An interesting bit of history June 5, 2013

This, from the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame, was in my facebook newsfeed this evening and I thought it would be of interest to our readers:

 

“Today we wanted to take a moment to honor Sr. Mary Frederick Eggleston (1893-1975), pictured on the left, who was the first person to receive a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. She (aptly enough) worked in philosophy of religion, graduated magna cum laude in 1934, and her dissertation is available electronically [here].”

Her dissertation is titled, ”Some Effects of the Theory of Evolution on the Philosophy of Religion.” What I find especially interesting about this, is that Notre Dame didn’t become a co-ed university until 1972.

Reading this bit of history reminds me of when I first learned of Ilse Rosenthal Schneider, while reading about Einstein’s philosophy of science: It’s a nice reminder of the continual presence and consistent intellectual contributions of women to our profession, even when and where men seem to take center stage in our history.

Reflections from Deborah Copaken Kogan April 29, 2013

This is a powerful essay from Deborah Copaken Kogan–well worth a full read, but here’s a snippet:

This is what sexism does best: it makes you feel crazy for desiring parity and hopeless about ever achieving it. A few months later, after delivering a lecture on the media-invented “mommy wars” at the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference, a song pops up on my iPhone as I’m walking back to my hotel room: Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.” “When you ain’t got nothing,” Dylan sings, “you got nothing to lose.”

Yes, I think. Yes.

I suppress the three words that have haunted me my entire adult life—”They’ll smear you”—and choose Dylan’s instead. . .

Women Against FEMEN April 5, 2013

Check out a collection of pictures here.  Or browse the twitter hashtags #MuslimahPride and #Femen.  And here’s an article providing some context.

 

All organized religions seem to get themselves mixed up in some shady hierarchies…..but F*** imperial feminism.

Gendered Inspirations March 25, 2013

The eternally fabulous Helen Mirren caused a stir at last night’s Empire Awards when she noted that director Sam Mendes cited only men when naming his inspirations. Mendes made a speech upon receiving his “Empire Inspiration” award (apparently that’s a thing) in which he discussed filmmakers who have inspired him through his career, but all the filmmakers he mentioned were male. When collecting her own award (for “Empire Legend” – apparently that’s also a thing), Mirren remarked:

I don’t want to unduly pick on Sam Mendes, but when he spoke about his inspirations earlier this evening, I’m afraid not a single one of the people he mentioned was a woman. Hopefully in five or 10 years, when Sam’s successor is collecting their Inspiration award, the list will be slightly more balanced in terms of its sexual make-up. In the meantime, this one is for the girls.

In addition to being intrinsically awesome, I take it that this is proof that Helen Mirren tacitly endorses our Gendered Conference Campaign, right? RIGHT???

Grandma got STEM March 24, 2013

where STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (+more!).
There is this fantastic blog launched on February 17 2013 by Rachel Levy, where she collects information on grandmothers who did great work in those fields. Rachel explains:

Perhaps, like me, you are tired of hearing people say “how would you explain that to your grandmother?” when they probably mean something like “How would you explain the idea in a clear, compelling way so that people without a technical background can understand you?”

Here’s a similar saying you may have heard: “That’s so easy, my grandmother could understand it.”

I would like to counter the implication that grannies (gender + maternity + age) might not easily pick up on technical/theoretical ideas.

It is not just about women who are literally grandmothers, but it is meant in the figurative sense: any woman old enough to be a grandmother.

Thanks, @IngridRobeyns!

Kakenya Ntaiya and the Kakenya Center for Excellence March 19, 2013

Kenya ranks #130 in the 2012 Gender Inequality Index and ranks #145 in the Human Development Index. (Also, click here for a PDF of Kenya’s composite indices for the 2011 Human Development Report.)

Despite serious problems represented by these figures/values, Kakenya Ntaiya and the Kakenya Center for Excellence arguably provide many of the kinds of action, growth, hope, and promise that we need most in this world.

Woman challenges tradition, brings change to her Kenyan village (CNN Heroes story from March 14, 2013)

(Please check this out. Well worth our time. Every single minute – only 15 minutes, 42 seconds. Really gets going, truly inspiring, in the second half.)

2012 Gender Inequality Index March 17, 2013

The U.N. (Development Program) released the 2013 Human Development Report (and the 2012 Human Development Index within it) a few days ago. It incorporates data from 2012 for the latest Gender Inequality Index (on pages 156-159). This index reflects gender inequality along three dimensions – reproductive health, empowerment, and the labor market – as rated by five indicators: maternal mortality and adolescent fertility for reproductive health, parliamentary representation and educational attainment for empowerment, and labor force participation for the labor market.

Of the 186 countries ranked in the 2012 Human Development Index, 148 of those countries are ranked in the 2012 Gender Inequality Index. The U.S. ranks #42, the U.K. ranks #34, Canada ranks #18, Australia ranks #17, New Zealand ranks #31, and South Africa ranks #90.

Also out of those 186 countries (for the 2012 Gender Inequality Index…), Netherlands ranks #1, Sweden ranks #2, Denmark and Switzerland rank #3, Norway ranks #5 (though as you might expect, Norway ranks #1 overall in Human Development), Finland and Germany rank #6, Slovenia ranks #8, France ranks #9, Iceland ranks #10, Italy ranks #11 and Belgium ranks #12.

In addition, out of those 186 countries (for the 2012 Gender Inequality Index…), India ranks #132, Saudi Arabia ranks #145, Afghanistan ranks #147, and Yemen ranks #148.

Click here for a PDF of the full 2013 Human Development Report.

Click here for a webpage with frequently asked questions (and answers) about the Gender Inequality Index.

Click here (and scroll down to “technical note 3”) for a PDF file that provides details on how the 2011 Gender Inequality Index was calculated.

Unfortunately, the link (to a PDF file) for details on how the latest Gender Inequality Index is calculated does not currently work. Click here in case it starts working.

Click here (and then click on “2012” toward the right side of the page) for a webpage that provides a possibly more straightforwardly ordered listing of countries in the 2012 Gender Inequality Index (though some parts of the ordering seem different from the ordering indicated in the 2013 Human Development Report).

What do readers think? All sorts of data here for all sorts of comments…

Also, in case anyone is interested: “The Google Public Data Explorer makes large, public-interest datasets easy to explore, visualize and communicate. As the charts and maps animate over time, the changes in the world become easier to understand.”

Here is a webpage for this tool.

Readers can find some basic Google Public Data Help for using the tool here.

International Women’s Day! so, pink phones..? March 8, 2013

Really, Oxfam? Pink phones? Was there no other way to achieve such a laudable goal?

Watch the Makers Documentary Online! February 28, 2013

A while ago I complained about a TV series that seemed to be glorifying a bunch of rich white men as the people who made America.

And a short while ago Fem Phil posted about the PBS documentary, Makers: Women Who Make America.

In case anyone missed it on TV, you can watch the whole thing (yup all 3 hours) here or here.  (The first link doesn’t contain commercials, as far as I can tell.  Apologies if the video doesn’t work everywhere. I tried searching Youtube as well but couldn’t find another version.)

And if anyone ever followed Twisty at I Blame the Patriarchy, she is still occasionally throwing out a blame or two, in between blogging about the various ailments her horses suffer from. She points out some irony regarding the commercials for the documentary:

“Despite the title, during the station break a voiceover described the doc’s subject as “women who ‘helped’ shape America.” Women are helpers, yo, just in case this film causes you to forget that for a moment.”

And in classic Twisy fashion, she helpfully suggests,

Here, Voiceover, let me “help” you kiss my entire ass.

(If it’s not obvious, I miss IBTP.)

I haven’t watched the documentary yet, but I’m hoping it’s good.  Twisty links to a few articles on it in her post.  And Chris Hayes talked about it some on his Feb 9th show–you know, the one where he devoted the WHOLE TWO HOURS to the women’s movement (both local and global, past and present.) The show, while containing a few awkward kumbaya moments, had some of the best dialogue I’ve seen about how to address the women’s movement without slipping into American-centric white middle class feminism. (If you can watch MSNBC shows, you can watch it here by hovering over “recent shows” on the left and finding Feb. 9th.)

 

Melissa Harris-Perry (left) and Sarita Gupta (right) on Up with Chris Hayes

Women making America February 26, 2013

The PBS program, “Makers: Women who make American,” shows tonight both on TV and through webcasting:

 

MAKERS is a landmark digital and broadcast initiative from AOL and PBS showcasing compelling stories from women of today and tomorrow. A 3-hour documentary “MAKERS: Women Who Make America.”will premiere on February 26, 2013 8pm ET.
Visit the Makers: Women Who Make America website

Judging by the preview below, there’s lots to like and to dislike about the program. Among other things, it features US women of the last 50-70 years who largely are very visible in the media. And some of the faces are clearly remade according to what one would think are sexist demands. It does also have a good number of black women, it seemed to me, and some I knew were media people, but I wash’t as familiar with black faces as white.Not a good thing, I’d say, which is one reason why the central division APA had a lot of sessions on concerns that included blacks.

So be prepared to find some of it irritating, but also full of recollections of events that impact us still today.