Built for real women’s curves! Like this:
Still, at least Levis shows some awareness of the fact that women have curves. When I was in a J Crew a few weeks ago, they had trousers in only “toothpick” and “matchstick” fit. (“Can I help you?”, the salesperson asked; “No, I really don’t think you can” I replied. I thought that was pretty polite– I even explained my reasons.)
For more, go here. Thanks, elp!
The Chronicle of Higher Ed is reproducing its favorite ten essays of the decade. One summarizes material from a book that was mentioned here recently. It’s about the author’s experience with rape and violence on one day. The author is the philosopher, Susan Brison.
I strongly recommend that everyone look at it. We often hear of rapes like hers. I think it may be too much of a burden on our empathy to count on ourselves to understand by ourselves what it is really like.
It’s hard to believe the courts in general have much knowledge of how hideous the crime is.
and particularly Ophelia Benson, marks its 50th publication with a look at the beginnings of some philosophy blogs.
It is good to see the blogs of philosophers who have come to comment here mentioned. Check it out.
And I hope I would have mentioned this even if we weren’t mentioned. It’s about philosophy and the public sphere, after all. Etc. And congratulations and thanks to Jender who started a blog that now counts as “prominent”.
with another Hitler parody:
Apparently the cat is an English cat. Given how good the English are with consonants, the hypothesis that the cat is drunk gains credibility. Of course, there are still things we don’t know. For example, do cats speaking English in England generally sound their consonants sharply?
The following is an instance of a youtube genre: the Hitler Parody. In these clips, scenes from a German film, “Der Untergang,” depicting his downfall, are given English subtitles. The first one I saw was about peer review; Hitler had had a grant application rejected.
Unfortunately, the film company asked that they be taken down, and the peer review one, with the wonderful line, “It’s always the third goddamn reviewer,” can no longer be played. But the company seem to have given up, and there are now more than 5000 entries on youtube answering to “Hitler parody”.
See what you take of this mildly gendered take on being a TA:
Here’s a BBC discussion of the genre or, as they have it, the meme.
Do you have a paper close to finished? Not ready yet for journals, but certainly prepared enough for professional discussion? Consider sending it off to the APA as a conference paper.
The deadline for a conference paper is Sept first. This site gives you some useful links, including one to the online submission site.
There’s only one small problem. The guidelines for the paper are inaccessible, because the American Philosophical Association web site is not working. As I say to colleagues in other departments, philosophers do not do efficiency.
I think the maximum length is 3000 words. If anyone knows for sure, or has other useful information, please let us know.
We’ve linked before to Shira Tarrant’s discussions of and with Gail Dines about porn, one of them about race and porn. Here Dines responds to Tarrant.
This discussion originally appeared at Chicago Boyz, who this month held a round table on Afghanistan in 2050: an exploration into what the next forty years might look like. It is reposted here with permission of Feminist Philosophers, with many thanks.
A nurse instructs a group of young mothers on post-natal care.
Two women flip through records in the local shop, asking questions of the gentleman who works there.
Young girls laugh in the sunshine as their Girl Scout leader teaches them a song.
This is Afghanistan in 2050; it looks remarkably like Afghanistan in 1950. Men and women walk the streets without fear of death by stoning; women choose to shop with uncovered heads; education is widespread and equally available for all Afghans.
The differences between Afghanistan pre-Taliban and Afghanistan post-Taliban are challenging to conceive. From 1996 until the invasion of the United States in 2001, the world as Afghanistan knew it changed dramatically, and undeniably for the worse. The lot of women under the Taliban’s harsh regime was devastating. But perhaps the greatest hope for Afghanistan in 2050 is to look into its past.
From the ’50′s to the ’70′s, Afghanistan was a largely stable country under the rule of Mohammed Zahir Shah. The King steered his country slowly into modernization, opening it to the West and allowing his subjects greater political freedom. The culture of the time also liberalized, providing social freedoms for both men and women. Notably, women were allowed into the work force, chose whether to cover or uncover their hair and bodies, and had more substantial agency over their own lives.
This, then, is the challenge Afghanistan should undertake: undo the last sixty years of repression and throw as much weight as possible behind the cause of Afghan women. As Afghanistan pushes, and is pushed, towards control of its own destiny over the next four decades, perhaps the best hope for the country’s future lies with its female citizens.
Social freedoms. By endeavoring to return to the mid-twentieth century’s quality of life, Afghanistan sees a greater level of equality between men and women. Women’s lives are not consolidated in the private sphere but are expanded outward into the public sphere. Women take part in public works and enterprises, seek employment and enrichment outside the realm of the family culture, and express their own agency through their fashion, creative efforts, and social choices. Girls have the same access to education as boys, and a majority of young Afghans can expect a secondary education.
Economic reforms. The use of microloans and other economic projects directs capital to Afghan women, encouraging them to engage in private enterprise that dovetails with the social freedoms allowing women more access to the public sphere. Independent economic vitality pushes against political restrictions, building up the political voice and goals of Afghan women in their national and local governments. Political action affects government economic policy, loosening restrictions on female entrepreneurship and providing mechanisms for further investment in local business, including female-run entities. More local business helps to bolster Afghan’s struggling economy, pushing back against revenue from poppy farming and black market timber sales. Afghanistan invests in itself, spurred by its investment in women.
Religious tolerance. Afghanistan is, and will always be, an Islamic state. But as the combination of social and economic reforms changes the relationship of citizens to state, so too does it change the relationship of state to religion. Not unlike Syria or Jordan, Afghanistan gradually reduces the state-based restrictions on its population, particularly its female citizens, moving religious doctrine from the governmental realm to the private realm. Previously imposed restraints on public and private behaviour are eased and individuals gain more self-selection when it comes to how they choose to express their religion.
What I describe here is not a panacea; these changes, should they come, are gradual and slow-moving in nature. Alleviating the quality of life of women in Afghanistan will not solve the country’s many ills in every sector of its society. But these changes are most assuredly a necessity, to answer in part for twenty years of repression, poverty, and hardship.
From the vantage point of 2010, these changes seem very far away. But rather than view these three aspects of Afghan society–social, economic, religious–as unknown progressive leaps forward, I argue instead that Afghanistan should look into its past for frameworks with which to build upon. At one time, Afghanistan grasped each of these aspect of society, and were headed down a path of greater individual freedoms and reforms for its citizens. To meet its future in 2050, Afghanistan and its people must reclaim its 1950 past. Perhaps in four decades we will again see women walking uncovered past women in niqab and know it to be the result of individual choice and freedom.
*
Karaka Pend is a philosopher by training and a FP junkie by passion. She blogs at Permissible Arms and has an abiding love for the Misfits. Images respectfully pulled from Foreign Policy and the NYT Lens Blog. Many thanks to Feminist Philosophers for allowing me to contribute this post.
How, exactly, do you keep the conversation from getting personal if it’s the sort of conversation where the smell of your lady parts makes a difference?
Via Boing Boing. (Thanks, Mr Jender!)
Jennifer Martin writes to WMST-L”
I have been contacted by Sharon Leder from the organization Feminists Against Academic Discrimination. Sharon is looking for speakers who are either teaching at institutions where they have been discriminated
against or who teach science and have been discriminated against as
women.Sharon and her colleague are sponsoring two panels at the National
Women’s Studies Association Conference in Denver, Colorado on the above
subjects and have openings on both panels for one additional speaker.
The panel on women in science is for Friday Nov. 12; the one on teaching
in an institution where you’ve experienced discrimination is for Sunday Nov. 14. The full conference runs from Nov. 11-14, 2010.The description of the panels can be found here.
If you’re interested, contact Sharon Leder: sharon At teichmangallery.com
The following video is a trailer for an independent film being produced as a senior thesis at the School of Visual Arts.
The filmaker also volunteers at a non-profit company that promotes intercultural understanding. And Tuesday he brutally attacked a Muslim cab driver:
According to the taxi workers’ alliance, Mr. Sharif’s fare started the ride asking him in a friendly way if he was Muslim, whether he was observing Ramadan, and how long he had been in the United States.
After falling silent for a few minutes, the passenger began cursing and screaming, and then yelled, “Assalamu alaikum — consider this a checkpoint!” and slashed Mr. Sharif across the neck, and then on the face from his nose to his upper lip, the alliance said. (“Assalamu alaikum” — “peace be with you” — is a traditional Muslim greeting.)
Both men were taken to Bellevue Hospital Center. The driver was in stable condition. A law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said Mr. Enright was “very drunk” at the time of the attack.
“I feel very sad,” Mr. Sharif said in a statement released by the taxi workers’ alliance. “I have been here more than 25 years. I have been driving a taxi more than 15 years. All my four kids were born here. I never feel this hopeless and insecure before.”
To say the obvious: Our fear is much more dangerous than this Muslim taxi driver.
Lady Gaga, as pictured here:
(This is only our fifth post mentioning her, and we are not obsessed!))
Well, why not? It’s hard to make sense of selecting her unless dressing well includes wearing uncomfortable clothes to attract a great deal of attention.
This outcome seems to me connected with David Brooks’ latest column in the NY Times. “A Case of Mental Courage” starts with a description of Fanny Burney recounting her breast surgery, without anaesthetic. But it is actually about an ethos of self-discipline, which he thinks we have lost. He also takes this to be the source of a lot of obvious problems today:
She lived at a time when people were more conscious of the fallen nature of men and women. People were held to be inherently sinful, and to be a decent person one had to struggle against one’s weakness.
In the mental sphere, this meant conquering mental laziness with arduous and sometimes numbingly boring lessons. It meant conquering frivolity by sitting through earnest sermons and speeches. It meant conquering self- approval by staring straight at what was painful.
This emphasis on mental character lasted for a time, but it has abated. There’s less talk of sin and frailty these days.** Capitalism has also undermined this ethos. In the media competition for eyeballs, everyone is rewarded for producing enjoyable and affirming content. Output is measured by ratings and page views, so much of the media, and even the academy, is more geared toward pleasuring consumers, not putting them on some arduous character-building regime.
There’s an obvious connection between his comments and the appearance of Lady Gaga on VF’s best dressed list. But I wonder if there is not also a less obvious one. That is, one factor in the loss of the culture of self-discipline may well involve a loss of generational leadership in the early 60′s. You couldn’t trust people who were horrified at, for example, the Beattles’ hair or Elvis’s wiggle, while so many thousands were being killed for the sake of democracy in South East Asia.
There are many other factors, of course, with capitalism being a large one. But for university teachers, the question of generational authority is a major one. And now we have the capitalists substituting their goals for ours in educational institutions.
So maybe I’ll lay off any problems with Lady Gaga.
What do you think?
———————
**As aside: it seems to me there’s a lot of talk of sins, but they are conveniently others’ sins.
Reader H writes:
Could you post the following message anonymously on your blog, or write a short note in which my question is mentioned?
I would like to share some concerns about the job market, which may be relevant to women, but also to junior philosophers in general.
Recently, I was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship for a 3-year period, following a grant competition. It’s an excellent grant that includes very limited teaching duties, a generous bench fee, and the possibility to fully concentrate on one’s own research. However, as I have already 3 years postdoc experience (as a teaching assistant and postdoc fellow), I am starting to wonder whether these untenured years will start to look bad on my cv. I have heard people talk about a ‘sell by date’ of 4 or 5 years after which potential employers do not take your job application seriously if you haven’t landed a tenure-track or other professorship.
Is it true that there is a bias against people who have longer postdoc careers? This might be an additional problem for female philosophers, since I (and other women philosophers I know) are a bit reluctant to apply for faraway jobs for family reasons. So it takes a while before a suitable job presents itself (especially now), and those jobs often go to people who transfer from another a tenure-track or assistant professorship.
My impression is that there is no longer a bias against people having lots of short-term jobs before finding a permanent one: it’s increasingly the norm. But do let me know what you think.
Many constituencies feel themselves ill-served by the peer review process, which constitutes a major determining factor in having an academic career. The New York Times today looks at ways alternatives are starting to be constructed. The issues raised are complex and important. For example, it’s not clear that the changes envisaged would help all those disadvantaged by the current system.
However, let’s start at least look at some of the remarks. Here, for example, is a negative characterization of standard journal peer review:
The traditional method, in which independent experts evaluate a submission, often under a veil of anonymity, can take months, even years.
Clubby exclusiveness, sloppy editing and fraud have all marred peer review on occasion. Anonymity can help prevent personal bias, but it can also make reviewers less accountable; exclusiveness can help ensure quality control but can also narrow the range of feedback and participants.
In contrast:
Open review more closely resembles Wikipedia behind the scenes, where anyone with an interest can post a comment. This open-door policy has made Wikipedia, on balance, a crucial reference resource.
But telling us that open review would make academic publishing more like Wikipedia is faint praise indeed.
The most interesting part of the article, at least for me, concerns the varieties of alternatives. Open review through journals, for example, appears still to let journals make major decisions about who gets reviewed. But one might do something like Phil Papers, but with unpublished work. Indeed, I don’t think Phil Papers is now restricted to published work, so perhaps it is a possible “open review” venue.
A major question is whether we will find analogues of current problems cropping up. E.g., will we find women’s work of equal quality gets less attention?
To end on a positive note: the article notes that communicating is a deep academic value. It is possible that a more open system could make publishing more like communicating and less like prize-winning.
As noted earlier, it is possible to provide this. But since so many of us have encountered barriers in trying to do so, I decided to contact some of the people who have managed it. So far, I’ve heard from Ned Markosian about how he did it at Bellingham.
The main thing I have done as BSPC organizer is to find local babysitters for visiting families. And a variation on that was to help several visiting families with similarly aged kids join up to form a babysitting co-op, with childcare provided by a combination of the parents and a babysitter that I found for them.
The problem of finding babysitters was perhaps easier for me to solve than it would have been if my circumstances had been different. But with kids of my own, I was able in some years to secure super good, super reliable babysitters that we had been using ourselves. More importantly, my own children had gone through the campus pre-school. In the short term that was helpful because I was very familiar with the student workers (early childhood education students at my university who were working at the pre-school), and could choose someone well-suited for the visiting family. (The pre-school here is a co-op, so I was spending several hours a week there myself, which meant that I got to observe the student workers in action.) And being connected with the campus pre-school has been really helpful in the long term because my wife and I are now friendly with several of the teachers there, and I can just call them up and say, “I have someone coming in with a three-year-old, who is looking for XYZ, do you have someone you would recommend?”
So I guess I would say that the main obstacle is establishing a connection with someone who knows a lot of highly qualified babysitters. That was easy in my case because of my own kids, but it wouldn’t take too much effort to go and talk to the people at the campus pre-school, in order to build connections that way.
Besides helping parents to organize childcare co-ops and find babysitters, one other thing that has worked out here is helping a family to get a kid placed in the campus pre-school for the week. I don’t remember anyone saying that insurance or anything else was an obstacle to that. (But that has been the exception rather than the norm, I think, because it turns out that most parents prefer to work out an arrangement with just one caregiver, and with flexible hours that may include evening hours.)
One other thing is that we have made sure that the atmosphere at the conference is such that it feels normal for there to be kids in the room as we are having our sessions. This year there were several instances of a parent asking a question while holding a 3-month-old in his or her arms.
I would really like to see more conferences becoming child-friendly!
I followed up by asking about where the babysitting took place:
The childcare took place wherever the parents and sitter agreed it should take place. In practice, at this conference, that has meant: at various outdoor venues, both on campus and off. University campuses are usually great places to be roaming around with children, since they are totally pedestrian-friendly. And Bellingham happens to be a park-crazy town, so that works out well. But I guess it is a huge advantage in this regard that my conference takes place in the summer, in a locale that almost always has extremely pleasant weather at this time of year.
Obviously, not all of Ned’s options will be available to all of us, but I’m sure they’ll be helpful to some!
The Philosophy Annual presents what it takes to be the best 10 papers published in philosophy in a year. You can see the current list on Leiter’s blog.
We extend our congratulations to all, but notice that one paper in particular was exciting to see on the list since it was written by a frequent commentator here:
Rachael Briggs (Sydney), “Distorted Reflection”, Philosophical Review 118:1, 59-85
It’s a media meme that never dies. But Women’s e-News has a very nice article debunking it. A sample:
Take the “fact” that women with high IQs are “too smart to marry,” as The Atlantic magazine put it. Almost none of the stories with the scare headlines reported that the data were gathered from men and women born in 1921. The women are all now in their 80s.
Should a study of octogenarian women be taken as the reality of today’s young people? Of course not.
(Thanks, Frog!)
Emily Ryall writes:
I’m organising a conference on the Philosophy of Play to be held at the University of Gloucestershire on the 12th & 13th April 2011 and we’re trying to formulate a list of possible keynote speakers. Unfortunately, all of those on the list so far are male and I was just wondering if anyone knows of any women that have written in this area and would be a good option to approach for a keynote.
Suggest away!
There are protests today against the Muslim center in lower Manhattan.
Maureen Down had these chilling observations:
The country is having some weird mass nervous breakdown, with the right spreading fear and disinformation that is amplified by the poisonous echo chamber that is the modern media environment.
The dispute over the Islamic center has tripped some deep national lunacy. …
So there’s a tiny bit of comfort in seeing that Time Magazine has a photo-series illustrating the history of intolerance in the US. It’s just possible we might get a little perspective on the frenzy.
CNN is juxtaposing pictures of the protest against the Mosque near Ground Zero with the reference to Time. I suppose that’s the kind of things that gets it counted as liberal.
Though she’s stopped in from time to time, the Sunday cat has been on vacation for the summer. But now she returns, multiply instantiated in fashions from the innovative designers at United Bamboo. (The Calendar and the clothes are on sale.)
Visitors who are new to the blog might want to look at some of the previous Sunday Cat posts here.
Thanks to PJ!
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