Monday, January 20th, 2014, 5-7 PM

Professor Sarah-Jane Leslie (Princeton) will present her empirical work on women in philosophy in a talk entitled “Gender Gaps and Conceptions of Ability” (abstract below). The event will be held at the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Ave,  Room 5409. A reception will follow.

Abstract: Some academic disciplines have significant gender gaps (e.g., philosophy), while others do not (e.g., molecular biology). Why is this so? Sometimes, the phenomenon is characterized in terms of the natural sciences/mathematics having large gender gaps, and the social sciences/humanities having small or no gender gaps. This is a crude characterization, as reflection on disciplines such as philosophy vs. molecular biology illustrates. Are there any general, isolable factors that predict the occurrence of gender gaps across all academic disciplines, and also within the broad domains of natural sciences/mathematics, and social sciences/humanities? Recent data collected by my collaborators and me suggest that one such factor may be how the practitioners of the discipline conceive of the ability required for success in it — in particular, the extent to which innate, immutable, natural talent is emphasized, at the expense of hard work and dedication, predicts the presence and extent of a discipline’s gender gap. I discuss the nature of this spectrum of conceptions of ability, and how and why they relate to gender gaps in academic disciplines.