Philosophy Does Not Have "A Woman Problem": Academia Has A Coddling Of Women Problem
Christina Hoff Sommers, who has PhD in philosophy and taught it for more than 20 years, takes on the accusation that philosophy is an "unsafe hyper-masculine space" for women (video here):

In 2014, women earned 28% of the PhDs in philosophy. By contrast, they earned close to 60% in English, anthropology, and sociology--and 75% in psychology. When it comes to gender, philosophy looks more like math and physics. What explains the numbers?

A group of feminist philosophers is persuaded it knows the answer: Women are kept away by sexism, both overt and unconscious. These philosophers have ascended to power in the American Philosophical Association (APA) and are hard at work addressing the alleged crisis. In the past few years, there has been a surge of alarmist articles, blogs, and conferences on the precarious state of women in philosophy. There is even a song! Anyone who is concerned about the current state of academia should be troubled. Academic philosophy prides itself on logic and analytical rigor, but the women-in-philosophy movement appears to prefer dogma and pop-psychology.

What happens in these cases is coddling of women -- at the expense of men. The women get special treatment, special legs up, special mentoring, special awards -- and even (gag!), as Hoff Sommers points out, even a song.

Personally, I'm shocked by organizations of academics in science that have "feminist" wings -- and I will never join one of these. Academics -- especially women -- are often surprised by that when, upon being invited to some meeting feminist wing of an ev psych organization, I tell them it's not for me. For me, there's only science -- not feminist science or masculinist science or any other special interest group science.

Hoff Sommers continues, taking on some of the idiocy:

In 2008, MIT feminist philosopher Sally Haslanger published a cri de coeur in an academic journal lamenting that philosophy is combative, judgmental, and "hyper-masculine." Now, I was a philosopher. My husband was a philosopher. My stepson is a philosopher. I've been around a lot of philosophers. They are many things--"hyper-masculine" isn't one of them. Nonetheless, Haslanger was passionate--actually combative. She attacked analytic philosophy for favoring masculine terms such as "penetrating," "seminal," and "rigorous." And she spoke of the "deep well of rage" inside her--rage over how she and others have been treated. Haslanger called on "established feminists," to organize and resist "the masculinization of philosophy spaces."

Haslanger expected a backlash. Instead she ignited a hostile takeover. By 2013, she attained a top position in the American Philosophical Association, and wrote in the New York Times that her group's "persistent activism . . . is becoming institutionalized." Her article ended with these words: "We are the winning side now. We will not relent; so it is only a matter of time."

But Haslanger's winning side is based on a double standard. It treats the gender disparity in philosophy as self-evidently wrong--even "tragic," according to Yale philosopher Joshua Knobe. But much larger disparities that favor women, in fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology and veterinary medicine, are ignored. If disciplines with more men are ipso facto unjust, then how can fields with more women be acceptable? To be consistent, activists should be calling for gender parity across the curriculum. APA-sponsored posters with the word PhilosopHER are turning up in philosophy departments. Perhaps psychology and anthropology departments should have posters with the words PsychoBROS or Anthropolo-HE.

I've written before about how men are vastly more likely to have risky jobs (and in fact are the risk-takers of the species, generally speaking).

Steven Pinker, speaking at an ev psych conference in, I think, 2006, noted that we don't try to push men into, say, kindergarten teaching. So what's with pushing women into professions they don't want to be in -- and all the coddling that comes with it? An example of that from the computer programming world, by Sarah Hoyt:

"[Blog.CodingHorror.com author] Atwood's next effort is a long list of things that can be done to make programming a 'more welcoming profession for women'. Hell, it's not a welcoming profession for most men. It attracts weird, it attracts poorly-socialized people (yes, I'm one of these. I can fake it for a while, but sooner or later the truth shows). Programming is ultimately for people whose focus is on cutting through the crap that makes up most of everyday life and teaching a very fast moron to do things that the ordinary everyday people think are valuable. If you don't have the basic competence, you might as well not bother."

What all of this coddling does do is make these worlds less hospitable for women who want to be in them, deserve to be in them, and like Hoff Sommers, didn't have feminists bleating at them to feel like they're a victim class.

I love the end to Hoff Sommers's piece:

In my senior year of high school, my mother gave me Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy. I relished that book. It was written by a man, and it was about men--Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Nietzsche. But I thought it was written for me. I wasn't aware I had entered an unsafe hyper-masculine space--to me it felt like a sacred space. I pursued a BA and PhD in philosophy and taught it for more than 20 years. It never crossed my mind, in high school or as my academic career progressed, that I would be unwelcome because I was a woman. There were some unsavory characters along the way, but the vast majority of my professors and colleagues were supportive and encouraging. I am glad that today's grievance blogs, alarmist theories, and angry tirades weren't around back then to discourage me--and sorry to think of their influence today on young women who are drawn to this great and difficult calling.