SUCCESS IN ACADEMIC PHILOSOPHY: WHAT FEMALE STUDENTS AND JUNIOR ACADEMICS NEED TO KNOW

Abstract

Despite some important progress over the past decade, academic philosophy remains a male-dominated discipline. This raises questions about how established philosophers can best support and advise female students and junior academics in philosophy. We need to avoid encouraging them to adopt a fatalistic attitude to their success (‘Philosophy is sexist, I'll never make it’), while also avoiding encouraging them to believe that their success lies in their own hands and that therefore it must be their own fault if they don't succeed. I argue that we can do this by reflecting on what success in a misogynistic culture looks like, and by guiding young female philosophers to distinguish between the changes that it is possible for them, as individuals, to make, and those that require action by many individuals.