[furiens]

Well if it's not racism, then what explains it? And what explains why the ratio of women to men gets significantly lower past Bachelor's level degrees in philosophy? I really don't think it's contentious to say that that there's a severe cultural exclusion within philosophy and the way it tends to be taught.

[beaconstudios]

what do you propose is happening in these philosophy classes that is so racist and sexist to chase away all the women and ethnic minorities? It must be like an Ivy League frat house to go from 50/50 to 95/5 in gender representation.

[furiens]

It's a number of things: some of which the article explains. I think the two most important reasons are that there's a culture that often mistakes aggressive debate for good philosophy. Not that white men tend to have these traits, but the people with these traits tend to be white men. Secondly, your perception of how relevant, or how alien and detached current philosophical thought seems to be, is going to depend on where you sit yourself; someone with a privileged upbringing is going to be much more comfortable sitting through a course that treats injustice, for example, as an abstract concept.

[beaconstudios]

so correct me if I'm wrong but the serious problem with racism and sexism in academic philosophy is that academics want to debate (which involves critiquing ideas) and that they want to discuss ideas and concepts rather than taking to the streets in protest or otherwise skipping the ideas and going straight to execution? I recognise I'm being a bit reductionist but you have to see these criticisms are insane.

[edit] or at least, to call them racist/sexist is insane. I can somewhat understand the latter criticism coming from the perspective of someone who wants to do something about injustice, but then why are you in academic philosophy? That isn't where real-world change happens, people like that would be better off getting involved in social activism, whether they continue working in academia or not.