Acquired Perceptions of Philosophy as Masculine

"A recent study looks at whether perceptions about how “masculine” philosophy is can help explain the gender disparities in the field.

In “21% versus 79%: Explaining Philosophy’s Gender Disparities with Stereotyping and Identification,” forthcoming in Philosophical Psychology, authors Debbie Ma, Clennie Webster, Nanae Tachibe, and Robert Gressis (all at CSU Northridge), present data that, they argue, supports the idea that male domination in philosophy could be eroded ... by changing how it is taught.

They find that students who haven’t taken much philosophy do not have a sense that the field is male-dominated, but they come to have this view the more philosophy they study, and that further, the degree to which women students see philosophy as masculine, the less interested they are in majoring in it."

—From 'The Perception of Philosophy as Masculine' (Daily Nous)