Three Cheers for the Token Woman

Abstract

Concerns about implicit bias against female academic philosophers have recently led to efforts to make academic philosophy a more inclusive discipline. Prominent examples of such initiatives are the Gendered Conference Campaign, encouraging event organisers to include women amongst invited speakers, and calls to philosophy book editors to include female authors in their collections. At the same time, initiatives such as the GCC raise worries about tokenism. Many people believe that being a token woman is an awful situation to be in. They think it is humiliating to accept a position if one has been offered it because of one's sex. And women often worry that, if there are rules to include them in positions of visibility or prestige, or if significant social pressures towards gender inclusiveness play a role in selection processes, their achievements will be discounted. Luckily, there is no good reason for these fears. I argue that there are several legitimate grounds – independent from professional merit – for including people in positions of visibility and prestige and that sometimes sex can be such a legitimate reason.