It’s curious how “[disproportionately more] women don’t seem to argue for fun” hits differently in dating discourse vs explaining academic philosophy gender gaps. If the generalization is true, then presumably we should expect a discipline that basically consists in “arguing for fun” to be somewhat male-skewed, statistically speaking.

Obviously there are plenty of excellent women philosophers (my wife is one!)—it’s worth emphasizing, since people are often stupid when it comes to group differences discourse, that any group differences in interest in philosophy provide no reason whatsoever to doubt the ability of those individuals (whatever group they’re from) who are interested in the topic. Nor does it necessarily undermine the value of outreach efforts, addressing sexism in the discipline, etc. I’m just annoyed that political ideologues in the discipline made it taboo to even mention obvious gender differences that plausibly play some role in explaining the statistical outcomes that we observe.