Perry v. Schwartzenegger Questions for Closing Arguments June 10, 2010

(or ‘Why I suddenly want to go to law school’.)

Closing argument questions have been published for Perry v. Schwartzenegger (ie, San Francisco’s civic challenge to prop. 8). U.S. district judge Vaughn R. Walker has issued 39 questions to be considered in closing. Among them,

To the Plaintiffs…

1) Assume the evidence shows Proposition 8 is not in fact
rationally related to a legitimate state interest.  Assume
further the evidence shows voters genuinely but without
evidence believed Proposition 8 was rationally related to a
legitimate interest.  Do the voters’ honest beliefs in the
absence of supporting evidence have any bearing on the
constitutionality of Proposition 8?

4) What is the import of evidence showing that marriage has
historically been limited to a man and a woman?  What evidence
shows that that limitation no longer enjoys constitutional
recognition?

6) What empirical data, if any, supports a finding that legal
recognition of same-sex marriage reduces discrimination
against gays and lesbians?

10) Even if enforcement of Proposition 8 were enjoined,
plaintiffs’ marriages would not be recognized under federal
law.  Can the court find Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional
without also considering the constitutionality of the federal
Defense of Marriage Act?

To Proponents…

2) [...] what evidence in the record supports a finding that same-sex marriage has or
could have negative social consequences?  What does the evidence show the magnitude of these consequences to be?

4) Why should the court assume that the deinstitutionalization of marriage is a negative consequence?

6)  What evidence in the record shows that same-sex couples are
differently situated from opposite-sex couples where at least
one partner is infertile?

10) Assume the evidence shows that sexual orientation is socially
constructed.  Assume further the evidence shows Proposition 8
assumes the existence of sexual orientation as a stable
category.  What bearing if any do these facts have on the
constitutionality of Proposition 8?

11) [...] What evidence in the record shows that a
belief based in morality cannot also be discriminatory?  If
that moral point of view is not held and is disputed by a
small but significant minority of the community, should not an
effort to enact that moral point of view into a state
constitution be deemed a violation of equal protection?

And to Both…

3) What does the evidence show the difference to be between gays
and lesbians, on the one hand, and heterosexuals on the other?
Is that difference one which the government “may legitimately
take into account” when making legislative classifications?

6)  In order to be rooted in “our Nation’s history, legal
traditions, and practices,” see Washington v Glucksberg, 521
US 702, 710 (1997), is it sufficient that a practice has
existed historically, or need there be an articulable purpose
underlying the practice?

7) If spouses are obligated to one another for mutual support and
support of dependents, and if legal spousal obligations have
no basis in the gender of the spouse, what purpose does a law
requiring that a marital partnership consist of one man and
one woman serve?

And so on. What interesting questions; the fact that this is the level of the debate makes me feel hopeful. Read more here.

“Pregnant or Fat?” June 10, 2010

Supposedly, that’s the question on every commuter’s mind as they consider whether or not to offer their seat to a large woman on the bus. Because it would be SO embarrassing to offer your seat to someone who isn’t pregnant. This claim appears to be simply on the fact that lots of pregnant women don’t get offered seats.

As a once-pregnant woman who was never offered a seat even when she had to use a cane due to her knees dislocating, I call “bullshit”. Folks might have wondered whether I was pregnant or not. But they had no cause to wonder whether I needed a seat, and they still didn’t give me one. My take: simple selfishness. Human nature in action is not always a pretty sight.

Further evidence for my claim of “bullshit” is the fact that nobody offers a seat by saying “you look pregnant– would you like my seat?”. Instead they simply get up, or offer the seat without citing a reason. (Or at least that’s what I do– my experience of receiving such offers is limited.)

Thanks, Jender-Parents, for the therapeutically ranty break from marking!

If it’s good enough for the Washington Post… June 9, 2010

The video below was found yesterday on the WaPo site.  It is at least pretty odd.  It is NOT for children. 

The discussion on youtube has picked up on a claim about cats’ anatomy that is definitely questionable.

Lesbian parenting June 9, 2010

A long-term study of children born into lesbian families that discovered they grow up to be psychologically well-adjusted teenagers has been published in the journal Pediatrics. You can download the study from this site. The study was funded by various queer rights advocacy groups, which of course has led to criticism from some quarters. It’s worth remembering that many studies – including medical studies – are paid for by institutions that have a vested interest in the results. But this does not automatically mean that the results are biased.

‘Hairy pussy hat’ June 9, 2010

There are many stages involved in bringing a new product to the market. First, someone must have an idea for a product. Then someone must design that product. The product must then be presented to someone – usually a committee of people – who decide whether or not the product is worth producing. At some point, a prototype of the product must be produced. After the product has been produced by a company, it then needs to be marketed to further companies who will sell it. So a person, or people from the first company who produced the item must present the product to a buyer or buyers from a second company who decides whether or not to stock that product. Eventually, the product must be sold to members of the public. As you can see, there are a lot of different people involved in designing, producing, and selling some item. So what on earth was going through all of their heads when they came up with this??!!:

The delightful ‘hairy pussy hat’ is being sold by Amazon. When I checked the page earlier, the advert section was suggesting it as a lovely gift for your dad on Fathers’ Day.

Regular readers of this blog will be unsurprised to hear that the wonderful J-Bro was responsible for sourcing this tasteful item, so thanks to him. Thanks also to Jender, who immediately thought of me when she saw it.

Querying and illustrating an exclusion at one and the same time! New Correction/amendment June 8, 2010

New:  In our gendered conference campaign we try to recognize that the absence of women on a program may have from any of a variety of causes.  We  do not think that an underrepresentation of women philosophers shows anything at all about its cause.  In particular, we do not think it shows any general hostility to women or any conscious denial of  women’s contributions.  Given that the following post has been read to contain very negative allegations about  SPP, I deeply regret I did not address this issue earlier. 

Further, Rob Wilson, in a comment on a later post on the topic, argues that  including women philosophers invited to speak at the preceding workshop shows that  positive progress has been made since 2008.  I agree, though note that the workshop is organized by different people.  I also cited the workshop numbers for this year in a comment, but here are the figures for women speakers, with the first figure for the workshop and the second for the conference: (a) 2008: 0,  0; (b) 2009:  1, 3;  (c) 2010: 2 (or 3?), 1.  

Let me stress again this point:  It would be completely in error to come away from this reading this post thinking it in any way addresses issues about the climate for women.   And however it is read,  it is wrong and unfair to infer that members of SPP are  somehow people of ill-will toward women.

————————————

NEAT TRICK!  But a philosopher can do it. 

The Society for Philosophy and Psychology has a way to go with gender.  The opening address  of this years’ conference is problematic; here the description is, followed by a few relevant facts: 

4:20-4:30 SPP 2010 Conference Welcome Council Chambers

4:30-5:45 Invited Speaker Council Chambers

Chair: Ron Mallon, University of Utah

Speakers:  Stephen Stich, Rutgers University, & Wesley Buckwalter, CUNY Graduate Center,

  

 Gender and Philosophical Intuitions: Why Are There So Few Women in Philosophy? 

1.  Some of the material referred to in the title  is interesting work on the question of whether so-called ‘philosophical intuitions’ are actually gendered.  (We discussed this a bit here.  There are links to some of the work.)  

2.  But Stich and Buckwalter are to relate this material to the very vexed question of why there are so few women in philosophy. 

3.  The society’s conference  have a dismal record of women philosophers as invited speakers; in two out of the last three conferences, no women philosophers were invited speakers.**  Accordingly, no women are asked to join Stich and Buchwalter in addressing the question of why there are so few women in philosophy. 

4.  Hence, the session enacts the exclusion it seeks to explain. 

5.  It is just possible that the systemic exclusion of women is at least as relevant as gendered intuitions in explaining why there are so few women in philosophy. 

Perhaps there just aren’t any senior women philosophers to ask to respond to the talk?  [groan, groan.] 

Here’s the list of the SPP’s officers; Jen Cole Wright and Ron Mallon are this years program chairs.  I expect comments made here will find their way to the executive committee.

**Correction:  thanks to RW in comments  for pointing out that Adina Roskies, a philosopher, was an invited speaker.

The Nation’s editor asks a good question June 8, 2010

The Nation’s editor and  publisher, Katrina vanden Heuvel, asks:  Isn’t There Some Room for Helen Thomas?

On the one hand, Thomas, who is Lebanese, recently  made a serious anti-Israeli comment, saying that ‘they’ should get the hell out of Israel and go back home to Poland, Germany or America. 

There’s a video on youtube of her comments; it’s pretty ugly.

On the other hand, as KvH points out:

Columnist Helen Thomas, a trailblazer for women journalists and one of the few in the White House press corps who courageously questioned President Bush and other officials in his administration on war, torture and U.S. policy toward Israel, announced her retirement Monday. It comes in the wake of a controversy triggered by offensive comments she made about Jews and Israel last week.

It is a sad ending to a legendary career. Thomas was the dean of the White House press corps and served for 57 years as a UPI correspondent and White House Bureau Chief, covering every president since John F. Kennedy. During the run-up to the Iraq war, Thomas was the only accredited White House correspondent with the guts to ask Bush the tough questions that define a free press.

You can read the rest of the  editorial here. 

So what would cognitive neuroscience and philosophy of mind tell us?  We should not think our beliefs form a single consistent set.  People who actively oppose the oppression of some group may still show up on implicit attitude tests as biased against  that group.  Being our best selves is not necessarily easy, still  less automatic.  And she is 89 and has been outspoken her whole life who has never been a supporter of Israel.

And what would a feminist say?  Well, there isn’t one way for feminists to think.  This feminist notices that it’s becoming clear that for some time Thomas has been one of those ‘impossible’ old women.   And now a lot of people are going after her for, e.g., grandstanding sometimes, such as here and, more nicely,  here.

What do you think?

“Too hot to be a banker”?? June 8, 2010

Kitchen Chick sent me a link to this article, about Debrahlee Lorenzana who was fired for refusing to change the way she dressed (among other things). Her employers, Citibank, said that she should not wear revealing clothes (including, bizarrely, turtlenecks!) because when SHE wore them it was too distracting for her male co-workers. The story’s gone viral now.

It seems very clear that Lorenzana was a victim of discriminatory behaviour and a hostile work environment, but the packaging of the story is really problematic. One way it’s problematic is that the “too hot” storyline being foregrounded leaves out lots of other important details, like a refusal to send her on necessary training sessions. But another is that the HOT HOT HOT angle is being pushed so hard, with photos clearly chosen as sexy, and quotes like this:

Everything about Debrahlee Lorenzana is hot. Even her name sizzles. At five-foot-six and 125 pounds, with soft eyes and flawless bronze skin, she is J.Lo curves meets Jessica Simpson rack meets Audrey Hepburn elegance—a head-turning beauty.

I’m glad to see a sexual harassment case getting attention, and Lorenzana was clearly badly mistreated. But it would be so nice if they could manage to cover the story in a less exploitative way.

Feminist Hulk, interviewed June 7, 2010

A sample:

feministhulk: IN BEGINNING, HULK SMASH FOR LOVE OF SMASH. LATER, HULK REALIZE CRAVING FOR SMASH CAUSED BY HEGEMONIC FORCES WHICH DISCONNECTED HULK FROM SELF. HULK QUESTION SYSTEMS OF PRIVILEGE. SOON HULK SMASH WITH GREATER PURPOSE. CULTURAL MINDFULNESS GIVE HULK SUPERPOWERS OF ANTI-PATRIARCHAL SMASH!

Ms.: Feminist theory often gets a bad rap for being too hard to follow and intimidating. Are you trying to translate theory for a general audience?

feministhulk: HULK LOVE POLYSYLLABIC WORDS. HULK NUZZLE BIG GREEN FACE INTO RICHLY WRITTEN FEMINIST TEXTS. ALSO, THIS JUST HOW HULK TALK.

To read more, go here.

London Pub Refuses to serve LGBT group June 7, 2010

The Labour Party’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgendered Rights group were in the Greencoat Boy pub in Westminster, central London, when a row broke out.

The duty manager is alleged to have refused them service.

Pub owner Punch Taverns said the customers were denied service and it had launched an investigation. The matter was also referred to the police.

James Asser, a member of the group, said: “Everyone involved was shocked and outraged. This attitude is totally unacceptable in this day and age.

Cameras to “track Muslims’ every move” June 6, 2010

Counterterrorism police have targeted hundreds of surveillance cameras on two Muslim areas of Birmingham, enabling them to track the precise movements of people entering and leaving the neighbourhoods….

Police sources said the initiative, code-named Project Champion, is the first of its kind in the UK that seeks to monitor a population seen as “at risk” of extremism…

When the cameras become operative, residents will not be able to drive into or leave the two neighbourhoods without their movements being tracked.

For more, go here.

African Homophobia and transphobia: US Exports June 6, 2010

I’m embarrassed to confess that I had no idea of this. I knew about homophobic and transphobic legislation in Africa– the Ugandan death penalty proposal, for example. But I assumed those were products of their local cultures.

“Just as the US and other northern societies routinely dump our outlawed or expired chemicals, pharmaceuticals, machinery and cultural detritus on African and other third-world countries, we now export a political discourse and public policies our own society has discarded as outdated and dangerous,” said Tarso Luis Ramos, executive director of Political Research Associates…

It wasn’t always like this. A decade ago Uganda was at the forefront of a liberal renaissance sweeping Africa. Then, Angela, a Ugandan transvestite, led a dance troupe that regularly played to packed houses. Now she fears for her life. “This is the worst it has ever been; they say we are evil and blame us for everything,” she said.

(Thanks, Frog!)

“I ran a brothel in a country village” June 6, 2010

Claire Finch tells the story of her brothel– “a group of six older women selling sex”– in the Guardian’s Experience feature. The most important part of it is her discussion of British law, which forbids brothels:

Legally, one woman can sell sex, but not two or more working together. It’s crazy that you could have a row of 20 houses with one woman in each selling sex, but if you have two in one house, you’re breaking the law. I told the truth at court – technically, it could be thought I had broken the law, but the jury used their common sense and cleared me of brothel-keeping. I was elated. Now I’m campaigning with the English Collective of Prostitutes to get the law changed so that a small group of women can work together for safety reasons.

One thing that’s striking about her story is that she seems pretty happy with her life, and for reasons most of us can appreciate: she has friends, community, safety and economic security. And it’s very clear that the reason for that is that she is able to work safely with a group of other women. Which is of course precisely what the current laws strive to prevent.

The Sunday Cat is on vacation! June 5, 2010

But we are happy to post pictures friends send in.  Thanks to C for this sweet one:

School demands artist change Black and Latino faces to white June 5, 2010

Yes, really.

An Arizona elementary school mural featuring the faces of kids who attend the school has been the subject of constant daytime drive-by racist screaming, from adults, as well as a radio talk-show campaign (by an actual city councilman, who has an AM talk-radio show) to remove the black student’s face from the mural, and now the school principal has ordered the faces of the Latino and Black students pictured on the school wall to be repainted as light-skinned children.

In Arizona, which is probably what you expect by now.

Hiring discrimination against the unemployed June 4, 2010

And it’s quite explicit: ads announcing that the unemployed will not be considered.

12 Modern Male Philosophers June 4, 2010

There’s a new book out about 12 modern philosophers. And guess what? They’re all male. Leiter’s done a poll asking which of these (or other philosophers) is likely to be read in a century. “Others not in the book” comes in at number 4, and there are some women in that category (Leiter, to his credit, suggested Nussbaum as a possibility).

I’d like to think that a century from now philosophers will look back and be amazed that women’s contributions were for so long neglected, and that books like this were compiled. Who will be the women remembered? I don’t know at all, just as I don’t know at all which men will be remembered. (I’m always amazed by people who can form views on these things!) But if you do have thoughts about women who might be remembered, head on over and suggest them!

(Thanks, Lani, Balk and Catherine!)

Feminist Hulk on Twitter June 3, 2010

This is so good it makes me want to start using Twitter. A sample:

HULK WITNESS CULTURAL PRESSURE TO DISAVOW FEMINISM, OFTEN BASED ON WILLFULLY REDUCTIVE READINGS OF THE TERM. HULK SAY FUCK THAT NOISE!

(Thanks, Frog!)

Who Rocks? Not just human beings. June 2, 2010

How unique are human beings?

If you are looking for characteristics that distinguish human beings from other animals, you can cross “dances to music” off the list.  Recent research suggests that talking animals may have a connection between sound and movement that grounds dancing in rhythmn.  And quite a bit of research of videos on youtube indicates that the talking  birds may share this capacity.  Below are two videos of the amazing Snowbird, a sulphur crested cockatoo.  The first is short and vivid; I suppose it may be enhanced, since it’s a commercial.  The second is long and more of home video, where the home is a bird sanctuary.

When he appears on stage, Snowbird tends to get distracted, so his handler/companion, Irena Shultz, dances with him, as in the following.  He is apparently is quite a complex character, and this is indicated at the end:

 

 

State-run brothels June 2, 2010

A passionate article in favour:

The women who were killed in Bradford — Suzanne Blamires, 36, Susan Rushworth, 43, and Shelley Armitage, 31 — all worked as streetwalkers…They sold sex at bargain-basement prices because they had heroin habits and a heroin habit isn’t something you’d wish on your worst enemy….In Bradford last week Stephen Griffiths, 40, was charged with the murder of three….

We’re all glued to the news now that they’re dead and he’s been charged, but what I really don’t understand — what absolutely baffles me, and always has done — is why there has never been a national outcry about these women’s working conditions. Given that prostitution exists, has always existed and will continue to exist for all eternity — and yes, it would be nice if it didn’t and if all the prostitutes could be rescued and persuaded to go to Narcotics Anonymous and retrained as something impressive, but let’s not hold our breath — why is it not seen as imperative to ensure that at least they carry out their work in a safe environment? …It is simply not okay, in an otherwise civilised society, to leave these women to their fate. Murders are seldom sadder than when they are preventable. Blamires, Rushworth and Armitage might be alive today if they had worked in a big, clean, state-sanctioned brothel, with two giant bouncers on the door, panic buttons in the rooms and an in-house programme that weaned women off the class As.