“Elegant Labia”?! November 11, 2009

A story here on the increasing trend to cosmetic surgery for female genitals. According to the BBC story, women are undergoing surgery to create perfect genitalia amid a “shocking” lack of information on the potential risks of the procedure. Research published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology also questions the very notion of aesthetically pleasing genitals. Critics charge the practice is fueled by the desire to have the perfect porn star body. Consultant gynaecologist Sarah Creighton and psychologist Lih-Mei Liao challenged the ethics of offering women surgery to address such insecurities, suggesting it was adverts for a “homogenised, pre-pubescent genital appearance” which created these anxieties in the first place. Douglas McGeorge, past president of the the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons defended the practice saying, “Essentially this is just about removing a bit of loose flesh, leaving behind an elegant-looking labia with minimum scarring. The procedure won’t interfere with sexual function. Women want this for a number of reasons – some find it uncomfortable to ride a bike for instance, but for the majority it is aesthetic, that’s true. Lads’ mags are looked at by girlfriends, and make them think more about the way they look. We live in times where we are much more open about our bodies – and changing them – and labioplasty is simply a part of this.”

Striking this story comes just after the vagina pendant story on our blog. If you follow the link to the etsy store, you’ll see the pendants have a charming amount of variety.

Vagina Pendant* November 11, 2009

For the feminist philosopher who has everything. (What really amuses me is the super-traditional framing.) Thanks BTPS!

To shop, go here. And no, Mr Jender, this is not a holiday-shopping hint.

* No, it’s not, as commenters have pointed out! And it’s especially sad to use the wrong terminology when you’re trying trying to get women to like their bodies. Sigh.

More from Leiter on gender imbalance in the profession November 10, 2009

Have a look and maybe participate!

Many thanks to Restructure!

 

Gender Pay Gap in the NHS November 10, 2009

The Guardian newspaper posted this article today about the gender pay gap and “hostile work culture” in the NHS.  The pay gap figures are shocking.  Especially the ones that suggest that women actually earn less (in comparison to men in similar jobs) if they work over a longer period of time.  Ugh.

“Gender Fatigue”? November 9, 2009

A new study blames “gender fatigue” for the failure of companies to increase the number of women reaching executive ranks. “I call it gender fatigue, paying lip service to an underlying problem that people feel weary of discussing. They just assume that since policies are in place, the problem is solved and no more needs to be done,” says Dr. Kelan, a lecturer in work and organizations at King’s College London. In her research, she did in-depth interviews with 26 men and women who are employees of two large Swiss companies that promote themselves as having leading-edge policies and programs to promote gender equality. Kelan recommends holding business leaders responsible for change and spending more time making the business case for increasing the proportion of women. More can be found in the Globe and Mail article here.

Same-sex couples’ parenting November 8, 2009

Today’s NY Times has a discussion of the parenting of same-sex couples.  It looks at Abbie E. Goldberg’s new book, “Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children,” which  is an analysis of more than 100 academic studies, most looking at groups of 30 to 150 subjects.   Most of the focus is on lesbian parenting, since gay men parented much less until  recently.  The news is all good for the cause of same-sex marriages.  And some is  intriguing. 

First of all, the children are the same as children of heterosexual marriages on all the standard measures of doing well socially.  They are popular, make friends and don’t have gender identity problems – at least all in the same measure as other children.   And this is interesting:

More enlightening than the similarities, however, are the differences, the most striking of which is that these children tend to be less conventional and more flexible when it comes to gender roles and assumptions than those raised in more traditional families.

Girls in particular are more likely to be interested in jobs like being a doctor over being a nurse, and they’re more likely to play with “boy’s” toys.

Of course, when I first read it, I thought of all those studies that claim that within a few days of birth gender interests are showing up.  Could the environment of same-sex parents show that’s not innate?  But I now suspect not.  After all, supposing an interest in Barbie is innate, it’s just the sort of thing one might think lesbian parents lack and so don’t pass  on. O dear!  

I guess we’re just back to the basic implausibility of 20th century gender markers being carried by those pesky old genes.

Universal Health Care Coverage November 8, 2009

So the US is getting closer to something approximating universal health care coverage.  I haven’t looked to see just what’s happened to, for example, legal foreign visitors, still less illegal ones, but it looks a lot better than the status quo.  And there are even provisions for same-sex couples that make their situation more equitable.

There is also a huge and horrible problem, one that Roman Catholic Church and of course many others apparently worked very hard to bring about.  And that is the complete lack of coverage for abortions except in the case of the mother’s life gravely threatened, incest and rape.

The RC Church bishops demanded that letters denouncing the bill and requests for actions and contributions to fight it be read out at  masses across the country.  This was an action with all sorts of political ramifications, not just about abortion, and it is a puzzle to me how they keep their tax exempt status.  

So what do you think about the compromise?  Pelosi is a strong abortion rights advocate and accepted the restrictions when it seemed either that or the bill will fail.   She’s said to be counting on the senate to have a better bill.  I think that’s the “right” decision, but that’s in large part because I’m worried that the possibility of no bill at all is very much alive still. 

What do you think?

The Sunday cat doubts whether Pulis really exist November 7, 2009

Here is what is supposed to be one:

But clearly the identity conditions are at least vague:

And the Sunday Cat apologizes to dog lovers for  only finding suspect dogs.

Women Philosophers and Academic Administration November 7, 2009

Evelyn Brister has a great post over at Knowledge and Experience on women philosophers and administrative leadership.  There’s an interesting collection of statistics, facts and explanatory observations.  Among the last, there’s this interesting observation:

              This quote is from an article in the journal Women in Leadership:

Women presidents differ greatly in their approaches to leadership. In this report… [most women]…talked about their leadership in terms of their being trusted “to articulate the aspirations of my institution.” One reflected, “I’m almost entirely motivated by the desire to do meaningful and worthwhile work.” One said that she feels less pressure to be right than to “arrive at mutually satisfactory conclusions and decisions.”

You can also find a list of women philosophers who are or have been in leadership roles.

Check it out!  And tell us, here or over there, what you think and/or whether you’ve had any experience in administration.

Down with Shame! November 6, 2009

“I’m in a board meeting. Having a miscarriage. Thank goodness, because there’s a fucked-up three-week hoop-jump to have an abortion in Wisconsin.”

Thus ran Penelope Trunk’s tweet, which she defends further here. 

Liberal Conspiracy provides a vehement defence of her action, in the face of a barrage of outraged responses. There Laurie Penny attacks such outrage as an attempt to police women’s emotional responses, and notes that the shame attached to public airing of biological function is peculiarly inconsistent (when that function is pornographic or sexualised, the shaming abates…). Interestingly, Penny argues that Trunk is engaged in an important process necessary for gender equality, advocated by Mill:

The knowledge which men can acquire of women …is wretchedly imperfect and superficial, and always will be so, until women themselves have told all that they have to tell.

More on education and consumers November 6, 2009

Exam boards responsible for developing courses at secondary level compete with one another to sell their courses to schools. Unsurprisingly, schools like to buy courses that result in the best grades, since good grades = better position in league tables = more students at school = money to pay teachers and to buy resources. Given these facts, what’s the best way to sell your course? Make it easy, of course. It doesn’t take a genius to see that this brings a big risk of lowering standards. According to the Head of the Royal Society of Chemistry, this is exactly what has happened. Exam boards focus on simplicity and use multiple choice questions on exam papers, to the detriment of education. Studies carried out by the scientific community have found science papers with no maths in them, indeed, they have found science papers with no science in them. This all goes to show that applying a business model to education is a crap idea. You can read more here.

A contest: Word has reached us November 5, 2009

of little practices in philosophy departments that, well, if not exactly stink, then are definitely off.

The prize may go  to the department that keeps a web calendar  named after urinals you might have seen in Paris, le pissoir.**

Can you top that?  Get even close?  If so, please let us know! 

** Many thanks to someone who might not want to be identified.

Baby and Me November 5, 2009

‘Cause it’s just what girls like, of course.

Baby and Me comes with a doll, but not just any doll. This doll features a slot for the Wii remote so that the game can track feeding, playing, and excessive shaking motions. The game also features Balance Board support so that you can rock baby to sleep.

(Thanks, CR!)

Cross-dressing student sent home November 4, 2009

Another bit of Texas. 

It’s a shame that the story exists,  but there are some good elements in it.  Not least of those is the student’s unquestioning assertion of his rights.   Schools clearly need diversity consultants!

And there’s a nice critical reasoning question, which needs to be asked before you get to the lawyer:  Did he break the dress code?

 

UK Courts Rule on What Counts as Philosophy November 4, 2009

Rupert Dickinson was, he says, sacked for his Green beliefs. Today’s Guardian reports that

In today’s ruling, Mr Justice Michael Burton decided that: “A belief in man-made climate change, and the alleged resulting moral imperatives, is capable if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations.” Under those regulations it is unlawful to discriminate against a person on the grounds of their religious or philosophical beliefs.

The written ruling, which looked at whether philosophy could be underpinned by a scientific belief, quoted from Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy and ultimately concluded that a belief in climate change, while a political view about science, can also be a philosophical one.

It’s excellent and ridiculous all at once! On the one hand, I agree with this:

Camilla Palmer, of Leigh Day and Co, said it opened doors for an even wider category of deeply held beliefs, such as feminism, vegetarianism or humanism. “It’s a great decision. Why should it only be religions which are protected?”

But on the other hand, a lollypop and a pony ride for anyone who can explain to me what the hell any of these mean:

In his written judgment, Mr Justice Burton outlined five tests to determine whether a philosophical belief could come under employment regulations on religious discrimination

• The belief must be genuinely held.

• It must be a belief and not an opinion or view based on the present state of information available.

• It must be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life.

• It must attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance.

• It must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, not incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others.

Ssshhh! It’s very early November 3, 2009

Fall morning on the Texas Gulf Coast.  Taken at 5:30 am this morning.

So it is not Sunday and the cat is hardly a feminist.  So it’s got to be its own justification.

This is just scary November 3, 2009

Jender blogged a few weeks back  about one aspect of the redoing of higher ed the current UK government seems keen on.  And I certainly don’t want to dismiss all the current goals, such as increasing  social mobility.  But a chill goes over me when I read this:

Mandelson to announce plans to modernise ‘ivory tower’ universities

Business secretary wants students and parents to be treated more like customers in proposals to overhaul higher education.

So what’s wrong with that?  Why can universities be more like corporations  turning out a product?  And aren’t Secretaries of Business really good judges of what the product  is? 

I’d be really interested in hearing what you all think.  My own worry is that universities get put under a great deal of pressure to produce a product that can be recognized by the consumer, and that  tends to lead to, among other things, massive grade  inflation and all that entails, which is a sense  that money is just about enough to entitle a student to be called educated.

The history of birth control November 3, 2009

Mr Jender sent a link to this story on the history of birth control. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but thought you might want to. (OK, I’ll admit it– I just wanted to use that awesome illustration!)

On praise for a postdoc: This is how it can go November 2, 2009

I was at a formal award dinner being put on by a heavily endowed foundation.  Not my usual venue, let me stress.  Scientists had flown in from around the country to honor the medal recipient.  The honoree, in his mid-seventies, is highly distinguished; someone who is a serious contender for a Nobel Prize.  He is clearly well-beloved.  His unusual acceptance speech was all about others. 

He is a professor at one of America’s very best universities, but one with a dearth of female faculty, which is why he’s still saying in public what no doubt is largely said just in private today – or so I imagine.

So with perhaps 200 or 300 people there, he introduces some of the people who have accompanied him.  His wife and family, colleagues from his famous institution, and finally the one postdoc who had also come.  There had been a video of him with his students in his labs.  She, the postdoc, was, he said, the good-looking one in the video.

Just to state the obvious:  Given she is a postdoc in a famous lab at one of the very top places, then she must also be extremely intelligent/brilliant, hard-working and dedicated.  All such qualities he had attributed to other  people.

And then, just to cap it all off, I had to explain to jj-partner just what a shame it was that this young woman was so introduced to a room containing many of the stars in her profession.  On reflection, I may have the only one who noticed, other than the young woman.

On natural sex November 1, 2009

Not that we’re counting, but bonobos and fruit bats do it, in addition to us.  Whatever was the Creator thinking!?!

A Little Fellatio Goes a Long Way

By Cassandra Brooks
ScienceNOW Daily News
30 October 2009

Oral sex is surprisingly rare in the animal kingdom. Humans do it, of course. As do bonobos, our close relatives. But now researchers have observed the practice for the first time in a non-primate. During intercourse, female short-nosed fruit bats lick the genitals of their partner, a possible ploy to increase copulation time. The discovery suggests there may be a biological advantage to fellatio. 

 

The article mentions three reasons why they perform oral sex:

1.  It has to do with sperm survival.

2.  It means the penis is cleaner, and so presumably the likelihood of a healthy pregnancy is higher.

3.  It’s fun.

I’m not sure the last is supposed to mean it has survival value.