“Gay troops contributed to massacre” March 18, 2010

According to some retired US marine general by the name of John Sheehan, the fact that the Dutch troops that were assigned in Srebrenica included gays, contributed to the massacre of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in 1995.

Sheehan pointed to the Netherlands, which he said embarked on a process of social engineering in the Dutch military once the Cold War ended. “They declared a peace dividend and made a conscious effort to socialize their military.  It included open homosexuality.  That led to a force that was ill-equipped to go to war,” he said.

There seems to be some underlying assumption that homosexuality makes one incapable of dealing with war situations. No need to point out how preposterous that is.

It must be noted that Dutchbat wasn’t there to wage war, but to keep the peace, which might be a novel concept to this retired marine.

The Fall of Srebrenica and the role of Dutchbat in it is quite a sensitive issue to the Dutch and that has absolutely nothing to do with homosexuals in the military. That this person would even dare to suggest it is a travesty in many ways.

Update: Statemens of Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Renée Jones-Bos, the Dutch ambassador to the US on the matter, here.

Another update: the New York Times News blog sums it up neatly.

Genderanalyzer says… March 18, 2010

“We think http://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/ is written by a woman (71%).”

From their website: “About GenderAnalyzer BETA: We created Genderanalyzer out of curiosity and fun. It uses Artificial Intelligence to determine if a homepage is written by a man or woman. Behind the scene, a text classifier hosted over at uClassify.com has been trained on 11000 blogs written by men and women. In our lab it seems to works pretty well, we want to see how it performs on the web! We hope you like it!”

See the analyzer here I’d appreciate comments from someone who knows more about how these things work about the assumptions they use to guess the sex of a blog’s author.

Femivore? March 17, 2010

One book, two descriptions…

Here’s how The Globe and Mail starts off their article, “Meet the Radical Homemaker”:

A new breed of stay-at-home men and women is rejecting consumer-focused lives in favour of looking after their families and communities.It can get a little awkward when people ask Rick Juliusson what he does for a living.

“I – I’m a stay-at-home dad,” is his standard reply.

Mr. Juliusson notes he’s also many other things – an independent farmer, a writer and a contract consultant for non-profit organizations. But since he quit his job as an executive director of a Vancouver-based international development agency a year and a half ago and moved his family to a five-acre farm in Duncan, B.C., Mr. Juliusson considers his main role as a father to his two young boys…”

The New York Times article, The Femivore’s Dilemma, takes a different approach:

Four women I know — none of whom know one another — are building chicken coops in their backyards. It goes without saying that they already raise organic produce: my town, Berkeley, Calif., is the Vatican of locavorism, the high church of Alice Waters. Kitchen gardens are as much a given here as indoor plumbing. But chickens? That ups the ante. Apparently it is no longer enough to know the name of the farm your eggs came from; now you need to know the name of the actual bird.

All of these gals — these chicks with chicks — are stay-at-home moms, highly educated women who left the work force to care for kith and kin. I don’t think that’s a coincidence: the omnivore’s dilemma has provided an unexpected out from the feminist predicament, a way for women to embrace homemaking without becoming Betty Draper.

One fascinating feature of the juxtaposition is that the NY Times article really plays up the feminism, explicitly mentioning it several times*– while at the same time framing the movement as all about a new, even more labour-intensive sort of housewifery (albeit an environmentally superior one). The Globe and Mail article, which doesn’t mention feminism, actually describes something that sounds much more feminist– since it’s not assuming that it’s all “chicks with chicks”.

*And, as far as I can tell, coining the really ill-conceived term ‘femivore’. I mean, shouldn’t that mean one who eats women?

(Thanks, Frog, for your help on this one!)

Milgram: Second time as game show? March 17, 2010

Scientists can get it past the ethics committees anymore. But TV companies apparently don’t face that obstacle.

A French TV show which invited contestants to give a man increasingly large electric shocks until he apparently died said it was astonished by their willingness to comply.

The Game of Death, which goes out tonight on the state-owned France 2 channel, recruited ordinary people who had no idea they were being set up.

Based on a US psychological experiment in the 1960s, the man apparently being shocked is zapped each time he gets a quiz question wrong.

Each time the show’s hostess urged contestants to turn up the voltage until the man screamed in pain with the audience, who also believed the game was real, shouting “punishment” as encouragement.

Eventually the “victim” appeared to drop dead.

“We were amazed to find that 81 percent of the participants obeyed” the sadistic orders of the television presenter, said programme-maker Christophe Nick.

Happy St Pat’s March 17, 2010

I’m sure there must be some happy Irish songs, but the Wearing of the Green is not one, nor is the following.  The pictures are beautiful, though.  The tenor is Michael Londra

 

 

Empowering dads in Turkey? March 16, 2010

That’s one way to interpret this bit of news, I guess. Apparently, artificial insemination is illegal in Turkey, but now they have also made it a crime to get artificially inseminated abroad.

A spokesman at the Department of Health, Irfan Sencan, said the regulation was covered by article 231 of the criminal code, which makes it a crime to conceal the paternity of a child.

I do not understand the rationale for forbidding artificial insemination on basis of that article, because obviously, artificial insemination can be done with semen from a known sperm donor, like for example the husband of the woman. Adultery is a criminal offence in Turkey, but that wouldn’t technically rule out artificial insemination from donors other than the legally wedded husband, I guess.

I can imagine -although I don’t agree- forbidding artificial insemination on the grounds of pro-life arguments, namely that with artificial insemination, there are a lot of unfertilised egg cells (“potential humans”) that get tossed out (and why don’t we see pro-life activists protesting at fertility clinics then? another matter!) but that doesn’t seem to be the issue in Turkey.

As Pinar Ilkkaracan, a prominent women’s rights campaigner in Turkey, put it:

“it would be a misinterpretation of a law intended to protect the inheritance rights of children.”

“We spent years fighting to improve the law so that it would properly protect women’s autonomy over their bodies and sexuality.

“This is completely against the philosophy of the reformed penal code,” .

Obviously, this is not a step forward when it comes to women’s reproductive rights.

But I think it might actually hurt men too. I don’t know enough about Turkish society, but if it is true, as it is with many countries in the region, that it is a bit of a disgrace not to be able to reproduce, then I can imagine the following:

• Since infertility of the woman is a ground for divorce, it will put those women who can’t conceive naturally at risk for being divorced and maybe outcast because they are denied this particular option which might very well enable them to conceive

• It makes it impossible for men to conceal their infertility, which will stigmatise them

I would like to hear better informed voices about this.

Anyway, I think it’s a darned shame if people who are so motivated to have children are denied access to methods that would enable them to do so.

Possible First: ‘Sex Not Specified’ March 16, 2010

UPDATE: The recognition has been withdrawn. (Thanks, Rachael.)

Norrie May-Welby (who primarily goes only by ‘Norrie’) has just been legally recognised as neither male nor female. Norrie is thought to be the first person in the world to achieve such legal recognition. Here’s Norrie, describing why this is important:

Those concepts, man or woman, just don’t fit me, they are not my actual reality, and, if applied to me, they are fiction. At 48 years of age, I’m less inclined to just humour other people’s delusions about gender and try and conform to one of their expected options.

If I need to show identity documents, I certainly don’t want details that are false, for this will only cause trouble when officials realise I don’t match my documents.

More generally, Norrie notes, “There seemed no sense in having such a changeable and transient quality as gender nailed down as a permanent mark on identity documents.”

Norrie’s blog is here.

BBC Documentary Series: Women March 16, 2010

I’ve finally managed to watch the first episode of the BBC’s excellent programme, Women. Episode One is Libbers, and it’s devoted to 2nd Wave Feminism– great archival footage and wonderful interviews done for the programme with such people as Susan Brownmiller and Kate Millett. (Actually, there were some moments in the interviews that just clunked, like when the interviewer started asking about clitoral orgasms when people clearly didn’t want to discuss them– but such moments were rare.)

Next up: Mothers. I haven’t seen it yet, though it aired last night.

“So you think it’s only because…” March 16, 2010

It’s only just hit me how frequent a certain form of misinterpretation is for feminists. Some of these are real examples I’ve encountered recently, others are variants on real ones. I’m sure you can supply more.

1. So anti-porn feminists think it’s only because there’s pornography that rape exists.
2. So you’re saying that it’s only because X is a man that he was invited to speak at conference Y.
3. So you think that there wouldn’t be any differences between men and women if it weren’t for pink and blue toys.

What’s fascinating to me is that these often come from people who are otherwise careful, subtle thinkers– the sort perfectly capable of recognising the distinction between citing one contributing factor in a complex collection of causes and giving a necessary and sufficient condition for something.

Porn for Women March 15, 2010

(Thanks, Mr Jender.)

“She’s not so dumb” March 15, 2010

Well, thanks. 

The poster below is one of 200 WWII posters prints which have just been found in a pristine, unused condition, according to the Sunday Mail:

Mr Slocombe [senior curator at the imperial war museum] explained: ‘They had a very contradictory approach to women, and lurched from one stereotype to another depending on the needs of the day.

‘At the beginning of the war they were shown to be helpless females in need of male protection.

‘Then from 1941 when women were called to do war work, the images became much more positive.

‘But in the anti-gossip, anti-spying campaigns, women were often portrayed as femme fatales, or as being unreliable, and vaguely untrustworthy.’

One that was never used seems very familiar:

A useful poster indeed, and, oddly, a recurring motto of Tim Gunn’s on Project Runway.

Women work 2/3 of world’s working hours yet earn only 10% of its income March 15, 2010

An excellent commentary in the Observer starts like this, “Now, more than ever, we must push for women’s rights
During a week with women’s issues unusually high up the agenda, the lack of progress for millions is frustrating…” Continues here.

China gets first women astronauts March 14, 2010

but requires that they be married, “as we believe married women would be more physically and psychologically mature”. For more, see here.(Thanks, T!)

Chicken Sex March 14, 2010

is complicated . (Thanks, Jender-Parents!)

Juanita Goggins March 14, 2010

Very sad.

When Juanita Goggins became the first black woman elected to the South Carolina Legislature in 1974, she was hailed as a trailblazer and twice visited the president at the White House.

Three decades later, she froze to death at age 75, a solitary figure living in a rented house four miles from the gleaming Statehouse dome.

Goggins, whose achievements included key legislation on school funding, kindergarten and class size, had become increasingly reclusive. She spent her final years turning down help from neighbors who knew little of her history-making past. Her body was not discovered for more than a week.

(Thanks, Jender-Parents.)

The Sunday cat recommends rescue cats March 13, 2010

though some can become quite a handful – or more.

From youtube:

Isabella Jaguar from Panther Ridge Conservation Center. For More info on this baby Jaguar and her feline friends, visit www.PantherRidgeCC.org.

Isabella is a baby jaguar being hand reared by the volunteers at Panther Ridge Conservation Center because her mother rejected her at birth.There are many reasons one may raise a non domestic cat in their home. As long as all health, dietary, environmental and social needs are met AND all Federal State and local regs are followed, there is NOTHING WRONG WITH IT :) For more info on responsible ownership of non domestic felines, go to www.felineconservation.org

“Choose” Your Own Adventure Book March 13, 2010

From Boing Boing.

(Thanks, li!)

US Maternal Mortality March 13, 2010

has doubled in the last 20 years. And the rate for African American women is more than three times that for white women.

Amnesty International issued a report Friday that calls on President Obama to take action.
“This country’s extraordinary record of medical advancement makes its haphazard approach to maternal care all the more scandalous and disgraceful,” said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA.
“Good maternal care should not be considered a luxury available only to those who can access the best hospitals and the best doctors. Women should not die in the richest country on earth from preventable complications and emergencies,” Cox said in a news release.

Indeed. (Thanks, Jender-Parents!)

Leiter on sexual predators March 13, 2010

Reader LP calls our attention to a recent post from Leiter on choosing which grad school offer to accept. He rightly suggests talking to current students about the sorts of things nobody puts up on their website– like absentee faculty, nasty faculty, and sexual predators.

The Sexual Predator Faculty: Are women treated as young philosophers and aspiring professionals, or do faculty regularly view them as a potential source for dates and sexual liasons? It’s a bit shocking to realize that this is still a live issue in some departments, but, sadly, it is. Are faculty-student sexual relations common in the department? What happens when the relations end? Are there repeated cases of sexual harassment complaints against faculty in the department? Do they ever result in discipline? I suppose it is possible this could be an issue for male students, but all the reports I’ve gotten over the years have been from women victimized by male faculty.

It’s excellent for Leiter to be calling attention to this issue.

The Trolley Problem from Jeremy Stangroom March 12, 2010

Jeremy Stangroom posted  a link on philosop-l to his site, where he has given 4 problems interactive electronic versions.  I’m using a link here to all 4 problems, but I’ve only looked at the trolley problem.  It seems to me very well done, but that’s not quite what we’re going on to look at.

We’ve had some worries about the trolley problem before, but there’s a discussion of it on philosop-l that draws our attention to a problem we haven’t discussed; Ron Anumdson raises the  issue, which is this:  In one version of the problem, the options are to push a fat man from the bridge or not.  Should we find thatoffensive?

And if it is offensive, just why is it offensive?  One thing that may strike one about the discussion on philosop-l is that the critical terms are not very precise, to say the least.  Most of it is in the terms Anumdson introduces:  does it contain a sub-text that  fat people are not as valuable as others?  Eventually Rob Helpy-Chalk does introduce the idea that intentionally or not it could hurt someone’s feelings.  Everyone is aware that the individual has to be very large, and someone suggests making him a football player.

I confess that the reference to the fat person seems to be really unfortunate.  Does it to you?  What do you think is bad about it? 

My own sense is that the problem is linked to the problems involved in using terms for diabilities in similar contexts.  That would perhaps mean that it reinforces the way we let a person’s weight take over their whole identity, and it presents the person as simply a cog in a problem.  We mightn’t mind letting a reference to a football player just signal a cog in a problem, because they do not have trouble, generally speaking, with being discriminated against here, there, and everywhere.

Or is it something else?  Or nothing at all?   Let us know  your opinion.