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Riva Gold, phil major from McGill, has a highly entertaining commentary on the gender gap in Philosophy. While I don't want to minimize the concerns she is expressing, I just can't pass up some of these quotes, like the one in the title.

The Patriarchy of Philosophy: Women in philosophy departments find themselves pushed to the margins

Philosophy is one of those rare majors that, when declared, simultaneously elicits looks of reverence and contempt from others. Philosophy majors are often seen as meek hipster wannabes who emit foul odours and begin every sentence with “it is the case that.” And with good reason.

It took me nearly three months to learn what Hegel meant by “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” and I assure you, it was not fascinating.

Ms. Gold is concerned with the fact that she had not been 'warned' about the problem of sexism in North American philosophy. Having been on the other side of that conversation, I understand her position. When highly talented young women want to go to grad school, can we with good conscience recommend that path? There are plenty of other disciplines - cog. psych and linguistics come to mind - where the gender gap is far, far smaller; and yet they are at least as intellectually stimulating and academically valuable as what we do. And this isn't new: Eleanor Rosch Heider wrote at one point of her decision to study psych and linguistics after reading Wittgenstein. On the other hand, will we as a discipline ever close the gap if our young promising women are abandoning the field for other areas of academic discourse? We are morally obligated to tell our promising young female students the reality of the situation, I suspect. But how can one feel good about doing that? Especially when it may well perpetuate the problem/