I think a lot of V’s question has either been ignored, or else answered in an almost vacuous way.
It is a simple fact that there are far fewer women philosophers than men, both in history, in current academia, and as dilettants. The question is, why?
In up-to-uncomfortably-recent-history, prejudice was obviously a factor. Primarily before 1950, but even up to the 1970s, it was tangibly more difficult for women to enter academia. The question is, at what point (if at all) did it stop being sexism, and was it something else? I think it’s pretty clear that women currently, if anything, have an easier time finding academic posts in fields lacking in women (math, philosophy, science), because our society is now uber-conscious about avoiding sexism. So, at some point, sexism stopped being a primary cause, and the primary cause became something else - presumably one or more of 1) lingering social pressure (it’s un-lady-like to be a philosopher), 2) innate difference in desire (women are less likely to enjoy philosophy), or 3) innate difference in ability (women are less likely to be capable at philosophy).
Obviously almost everyone will want to point to 1 and shun 2 and 3 - however, I think that’s a mistake. There’s very good evidence that women mathematicians are more scarce because of different brain structures - men have more grey matter, women have more white matter. This is also a pretty solid explanation for why women dominate fields like english, literature, sociology. If it takes an advanced analytic mind to become a mathematician, it may well take a similar mind to become a philosopher - and so women may, on average, be less intellectually predisposed towards this kind of symbol manipulation than men. Of course, everyone can point to a woman philosopher, either here on ILP or in academia, who can trounce many men. This is irrelevant - of course there are phenomenally capable women. The point is, phenomenally capable women may be fundamentally less likely to occur than phenomenally capable men, at least in the field of philosophy.
This argument is in no way an excuse for sexism - women are more capable than men at generally an equal number of things, and even if they weren’t, capability isn’t an excuse to treat someone differently. But this argument does have a lot of scientific backing, and if we’re searching for the truth, it would be a shame to ignore this possibility just because we’re all very liberal and progressive. Desire for belief does not justify belief.
I am interested to hear rational responses!
