| | Transcript:
One of
the most potent things that happened when I taught a class called "Agents,
Actions, Ends" was that at this university there have been a lot of problems
getting women involved in philosophy classes. Men are very verbally aggressive
in smaller classes and discussion sections because that is encouraged in the
discipline. Women tend to hold back and have the view that what they have to say
is probably not worth hearing. This vanishes on the website. The women turn out
to be especially good at focusing discussion, organizing group meetings, asking
follow up questions--things like this. One of the last posts on my last website
at the end of it all was a joint post by several of the male students that read,
"We just want to say that women rock, and we think it is embarrassing that we
have been taking philosophy classes for three years and didn't know that. We
wish you guys would speak up in those other classes." It was very powerful. |
