The APA’s Committee on the Status of Women is sponsoring a special session at the Pacific Division meeting next week in Pasadena (see the complete program here).

Thursday, March 20
1:00-4:00 p.m.

Topic: Strategizing Changes in the Culture and Ideology of Philosophy
Chair: Robin S. Dillon (Lehigh University)
Ann Garry (California State University–Los Angeles)
Alice MacLachlan (York University)
Lindsay Thompson (Johns Hopkins University)
Sharon Crasnow (Riverside Community College-Norco)

You will see that the program I have listed here is slightly different from that in the printed program given that two of the scheduled panelists will be unable to attend. The idea of the session is that it is a follow-up to the Central Division session of last year blogged about at Lemmings and at Knowledge and Experience. One of the key features of that Central Division session was a paper by Sally Haslanger, “Changing the Ideology and Culture of Philosophy: Not by Reason (Alone)” that has since been widely distributed.

The Central Division session started off a lively discussion not only on those blogs but also on several feminist philosophy listserves including the SWIP-list and the FEAST-list. The upcoming session is designed as a way of keeping the conversation going by looking at what as happened since and discussing some concrete projects that address the low participation and limited persistence of women in philosophy. So Alice MacLachlan will discuss a Feminist Publishing Support group that she has set up online and Lindsay Thompson will discuss her participation in a university-wide initiative on the status of women.

The format will be a panel discussion rather than formal papers and the hope is that we will be doing some serious brainstorming. I will report back on the results after the session. Please join us if you are in Pasadena.