Kieran Healy

Economics, Philosophy, Gender

Brad DeLong congratulates Steven Levitt on winning the John Bates Clark Medal and gives us a list of previous winners. Awarded every other year since 1947, all of the winners are men. Brian Weatherson picks up on this point and notes that analytic philosophy “has done a very poor job over the years in attracting and keeping bright women,” though he thinks the situation is not quite as bad as economics. Matt Yglesias also notes the problem, and wonders whether anything will be done about it.

This is a complex issue with many nuances but, to be blunt about it, there’s a lot of good sociological research showing that essentialist explanations for occupational segregation are very weak. I don’t even have to read the comments section on Matt’s weblog to predict that, soon, people will be making confident assertions that women don’t go into analytic philosophy because it’s so tough and logic-oriented and they don’t like that, and by nature they don’t like all the arguing and nit-picking and so on. In fact (having just looked anyway), there’s one there already:

The problem is the nature of current analytic philosophy. It is the kind of purely abstract exercise that appeals primarily to men. … Women, bless them, care about people, and they care that their work have some relationship, even if tenuous, to the concerns and interactions of human beings in the world.

Ack. Explanations grounded in stereotypes like this are no good for any number of reasons. To pick one at random: there are a lot of women in the world. Don’t you think some of them might be interested in abstract analysis? It’s not as if philosophy is a very big field. But the key problem with stereotypes is that they are too flexible. Aren’t women also supposed to be endless talkers, complainers, nit-pickers and more detail-oriented than men? Sounds like a perfect background for philosophy to me. Or to put it another way, is making pizza a high-status man’s job or a low-status woman’s job? It depends who you ask.

Debate along these lines tends to be unproductive, because proponents of the essentialist line routinely respond by saying “Aha! So are you really saying you think there are no genetic differences between men and women?” which is very irritating. A good example of this has also popped up in Matt’s comments:

So, fellas, I ask a simple question:

Acknowledging that there will be exceptions to any rule, and acknowledging that any institutional discrimination is anathema in its own right, and acknowledging that differences in temperament or inclinations do not imply any particular moral conclusions, are there differences between the genders about which we can make true generalizations?

The poster here is using the word “acknowledging” as if it meant “ignoring”. “And what have the Romans ever done for us?” he did not add.

Rather than flog that horse any further, let me quickly point to some other aspects of this issue in the vain hope that it will prevent a pointless argument on the narrow topic of natural differences between men and women.

1. Outright discrimination is real, but probably not the main mechanism. Explicitly-held beliefs about women’s innate inability to do economics, philosophy, algebra or whatever do persist, but are not terribly prevalent. Systems of occupational segregation do not need individual-level prejudices to sustain themselves, though of course it helps.
2. Small but persistent hits are more common than outright bias. Although old-fashioned “girls can’t do it” discrimination is less common than it was, many women report subtler forms. This can involve things like having a slightly higher standard applied, not getting a second chance, not being listened to properly, not getting the same work-distribution as male colleagues, and any number of other similar problems. All of this, naturally, affects productivity. For instance, the MIT Gender Equity Report found that “Marginalization increases as women progress through their careers at MIT, and was often accompanied by differences in salary, space, awards, resources, and response to outside offers; women receiving less despite professional accomplishments equal to those of their male colleagues.” In nearly all cases, Department chairs or other decision-makers could give plausible particularistic reasons why a decision was made in a specific case, but the outcome was gender-specific.
3. Occupational segregation is very fine-grained. There are women in economics and philosophy, of course. But these fields are also internally differentiated. Thus, many women in philosophy are in fields like ethics and ancient philosophy rather than self-styled “core” areas like metaphysics and epistemology. I’m less familiar with the internal structure of economics, but I’d predict something similar holds. Insofar as women are directed (e.g., by advisers) into lower-status subfields they won’t win things like the Clark Medal.
4. Newer Fields are a Good Test Bed. In fields where occupational segregation is very well institutionalised, it is unreasonable to expect women to beat the odds, though they may sometimes do so. (When Dorothy Hodgkin won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1964 the New York Times ran the headline “Nobel Prizewinner is a Grandmother” and the Observer described her as an “affable-looking housewife,” despite the fact that she was Wolfson Professor of Crystallography at Oxford.) Newer fields—like molecular biology, for instance—might be expected to have a more equitable gender distribution because women can participate from the beginning.
5. Homophily is a powerful process. Homophily is the tendency of groups to be composed of members with similar attributes. Almost all of your social interaction will happen with your neighbors in “Blau space,” [pdf] the social space defined by the universe of sociodemographic attributes. This fundamental aspect of social interaction has strong implications for the kinds of patterns we expect to see when groups control resources, allocate rewards and so on.
6. Introspection is not a good guide to outcomes. Few people think of themselves as unfairly biased against any particular group. Instead, they tend to think that outcomes are explained either (a) by some aspect of the group’s nature, or (b) by the simple aggregation of choices and preferences of group members. Situational and structural factors influencing choice tend to be ignored. (This is a variety of the old fundamental attribution error.)

Two anecdotes (thus, DATA) from History that might be helpful here.

History people like to think of it as a pretty genderequitable field, but it depends a good deal on sub-field. My own, Asian history seems to have a lot of women. At a workshop recently I was counting corrective lenses (100%, as always) and noticed that there were only three men and 6 women. I assume this would have been something of a surprise in some other fields, but nobody noticed. (Well, I did, but I’m the observer so I don’t count.)

-On the other hand, I was recently on a 20th century Europe search and the applicants were 80% male, as were the advisors. Something about Nazis seems to attract men. (we had ruled out France and Russia so most of them were Germanists.) I think a big part of it is the culture of a particular subfield and the accidents of history.

If a field that’s newer is more likely to equitable, does that persist through time? As a field gets older, does it become less equitable?

Walt, one would think not.

The reason older fields could be less diverse & less welcoming to new female applicants is that there’s already a tradition of “just the boys”, sort of thing. A new field gives a clean slate.

For the record my graduate work was done in the humanities in Berkeley in the 1980’s where gender issues were never far from the surface, I am really not a neanderthal.

1) Sex, and sex-linked characteristics, are older than humans, hundreds of millions of years older than consciousness or language, and the suggestion a priori that this fundamental difference would not be expressed in varying ways at all levels of behavior, that every difference has to be attributed to socialization is really not sound.

2) The hypothsis. I think it is not really disputble that weather we are talking Siamese fighting fish, roosters, Rocky Mountain Goats, or human history, overt aggression – one on one battle with a clear winner and loser is a male phenomena. Now I am not talking violence. Any one who has taken a survey course in Social or Physical Anthropology, or watched that video of the “initiation” shown over and over on TV this week realizes that female animals and women can be vicious, but in most instances tend to act in groups (hierarchical groups, but still groups).

3) My modest suggestion. Perhaps you could re-read your list with this in mind. In what fields are one on one victories rewarded and how does that correlate. Now clearly there is a “gotcha” factor in chess, mathematics, and analytical fields generally – there is a clear reward for being first past the post. And the more advanced the math (and hence the less the immediate utility) the more pronounced this seems to be. Or we could look at ancient and medieval philosophy where the preferred vehicle of discourse was the dialog, which inevitably ends up with a victor and a vanquished.

4) Criminal defense law is another field that comes to mind. Once again I am not talking violence. You can’t turn a TV on without finding a female, former prosecuter who would send a perp to Death Row without a qualm. And I am not talking legal aid types who work for a pittance to give some poor schlep representation. I am talking about those lawyers who will take a high-profile, high-fee murder case without a qualm. Win or lose, life or death, overwhelmingly male.

5) Finally we have Alan B’s mid-20th century history “Something about Nazis seems to attract men”. Personally I think there is something deeper here, but to the extent that historians are attracted to the “death or glory” aspect of Nazism, it certainly fits the model.

“Man on man, one on one, lets go!” “Lets you and me take it outside” “My solution is X’s theorem is so much more elegant than that idiot Thompson’s)” Maybe it is as simple as that.

Bruce says: “The hypothsis. I think it is not really disputble that weather we are talking Siamese fighting fish, roosters, Rocky Mountain Goats, or human history, overt aggression – one on one battle with a clear winner and loser is a male phenomena.”

I say—You have clearly not spent much time among the Rottweilers.

Interesting thoughts, Kieran, thanks for posting them. The ‘not being listened to’ issue is huge and difficult to combat. Many women think it’s just them, they’re imagining it, it’s just one time….but if you lose one step every 10,000 steps, eventually you’re never going to catch up (and before that happens you’re first going to get very, very tired—of the same old arguments, of people telling you what your experience is not what’s happening, of ‘explanations’ that are designed to make you invisible and comfortable to others).

Here’s a weird but persistent correlation: the debate over gendered destiny (“essentialism”) accompanying supposed concern for justice as regards the opportunities open to individuals. As philosophers or former philosophers (me) let’s run the reasoning.

For the sake of clarity, let’s consider “GenD” (the biological or cultural determination of ‘essential’ gender differences ) to be that view according to which men and women invariably acquire disparate capacities and propensities, rendering them thereby more and less suitable to some particular pursuit – i.e. men and women are unavoidably different in relevant ways.

Now the rough arguments (nothing too formal here, it’s late and I’m rusty):

1. IF GenD IS TRUE, then there is no reason to worry about the gender disparities in philosophical participation. After all, it would seem unavoidable that in a discipline so defined by its particular style of cognitive exercise, participation would be skewed to one side or the other of the gender divide. So, to the extent there is some value in the discipline continuing with its cognitively-stylized tradition then there is value in accepting that it will remain gendered territory. This in no way prevents the “other” gender from developing its own distinctive project, one more suited to its natural modes of thought and discourse.

2. IF GenD IS FALSE (men and women in fact being wholly equivalent in all respects relevant to the pursuit of traditional philosophy), then the discipline gains or loses nothing by the relative proportion of men or women participating. We may wish to get more people involved, but their gender would be irrelevant to the anticipated gains.

So, either way we go, Philosophy as a discipline seems to have nothing at stake in the matter of classroom gender imbalance.

But individuals might have. Individuals interested in pursuing Philosophy may be facing barriers that others, on the basis of gender difference, perhaps do not. Of course, if we are that interested in individuals following their Philosophical dreams, then we’d better address the larger barriers of access, etc. – e.g. how many in Kenya or Cambodia have access to Kant’s works and how many of us in the West have access to their work. But, I will accept at least for the sake of argument that barriers based on gender are somehow more pernicious, more an injustice and deserve our heightened concern. Most would agree that any individuals possessing of Philosophical ambition and skill who currently faces gender barriers should be found and supported in his or her quest to participate. It does not matter whether the lack of female faces in class is indicative of systematic, sexism or not. The only way to be sure is to identify particular cases of injustice. But we are all in agreement that such a discovery would justify intervention regardless. So why wait to see if the statistical worry is resolved by appeal to explanation?

Consider the analogy: we could debate whether whites are discriminated against in professional basketball, and the usual nature-culture disputes surrounding race could be raised. But, if our interest is TRULY in justice, and we have given up the motive of “improving the sport”, then such debate can do nothing to address the particular cases of individuals unjustly deprived of participation by virtue of race. And just bringing in any guys who are white won’t likely help those individuals who have been shut out.

It’s time to be real about motives: essentialism or anti-essentialism, Philosophy doesn’t “need” more women, even if it does need more people participating. And if our REAL concern is the individual held back, unjustly deprived of opportunity, then there’s no substitute for the hard work of finding and then helping her, in particular, as Philosophers not women or statistics.

Moreover, if we found a man who had been kept from full participation in the discipline as a result of gender discrimination (I think I actually know of a couple), would we mobilize equally to address that injustice? I hope that we all would, but expect we would not – it may be we care more about simply seeing a balance of girls and boys in our class than we do about addressing the actual opportunities of individual persons.
—Lauren

Where’d All the Hotties Go?

Kieran Healy denies the existence of penises! Ok, that’s not precisely what he does, but he does give a damn good primer on what not to say and how not to say it when someone asks why there are so few women in certain fields. And don’t you think Kieran…

What Ampersand is reading today

posted by ampersand Via Diatoma, I came across this amusing article in th eNational Review, “Confessions of a Metropolitan Conservative.”

What Ampersand is reading today

posted by ampersand Via Diatoma, I came across this amusing article in th eNational Review, “Confessions of a Metropolitan Conservative.”

Nobel Prize for Linguistics & Philosophy?

A few weeks ago, there was a flurry of posts in the blogosphere about the list of winners of the John Bates Clark medal awarded every second year to the outstanding economist under forty. Brian Weatherson noticed that the list is entirely male (as is t…

Nobel Prize for Linguistics & Philosophy?

A few weeks ago, there was a flurry of posts in the blogosphere about the list of winners of the John Bates Clark medal awarded every second year to the outstanding economist under forty. Brian Weatherson noticed that the list…