Why is Philosophy so White, Male and Middle Class?

1. Why is Philosophy so White, Male and Middle Class? j.saul@sheffield.ac.uk

2. Introduction • Psychological literature showing that human beings are strongly influenced by a range of (often)unconscious biases and dispositions related to categories like race, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, etc. • Goal: To explore the implications of this literature for philosophy.

3. Factual Background • Worldwide, philosophy at professional level is approximately 80% male (among full-time, 86% male) • How does this compare with other fields? • Recent study of PhDs awarded in US: The only fields with lower numbers of women are computer science, engineering and physics. (Maths is less male than philosophy.) • Other under-represented groups:Whites estimated to be 98% of US philosophers. No good data on class.

4. Structure of talk • 1: Review main relevant empirical findings. • 2: Discuss how these may apply to philosophy. • 3: Argue that philosophers should want to do something about this. • 4: Explore some possible remedies. • Note: My focus will be mainly on women, because we have better data on women, and because this paper was originally written for a volume on women in philosophy. Also, it’s even harder to deal with other groups.

5. Why focus on unconscious bias? • Not because it’s the only sort of bias there is, or because no other factors are likely to be involved in under-representation. • Because it’s very widespread, and yet not very well known. • Also because it’s something that even the best-intentioned among us are prone to. (Including those who are members of the ‘target’ group.) • Most philosophers probably are strongly committed to equality. But this literature shows that’s not enough.

6. Unconscious influences • Psychological literature shows humans are prone to unconscious biases against groups of people: these can affect how we interact with and evaluate people, how we view their work, and even how people in fact perform.

7. Two phenomena • Implicit Biases: those that we will be concerned with here are unconscious biases that affect the way we perceive, evaluate, or interact with people from the groups that our biases “target”. • Stereotype Threat: people’s awareness of their group membership may (often unconsciously) have a negative impact on their performance. So, in the case of women in philosophy, implicit biases will be biases that affect the way we judge the quality of a woman’s work, leading us to evaluate it more negatively than it deserves; while stereotype threat may lead a woman to genuinely underperform in philosophy.

8. Implicit Bias • Psychological research over the last decades has shown that most people-- even those who explicitly and sincerely avow egalitarian views-- hold what have been described as implicit biases against such groups as blacks, women, gay people, and so on. These biases are manifested in, for example, association tasks asking subjects to pair positive and negative adjectives with black or white faces: most are much speedier to match black faces with negative adjectives than with positive ones. (Project Implicit) They are also, it has been argued, manifested in behaviour: studies have shown that those with anti-black implicit biases are more likely to classify an ambiguous object in a black person’s hand as a gun while classifying it as harmless in a white person’s hand.

9. Unconscious biases in academia • Most academics hold egalitarian explicit beliefs.  Yet we may nonetheless be influenced by unconscious schemas that are not so egalitarian in their effects. One example of the evidence for this: • 238 academic psychologists (118 male, 120 female) evaluated a curriculum vita randomly assigned a male or a female name. Both male and female participants gave the male applicant better evaluations for teaching, research, and administrative experience and were more likely to hire the male than the female applicant.

10. Unconscious biases and academia • Another example: • Research on anonymous refereeing shows fairly clearly that biases play a role in evaluating work. Anonymous review is apparently only rarely practiced in ecology and evolution journals. But one such journal, Behavioural Ecology, recently decided to do it. They found that it led to a 33% increase in representation of female authors (Budden et. al.).

11. Stereotype Threat • Victims of stereotype threat underperform on the relevant tasks because they are unconsciously preoccupied by fears of confirming the stereotypes about their group—so preoccupied that they show elevated heart rate and blood pressure (Steele 119-20, 149). • The effect is strongest with those most committed to doing well in the area in question.

12. Effects of stereotype threat • When in a threat-provoking situation, blacks perform worse than whites on tests. Girls perform worse than boys on maths tests. Whites perform worse than blacks at sports. • Stereotype threat-provoking situation: one is from a group that is negatively stigmatised in a certain context, one is in that context, and one’s group membership is made salient. • Which situations? E.g. blacks who have been told intellectual ability is being tested; 5-7 year old girls asked to colour in a picture of a girl with a doll; women who tick a box indicating their gender; people from stigmatised groups who are made aware of their minority status (e.g. by being very outnumbered).

13. Unconscious influences in philosophy • Given that philosophers are human beings, it’s pretty safe to assume that we’re susceptible to all of these well-confirmed phenomena. • Mightn’t their greater objectivity make them immune? • Well-documented that people overestimate own objectivity. • Being primed with objectivity causes one to be more biased.

14. Unconscious influences and women in philosophy • We would expect to find biases against women in authority positions, against women’s competence and seriousness about their profession, etc. We would also expect to find biases against the intellectual abilities of black people, working class people, etc. • We would expect to find biases against and underperformance of those from groups stereotyped as less good at philosophy. • There’s been no research specifically on philosophers’ stereotypes or sterotypes about philosophy. • But… Analytic philosophy makes heavy use of logic, and women are stereotyped as bad at maths. (Nosek et. al. 2002) • Also, lots of work showing associations of reason with white males (contrasted with emotion, which is associated with women, some non-white groups, working class).

15. Effect on philosophy • Likely that philosophers will have implicit biases about groups that are under-represented in philosophy, which make it harder for them to succeed and advance in philosophy. • Likely that members of under-represented groups will have their performance undermined by stereotype threat. • Reasonable to suppose this plays some role in perpetuating under-representation. Likely effects in philosophy, by career stage, using case study of women…

16. Undergraduate: stereotype threat • She’ll probably be given syllabi which consist exclusively or almost exclusively of male authors. • She’ll be taught mostly/exclusively by men. • In the US and Australia, she’ll be very much in the minority among UG students. • Likely result: stereotype threat, underperformance by the most committed students.

17. Undergraduate: implicit bias • Lecturers (men or women) are likely to be affected by implicit biases that lead to more negative evaluations of women’s abilities, especially in philosophy. • Likely effects of this: names that leap to mind for syllabi will be male, will tend to call on men, be more charitable about men’s comments, will tend to give higher marks to men (if work not anonymised), more likely to encourage men to continue in philosophy. • Likely results: much more difficult for women to be judged as doing well.

18. MA/PhD • Woman likely to be in a minority as a woman. All the same pressures will continue, and are likely to be heightened due to greater level of under-representation. Stereotype threat will be strong. • Men likely to get better references, more encouragement. • Men more likely to get published, if editing and refereeing are not anonymous. • Even when refereeing is anonymous, 81% of philosophy journals allow editors to see names as they make the initial cut of how many papers get sent out for review. And editors reject up to 65% of submissions at this stage.

19. Early career • All of the same will continue. • Also: job searches. • Will face overwhelmingly male interviewing teams, leading to stereotype threat. • Will face unconsciously biased hiring committees. • On the job: • Likely to be assigned time-consuming but low-prestige jobs involving student support, secretarial tasks. • Likely to encounter more hostility, disrespect as teachers.

20. Early career • “If students (or conference participants) challenge women more than they do men, women have to face choices that men do not, and these choices are likely to be double binds.  So for example, when I taught a course to engineers that was usually taught by a male colleague, he advised me to brook absolutely no excuses for late papers, and to announce (as he always did) that students would simply be docked 5 points for every day late.  When I found that I had over 40 late papers (in a class of 300+), and that many of them were so late they would have a failing grade before I even read them, I asked him what he did: did he disregard the announced policy, or did he let the chips fall where they may (leading to failing grades for quite a few students).  His answer: that's never happened to me.  Thus, he never had to face the dilemma of either undermining his own authority by not following his announced policy, or evoking the ire of 40 students in a class that didn't like you to begin with.” – Louise Antony

21. Later career • All the same. • Will encounter difficulty being taken seriously as a leader. • In studies using actors trained to behave identically, women in positions of leadership were judged far more negatively than men were—as “bossy and dominating” and less competent (Valian 131.) This undoubtedly also plays a role in the problems that women experience as teachers of philosophy, mentioned in the last section • Will success undermine stereotype threat? “Stereotype threat room”

22. Motherhood • Substantial biases against mothers in workplace. • Study presented identical CVs with either male or female names, indicating parental status (through cues like “member of the Parent Teacher Association”). • Mothers were less likely to be hired than other women, less likely to be judged as good candidates for promotion, judged to deserve lower salaries, considered less committed to their jobs and held to higher performance standards (including a lower tolerance for late arrival at work). • Fatherhood did not have any negative impact on candidates, and in fact had a positive impact: Fathers were likely to be judged more committed to their jobs, offered a higher tolerance for late arrival and considered worthy of higher salaries than other men.

23. Other under-represented groups • Many will also be subject to many of these problems. (Though of course the relevant stereotypes will be different.) And they may be even more severe, due to greater under-representation. • Women from these groups will have even more problematic biases and stereotypes to contend with. (In general.)

24. Summary: Feedback Loops • All of these factors work together to create a kind of feedback loop. • Members of stigmatised groups have trouble performing well and being fairly assessed when they are so under-represented. • But it is very hard to fight the under-representation when members of stigmatised groups are being unfairly assessed and impeded in their performance. • The under-representation that underlies implicit bias and stereotype threat is reinforced by the implicit bias and stereotype threat that it helps to produce.

25. Why should philosophers care? • Fairness: desire to give work the mark it deserves, hire the best candidate, etc. • Implicit bias means that one is likely to make the wrong rankings of candidates, give the wrong marks, etc.

26. Why should philosophers care? • Desire for high quality philosophy • If implicit bias and stereotype threat are having the sorts of effects in philosophy that they have elsewhere, then: • Work from members of stigmatised groups is being wrongly judged to be of lower quality than it actually is. This will lead to talented philosophers not being encouraged to continue, not getting grants, not getting jobs, not getting promoted, and not getting their work read. • Talented and committed philosophers from stigmatised groups are producing less good work than they otherwise would. Both of these effects will be reducing the quality of philosophy that is being done. To get the best possible philosophy being done, we need the best philosophers to receive proper encouragement and good jobs, and to be working in environments where they can produce their best work.

27. What to do: 3 very common approaches • Putting members of stigmatised groups on hiring committees • Won’t correct for implicit bias, though it might reduce stereotype threat at interviews. • Putting known egalitarians on hiring committees won’t work either to suppress implicit bias. It could, however, reduce overt expression of bias among other committee members. • Trying very hard to be unbiased: won’t work, and may increase bias.

28. What might work (for women) • Include women: put women on syllabi and candidacy exams, invite women to speak at conferences and contribute to volumes, and cite women in your papers. Show their pictures when you can (lectures, websites, etc.) • Will help to reduce stereotype threat by (a) creating a less threat-provoking environment; and (b) helping to break down the stereotype of philosophy as male. • Will reduce implicit bias by exposing people to counterstereotypical exemplars. • Will lead to inclusion of excellent works/people that might otherwise have been overlooked. • Note: harder to do with other stigmatised groups

29. What might work • Get more members of stigmatised groups into philosophy. • Getting more members of stigmatised groups into philosophy at every level will help to combat both implicit bias and stereotype threat. Exposure to counter-stereotypical exemplars reduces one’s tendency to be implicitly biased, and seeing members of these groups who are philosophers reduces stereotype threat. It is all the more important to do this when one considers that the current low numbers are likely to be partially the result of implicit bias and stereotype threat.

30. What might work • Anonymise. • Mark student work anonymously, as far as possible. • Make journal submissions anonymous to both referees and editor. Will also counteract many other pernicious biases, e.g. prestige bias. • Lee and Schunn (2010: 7) note that “a classic study found that when articles already published in highly prestigious psychology journals were resubmitted to the same journals, but under fictitious names with low-prestige institutions, nearly 90% were rejected.” But the decisions were justified (no doubt sincerely) as due to serious methodological flaws.

31. What might work • Raise awareness of implicit bias • The picture of bias that seems to prevail is the traditional one, on which (a) there are some very bad racist, sexist, classist people who hold explicitly biased beliefs (e.g. “women aren’t good at reasoning”); and (b) those who hold explicitly egalitarian beliefs don’t need to worry about being biased. • Abandon the view that even unconscious biases against stigmatised groups are blameworthy. (False and counterproductive.)

32. What might work • Stop talking about “who’s smart”. • One very effective way of fighting both stereotype threat and implicit bias is to get people to stop thinking of intellectual ability as a thing that people possess in some fixed quantity. (Dweck) • If intelligence is viewed as a more complicated set of abilities and skills, which can be developed through one’s activities, both phenomena have less potential to take hold. And this latter view also has the benefit of being better-supported by the psychological literature.

33. Smartness judgments • “Smartness” judgments may be especially susceptible to implicit bias due to detachment from evidence. • “I have been collecting anecdotal data on seeming smart. One thing I've noticed is what sort of person tends spontaneously to be described, in my presence, as "seeming smart". A very striking pattern emerges: In every case I have noted the smart-seeming person has been a young white male…I would guess that there is something real behind that pattern, to wit: Seeming smart is probably to a large extent about activating people's associations with intelligence… And what do people associate with intelligence? Some things that are good: Poise, confidence (but not defensiveness), giving a moderate amount of detail but not too much… But also, unfortunately, I suspect: whiteness, maleness, a certain physical bearing, a certain dialect… all of which favor, I suspect, upper- to upper-middle class white men.” (Eric Schwitzgebel)

34. What can a victim of stereotype threat do? • If you’re in a threat-provoking situation, spend a few minutes thinking about the things you value most. • This has been shown to lead to dramatic increases in women’s performance in physics classes. • Focus on traits of yours that place you in a group not stigmatised with respect to the task: e.g. Russell Group university student. • Realise that difficulties you’re encountering are not due to members of your group having lower ability. They’re due to philosophy being difficult!

35. What can a victim of stereotype threat do? • Realise that your philosophical ability is not fixed and innate. You develop this ability through the work that you do. • Spend a few minutes thinking about successful members of your group in philosophy. (Perhaps even carry a picture with you– for some reason visual images are especially helpful.)

36. Conclusion: Reasons for hope • Implicit bias and stereotype threat are incredibly important forces that have only recently begun to be understood. And small interventions can have large effects. • In 1995, C. Wenneras and A. Wold performed a landmark study of Swedish scientific grant awards. It showed that women needed to be 2.5 times as productive as men to get grants. This study got a huge amount of attention in 1995 and even more in 1997, when they published their results in Nature. As a result of the 1995 results, procedures were changed, and what is now called The Wold Effect occurred: the gender gap vanished.