On Public Ethics Radio. Enjoy!
Lovely crocheted hat for baby February 9, 2012
As we all know, some folks are offended by the sight of a lady breastfeeding her infant. Why not rub it in their faces with this lovely baby hat?
Via Isabel Losada.
“Every Sperm is sacred” amendment February 9, 2012
After Oklahoma conservatives introduced a “personhood” bill to the state Senate on Monday, Sen. Constance Johnson decided to follow in Virginia Senator Janet Howell’s footsteps and attach an amendment in protest, which would add this language to the bill:
However, any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.
Thanks, L!
Social Philosophy Conference February 9, 2012
This is a terrific conference for women and the regular members of the group include many feminist philosophers. The program usually has lots of feminist content. If this is your field, I strongly recommend submitting something.
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Civic Virtues, Divided Societies, and Democratic Dilemmas
Twenty-Ninth International Social Philosophy Conference
Sponsored by
The North American Society for Social Philosophy
July 26 – July 28, 2012
Northeastern University
Boston, MA
A 300-500 word abstract should be e-mailed to all program committee
members.
Submission Deadlines:
For those living in Canada or the U.S.: March 15,2012.
For those living outside the United States and Canada: Jan. 15, 2012.
Program Committee:
Professor John Koolage of Eastern Michigan, wjkoolage@gmail.com , Professor Gaile Pohlhaus of Miami University, pohlhag@muohio.edu and Professor Theresa Tobin of Marquette University, thersa.tobin@marquette.edu
NASSP Conference Awards for Graduate Students
To promote new scholarship focusing on social philosophy and to encourage student participation, the North American Society for Social Philosophy has established the NASSP Awards for Best Graduate Student Papers. These awards give special recognition to papers to be read by a graduate student at the NASSP annual con-ference. The winners of the annual prizes will each receive $300 upon attendance at the annual International Social Philosophy Conference, and will be honored at the conference.
The prizes are awarded only to conference attendees, though there is no obligation to use the money for conference-related costs. Any graduate student enrolled in a program towards a degree beyond the B.A. or first university diploma is eligible.
Deadline: March 15, 2012
For more information, please go to the NASSP Website@ http://www.pit.edu/~nassp/nassp.html.
NASSP Travel Grants for International Presenters
The NASSP has limited funds for travel to Boston for presenters living outside the U.S. and Canada. If you are interested, please indicate this at the time that you receive the acceptance-mail.
Buffy’s choice February 8, 2012
Can you juggle new parenthood while being a slayer? Fictional vampire slayer Buffy has to decide.
“In an interview with USA Today executive producer (and Buffy creator) Joss Whedon explained the two most important details he wanted this issue had to convey were that this decision would be portrayed as a difficult one for Buffy, and that it would be handled with respect creatively: “It’s not something we would ever take lightly, because you can’t. You don’t … It offends me that people who purport to be discussing a decision that is as crucial and painful as any a young woman has to make won’t even say something that they think is going to make some people angry.”" from io9.com
Read more here.
A different perspective on sexuality and disability February 8, 2012
If the Sundance Channel’s new program “Push Girls” doesn’t strike you as the best or most inclusive portrayal of disabled bodies, you might be interested in the work being done by Sins Invalid:
Sins Invalid: An Unshamed to Beauty in the Face of Invisibility (aka “Sins”) is a San Francisco/Bay Area based performance project that incubates and celebrates artists with disabilities, centralizing artists of color and queer and gender-variant artists as communities who have been historically marginalized. For the last five years, our performance work has explored themes of sexuality, embodiment, and the disabled body to sold-out audiences.
They’re currently fundraising for a film that will help transmit their work to those who can’t make it to the Bay Area to see the live performance. You can view the kickstarter page for the project here. The fundraising deadline is imminent, so go check it out!
Anyone want to take a survey? February 8, 2012
Helen De Cruz writes:
I would be very grateful if readers could fill out the following, very brief survey: https://surveys.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_6XKYbWbsP5SBsBS
It will take only about three minutes of your time. The survey is part of my current project on cognitive science and natural theology. The aim is to get a better idea of how philosophers today evaluate natural theological arguments for or against the existence of God. Note that you do not need to be a philosopher of religion or a faculty member to complete this survey. I will post a digest of the results in a few weeks. The survey will be active until I have gathered a predetermined number of responses that would allow for statistically robust results or until two weeks have elapsed.
Helen has posted this survey on a few other philosophy blogs, but so far the percentage of female respondents has been disappointingly low. Go help her out!
Prinz on social VS evolutionary explanations for male violence February 8, 2012
He does an awesome job. A couple of examples:
A historical explanation of male violence does not eschew biological factors, but it minimizes them and assumes that men and woman are psychologically similar. Consider the biological fact that men have more upper-body strength than women, and assume that both men and women want to obtain as many desirable resources as they can. In hunter-gatherer societies, this strength differential doesn’t allow men to fully dominate women, because they on the food that women gather. But things change with the advent of intensive agriculture and herding. Strength gives men an advantage over women once heavy ploughs and large animals become central aspects of food production. With this, men become the sole providers, and women start to depend on men economically. The economic dependency allows men to mistreat women, to philander, and to take over labor markets and political institutions. Once men have absolute power, they are reluctant to give it up. It took two world wars and a post-industrial economy for women to obtain basic opportunities and rights.
In response to a recent article supporting the evolutionary “male warrior” hypothesis:
The authors claim that men are more xenophobic than women, because they are wired to wage war. But this is also predicted on the historical account, because men control governments and handle foreign relations. It follows too that men start all wars.
The authors contend that, compared to women, men prefer social dominance hierarchies, which testifies to their innately competitive nature. But this is easily explained on the social story: in male dominant societies, men gain from dominance hierarchies, and women lose.
The authors note that men are more prone to cooperate when under threat than otherwise, which may suggest an instinct to form armies. But a simpler explanation is that, having obtained power, men are reluctant to cooperate except under pressure.
The authors cite a disturbing study in which men endorse war after being primed with a picture of an attractive woman, which suggests that male violence has a sexual motive. But the link between sex and violence may derive from the fact that sex is often coercive in male dominant societies.
The authors link the male warrior hypothesis to racism: white men, they say, show greater fear responses to pictures of black men, than do white women. But this is difficult to explain on any evolutionary hypothesis, since there would have been little ethnic diversity in our ancestral past. Racism is more readily linked to the social history of slavery, an industry run by men.
The authors also remark that women become more racist at times of peak fertility, suggesting fear of impregnation by foreign invaders. A different explanation is that menstrual peaks also bring out strong emotions, which lets latent racism come to the fore.
The male warrior hypothesis makes many predictions that don’t pan out. There is no evidence that men prefer foreign women–the Western ideal is Barbie–and women often like effeminate men: David Bowie would not be sexier with an enormous beard. On the male warrior hypothesis, women should fear foreigners as much as men do, because foreign men are hardwired to attack them, but women are actually more sympathetic to foreigners. This may stem from their firsthand knowledge of discrimination.
(Thanks, R!)
Badass Old Lady Blog February 7, 2012
Check out Margaret and Helen’s blog: “My name is Helen Philpot. I am 82 years old. My grandson taught me how to do this so that I could “blog” with my best friend Margaret Schmechtman who I met in college almost 60 years ago. I have three children with my husband Harold. Margaret has three dogs with her husband Howard. I live in Texas and Margaret lives in Maine.” Great furious post on the Susan G. Komen fiasco here.
Thanks SD.
Toggle between patriarchy and matriarchy February 7, 2012
with a gender-flipping add-on for the Chrome browser.
“Danielle Sucher’s Jailbreak the Patriarchy is a Chrome extension that
substitutes the word “women” for “men” and “he” for “she” and so on
within all text. The results are thought provoking — toggle between a
patriarchal and matriarchal online world with the click of a button.”
From A Browser Extension That Flips Gender on Disinformation.
Gender, Race, and Sexuality Conference February 6, 2012
Gender, Race, and Sexuality Conference in Barcelona: Issues in Philosophical Methodology
Dates: 25-26 June 2012
Venue: Residència Investigadors del CSIC (c.Hospital 64, Barcelona)
The topic of the conference will include issues in connection with gender, race, and sexuality, with special attention to methodological considerations in “applied” (analytic) philosophy.
Invited Speakers
Joshua Glasgow (Sonoma State University)
Sally Haslanger (MIT)
Ed Stein (Cardozo School of Law)
Submissions
Submissions of full papers (up to 4000 words) plus 250 word abstract are invited. Please send them in suitable form for anonymous reviewing as .pdf attachments to GRSelona@gmail.com. The closing date for submissions is 1 April 2012. We expect to confirm which papers have been accepted by the end of April. Accommodation expenses for authors of accepted submissions will be covered; unfortunately we cannot cover travel expenses.
Organized by
Dan López de Sa (ICREA-Universitat de Barcelona), with the auspices of LOGOS. Sponsored by the Catalan Government (2011ARCS100104) and the Spanish Government (FFI2011-14934-E and Ingenio-Consolider PERSP S2, CSD2009-00056).
Scientific Committee
Josep Corbí (València)
Esa Díaz-León (Manitoba)
Dan López de Sa (ICREA-UB)
Genoveva Martí (ICREA-UB)
José Martínez (UB)
Mari Mikkola (Humboldt)
Jennifer Saul (Sheffield)
Pepa Toribio (ICREA-UAB)
For further info, please check www.ub.edu/grs or contact GRSelona@gmail.com
Interviews, clothes, biases? February 5, 2012
A query from a reader:
I have a job interview coming up and I have been thinking about what to wear! Normally I know that women tend to wear a skirt and jacket, or a dress. But I have been wondering whether this may disadvantage the applicant, by triggering (conscious and unconscious) biases against women. I was wondering if you knew of anything written on this, or have any views on the matter. I think women think they should look ‘nice’, while feminine clothes may distract or convey a certain lack of professionalism. So I am thinking of trousers and a shirt! But was just wondering if you have any thoughts on this.
Anyone know of relevant studies?
The Sunday cat Is truly intrigued February 5, 2012
Someone might use belittling words like “excessive,” but the Sunday Cat takes a wider view. Particularly when reading the following from the NY Times:
Karen Shirk operates a dog-training school in Xenia, Ohiob… We waded into a crowd of bouncing ecstatic Papillons — toy dogs whose wide, silky ears inspired the breed’s name, the French word for “butterfly.” Though she stepped away only a moment earlier, the dozen little dogs rejoiced as if they’d feared never seeing her again: some spun in excitement, others leapt onto her desk and one tap-danced along the computer keyboard. They raised their pointed little faces and emitted high-pitched yips of hallelujah. When Shirk, who is 49, reached her desk chair, they settled on the floor at her feet, folded up their ears like kites and watched her. When she laughed, they took out their ears and waved them around.
Could one actually react like that? Hmmmm. Youtube suggests it is possible; here is a papillon who is offered the opportunity to go outside:
The next is a more informative view about the breed:
Now that’s an apology! A lesson for Komen February 3, 2012
In a comment on the post on lovely pictures , I noted that the site, vice.com, had a revolting article on what a shame it was that another site took so much heat for encouraging men to rape women. The other site is unilad.com.
Unilad.com is a site run by UK university men and it’s apparently a lot about football. Curiosity got the better of me, so I went over to the site just to see. What I encountered is some apology all right!
Komen Foundation, look at a good way to make an apology that people will believe. In your case, replacing those behind the decision not to fund Planned Parenthood would be a similar apology.
Enough on Komen from me!
Reader query, on “nature” February 3, 2012
UPDATE: Whoops! I failed to include the writer’s comment that he is teaching an environmental ethics class! I wondered why so many of the suggestions were about sex, heh. Okay, back to the request– Help an instructor out if you can, and if you would, consider offering articles regarding how to engage in conceptual discussion of nature that would specifically help out environmental ethics students:
I’d like to assign a paper (or set of papers) that explicitly engage the
concept of “nature” or “the natural”. Authors in the literature as
well as my students often claim that something is unnatural (and
therefore bad or wrong). I’d like to help my students interrogate
what such claims mean by trying to figure out what it means to say
that something is natural in the first place. Off the top of your
head, can you recommend any papers or book chapters that would help do
that?
I already floated a reading possibility, which is the first chapter of Peter Wenz’s Nature’s Keeper. But I’m certain the reader would appreciate suggestions of articles, feminist works, online sources… Feel free!
Where thinking pink with Komen WON’T take you: a correction February 3, 2012
According to Huff Post, the claim about a connection with Komen was simply untrue.
It’s to die for!
The.22 walther hope edition, a joint product from the Komen Foundation and Discount Gun Sales.
Komen will fund Planned Parenthood after all February 3, 2012
Well, that was remarkably fast! Well done to everyone who piled on the pressure.
Though if this is right, we’ve still got very good reason to have a problem with Komen. (Thanks, J-Bro!)
Call for members: Wilfrid Sellars Society February 3, 2012
Carl Sachs writes:
This society could be of interest to philosophers working in perception, language, intentionality, epistemology, philosophy of science, metaphysics, and the history of philosophy (esp. Kant and Hegel).
As the WSS is just being formed now, we’d like to have greater representation by women philosophers from the very beginning.
Here’s the website.
Affirmative action, math, and women’s participation February 3, 2012
From the arts technica blog: “A new study indicates that policy-based initiatives can increase women’s participation and competitiveness in math and the quality of the resulting work. The particular experiment performed by Loukas Balafoutas and Matthias Sutter, released February 2 by Science, involved three methods that provided an initial advantage to women in a math competition. The authors found that, in each case, women entered the competitions more readily, but the aggregate performance of the participants was unaffected, and sometimes even improved.”
Read “Affirmative action for women in math contests boosts participation without dropping results”here.
The study itself is in Science, 2012. DOI: 10.1126/science.1211180.
Thanks TD.
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