Dear all here is the abstract for next Wednesday's talk by Justine McGill (3.30, The Refectory, Main Quad, USYD)
“Silence and silencing” Justine McGill This paper comes out of the AAP report on Improving the participation of Women in the Philosophy Profession in Australia (2008) which indicates that women’s low representation in philosophy is largely due to women choosing not to continue with this field of study or career. This indicates that if there is a problem here, it is not that of clearly identifiable discrimination against women. Rather, the data raises more subtle questions concerning why the culture of philosophy departments may be unattractive to some women. I approach this topic via a discussion of the productive and destructive effects of silence and silencing, drawing on Caroline West and Rae Langton’s use of speech act theory for a classification of different ways of rendering a speaker effectively silent. I then consider how these techniques might operate in philosophical (or quasi-philosophical) contexts, in particular to exclude a person from full or effective participation in the conversation on the basis of her or his gender (or other aspects of identity).
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