CFP: Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference May 18, 2010

The theme of the 2011 Feminisms and Rhetorics conference is “Feminist Challenges or Feminist Rhetorics?: Locations, Scholarship and Discourse.” The Feminisms and Rhetorics conference is sponsored by the Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition, and will be hosted by Minnesota State University, Mankato October 12-15, 2011.

The conference committee is strongly interdisciplinary and therefore our theme seeks to recognize the spaces between disciplines and communities. The conference theme is meant to acknowledge the academic and socio-discursive spaces that feminisms, and rhetorics on or about feminisms, inhabit. Major political, religious and social leaders have recently discussed feminism, including the Dalai Lama, but the discussion seems to revolve around cultural or essentialized discourses of feminism. This spotlight on feminism is, of course, not new, and they ways feminism is engaged in public discourse is much different than that of academic discourse. However, in Rhetoric and Composition, we have seen many significant publications lately focusing on what it means to be a woman in the field, how to be a successful woman in the field, and the connections between feminist theory and feminist pedagogy.

We seek proposals that speak to the challenges and diversities of feminist rhetoric and discourse, in public and private life, in the academy, and in the media. We welcome proposals on topics that significantly engage disciplines other than Rhetoric and Composition, and that have consequences for communities located outside of the academy.

For more, go here.

Boy Toys/Girl Toys May 17, 2010

From here. (Thanks, HG!)

The Stone May 17, 2010

From the NY Times:

The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers on issues both timely and timeless.

The first entry, “What is a philosopher?” is by Simon Critchley, who is “chair of philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York, and … moderator of this series.” 

His answer to his question appeals to a life lived outside of, and with disregard for, many expected patterns:

Pushing this a little further, we might say that to philosophize is to take your time, even when you have no time, when time is constantly pressing at our backs. The busy readers of The New York Times will doubtless understand this sentiment. It is our hope that some of them will make the time to read The Stone. As Wittgenstein says, “This is how philosophers should salute each other: ‘Take your time.’ ”. The philosopher, by contrast [to "lawyers, policy-makers, mortgage brokers and hedge fund managers] is free by virtue of his or her otherworldliness, by their capacity to fall into wells and appear silly…

Socrates adds that the philosopher neither sees nor hears the so-called unwritten laws of the city, that is, the mores and conventions that govern public life. The philosopher shows no respect for rank and inherited privilege and is unaware of anyone’s high or low birth. It also does not occur to the philosopher to join a political club or a private party. As Socrates concludes, the philosopher’s body alone dwells within the city’s walls. In thought, they are elsewhere.

Well, that’s the sort of thing that makes me pretty cross.  It’s the kind of statement that leaves students unprepared to find that in fact professional philosophers form a club, with pretty well defined boundaries, that reflect all sorts of divisions in the society.  And that many (most?) philosophers today are unwilling or unable to recognize the extent to which their choices are influenced by an unconscious internalization of the mores and conventions of our time.

But there’s more to come.  What do you think?  Disagreement is very welcome, especially if you have good reasons that your can describe.

Finally, readers might be interested in our discussion here of the supposed  negative reputation of analytic philosophy.

We need a name for this (and a law against it) May 16, 2010

Anya Alvarez was having what began as consensual sex, when she realised that her partner had removed his condom and her Nuva Ring. She is now trying to take him to court, and cannot find an attorney who will take the case. One lawyer wrote:

“Although wrong, there is no assault and no agreement to use contraception other than common courtesy and decency.”

If Alvarez discovers she is pregnant or has an infection, his opinion might change, he said. “Then, there might be a negligence action. But until there is harm there’s nothing there.”

Yeah, there’s no *harm* there.

I wonder what you all think. It seems to me that in an important sense it’s a form of rape– since Alvarez did not consent to unprotected sex. One might think that this line of thought requires commitment to the thought that if one hasn’t consented to unanticipated facts about the sex one is having, then it’s rape. (That would clearly be wrong: suppose one is shocked and horrified by the sheep noises one’s partner makes. Does that mean it’s rape, since one hasn’t consented to sex with sheep noises?) But I don’t think it does. Unprotected sex is, very plausibly, a different kind of sex act from protected sex– in a way that sex with sheep noises isn’t different from sex without sheep noises. (Though I admit some work needs to be done on the notion of kinds of sex act.)

It also seems like a violation of body integrity for him to remove her contraception from her vagina. (On the other hand, I don’t think this bit is integral to the wrongdoing, since it would still clearly be wrong even without that.)

Thanks, J-Bro!

Feminism lost and found May 16, 2010

This article is getting a lot of attention on the women’s studies mailing lists. To me, it looks like a smart feminist took a really awful women’s studies class and turned her back on feminism. Then she re-discovered feminism though activism and the internet. Worries have been raised about her negative attitude toward women’s studies. But I think she’s right to have a negative attitude toward the classes she took (if her description is an accurate one*). The real worry, I guess, is that those who don’t know may wrongly take her experience to represent the nature of women’s studies in general.

*And I don’t particularly see a reason to doubt it– there are bad teachers in every field.

The Sunday Cat recommends decisive chickens May 15, 2010

Do some of your colleagues remind you of angry rabbits?  If so, consider this solution:

Home births illegal in New York May 15, 2010

As residents of the world’s consumer capital, New Yorkers can have anything delivered to their door at any time. They can have their hair cut in the living room, have champagne and caviar rushed to them on a whim, enjoy a shiatsu massage in their own bed or invite a clairvoyant to predict their future from Tarot cards laid out on the kitchen table.

But there is one thing that is currently unavailable for delivery to those who live in this most can-do of metropolises. Women can not legally give birth at home in the presence of a trained and experienced midwife.

For more, see here.

“Virtual reality used to transfer men’s minds into a woman’s body”!! May 14, 2010

Gosh! That sounds exciting.

Researchers projected men’s sense of self into a virtual reality woman, changing the way they behaved and thought…Scientists have transferred men’s minds into a virtual woman’s body in an experiment that could enlighten the prejudiced and shed light on how humans distinguish themselves from others…A man can have an experience of what it’s like to be a woman

So… One wants to know… What’s this experience like?

In a study at Barcelona University, men donned a virtual reality (VR) headset that allowed them to see and hear the world as a female character. When they looked down they could even see their new body and clothes.

The “body-swapping” effect was so convincing that the men’s sense of self was transferred into the virtual woman, causing them to react reflexively to events in the virtual world in which they were immersed.

Men who took part in the experiment reported feeling as though they occupied the woman’s body and even gasped and flinched when she was slapped by another character in the virtual world.

In the study, 24 men took turns wearing a VR headset that immersed them in a virtual room. Some men saw the virtual environment through the eyes of a female character who was sitting down, while others had a viewpoint that was just to the side of her.

During the experiment, a second virtual female approached and appeared to rub the person’s shoulder or arm. Researchers in the lab mimicked this sensation in the real world for some of the volunteers by rubbing their shoulder or arm, helping to reinforce their feeling of occupying the character’s body.

Later in the study, the second character lashed out and slapped the face of the character the men were playing. “Their reaction was immediate,” said Slater. “They would take in a quick breath and maybe move their head to one side. Some moved their whole bodies. The more people reported being in the girl’s body, the stronger physical reaction they had.”

Sensors on the men’s bodies showed their heart rates fell sharply for a few seconds and then ramped up – a classic response to a perceived attack.

As expected, the body swapping effect was felt more keenly by men who saw their virtual world through the female character’s eyes than those whose viewpoint was slightly to one side of her.

Wow! They’ve done it. That IS what it’s like to be a woman. Prejudice will soon be a thing of the past. (Big disclaimer: I haven’t read the study. It’s probably much better than the article.)

(Thanks, J-Bro!)

Congratulations Sally Haslanger! May 14, 2010

We are thrilled to announce that Sally Haslanger has been chosen as the Society for Women in Philosophy Distinguished Woman Philosopher of 2010.

Sally is one of the very best analytic feminists in the country and her work in feminist epistemology is lauded. Her work on critical race theory is also highly praised. The DWP Committee recognizes Sally for her extraordinary effort in coordinating the Women in Philosophy Task Force following the impact of “Changing the Ideology” as well as her initiative to change the culture of MIT toward a ‘woman-friendly’ environment. What distinguishes Sally is not just that she supports individuals one-on-one, but has created groups for support that extends beyond what any one person can do for other individuals. Her generosity extends to real feminist political action, that is, creating relationships among women that empower them to create and maintain their own frames of support and meaning.

We hope many of you will join us in celebrating Sally and her work at the Eastern Division meeting of the APA this December. Information on the panel and celebration will follow shortly.

Maeve M. O’Donovan, Ph.D., Executive Secretary, Eastern Society for Women in Philosophy
Lisa Yount, Ph.D., Treasurer, Eastern Society for Women in Philosophy
Rosie Tong, Ph.D., Co-Chair, Distinguished Woman Philosopher Committee
Jennifer Scuro, Ph.D., Co-Chair, Distinguished Woman Philosopher Committee

An argument for radical reform in the RC Church May 14, 2010

 I’m inclined to say that there are some things that you’d better know by the time you are well into middle age or you shouldn’t claim to be any sort of moral authority.  Drawing up a list of such things might be hard, but an interesting partial list has just been published by Bishop Blase J. Cupich.  It’s a list of things the bishops have learned from the sex abuse scandals.

Let me stress this:  If you get to middle age and still need to ‘learn’ these items, you should not be a moral authority for millions of people:

T he Catholic bishops of the United States have learned many lessons from the sexual abuse crisis. These 12 are among the most important:

1. The injury to victims is deeper than non-victims can imagine. …

2. Despite the justified anger felt by victims toward the church, bishops still need to reach out to them as pastors. …

…

4. Catholics have been hurt by the moral failings of some priests, but they have been hurt and angered even more by bishops who failed to put children first. …

5. The counsel of lay people, especially parents, is indispensable in a matter that so deeply affects families. …

Of course, one might say that  they certainly knew all this, and what they’ve learned is that they had better be seen to act on it.  Whatever.  If a group wants to say that they just didn’t get how bad sexual abuse is and how angry parents would be when their children weren’t protected, then there is a big question about whether they should decide what the voice of the church says. 

As it is, the bishops are really upset with those pesky nuns who ignored their authority and came out for the health care bill.  We might instead see in all this a need to include more perspectives in what produces the moral voice of the church.

Don’t ask, don’t tell – in fact, stay firmly in the closet… May 14, 2010

…if you’re seeking asylum in Britain after facing homophobic violence in Cameroon, that is.

Last year the UK Court of Appeal decided it was fine to deny asylum to a gay man on the grounds that, if sent back to Cameroon, he could live somewhere else in the country (where he hasn’t been outed) and ‘exercise a certain amount of discretion’.  Apparently, it is reasonable to expect him to tolerate having to ‘be discreet’ in order to stay safe.

What’s that you say?  What does it mean to be discreet?  Well, there might be  a clue in what led to the violence against him in the first place – he and his partner were apparently kissing in the garden and were seen by a neighbour.  The immigration tribunal felt this couldn’t be described as discreet.

Judgement is now awaited from the UK Supreme Court….

(Thanks to HP!)

**UPDATE** From my limited knowledge, I think that if the UKSC overturns the Court of Appeal ruling, it could mean the decision in Kiana Firouz’s case will have to be reconsidered.  Because the UKSC is looking at two appeals together – one the case I described, about someone from Cameroon, the other about someone from Iran.

**UPDATE 2** Stonewall (the UK’s principal LGBT campaigning organisation) has published a research report into homophobia in the UK asylum system.

Kagan: Opposing Voices May 13, 2010

JJ’s last post on Kagan was about Lessig’s defense of her. I get the impression that Americans may be getting deluged with anti-Kagan articles. But I’m not, and I know many of our readers are, like me, not in the US. (I normally keep up, but I’ve been preoccupied by the UK election. And marking.) So, for those who want to know what those worrying about Kagan are saying, here are two examples.

Here’s Guy-Uriel Charles:

How could she have brokered a deal that permitted the hiring of conservatives but resulted in the hiring of only white faculty? Moreover, of the 29 32 new hires, only six seven were women. So, she hired 23 25 white men, 5 six white women, and one Asian American woman. Please do not tell me that there were not enough qualified women and people of color. That’s a racist and sexist statement. It cannot be the case that there was not a single qualified black, Latino or Native-American legal academic that would qualify for tenure at Harvard Law School during Elena Kagan’s tenure. To believe otherwise is to harbor troubling racist views.

Third, what is the justification for putting someone on the Supreme Court without a demonstrated commitment to opening barriers for women and people of color? Kagan’s performance as Dean at Harvard raises doubts about her commitment to equality for traditionally disadvantaged groups. I am eager to be convinced that she is committed to full equality for marginalized groups, but I’d like to see the evidence.

And here’s Glenn Greenwald:

Among the most disturbing aspects is her testimony during her Solicitor General confirmation hearing, where she agreed wholeheartedly with Lindsey Graham about the rightness of the core Bush/Cheney Terrorism template: namely, that the entire world is a “battlefield,” that “war” is the proper legal framework for analyzing all matters relating to Terrorism, and the Government can therefore indefinitely detain anyone captured on that “battlefield” (i.e., anywhere in the world without geographical limits) who is accused (but not proven) to be an “enemy combatant.”

Thanks to Anon “Sr” Philosopher for putting me on to Charles’s article, and also for introducing me to the blog Colored Demos, which looks excellent. He also responds to some critics of his worries about Kagan here, and it’s really worth reading. Oh, actually it’s so good I’m going to quote it too:

[Defenders] contend that it is unfair to criticize the actual numbers of women and minority faculty hired during Kagan’s tenure as Dean because faculties, not Deans, vote offers to new faculty members. Yet, in the same breath, Kagan’s supporters also point to the ideological diversity that Kagan brought to the faculty by bringing in a number of prominent conservative scholars. Well, to put it bluntly, you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. If Dean Kagan cannot be criticized for the lack of racial and gender diversity in faculty hiring because those votes were out of her hands, she also cannot be praised for increasing ideological diversity among the faculty. That, too, must have been out of her hands.

It may very well be that it was much harder for Dean Kagan to move Harvard Law School in the direction of increasing racial and gender diversity on the faculty. But if that’s the case, why won’t her supporters simply admit it? Why won’t they admit what we already know about implicit bias and how such bias can affect evaluations of women and minority candidates, even by progressives who may write about or support racial and gender equality in their own scholarship?

And for Equality Minister, we bring you… May 13, 2010

a homophobe!

[Theresa May] voted against equalising the age of consent and in 2000, she voted against the repeal of Section 28, legislation that banned the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality by local government and schools.

In 2001 and 2002 she voted against gay couples jointly adopting children…

In 2008 she voted in favour of a defeated bill which said that IVF rights should require a male role model- effectively discriminating against lesbian fertility rights.

You may want to join this facebook group.

(Thanks, elp!)

How dare you teach people about their heritage? May 13, 2010

Ethnic Studies classes now banned in Arizona schools.

Expletives.

Pleasingly, at least some school districts have no intention of complying. (Thanks CR!)

Sloppiness on the hiring record? May 13, 2010

At this stage in the nomination process with Kagan I’m looking principally at how the media are reporting her.  Since she’s reported widely as having a very bad hiring record in diversity, we should look also at some dissenting voices.  Here is Lawrence Lessig, a progressive and a colleague of hers at Harvard Law School, on Democarcy Now:

I am a law professor, a tenured law professor. Let me tell you, law professors can be extraordinarily sloppy. And the analysis that was made of Elena’s, quote, “hiring record” is extraordinarily sloppy. The relevant question is, who are the people in the comparable institutions that were hired by Stanford or by Yale, who are minority or women, who Harvard did not make offers to and Elena didn’t try to persuade to come. And there just are no people in this list or no people that would support—no numbers that would support the basis to draw a suggestion that in some sense she’s being biased in her judgment.
In fact, while she was at the Harvard Law School, she launched one of the most aggressive programs to recruit young scholars into the teaching profession, in particular, in areas of civil rights. She launched a civil rights teaching program to bring people in and to give them the experience necessary to make it possible for them to become teachers. Now, that kind of experience is why people on all sides—this is not a law school where the conservatives love her; this is a law school where everybody in the law school, except one or two people who are known for their cantankerousness, love her, because she demonstrated that kind of commitment. And so, I think the sloppy analysis of a couple law professors that look at raw numbers, rather than actual figuring out what happened, shouldn’t weigh in here.

So I think the point here is this:  given the amount of pressure universities are now under to diversify, one would expect hiring to reflect that; however, it isn’t as though all the others at Harvard’s level were hiring women and other minorities while Kagan wasn’t.

I’m attributing to him a suppressed premise; the first one about pressure.  Unfortunately, there are areas where we can be fairly sure it is false.  The last time I looked (which admittedly was about 4 years ago), the top schools in some science fields had really bad records for hiring African Americans, even though they had reasonable records for producing AA PhDs.  So the situation is at least unclear.

And from the fact that a premise Lessig appears to need is false, nothing follows about the truth-value of the conclusion!  (I must say something like that about 20 times a semester, at least.)

Save Kiana Firouz May 13, 2010

Kiana Firouz is an Iranian lesbian film-maker, who fled to the UK. Her asylum application has just been denied.

Yes, they know she’s gay. Yes, they know she could be deported back to Iran at any time, and that if this happens, Firouz will most likely be sentenced to torture and death after being found guilty of the “unspeakable sin of homosexuality” because she has participated in explicit lesbian sex scenes in the movie, and been a fierce proponent for human rights in her country…

The denial of her application is appalling.

The EveryOne activists invite concerned readers to send protest e-mail messages to the British Home Office (public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk) requesting that Kiana receive refugee status as soon as possible, for she is a symbol of the international fight against homophobia and repression of gays and lesbians in Islamic countries.

Thanks, CR and Reel Aesthete!

Who’s Lobbying now? Science & the New Parliament May 12, 2010

Apparently the election in England has cost science 15 science-savy members of parliament.  The latest issue of Nature (Volume 465 Number 7295 pp135) appeals to researchers to get involved with educating the new parliament.  

 Non-partisan organizations such as the Campaign for Science and Engineering in the UK (CaSE) and the Royal Society are well placed to make a broad appeal to the new parliament.In the run-up to the election, CaSE encouraged all parties to make their positions on science known, and in its aftermath the organization must work to inform a new government’s science policies. The Royal Society, meanwhile, has a long-running programme matching scientists with MPs that could be particularly useful in educating new politicians. That programme should be put into high gear while the society considers other ways to engage parliament. Other scientific societies should rally their memberships to get the word out to new parliamentarians about the value of science. A well orchestrated, non-partisan appeal early in the life of the parliament could leave a lasting impression.

And an early and enduring impression may be crucial to preserving Britain’s scientific enterprise. Faced with a soaring budget deficit, whoever forms the new government will have to impose deep cuts on public spending. Unless researchers act swiftly, science could end up at the front of the firing line.

Recent proposed cuts in philosophy in the UK are very scary.  One can get the sense that philosophy is already at the front of the firing line.

Is there a comparable effort on behalf of humanities education?  Should there be?  To parliament or elsewhere?  What do you think?

Is being an Arab and a feminist a contradiction? May 12, 2010

It never crossed my mind to ask that, but here are a few answers, and of course it is not a contradiction.

(via @nmoawad)

This video was taken at the launch of the Young Arab Feminist Network that took place from April 29 to May 2, 2010. Here is an interesting article on it.

This is from the YAFN site:

We recognize that Arab young women face particular challenges and experiences of sexism. We also recognize the fragmentation and elitism of women’s rights work in Arab societies. The group of us believes that an organized support network uniting young women activists working on an array of issues concerning women rights and coming from various perspectives and backgrounds is the perfect way to push women’s rights organizing forward in the region.

Being beyond their age range myself, I was wondering about why there would be such a focus on young (they say “18 – early 30s”): I wondered whether there was some agism at play. They have a plausible answer for that. What I understand from the article is that one of the problems young arab feminists face is the connection with established feminist networks, that appear to suffer from the same kind of partriarchical structures that affects the rest of the society. They say:

Although we do believe that patriarchy affects everyone, we are a young women only network. This is because we believe that young women deal with specific issues and as a result have particular needs. We aim to provide the space for these issues to be untangled and have open conversations without worrying about navigating gender and age dynamics.

I hope they will not only manage to establish a better understanding with their previous generations, but also with those outside the Arab world: it would be mutually beneficial. I am looking forward to hearing of their successes.

Fascinating bit of philosophical history May 12, 2010

From Leiter:

From Robert Paul Wolff’s memoirs; he was prompted to act by the naked sex discrimination his first wife, an English professor, confronted:

On September 17, 1969 I sent a letter to eleven senior members of the philosophy profession, asking them to serve as co-signers with me on a motion to be presented to the annual meeting of the Eastern Division of the APA, calling for the establishment of a Standing Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession. Alice Ambrose and Morris Lazerowitz [who were husband and wife] came on board, as did Justus Buchler [whose wife taught philosophy], and Sue Larson and Mary Mothersill, both of Barnard. Maurice Mandelbaum, who along with Lewis White Beck had read my Kant manuscript for Harvard, was sympathetic, but pointed out that as the incoming APA president, if he signed he would be in the position of petitioning himself. A good point. The great Classicist Gregory Vlastos also said yes, as did Ruth Marcus, whom I knew from my Chicago days, when she was at Northwestern. Morty White was supportive, but declined to sign for fear that if the motion passed, he would be expected to serve on the committee, something he said he could not do because of writing obligations. That left Jack Rawls, who declined to sign. In retrospect, this does not surprise me. Although Jack was on his way to becoming the world’s leading expert on justice, he never seemed to be there when action was needed.

David Brooks on what it takes & Elena Kagan May 11, 2010

Brooks, columnist at the NY Times and more generally a moderate-conservative political commentator, has an interesting op-ed piece today.

I don’t like what he’s said, but it actually covers a lot, and I’d like to know what others here have to say. I could also be quite wrong, of course.

So what’s he said? The basic idea is that we now have a generation or two of Organization students. They pass all the tests, including the personality ones, with flying colours. Very bright they sail on by, but they do so because they don’t pause for commitment and passion to ideas or causes. Plus, Elena Kagan is one of these, and that’s the kind of person that can now get through the confirmation hearings.

He starts:

About a decade ago, one began to notice a profusion of Organization Kids at elite college campuses. These were bright students who had been formed by the meritocratic system placed in front of them. They had great grades, perfect teacher recommendations, broad extracurricular interests, admirable self-confidence and winning personalities.

If they had any flaw, it was that they often had a professional and strategic attitude toward life. They were not intellectual risk-takers. They regarded professors as bosses to be pleased rather than authorities to be challenged.

That’s step one. Step Two argues that Kagan looks to be like them. She doesn’t take stands on hard issues, for example. The evidence comes from acquaintances, her public speeches and her few articles.

So far, I haven’t met anybody who is not an admirer. She is apparently smart, deft and friendly. She was a superb teacher. She has the ability to process many points of view and to mediate between different factions.Yet she also is apparently prudential, deliberate and cautious. She does not seem to be one who leaps into a fray when the consequences might be unpredictable. …

She has become a legal scholar without the interest scholars normally have in the contest of ideas. She’s shown relatively little interest in coming up with new theories or influencing public debate.

The conclusion is that in fact she’s a bit creepy:

I have to confess my first impression of Kagan is a lot like my first impression of many Organization Kids. She seems to be smart, impressive and honest — and in her willingness to suppress so much of her mind for the sake of her career, kind of disturbing.

So what’s wrong with this? Well, to some extent it isn’t true. She has had to make some principled decisions as Solicitor General. And there’s something else that doesn’t ring true. If she’s made herself into a Stepford professor, why does everyone admire her so? I mean, there are these Stepford profs and they can go very, very high, but they are not generally admired.

But there’s another worrying factor. There is a value placed on confrontation and a genuine lack of sympathy for those who value consensus building. Some people, when they genuinely do not share some value, are inclined to make up pretty bad explanations for the actions of those who have it. Not having much sense of the great pleasure one can get from guiding a discussion to a wise consensus, they can see the course of one’s actions as amounting to a subtrefuge.

The same thing can happen when people see commitment to a cause as actually an attempt at self-promotion.

But that’s not to say there is nothing here to worry about. What do you think?