Memes and Language

I guess I should have known. After all, I’ve been following the Feminist Philosopher’s blog for a while. But it still came as a shock when I counted the number of women in my first graduate philosophy seminar. Four. Out of 26 students. There are three in my other seminar – out of 16. The one article by a woman in the book we’re using didn’t make it onto the syllabus. I’ve been in statistics classes with more women. Based on what I’ve read on the feminist philosopher’s blog, other male dominated fields also have higher proportions of women. Apparently, there’s something about philosophy that makes it more attractive to men. Or less attractive to women.

This post was prompted by my reading of an article that talks about the nature of man and man’s body. You know, as in human being. That sexist language makes me wonder: Maybe there’s a meme at work here that links philosophy with men. And this also suggests why it is so important to be careful about our language and avoid sexist usage (I suppose in 1981 when the article first appeared consciousness about this was fairly low still…).

What’s a meme? According to the Oxford English Dictionary (as cited by Richard Dawkins): A meme is

an element of a culture that may be considered to be passed on by non-genetic means, esp. imitation.

“Nature of man” reinforces the meme that all humans are men, that men are the standard, that women don’t count. It might be subtle but it’s there. This makes it very important for us to translate this into the nature of human beings. Of course, I am also wondering what human does in this context. Even that word seems to reinforce the meme that men are the standard humans and women are just copies, not really independent beings, just men with a few changes (making them defective, lesser somehow…). If philosophical reading includes a lot of text that reference the “nature of man” – and other sexist language – this meme is strengthened unless counteracted (here’s how!). And so that we can counteract this meme, we have to notice them and raise awareness that this is an issue. I intend to do that whenever I can – and since the seminar is on the philosophy of mind, I figure it’s important to reprogram some minds (to utilize some functionalist ideas).

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