women's bodies are the way they are, etc etc etc).
P.S. Did you look at the appendix where # of female full, assoc, and asst profs at "Leiter report" top universities were recorded? The number of women in philosophy actually seems to be going DOWN (inferred by comparing full and assoc with asst positions). Of course, we'd have to see how many new hires at the asst level in those places were made recently, but 0 female asst profs at Berkeley? (And that wasn't the only one)
This actually makes me feel better, since I was just preparing lecture notes on my American Philosophy course. I emphasize the priority of the relational and processive, rather than the fixed and eternal. This has always struck me as a more 'feminine' (said with irony) way of going at it. It apparently has the added advantage of being less of an asshole way of doing philosophy. Hopefully, I will convince some women to major.
I'm out of the fray these days, but I am still very concerned about these matters.
I think the real issue is jobs, grants, and tenure and who gets them. The confusion comes about because the subject matter philosophers deal with becomes the focus of concern and appears to be what is causing the discrimination. Is it feminist theory that's the problem, say, or is it really women getting the goodies?
When I was at Penn as a junior faculty member and told a senior colleague that I was going to be married (to another philosopher, Stephen Yablo, then at UM), his response was, “Oh, I’m so sorry we’ll be losing you.” This was in 1989.
O.K., I'm totally dense. I don't get it. What the hell does that mean? By getting married you'll necessarily be quiting your job? Why would that follow? Especially since a teaching position accommodates having a family (even if kids are in order, that doesn't necessarily follow either, but making the assumption) more than a lot of professions. If I hadn't paused and thought about it, I wouldn't even know what was implied.
The goal is not to help make sense of the argument, explore the argument, and see if it helps us get closer to understanding about some phenomena.
Wait, but isn't this precisely what philosophy is about? I thought part of the tradition was to give a rather generous reading, and see if there is still something of value, something worth keeping and utilizing even if the argument as given was a total wash. Boy, is there ever academic egg on my face.
O.K., I'm totally dense. I don't get it. What the hell does that mean? By getting married you'll necessarily be quiting your job? Why would that follow?
It follows because Michigan is far away from Penn. Yablo was invited to UM as a full professor w/tenure.
And in point of fact, while they kept up their long distance relationship for a while (maybe a year, maybe 2, I cant remember), Sally did move to UM when UM offered her a spot. She was not going to get tenure at Penn (I know some people did not think she was a good philosopher), and I think she knew it.
Yablo is a much bigger star, but I always thought Sally was an excellent philosopher, and I thought Penn was making a mistake... but its hard to get tenure at Penn.
This is one issue that will fade, but probably never entirely disappear. Fact is, most people entering philosophy graduate schools are now women. They do penetrating, seminal, rigorous philosophy. They do namby pamby continental philosophy... (kidding!), they do M&E, logic, etc.
Where i went to graduate school, it was dominated by incoming men in the beginning, but not when I left. PhDs created were men by and large, but not when I left. When the pool of available women gets that large, it cant help but change the job dynamics.
Okay, so now I'm rambling. My one other thought is how interesting it is that the styles of analytic argumentation better fit the Sophistic ideal than the Socratic. We've not come a long way, have we?
This seems odd. First, Socrates was frequently accused of simply trying to win the argument (Rep Book 1, Gorgias 461c, etc. etc.). Second,
The goal, for the audience, is to leave you bloody and eviscerated. Look for the weaknesses of the argument and bring the whole thing down, rather than help the author shore up those weaknesses.
seems to describe Socrates quite well. He certainly does not help Hippias, Gorgias, Polus, Callicles, Thrasymachus, poor helpless Euthyphro, but instead tears them down. He also seems to take delight in doing so, mocking them left and right along the way ("Polus, why don't you answer? Polus? answer yes or no...") when he does shore up their answers, it is only to point them towards either his own view or to his own confusion.
If the rational/tear down model of philosophy is masculine, surely Socrates was the epitome.
Hanno:
Thank you for the clarification. Reading it through the lens of a "sexist" view, I jumped to the wrong conclusion. Had things turned out differently, maybe she would have stayed. How's that for a terribly vague and weak modal claim?
And I like Socratic-assaults. They're fun. But I see no place for them in open discourse or a classroom setting. Attacking an opponent or student doesn't seem to do nearly as much good as a dispassionate debate. Of course, I suck at dispassionate debating, so maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree.
Wel, he was frequently attacked for that, but that doesn't make it true. As you are well aware, those are dialogues, and things that come out of people's mouths are frequently set up as foils for considering what exactly is going on.
He doesn't tear everyone down, he questions the overconfident, the prideful, the snide, and those who he believes aren't terribly focused on the problem of what the truth is. Since you bring up Eutyphro (great example, by the way), Socrates most certainly does try to help Euthyphro. He suggests that piety is a subset of justice. He's not trying to eviscerate E's argument, he's trying to get him to stop and think about his reasons for action before he does a rash and stupid thing like prosecute his father for murder.
Now, of course these dialogues are open to interpretation, given that there are no stage directions or explicit indications of how some line should be read (as there would be in a script). So I actually find it more interesting that you, Hanno, would read Socrates as trying to eviscerate and destroy people, while I read him differently, namely challenging them to think and enquire more deeply. After all, a gadfly is not the same thing as a rampaging lion, bloody claws extended.
OK, I might be reading this wrong, but if gender is part of the frame of philosophy, then is not there really two kinds (at least) of philosophy, philosophy as men do it and philosophy as women do it, one argumentative and rational and tearing down opponents, the other nurturing, emotional building? If so, then there is not philosophy, but philosophy(M) and philosophy(W), and then are we not saying that the sexists are basically right, women cannot do philosophy(M)? Women do not succeed in philosophy because philosophy departments (or just the top ones?) are all philosophy(M) departments? Or if they can do it, they are not 'drawn' to it... which again is exactly what some sexists say?
The sexist may well tack on 'And philosophy(M) is all there is,' but I think the argument is already problematic. Like the supposedly non-competitive womanly nature ('Women don't like competitive sports, its too competitive, and they don't like to sweat either, which is why there women do not play sports'), which was shown false by the success of title IX, why not call bullshit on the whole thing?
The reality of sex discrimination in philosophy is real. The existence of genderized philosophy is bogus. Let's not conflate the two, nor confuse personal tastes with gender differences. Lets encourage women to follow their M&E desires, and their attacking competitive desires if they have 'em.
challenging them to think and enquire more deeply.
He does that, but I think he does it by tearing their views and defenses apart... and hence lead them, like the slave boy in the Meno, to the truth... to Socrates own views.
Euthyphro is in no way helped by the discussion, leaves with exactly the same view that he started with, and Socrates mocks him for deserting Socrates in Socrates hour of need, though it is obvious Socrates is not going to learn the nature of piety from Euthyphro, and indeed that Euthyphro does not know that nature.
My point about Socrates intentions was not whether it is true or not, but that the same critique of the apa conference crowd was made of Socrates himself. But intentions are hard to decipher, and the crowd may well be interested in the truth as they devour an argument.
Socrates is interested in the truth... but he gets there by tearing apart arguments. And I suspect he enjoyed it. Again, when Socrates does 'help' his interlocutor, he always leads them not to the interlocutors own views, but more towards Socrates. After all, the only views which survive the elenchus are the ones Socrates has been espousing all along, that it is always better to be just, etc (Gorgias).
He certainly does not attack everyone, only those filled with hubris who claim to know.
I don't think he wants to destroy people. I think he wants to destroy hubris. I think he enjoys it. And I think it is in the service of truth (but that the truth looks suspiciously like Socrates' own beliefs). Midwifery comes with a lot of pain. The pain is created by Socrates argumentation, and I think Socrates is merciless until his interlocutor gives up.
"So I actually find it more interesting that you, Hanno, would read Socrates as trying to eviscerate and destroy people, while I read him differently, namely challenging them to think and enquire more deeply"
How much of a difference is there in behavior between these two?
While Socrates certainly exhibits a snide side in the dialogues, I also agree that he is legitimately seeking the truth in both his own views and in the views of others. The snideness and interest in reducing popularly held views to rubble does not conflict with that.
More to the point, I think there is certainly a distinction to be made between people tearing down an argument in the pursuit of truth and tearing it down to flex one's ego. That's more or less just saying that there are assholes in the field. No surprise, there are some everywhere. But, at least in my experience, it is more common that one is attacking an argument ultimately in the interests of sorting truth from falsity, or promising research projects from dead-ends.
My point ultimately is that there is a question of (a) intention and (b) style. Attacking arguments need not imply assholian intentions. Further, the practice of attacking arguments need not rule out argument rehabilitation. The brush is a bit too wide in this case. Drawing a straight line between (a), (b) and analytic philosophers simply muddies the waters on a number of different things.
It sounds like the article is describing political science departments, especially the description of how female graduate students (mature!) are perceived and unconsciously dismissed as real contenders. PS also suffers with gendered subfields, and if the work is not mainstream enough, which doesn't get published in the "top" journals which only public mainstream work, there is a the professional ranking hit in addition to the collegial culture hit. The APSA committee on women put out a report a few years ago that discussed how women who focused on international issues (read: less statistical data) were especially penalized. Maybe you all in philosophy need a Mr. Perestroika type phenomenon.
The slave boy is a GREAT example because it exhibits such a stark contrast to Meno. Socrates shows the boy where he is mistaken, but he engages in none of the ironic play that he does with Meno (or Euthyphro, btw.). Why? Because the boy is honestly engaged in the dialogue with no egotistical pretensions. I'd have no beef with someone in my audience at a conference showing me I was wrong in the manner in which Socrates shows the boy he is wrong. There is nothing eviscerating in that example.
Now, Socrates may mock E in passing for failing to help Socrates, but he spends a good more of his closing lines telling E that if he stuck around he wouldn't be doing things like run off to prosecute his father when he had no knowledge of what piety was. That's the real crime Euthyphro is committing.
"How much of a difference is there in behavior between these two?"
I think there's a ton of difference. Why must someone be destroyed in order to be urged to enquire into something more deeply? I try to engage in a Socratic method of questioning with my students, but I don't try to embarrass them or make them feel silly when they express an idea that has flaws in it.
There is nothing eviscerating in that example.
We are by and large in agreement. 1) But the slave boy does think he knows the truth, and the argument shows he is wrong, and that is painful, and without the follow up discussion leading him to the truth, he would merely be shown that he is wrong. Like Euthyphro. And most of our students get the sense that Socrates can be an ass. And I think it is important for Plato to show how arrogant Socrates was, not so we would imitate him, but so that we see why so many people were pissed at him. If he taught people like he taught the slave boy, no one would want to kill him.
I think the Meno is a middle dialogue, precisely because Plato is showing us where he thought Socrates the jerk was leading: Socrates the truth seeker. But I do not think that is at all apparent in the early dialogues... which is why they killed him.
And I think Jeff is right. The line can be crossed, but most of the time, the cross examiners are interested in the truth, or in things which survive the elenchus. They probably also enjoy showing off. But after all, as Thrasymachus says, what does it matter to the argument if I believe it or not?
"I think there's a ton of difference. Why must someone be destroyed in order to be urged to enquire into something more deeply? I try to engage in a Socratic method of questioning with my students, but I don't try to embarrass them or make them feel silly when they express an idea that has flaws in it."
That seems to me to be another move to intention, which is precisely my point. I still think it is a mistake to run together the method of Socratic questioning and the intentions of engaging in it.
The intentions will determine how hard you push on an argument, for certain. With undergraduates, you will tend to be more gentle, since the aim is engaging the students in critical thinking. With colleagues, one will push harder, because your goal is truth moreso than process. Now, certainly, some people also have the intention of staking out territory or embarassing someone, but those are fringe cases I think.
My point is a simple one really, that attacking and breaking down arguments amongst philosophers need not involve bad intentions, and often is aimed at truth.
In the end, you all seem to be agreeing that getting at the truth (should it be a big-T Truth here or a little-t truth here? I'm not sure) is good, and making people cry is generally bad.
But remember: ringing cellphone + Hanno's class = death. This is not debatable.
I put that in my syllabus once.
In the end, what fascinates me is how rich the dialogues are. It's not exactly a Rorscharch, but there's way more to work with there than in a straightforward argument. Good ol' Plato!
We could go on for days with our differing interpretations, so I won't continue this line here. I would be curious, though, how Spaz interprets Socrates and the method. Maybe if Maddie stops crying for a few minutes she'll have time to pound out a comment. 
one of my close friends just started her master's in philosophy. there's only one other woman in her program. and about 25 men. we were both utterly disappointed to find this.
Thanks for the link to a very interesting article. I however think that the best way to tackle this inequality is to take it head on. When people say why are there so few women in science we cannot escape by arguments that discredit the validity of science. I think the more women break into the realm of analytical philosophy the inequity would gradually disappear. I like reading philosophy and identify myself as a feminist but it is analytical philosophy that I love the best and if at all I decide to take courses it would be in that area. But this article you linked to definitely broadened my scope!
For what it's worth, I don't think analytic philosophy is all 'philosophy as bloodsport'. The other leading approach, 'philosophy as workshop', shows up a lot too.
And I'm told that East Coast schools tend to be much more hyper-aggressive than everyone else. I suspect Haslanger's experience is very different from mine, just due to her time in East Coast schools.
Leaving gender issues aside, I think there are strong reasons for preferring the workshop approach to the bloodsport approach. You don't lose anything in clarity and precision and rigor, etc., you gain a lot in charity and depth, and you leave emotional crap (ego contests, anxiety paralysis) out of it.
The fact that it makes a more hospitable environment for women is just a huge bonus.
I have a story--I'm a young female grad student. After starting at my program, one of the older (and male) professors came over and introduced himself. Upon hearing of where I completed my undergrad work, he started to speak of "the woman" philosophy professor there. I didn't make the connection. I think of myself in terms of my research interests, i.e., as a "political philosopher" who just so happens to be female. I stood there thinking, trying to figure out why he'd refer to her....and then the light came on, and I realized he was trying to find common ground by mentioning another female in philosophy.
Strange as this sounds, I really had no idea female philosophers were that unusual. I'm often treated as though I'm a strange specimen. Honestly, I'm just another grad student studying philosophy. What's the big deal? Well, apparently...
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