The kind of post that keeps me going

Over on the What We’re Doing blog, I’ve just put up a post that really moved me and made me feel good about what we’re accomplishing through this blog and through What It’s Like.  It’s about a senior male philosopher who became aware of the problems for women in the profession through the Gendered Conference Campaign and the What It’s Like blog.  He’s now going out of his way (in many ways) to support female colleagues.  Here’s one of the things he says:

“The reason I am where I am today is that my best competitors were women who graduated the same year as me. They have all left the profession. You should not.”

I found this both very sad and very heartening.  Sad, obviously, because of all the women who left the profession.  But heartening that he realises his success is partly due to this fact (the sort of thing that’s very hard to acknowledge about oneself), and even more heartening that he’s doing something to keep women in the profession now.