A Note on Photos
I've been asked to put a photo of myself here, so that e.g. people citing my work in a presentation can put my face up there next to the text. This is a common practice, especially as powerpoint grows more ubiquitous. So, I post a photo, but only if you read this rant first. Short version: don't put anybody's face up there. Get more creative. Even if you use my not-male face, the whole practice still skews male because of philosophy's past and current gender distribution. Don't deepen the philosophy=male association by enforcing the sexism of philosophy's past on present audiences.
Longer Version: I make a practice of not using anybody's faces when going over their views (not even favorite faces like Carnap and Neurath!) but use some other kind of visual imagery instead. 1), this usually isn't that hard given an extra couple seconds of thought and some creative googling. It also often improves the point I am making, because there are ways to illustrate a point that are more suggestive to the audience of what is going on philosophically than some person's face. 2), and this one is the important one: We know the history of Western philosophy to be a very gender-biased and racially-biased trajectory. Putting up pictures of people next to their views is going to result in an overwhelming dominance of large male faces staring down at audiences. This matters because implicit associations are formed in exactly this way - by repeated viewings of images like faces in association with fields like philosophy.
We could not have designed a better practice to take the past sexism of the field and use it to deepen and strengthen the association between men and philosophy in the present. Even if you use lots of faces of women in presentations, this practice will still involve a heavy skew towards men in terms of percentages. Don't reinforce on audiences today the incredibly skewed gender distributions of philosophy's past.
Perhaps you want to make sure that those in the audience know that a certain author is a woman or nonbinary. What about using faces for them, and not using any faces for men? Here is something to consider about that approach: it means that women are depicted with faces, and men are depicted with ideas. It still treats them differently in how their ideas are represented through the images on the slide. It still reinforces a problematic gender divide, just a different one than the one found through the history of philosophy. It reinforces a broader social tendency to gauge women in terms of physical appearance (even when using 'not sexy' versions of physical imagery), and to evaluate men by the content of their work, or ideas connected to that content. It invites a needless moment of judgement on the appearance of women and nonbinary people. This impacts them, because they might want their work discussed without having to think about what they look like. It also impacts the students in the class, because it invites continuation of those judgements of women on appearance as being one way or another, a tendency of which many college-aged people are already too aware of and wish for a break from.
Representation is particularly important in settings like undergraduate classes. But instead of using faces for women, and non-faces for men, consider similar imagery on slides for all authors, and finding ways to ensure you use correct pronouns, written on slides and when you speak in presenting those slides. We can decide to make Philosophy more of a place where really, it does not matter what you look like.I've been asked to put a photo of myself here, so that e.g. people citing my work in a presentation can put my face up there next to the text. This is a common practice, especially as powerpoint grows more ubiquitous.
So, I post a photo, but only if you read this rant first. Short version: don't put anybody's face up there. Get more creative. Even if you use my not-male face, the whole practice still skews male because of philosophy's past and current gender distribution. Don't deepen the philosophy=male association by enforcing the sexism of philosophy's past on present audiences.
Longer version: I make a practice of not using anybody's faces when going over their views (not even favorite faces like Carnap and Neurath!) but use some other kind of visual imagery instead. 1), this usually isn't that hard given an extra couple seconds of thought and some creative googling. It also often improves the point I am making, because there are ways to illustrate a point that are more suggestive to the audience of what is going on philosophically than some person's face. 2), and this one is the important one: We know the history of Western philosophy to be a very gender-biased and racially-biased trajectory. Putting up pictures of people next to their views is going to result in an overwhelming dominance of large male faces staring down at audiences. This matters because implicit associations are formed in exactly this way - by repeated viewings of images like faces in association with fields like philosophy.
We could not have designed a better practice to take the past sexism of the field and use it to deepen and strengthen the association between men and philosophy in the present. Even if you use lots of faces of women in presentations, this practice will still involve a heavy skew towards men in terms of percentages. Don't reinforce on audiences today the incredibly skewed gender distributions of philosophy's past.
Perhaps you want to make sure that those in the audience know that a certain author is a woman or nonbinary. What about using faces for them, and not using any faces for men? Here is something to consider about that approach: it means that women are depicted with faces, and men are depicted with ideas. It still treats them differently in how their ideas are represented through the images on the slide. It still reinforces a problematic gender divide, just a different one than the one found through the history of philosophy. It reinforces a broader social tendency to gauge women in terms of physical appearance (even when using 'not sexy' versions of physical imagery), and to evaluate men by the content of their work, or ideas connected to that content. It invites a needless moment of judgement on the appearance of women and nonbinary people. This impacts them, because they might want their work discussed without having to think about what they look like. It also impacts the students in the class, because it invites continuation of those judgements of women on appearance as being one way or another, a tendency of which many college-aged people are already too aware of and wish for a break from. Representation is particularly important in settings like undergraduate classes. But instead of using faces for women, and non-faces for men, consider similar imagery on slides for all authors, and finding ways to ensure you use correct pronouns, written on slides and when you speak in presenting those slides. We can decide to make Philosophy more of a place where really, it does not matter what you look like.
We could not have designed a better practice to take the past sexism of the field and use it to deepen and strengthen the association between men and philosophy in the present. Even if you use lots of faces of women in presentations, this practice will still involve a heavy skew towards men in terms of percentages. Don't reinforce on audiences today the incredibly skewed gender distributions of philosophy's past.
Perhaps you want to make sure that those in the audience know that a certain author is a woman or nonbinary. What about using faces for them, and not using any faces for men? Here is something to consider about that approach: it means that women are depicted with faces, and men are depicted with ideas. It still treats them differently in how their ideas are represented through the images on the slide. It still reinforces a problematic gender divide, just a different one than the one found through the history of philosophy. It reinforces a broader social tendency to gauge women in terms of physical appearance (even when using 'not sexy' versions of physical imagery), and to evaluate men by the content of their work, or ideas connected to that content. It invites a needless moment of judgement on the appearance of women and nonbinary people. This impacts them, because they might want their work discussed without having to think about what they look like. It also impacts the students in the class, because it invites continuation of those judgements of women on appearance as being one way or another, a tendency of which many college-aged people are already too aware of and wish for a break from.
Representation is particularly important in settings like undergraduate classes. But instead of using faces for women, and non-faces for men, consider similar imagery on slides for all authors, and finding ways to ensure you use correct pronouns, written on slides and when you speak in presenting those slides. We can decide to make Philosophy more of a place where really, it does not matter what you look like.I've been asked to put a photo of myself here, so that e.g. people citing my work in a presentation can put my face up there next to the text. This is a common practice, especially as powerpoint grows more ubiquitous.
So, I post a photo, but only if you read this rant first. Short version: don't put anybody's face up there. Get more creative. Even if you use my not-male face, the whole practice still skews male because of philosophy's past and current gender distribution. Don't deepen the philosophy=male association by enforcing the sexism of philosophy's past on present audiences.
Longer version: I make a practice of not using anybody's faces when going over their views (not even favorite faces like Carnap and Neurath!) but use some other kind of visual imagery instead. 1), this usually isn't that hard given an extra couple seconds of thought and some creative googling. It also often improves the point I am making, because there are ways to illustrate a point that are more suggestive to the audience of what is going on philosophically than some person's face. 2), and this one is the important one: We know the history of Western philosophy to be a very gender-biased and racially-biased trajectory. Putting up pictures of people next to their views is going to result in an overwhelming dominance of large male faces staring down at audiences. This matters because implicit associations are formed in exactly this way - by repeated viewings of images like faces in association with fields like philosophy.
We could not have designed a better practice to take the past sexism of the field and use it to deepen and strengthen the association between men and philosophy in the present. Even if you use lots of faces of women in presentations, this practice will still involve a heavy skew towards men in terms of percentages. Don't reinforce on audiences today the incredibly skewed gender distributions of philosophy's past.
Perhaps you want to make sure that those in the audience know that a certain author is a woman or nonbinary. What about using faces for them, and not using any faces for men? Here is something to consider about that approach: it means that women are depicted with faces, and men are depicted with ideas. It still treats them differently in how their ideas are represented through the images on the slide. It still reinforces a problematic gender divide, just a different one than the one found through the history of philosophy. It reinforces a broader social tendency to gauge women in terms of physical appearance (even when using 'not sexy' versions of physical imagery), and to evaluate men by the content of their work, or ideas connected to that content. It invites a needless moment of judgement on the appearance of women and nonbinary people. This impacts them, because they might want their work discussed without having to think about what they look like. It also impacts the students in the class, because it invites continuation of those judgements of women on appearance as being one way or another, a tendency of which many college-aged people are already too aware of and wish for a break from. Representation is particularly important in settings like undergraduate classes. But instead of using faces for women, and non-faces for men, consider similar imagery on slides for all authors, and finding ways to ensure you use correct pronouns, written on slides and when you speak in presenting those slides. We can decide to make Philosophy more of a place where really, it does not matter what you look like.