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It began with a private email last month from one established male philosopher to four others: Proceed with a Berlin-based conference that features 14 male speakers and no women, the writer said, and I will essentially launch a campaign to take you down professionally.

Within a week, the email went viral in the international philosophy community, and the writer — a Dutch man named Eric Schliesser — teamed up with another male philosopher to issue a clarion call to all men in the field.

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“We hereby commit ourselves not to accept invitations to male-only events,” the pair wrote in a July 23 missive posted to their popular blog, New APPS: Arts, Politics, Philosophy, Science. “We call on others to join us.”

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The Modest Proposal on how to Change the Status Quo went further still, urging what amounts to a name-and-shame tactic to publicly identify keynote presenters at all-male or mostly-male conferences who “through their inaction, complacency, and indifference contribute to the sexist status quo.”