Abstract

It is by now a well-known fact that philosophy has a persistent problem with women being underrepresented in the field – and in particular, with steep rates of drop-out for women at various career stages. A variety of hypotheses have been offered to explain this phenomenon, but it is only fairly recently that these hypotheses have begun to be tested empirically.

For this discussion seminar, we are delighted to welcome Professor Catherine Herfeld (University of Zurich), to discuss her ongoing empirical work in this area. We will discuss her forthcoming co-authored paper which explores the relevance for the underrepresentation of women of ‘essentialist assumptions’ about philosophy and gender in a specific German university context. We will also hear from Catherine about her new study which explores similar questions in the context of Swiss universities.

All those interested in the underrepresentation of women in philosophy (as well as other problems of underrepresentation in the discipline) are warmly invited to attend – please bring along your own questions, queries and hypotheses to discuss with the group. We suggest that attendees aim to read Professor Herfeld’s forthcoming paper in advance of the session, to best facilitate discussion: download it via the CRASSH website.

Catherine Herfeld is assistant professor of Social Theory and Philosophy of the Social Sciences, holding a joint appointment at the Institute of Philosophy and the Institute of Sociology of the University of Zurich. She is a project partner in the interdisciplinary University Research Priority Program ‘Equality of Opportunity’ and also serves as an associate editor of the Journal of Economic Methodology, and the book review editor of the Journal of the History of Economic Thought. She is visiting the QUALITY project at CRASSH in May 2022.

Please register for this talk via email, and detail whether you would like to attend in person or virtually via Zoom. There are limited spaces available so we may close registration at any time.

This event is hosted by the ERC -funded project ‘Qualitative and Quantitative Social Science: A Unified Logic of Causal Inference?’. QUALITY is funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (ERC grant agreement no. 715530)