Do women and minorities have an advantage on the job market?

Do Women and Minorities Have an Advantage on the Job Market?

This story is for everyone who thinks women and minorities have an unfair advantage on the job market in philosophy.

My old department is typical in a lot of ways: It is a well-respected, undergraduate-only program at a state university that is not the flagship; the faculty is 100% white and almost all male; and the philosophy majors look a lot like the faculty. It is similar to many philosophy departments at state universities and liberal arts colleges across the country.

Two years ago we were doing a search. Early on, a person from the EO office came to brief us on the rules. We were told, in a 60-minute presentation, about all the ways we might be biased against female and minority candidates, and many of the ways we could attempt to overcome those biases. We were also told that it was appropriate to seek to hire someone who would be a good role model for students from underrepresented groups, including women. (In fact, I had managed to convince my former colleagues to include, among the preferred criteria in the ad for the position, something about attracting female and minority students to the major.)

“But,” one of my former colleagues asked the EO officer, “isn’t it illegal to prefer a candidate on the basis of gender or race?”

The EO officer hemmed and hawed and said various things. My former colleagues proceeded to grill her, asking for definitions and principles, which were then refuted by counterexamples, leading to further attempts by the EO officer to clarify, and still more refutations and counterexamples. The EO officer kept trying to get across the message that although it is illegal to prefer a candidate merely on account of race or gender, there were nevertheless many nuanced ways the department could attempt to address its extreme lack of diversity. But my former colleagues were having none of it. Their sole takeaway from the meeting was that it is illegal to prefer a candidate based on gender or race.

After that a very curious thing happened. During search committee meetings, A would say, about every 20 minutes (or so it seemed), “It’s illegal to prefer a candidate just because she is female!” And this would be met with enthusiastic murmurs of agreement by all of my other former colleagues. Soon all of my former colleagues took up A’s call, and would repeatedly blurt out, à propos of nothing, “It’s illegal to prefer a candidate on account of race or gender!”

Meanwhile, I noticed a second, very odd phenomenon. Every time I said something positive about a female candidate (even casually, in the hallway or in someone’s office), the immediate response by my former colleagues was to make a case against that candidate. If I said of some female candidate, “I really liked x’s writing sample,” the response would be, “But there was a line in one of her letters that made me wonder if she is the strongest candidate from her department,” or “But she went to college at an Ivy League school, so she might not be the best fit for us.” Meanwhile, if I said anything positive about a male candidate, the response was always just to agree, and perhaps to add a further positive comment about that candidate. (This was such a striking and uncanny phenomenon that I went out of my way to test it, thinking that I was imagining the effect. And sure enough, it was really happening.)

I became worried that female and minority candidates were not getting a fair shake in our search process. So I began to pay closer attention to how candidates from different demographic groups were being evaluated. What I found was that writing samples by women and minorities were deemed “murky” and “unclear”, while similar writing samples by white men were judged to be “deep” or “provocative”. Similarly, white men who said something in their cover letters about being committed to increasing diversity in philosophy were given major points for that, while women and minorities who had actually done things – organized special events, created programs to improve the climate for women and minorities in their departments, etc. – were given no credit for their work along that dimension. At one point, A even said of such a white man (one who had mentioned his commitment to increasing diversity in his cover letter, but had not yet actually done anything about it), “I think he would be better on our preferred criterion [attracting female and minority students] than any of these women or minorities!”

Then something nearly inexplicable occurred. I got a call from the department chair, informing me that I was being formally accused, by B, of illegally discriminating on the basis of race or gender, and that he (Department Chair) was backing up the accusation. In accordance with the official procedure, I was to meet in the chair’s office with B and Department Chair to determine whether the matter could be resolved informally, or would instead have to proceed through the official steps that could result in my being disciplined.

My initial thought was that I was being pranked. But at the meeting with Department Chair and B, the latter claimed, in an oddly triumphant way, that I had said in a recent meeting that I thought Candidate X would be good at attracting female students because she is a woman. I replied that I distinctly remembered saying that Candidate X would be good at attracting female students because she is a woman who is a particularly charismatic teacher with a proven track record of attracting female students to the major, and who would serve as an excellent role model for women in our program. “No,” Department Chair told me, “It’s like B here claims. You said Candidate X would be good just because she is a woman.”

I had been choosing my words very carefully since the beginning of the search, given my former colleagues’ bizarre behavior, so I knew exactly what I had said in the meeting. But Department Chair told me that he was not interested in my recollection of what I had said. He made it very clear that although he was going to let me off the hook this time, any future behavior by me regarding the search that could be interpreted as discriminating against white men would be dealt with severely, as illegal discrimination on the basis of race or gender.

It seemed clear that the whole exercise had been designed to have a chilling effect on me, so as to keep me quiet during the remainder of the search. I didn’t actually believe that Department Chair would take the matter to anyone outside the department, nor did I believe that I was in any danger of being disciplined if he did. But the episode did have a chilling effect on me, insofar as it showed me how determined my former colleagues were not to hire a woman or a minority candidate.

Which, of course, we didn’t. And although my former colleagues stubbornly (and absurdly) insist that they are as pro-diversity as anyone else in philosophy, and always simply hire the best philosopher, regardless of race or gender, it’s clear in retrospect that women and minorities never had much of a chance in that search. (Or any of the many searches that took place over the 17 years I was with that department, none of which resulted in an offer being made to a woman or a person of color.) The amount of implicit bias displayed in my old department’s searches over the years was embarrassing, and the amount of explicit bias in the most recent search was shameful.

Maybe my old department is unusual in its reactionary attitudes. And my sense is that at least some philosophy departments are genuinely concerned about the discipline’s historic lack of diversity. But my fear is that among undergraduate-only philosophy departments, at state universities and liberal arts colleges, that attitude is actually quite common. In any case, because of what I have seen of searches firsthand, from the inside, you cannot convince me that women or minorities have some kind of advantage on the job market. In fact it seems obvious to me that just the opposite is still true.

What I now understand

I am a white male doctoral student in a philosophy program in North America. Once I was at a conference in my field of research in North America. I had an experience there that opened my eyes. Generally, I’m a pretty naïve person. I’ve always sympathized with the efforts in academic philosophy to broaden what is studied and considered philosophy and create a more diverse learning and research environment, but before this experience I never really understood that these efforts are responding to deep and systemic problems in the academy itself as an institution, which has been designed for particular members of a particular class, racial group, sexual orientation and gender. (Names, places, etc. have been changed).

The conference was a mix of faculty and graduate students. Most of the people were upstanding, though the conference was entirely male. One of the panels had a young professor, “Ted,” from a school in North America that caters to students from France. During the Q and A a priest in attendance, who is West African, asked a question to another member of the panel. The priest was smart and really knew his stuff. Ted wouldn’t look at him and would roll his eyes when he spoke. He didn’t do that to the white members of the audience.

I happened to sit with Ted and a few other people at dinner that night. Ted mentioned that he taught at a French school. Trying to make conversation, I said that there is a group of French students in my program. He knew one of them and asked if I knew her. I said yes and he replied, “Yeah, cute little thing.” It felt like one of those male-bonding rituals that establish the “code,” ensure solidarity, and make us “safe.” I said, “She’s a very smart student.” He looked me, “Yeah, cute little thing.” I said it again. He looked at me disdainfully and let it drop. He then proceeded to tell us how he drinks heavily, got made fun of and never had any friends in high school, and made a possibly sexual comment about children, all unsolicited.

Ted can be in academia and was able to get a number of degrees in philosophy, because there is a system that was created for him, has protected him, and continues to protect him. I never understood that before.

I do, now.

What it’s like to be out of philosophy

After all the ups-and-downs, ins-and-outs, rough-and-tumble politics of a graduate career, as a “woman of color” (a term which I despise, but for which no adequate substitute really exist), the final nail was hammered into the coffin of my philosophical aspirations just over two years ago. My Ph.D. program expelled me, under the thin veneer of academic failure. Internal appeals failed me, and the prospect of pursuing external appeals through various deans and administrators, even should they succeed, seemed to exhausting to consider. As information about how other (white, male) graduate students were treated, it became clear to me that had I received even slightly comparable consideration and treatment, I would have been able to finish. No one will ever admit my expulsion had to do with race or gender, and indeed, there is a very good story about why I was expelled and department policies. On paper, it is all legitimate. The story completely fails to explain why white, male students were not subject to the letter of the law, and given chances I was not owed. The message was clear: THEY can fuck up frequently and continue, but YOU are always a fuck-up and we will run you out.

There was definitely a grieving process. After all, a Ph.D. in Philosophy had been my singular objective for more or less a decade – my entire adult life, at the time. I organized my life around, I made my choices to reflect it. It occupied a significant portion of my emotional life. It defined, in part, who I thought I was.

That was, as I said, about two years ago. As life moved on, my life changed form. Though employed as a philosophy professor at a community college, and, thus, technically a professional philosopher, I began to mentally disassociate myself from the profession. I no longer identify as a professional philosopher. When, in social settings, someone says, “You are a philosopher?” my joking response is to say, “Shhh! Don’t tell anyone!” and promptly change the subject. Rather than regularly checking blogs, I wandered onto them only occasionally – sometimes realizing months had passed since I’d visited them (once a daily activity) – and then only in some sort cathartic rubber-necking type moments. I signed off of email lists and gave away books (well, not all of them, but a lot of them). I stopped listening to philosophy podcasts, and gradually eliminated all but a few philosophers from my social life. The ones who are still in my life are people with whom I, as a stringent rule, never discuss the profession or philosophy at all, except as a passing remark here and there.

I became involved in legislative advocacy for higher education in my state (so I still deal with plenty of, uhm, colorful behavior). I subscribed to the local symphony. I went to hear bands and traveled to places where I wasn’t going to conferences. I made friends who are artists and real estate agents and accountants and school teachers and chefs and most definitely not philosophers.

I realized recently that I was happier than I had been in years. In fact, I was happier than I had been since I first started taking philosophy classes as an undergrad. This realization was both joyous – that I had recovered from such a brutal and unfair ending to my hopes and ambitions – and melancholy – that something, which I had loved so much and brought me so much joy when I first encountered it, had been reduced, through the racist and sexist actions of its principle advocates – to a increasingly distant memory that is better banished from my life.

I wonder how many people out there feel the same way.

Not the way to welcome new faculty

I’m new faculty and just out of grad school. I’ve been in the town in which my university is located for about two weeks. Tonight, I (and other new faculty) was invited by the grad students to meet and have some casual drinks before the semester started.

It started out okay, but quickly turned for the worse. One second-year grad student mistook me for an incoming grad student, and proceeded to talk to me as though I was such. I pointed out that I was incoming faculty, but that did not seem to make much difference. He belittled what I said and made inane jokes about my background. At first I laughed it off but as the night wore on, I grew increasingly uncomfortable with comments that were being made at the table. None of these were overtly or maliciously racist or sexist, but they all certainly pointed to my obvious “otherness” while I was sitting at a table of white male philosophers. Every comment, every joke at my expense just made me feel more alienated from the group. (Remember, these are people I will have to teach in a week or so, and I have not met them before, and they have been at the university longer than I.) When I made responses, I was interrupted or talked over more frequently than other people at the table. (I actually pointed this out later and it was apparently not noticed at all.)

I imagine that some of the teasing was definitely meant to be in good humor, but it was furiously frustrating to have to politely and good-naturedly respond to them when they couldn’t see that I was finding their comments offensive and hurtful. At the same time, I don’t want to be cast as the oversensitive non-white, non-male person in the department who takes everything too seriously and everyone has to tiptoe delicately around.

Of course, I want to be able to be friends with these people–after all, I do have to work with them and possibly advise them for the foreseeable future. However, at the same time, I do not see how I can do this if they do not take me seriously. Eventually, I made my excuses to leave, because I was frankly sick of defending myself. At that point, one of the students even said “Yes, I think that you should go,” while several others laughed. I felt like I had been undermined, both personally and professionally. I felt humiliated, and definitely not comfortable socializing with them again. I’m sorry to say this, but I cried pretty much all the way home.

Being honest about the chilly climate

I am a female grad student in a top-15 philosophy department that offers a chilly environment for women and minorities. The faculty male-to-female ratio is worse than 80-20, there are zero people of color on the faculty, the number of female grad students who leave the program before finishing vastly outpaces the number of males who do the same. I could go on.

During this year’s week-long prospective student visit, I have decided that I will be forthcoming with female prospective students about the environment here. I have hesitated to do so in the past because I wanted encourage diversity in the incoming class. But as a woman who, as a prospective student, had the luxury of choosing between several top programs, I cannot in good faith recommend this department to others. Quite frankly, my experience here has been devastating. I wish this on no one else.

On calling out racism

At the Central APA, a friend and I sat beside a group of three white female philosophers at lunch. These women began breaking down the ‘conduct’ of a Black female colleague who in the Q&A called out the racism of a panelist’s argument. Of course, this Black woman’s ‘conduct’ was ‘unproductive’, ‘contentless’, ‘offensive’, and ‘irrational’. Without a trace of self-consciousness and using the most tired Othering scripts in circulation, they pathologized this woman. As a junior colleague, I am struck that they couldn’t even imagine that they were sitting next to two other philosophers (a white woman and Black man). Overhearing them confirmed to me that no call for accountability goes unpunished; unless you want to be trashed, beware of naming sexism or racism publicly.

I constantly think about quitting

Lately (as in, over the last yearish), I am finding myself constantly — constantly — thinking about quitting academic philosophy, and finding something else to do. (I’ve worked outside the field before, so I know that I could do so.) This is despite the fact that I am actually in department that is genuinely pretty women-friendly, compared to the department where I did my MA, and where other women I know are situated.

I can’t help but think that this is at least partially a function of simply being a woman in this field. It doesn’t seem to me like the men I work with seem to even consider leaving. Yet the thought is almost constantly on my mind. It’s on my mind:

Every time I hear something explicitly or implicitly sexist uttered by another philosopher (or academic, generally). Every time I hear male colleagues talk about their female undergrad students like objects for consumption. Every time I see benefits given to men but not women. Every time I get comments (positive or negative) from colleagues on my clothes, shoes, hair, nails, weight, make-up, etc. (happens almost daily). Every time I hear the men talk about how a woman needs to lose weight or got ‘surprisingly’ fit — a conversation that never seems to happen about the men. Every time they act like women are making up whatever problems they encounter, particularly with reference to this blog. Every time I look around and realize I have no black colleagues, or that I am the only minority woman working as a philosopher in my entire geographic region.

Every time another brilliant, amazing woman I work with confides in me her fear, anxiety, feelings of inadequacy. Every time I comfort her with the assurance that she is not alone, that she great, and realize that I need to hear that constantly as well. Every time a good and trustworthy friend tells me how great they think I am at what I do, and I find myself unable to believe them.

Every time I have a disparaging thought about another women who is a philosopher. Every time another woman says something disparaging about other women philosophers.

WRT to a previous post — An Open Call for Reasons to Stay — many people mentioned that sexism is present in every work environment. Yet I’ve worked in several fields outside of philosophy before and never dealt with the kind of sexist bullshit I deal with on a daily basis as a philosopher. These things happen daily, weekly, monthly. I face one of these things every day. The psychological effects — loss of confidence, imposter syndrome, anxiety, etc. — compound every time it happens.

People might also think “Maybe she doesn’t love philosophy.” The truth is that the only time I experience joy in philosophy anymore is when I am alone, reading. And every time I think “Why do I put up with this?” I struggle to find an answer. It’s psychologically exhausting, and I don’t know anymore if I have the emotional and physical resources to do it. Of course, though, if I quit, it’s because I’m a woman, and so I’m not made of tough enough stuff.

I really don’t think my male colleagues understand dealing with this sort of thing. As one of them told me recently, “I don’t know why you aren’t a happier person.”

“Your child will be a mongrel”

I was at a conference a few years ago and I was having dinner with another professor and another person who was then student at a highly (Leiter) ranked department where I had also once studied. The topic of having children came up. I expressed some ambivalence about having a family and the graduate student replied that if I and my partner at the time did have a child, that child would be “a mongrel” (I am white and my partner was not). Would this graduate student have said this to a male professor? Perhaps he would have. I don’t know. But I think in general this sort of thing happens to women more than men.

On taking grad seminars in philosophy

I’m a female grad student in a field cognate to philosophy and have taken four graduate seminars in philosophy that overlapped with my disciplinary interests. (The philosophy department here is Leiter top 20, if it matters.) What an experience it’s been.

In each of the four classes, one of the male students asked me out. Believe me when I say that this does not happen every time I take a class in my own field.

Although I wasn’t interested in any of these men, I didn’t mind these experiences because the students in question all treated me with obvious respect, and remained interested in conversation, about philosophy and other things, after I declined. So I didn’t have the experience of some women who’ve posted here, who had to wonder whether apparent philosophical interest in them was really something different.

It was other things that made me sometimes feel unwelcome. Sometimes these were fairly subtle. One time, a male student (who I quite like) was joking around about an undergrad woman he’d met in a bar. “I don’t know,” he said, making “on the one hand, on the other hand” hand gestures. “Great rack, but likes Kierkegaard…” He wasn’t remotely talking about me, but the offhand remark made me feel judged in a way that the repeated offers of a date never had. I had a flash of feeling that for all the other students around me, this was how it felt normal to think about the women around them — does her hot body outweigh being an intellectual lightweight?

Other times, my experiences were blatant, though still (I presume from my sense of the people involved) without any ill intent. I vividly remember one time we were all sitting around talking before class started. I jumped into the conversation, and in the middle of my sentence, the man sitting right next to me jumped in over me as though I hadn’t said a word.

After class, another student — the only racial minority in the class — caught up with me and apologized on the group’s behalf. “I really hate it when they do that,” he said.

What it’s like to teach philosophy as a woman of color

I am happy to respond to this request for more on what’s its like to teach philosophy as a woman. I am a tenured professor at the metropolitan center campus of a very large urban junior college. I’m a “woman of color” in my late-twenties, and have been teaching here full-time for some years.

The issues I face as a teacher are not just from my students, but from my older colleagues, and have to do with age, race, and culture as much as they do with gender.

Let’s start with my students. Almost all of my students are minorities, predominantly Black American, Hispanic American, and Hispanic or Carribean immigrants. They are evenly split among men and women. About half of them are either immigrants or first generation Americans. Most of them come from impoverished backgrounds. Many of them are multilingual. (These are not my impressions — they are the statistical facts about my institution. What follows is my observation.)The student population is highly conservative, almost of all of them accepting “traditional” misogynistic values regarding family, the role of women, and sexuality/sexual preference.

I have to fight very hard to be taken seriously, particularly since I am a young woman of color teaching a required subject that is not viewed as important by most of my students, and directly challenges most of the conventionally held beliefs of the student demographic. My male colleagues (regardless of age) and older/white female colleagues, on the other had, are treated with due deference and respect. Male students, in particular, treat me badly, (but so do female studnets) assuming that I am dumb or ditsy. I am also, like the previous author on this subject, routinely called “Miss” rather than the college-wide standard “Professor” or “Ms.”, which I request as an alternate. The male students assume it is acceptable to call me by my first name, use obscene language in my presence, interrupt me when I am talking, argue with me about grades, make sexual implications. On the worst occasions, they talk to me as though I am a somoene they are hitting on with cheesy lines in a bar or
club. Most of my male students are clearly not used to being told they are wrong or out of line by women. I have been called, by students, “a bitch” “an ice queen” “soulless” “uncaring” “unemotional” “flaky” “dumb” and a whole host of other things, directly to my face by male students. This is depsite the fact that, on the whole, my teaching is evaluated positively by 80-90% of my students on end of the semester course surveys. When I teach issues relating to sex or sexuality, like reproductive rights, pornography, sexual harassment/discrimination, etc. male students feel it is appropriate to belittle or undermine the problems (my male colleagues who teach the subject do not seem to have the same problem).

This is not helped by my older, white female colleagues, who make a constant commentary on my clothing and styling choices (all of which are more conservative than I’d really prefer and very professional). I have been told by them that I look like “I am going on a date”, “I am appearing on MTV”, “I am going out for cocktails” and “I am out to catch a man”. I have been asked “if male students actually pay attention to what I am saying” in class rather than how I look. I have been told, upon getting a new haircut, that it was a good idea because “it makes me look more sexual, which will make students pay attention”. Comments are also frequently made about any weight that I gain or lose, and about how nice my skin, hair, nails, etc. look as gauges of my health.

But not all is bad. Here are some of the good things. When I get great, successful, amazing students, they appreciate how hard I work and I get an amazing sense of accomplishment. What I do is essentially social justice work, serving an oppressed and disadvantaged population who has been deprived of the many educational privileges I received as a member of the middle class. Many of my female students have told me that I am a role model of independence for them, and that my example helps them solidify their ambitions to achieve professional success and break the financial barriers that leave them dependent on men — their fathers or husbands. When I talk about my background — I, too, came from a highly conservative immigrant family — many women come and speak to me after about how I achieved my freedom and independence, and how I overcame the obstacles in my way. I know that I change the minds of at least some of my students about gender roles and misogyny, and that’s enough. Some
of my male students come to respect me and change their attitude and behavior towards women; I have witnessed it first hand. And if I can help some people challenge misogyny in their own lives, then I think my struggle is worth it — and I will continue to try.

“You’ll never make it”

This happened a few years ago.

When I was an undergrad in philosophy I attended a liberal arts grad school fair. There happened to be a female philosopher there who was recruiting for her university. She wanted to meet with me to discuss my research interests, etc. When I told her that I was interested in contemporary analytic philosophy, she lowered her head and fell silent for a moment. When she raised her head to look at me she told me that I would “never make it”. She explained that analytic philosophy would just be too hard and cruel for someone like me (I am a woman and a minority after all). She suggested that I switch to continental and do work in philosophy of race or feminist philosophy (never mind that at the time I had no interest in working in these areas). She then proceeded to guess (incorrectly) at my ethnicity for the rest of the interview. After meeting with her, I felt smaller than a speck of dust.

However, I didn’t let her ignorant and bigoted remarks deter me from philosophy, from applying to grad school, nor from pursuing my interests in contemporary analytic philosophy. I am currently a PhD student doing work in mainstream analytic and feminist philosophy. I came to feminist philosophy out of my love for and personal commitment to feminism. Feminist philosophy is not the only option for me; rather, it is the option that is most desirable to me.

Comparing philosophy and the sciences

I am an undergraduate studying molecular biology and philosophy at an American university. I have not experienced a trace of sexism in any of the science departments on our campus. Female presence is commonplace and widely accepted. The vast majority of my professors in hard science classes are female.

My experiences in the philosophy department have been entirely different. The department is overwhelmingly male and 100% white. Many professors are derogatory towards feminist theory and feminism. I have been an active participant in an informal philosophy-oriented student group andhave made many presentations to the group on a variety of topics. When I offered to present on an area of feminist philosophy, I received no reply to my e-mail. After reminding the professor twice, I still have received no reply. Since then, I have not attended the group. The same professor has repeatedly made the sexist conjecture “Can the feminist airplane fly?” Another student was told by his advisor that feminist theory was “emotional,” and was discouraged by the professor from taking feminist theory classes because of that.

What does lack of confidence mean?

My self-confidence as a philosopher seems to be, not a barometer for whether I should continue on in philosophy, but an indirect measure of who is in the room.  I had the same experience as the author in “The Stereotype Threat Room:” in a room of mostly white men, my confidence, concentration, and performance for a familiar talk (given successfully elsewhere) plummeted.  When I attend talks, my confidence and concentration also take a hit when the audience is overwhelmingly white and male.  As I continue on in philosophy, it feels disorienting and inauthentic to distrust my own feelings of self-confidence.  But, understanding why these feelings can be so volatile helps a great deal.