via the F-Word.
Violent men and nurturing women? July 28, 2010
I will never forget one of the first things we had to read in the first feminism class I took. It was an argument claiming that women should do all the childcare, because men are too selfish and warlike to look after children. Just one of the daft things people have said to explain why we shouldn’t be allowed to work or leave the house. But the picture of men as violent meat-heads, and women as nurturing and peaceful is firmly lodged in many heads. The recent news that women were more greatly involved in the Nazi holocaust than previously thought, has thus come as a surprise to many. You can read more about it here – but be warned: as one might expect, it’s not a happy read.
Some good news July 28, 2010
The number of non-emerita women on the Editorial Board of Political Theory just quintupled, from 1 (Elshtain) to 5 (adding Benhabib, Mansbridge, Rosenblum, Pateman).
The journal’s editor Mary G. Dietz writes: “On behalf of the Editors and Executive Editorial Committee,
I happily announce the appointment of four new members to the journal’s
Editorial Board. In recognition of their distinguished scholarship and influential
contributions to the fields of political theory, politics, and political philosophy,
the journal honors Professors Seyla Benhabib (Yale University), Jane
Mansbridge (Harvard University), Nancy Rosenblum (Harvard University),
and Carole Pateman (University of California Los Angeles). We look forward
to working with them to further the success of Political Theory and offer
them a warm welcome to the Editorial Board.”
The announcement is here.
Talking to children about race July 27, 2010
A fascinating article argues that talking to children– even very young children– about race turns out to be absolutely vital to fighting discriminatory attitudes. And it’s important to talk explicitly– “everyone’s equal” doesn’t mean much to a child who hasn’t quite grasped the abstract concept of equality but who has noticed differences in skin colour, that they seem to matter in some way, and also that *they’re not allowed* to talk about this. Well-meaning parents are, understandably, reluctant to talk about race– they don’t want their children to use these categories. But they’re mistaken to think that the children won’t acquire the categories– they’ll acquire them, scarily early, and not in a way that the well-meaning parents want them to.
Making Gregorian Chant sell with Lady Gaga July 27, 2010
Early Gregorian Chant is eerily beautiful, and it turns out that the cloistered nuns at Abbaye de Notre-Dame de l’Annonciation are among the best in the world at singing it. They’ve recently won a contest for female singers of GC.
So suppose you are Decca Records and you’ve now got a recording contract with the nuns for Gregorian Chant. Just how are you going to sell it?
Well, as it turns out, you’re part of Universal, which has signed on Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga and cloistered nuns! WOW! As CNN puts it, Lady Gaga and the nuns are label-mates.
To be fair, we don’t know that the company even mentioned the two together.
The video below might give you an idea of the beauty of the singing. (I couldn’t find anywhere to sign up to join the cloister; it does look to be heavenly.)
And here’s some info from CNN: Singing Nuns Join Gaga’s Record Label:
The Benedictine sisters have taken a vow of isolation and intend to stay in their convent for the rest of their lives.
As part of an ancient order that dates to the sixth century, the nuns can only communicate to visitors, even family, through a grill, according to Decca. …
“We never sought this, it came looking for us,” said the Reverend Mother Abbess in a statement. “At first we were worried it would affect our cloistered life, so we asked St. Joseph in prayer. Our prayers were answered, and we thought that this album would be a good thing if it touches people’s lives and helps them find peace.” …
“When you hear the sound of nuns chanting, it’s like an immediate escape from the challenges, stresses, noise and pace of modern living,” Decca executive Tom Lewis said in a statement. “You’re given a glimpse of a secret world of peace and calm.”
The group of traditionally self-sufficient nuns includes a plumber, an engineer, an electrician, a silk-weaver and a dental assistant.
You can find posts of ours on Gaga here.
Breast ironing July 27, 2010
intended to prevent sexual assault in Cameroon. Sigh. (Thanks, Jender-Parents.)
Presence! July 26, 2010
“Presence” is the name of a relatively new MIT journal; it’s for “serious investigators of teleoperators and virtual reality.” Think “Second life” and the like. It covers topics from physics to philosophy, it says.
The article in the free issue entitled, “Gender Differences in the Impact of Presentational Factors in Human Character Animation on Decisions in Ethical Dilemmas,” seemed as close to irresistible as they were likely to get. And it is very interesting, for lots of reasons, including the impact of philosophical and psychological approaches to ethics. But the paper itself draws one’s attention to one finding. Here’s the abstract:
Simulated humans in computer interfaces are increasingly taking on roles that were once reserved for real humans. The presentation of simulated humans is affected by their appearance, motion quality, and interactivity. These presentational factors can influence the decisions of those who interact with them. This is of concern to interface designers and users alike, because these decisions often have moral and ethical consequences. However, the impact of presentational factors on decisions in ethical dilemmas has not been explored. This study is intended as a first effort toward filling this gap. In a between-groups experiment, a female character presented participants with an ethical dilemma. The character’s human photorealism and motion quality were varied to generate four stimulus conditions: real human versus computer-generated character × fluid versus jerky movement. The results indicate that the stimulus condition had no significant effect on female participants, while male participants were significantly more likely to rule against the character when her visual appearance was computer generated and her movements were jerky.
Roughly speaking, how human and “natural” you appear affects whether men will side with you in an ethical dilemma. In fact, the problem was concerned with whether a young women should tell her husband that she has genital herpes.
Does this generalize to real life? Are men more swayed than women by a woman’s looking whatever counts as proper? What do you think? Is it like, duh!?
Sexist expectations about men July 26, 2010
and why feminists (and everyone else) should care about them:
So I’ve been looking more carefully at the specific ways sexism hurts men. In particular, I’ve been looking at our society’s expectations of men, our very definitions of maleness. I’ve been looking at how rigid and narrow many of these expectations are, creating a razor-thin window of acceptable manly behavior that you’d have to be a professional tightrope walker to navigate. (Which would be a problem, since “professional tightrope walker” is definitely outside the parameters of acceptable manliness.)
Thanks, Frog!
A success story July 26, 2010
You have probably heard about Wenneras and Wold’s 1997 Nature article, which showed that women needed to be 2.5 times as productive as men to get grants. A dramatic result, especially since their study was in Sweden, often hailed as the leader in gender equality. The study got a lot of press. A LOT. More recently, however, it’s been getting some bad press, as in this article by John Tierney (discussed by us here). Tierney takes the Wenneras and Wold study to be an unrepresentative fluke, basing this view on recent studies which do in fact seem to show that there is no gender bias in grant-giving.
A few nights ago I was discussing this with Mr Jender, and he pointed out that 13 years is quite a long time, that the Wenneras and Wold study got an enormous amount of attention (he had heard of it independently, and he’s not in academia), and that perhaps procedures had changed. It turns out that Mr Jender was exactly right. What happened is now known as The Wold Effect: new procedures were put in place in response to the Wenneras and Wold results (first released in 1995), and the gender bias was eliminated.
So what is currently being billed as the failure of Wenneras and Wold’s results to hold up should instead be seen as a victory for gender equality and an illustration of the fact that change is possible.
(Many thanks to JJ, Mr Jender and VV.)
Milk indoctrination? July 26, 2010
The NCT (that’s National Childbirth Trust, not Nottingham City Transport), has objected to questions appearing in science exams on the grounds that they present biased information about breastfeeding.
The GCSE question presents a label for a fictional packet of infant formula milk, called ‘My Baby Food’ as the basis for a question about calcium carbonate. It then goes on to other issues relating to formula milk. On several counts the information presented on this label is misleading, incorrect, and in contravention of UK regulations. For example, it claims the milk is ‘pure and natural’ and makes claims about the nutritional value of the product which are not permitted in UK advertising.
The question then goes on to put forward several biased arguments, presented as ‘information’, including a claim that without free formula milk babies in the developing world might die of malnutrition. This contradicts research estimating that around 1.45 million children die every year through lack of breastfeeding, mainly as a result of unsafe bottle feeding, as well as the UNICEF and WHO guidance on the risks of formula use in developing countries and in disasters.
Charities working to support mothers who want to breastfeed are also negatively caricatured in the question, in the guise of ‘Mrs I M Right’, founder of fictional organisation ‘Responsible Mothers Are Us’.
Her extreme views are framed by a reference to the fact that she has ‘made a career in ‘goodness’ and is paid from donations given to RMAU by members of the public’. The marking criteria for this paper only judges a student’s ability to interpret and accept the information presented, with no room to critique or dispute the claims.
In another example, an SAT paper used in Key Stage 3 again demonstrates bias towards formula milk over breastmilk, claiming fair comparisons between the two when in fact the information is presented without crucial context.
You can read more here.
David Mitchell on Burkas (and tattoos) July 26, 2010
If Al Franken can become a senator, can’t David Mitchell become PM? Pleeeaase??
Governments and legislatures shouldn’t tell people what they can and can’t wear. By doing so, they would, in every sense, be taking a massive liberty. As long as people aren’t wearing crotchless jeans outside primary schools or deely boppers with attached sparklers on petrol station forecourts, we’ve all got the right to wear exactly what the hell we like and I can barely believe that we’re having this debate…
None of this means I think there’s anything good about wearing a burqa. I think it’s daft. I think any belief system that concludes that half the population should go around constantly covered from head to toe in black cloth, whether out of modesty, humility, tradition or stealth, has a massive flaw in it.
And, while I’m at it, I think that it’s ridiculous to believe in transubstantiation, that considering the Bible to be the literal word of God reduces that supposedly omnipotent being to a muddle-headed maniac and that the Hindu caste system and Roman Catholic rules against contraception could have been invented by Satan. There! Now no one will be able to guess who’s killed me….
There’s altogether too much harping on respect and banning these days. If you can’t respect something, you should ban it. If it’s not banned, you should respect it. Bullshit. There is a huge gulf of toleration between respect and banning. In a free society, people should be allowed to do what they want wherever possible. The loss of liberty incurred by any alternative principle is too high a price to pay to stop people making dicks of themselves. But, if people are using their freedoms to make dicks of themselves, other people should be able to say so.
Full article here.
UPDATE: you can support David Mitchell for PM here.
Corrected: A Sunday Cat makes the NY Times: in fact, 2 do July 24, 2010
For the article in the NY Times, see here. (Beware, it is somewhat defensive and dismissive.)
For Maru, who has appeared here several times, check these out.
And the dear little surprised cat, also “discussed”, is here.
Left out: There’s a third Sunday Cat in the article, Iggy, the fearless ipad explorer.
Funding scenarios in the UK July 24, 2010
According to Nature, July 22, 2010, the British government says it is considering three scenarios for agencies that fund science: no increase (& an effective 10% reduction from inflation); a 10% drop in funding; a 20% drop in funding. This is over the next 4 or 5 years, I believe.
The Royal Society, eschewing the “let’s all be constructive” reactions of some, has said flatly that the larger reduction will mean the end of science in England. Anyone who can will leave; grad students won’t be trained, etc.
And, of course, while not want to be too self-centered about things, this does make one wonder about the fate of philosophy.
Norway’s experience with quotas July 24, 2010
Reader AD sends us this:
When Norway introduced tough new laws back at the beginning of 2004 aimed at increasing the number of women on company boards, the naysayers said it would lead to disaster. Companies would be forced to appoint less-qualified people as board members just because of their gender, and there would be widespread resentment among male colleagues and business owners…When politicians proposed the measure in Norway, it sparked a massive public debate — with opponents saying that such positive discrimination would be unfair to men and that private companies should be given the freedom to appoint whichever candidates they preferred to their boards. Another common argument held that more competent men would be replaced with less skilled or qualified women.
Yet since the law was introduced there have been no complaints from employers associations, nor have CEOs stated that they have had problems finding suitable candidates for the board. “It is surprising because when the quota was introduced it created a lot of debate, especially from people in the business sector, who were critical of the reform,” Storvik says. “But after the reform went into force almost nobody seemed to object, hardly anybody is writing about it in the newspapers any more or telling us about negative experiences.”
The fact that a broad spectrum of political parties, including the conservatives, supported the measure helped lay the groundwork for broad public acceptance. But it also helped that Norwegians are already used to the idea of quotas in areas like politics.
So has the quota legislation had a trickle-down effect that goes beyond the board rooms and into the wider economy? “There is an increase in women in other management positions both in the firms which were targeted by the reform, but also in other firms that were not,” says Storvik. “But it is impossible to say if this has been caused by the reform.” The law only affects the major companies listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange and is not extended to private small- and medium-sized firms…The authors also argue that, left to their own devices, companies will do little diiversify the gender composition of their boards. When the law in Norway was first implemented it stated that the sanctions would not come into effect if companies raised the number of female board members to the demanded level. This did not happen. By 2006, the percentage had only increased to 18 percent.
After a grace period, tough sanctions went into force for non-compliance — the most drastic of which was the dissolution of the company. Businesses got the message and soon began appointing women as board members. By 2009, the 40 percent target had been achieved.
The fact that the increases in companies were only modest when they were given the chance to do so voluntarily, says Storvik, would imply “that it was very important that the law was made mandatory.
AD wonders if philosophy should take this as its model. That idea makes me uncomfortable, but others will feel differently. (And yes, I realise that “makes me uncomfortable” isn’t an argument.)
Feminism: Not uncool! July 24, 2010
Good news, from Kira Cochrane in the Guardian. And there’s still time to get on the reserve list for the UK Feminista Summer School, to be held next weekend.
Good advice from house finches? July 23, 2010
We are definitely not down on birds here, but still one doesn’t think of them as aces at practical reasoning. But, however they arrived at it, male house finches have a great strategy. One doesn’t need the strategy if one’s an ornate bird; those birds can just stay where they are and they’ll have mates. But the less ornate ones can do very well if they move around social groups.
The message: if you want a partner and haven’t been able to find one, change or expand your social circle.
This was uncovered using network theory. I’m sure I’ll use this example somewhere…. Meanwhile, we might try to decide who in the picture below will be moving on:
The research is reported in Nature, July 22, 2010, and it appears originally here.
Pink Sari Gangs July 23, 2010
We did a post about these back in 2007. But there’s now a much fuller story at Slate.
The founder of the gulabis is the fearless Sampat Pal Devi, 40, who was married off at the age of 12 to an ice-cream vendor and had the first of her five children at 15. The gulabis, whose members say they are a “gang for justice,” started in 2006 as a sisterhood of sorts that looked out for victims of domestic abuse, a problem the United Nations estimates affects two in three married Indian women. Named after their hot-pink sari uniforms, the gang paid visits to abusive husbands and demanded they stop the beatings. When obstinate men refused to listen, the gulabis would return with large bamboo sticks called laathis and “persuade” them to change their ways. “When I go around with a stick, it’s to make men fear me. I don’t always use it, but it helps change the mind of men who think they are more powerful than me” says Pal. She has assumed the rank of commander in chief and has appointed district commanders across seven districts in Bundelkhand to help coordinate the gang’s efforts.
Pal’s group now has more than 20,000 members, and the number is growing.
As J-Bro notes, pink isn’t always a sign of weakness. (Thanks to him, Mr Jender and Kitchen Chick for the story.)
Class divisions in the UK – health July 23, 2010
One way in which class divisions manifest themselves is health: in short, poorer people tend to be less healthy than rich people. The UK government has, over the years, attempted to narrow the health gap. But a recent review of deaths between 1921 and 2007 has shown that people in the most deprived areas are still more likely to die prematurely than people from richer areas. The Guardian article is here.
Gendered food July 23, 2010
Ever wondered why chocolate is for girls, and steak is for boys? (Ever wondered whether chocolate is for girls and steak is for boys?) Well wonder no more, because those lovely scientists have been doing some researching and come up with some answers – which contradict each other, of course. First up, there’s the innate difference brigade, who claim that women are genetically predisposed to prefer sweet food, whilst men are genetically predisposed to prefer bitter tastes. This is why men prefer beer and women prefer alcopops. Then there are those in the evolution camp, including our old mate, David Katz. Men need more protein because they were hunters, so they prefer to eat meat. Delicate ladies like ourselves, however, can get by on vegetables, because we just evolved to sweep the cave and pick a few carrots. (Anyone know how much protein’s involved in making new humans? I’ll wager a fair bit’s required to make all those little brains and nervous systems and muscles and bones and… ok we get the picture). Third, there are those folks who realised that a proper study of gendered food preferences might want to peer past the US boundaries and see what all those foreign types were eating. And hey presto, they found that things were different overseas. Spanish women and men craved chocolate equally – it wasn’t just those Spanish lasses locking themselves in a bath to feast on well-known chocolate treats, whilst Egyptians all preferred salty foods. Finally, there’s Brian Wansink, director of Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab (wow – who knew such a place existed?), who has discovered that people like to eat food that they’ve been told reflects or embodies the sorts of qualities they want to have or see themselves as possessing. So food choices are an extension of people’s identities. But this is a phenomenon that is more prevalent in the US (and perhaps the UK?) where there is an abundance of food. In places such as India, for example, attitudes to food are different – it is considered sacred – and there are less gendered food preferences. So there you have it, folks. You can read more here.
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