APA Scheduling April 15, 2013

For at least the last 7 years, the Pacific APA meeting has fallen over the Easter holiday (and other associated holy days for Christians). For at least the last couple of years, the Pacific APA has also fallen over part of Passover. I realize this has been brought up for discussion before, but I want to raise the issue again because it does strike me that this is a very serious issue of inclusion. Several wonderful philosophers I know had to skip this last APA meeting because of religious obligations. This is not purely a matter of religious inclusion either; those whom have primary care responsibilities for children will, I suspect, find attending both the Pacific and the Eastern division meetings rather difficult given school holidays.

I am sure no one is intentionally scheduling meetings so as to keep the religious philosophers and the primary-caregivers out—but the effects are problematic regardless of intentions. So, here is my question: Why is the APA schedule as it is, and what can we do about it?

Regarding the “why” issue, we already know the motivation is to keep costs down, and for whatever reason, hotel rates for conferences tend to be less expensive at these times, and rearranging the schedule will increase the cost. I’d be curious to know just how much of a difference in cost is at issue here, but however much it is, it seems there’s an easy solution: Move the APA meetings to less expensive locations to compensate for the difference.

Yes, I know; if we don’t have the APA meetings in lovely places like San Francisco, it might turn out that conference “attendance” will drop. Now, I’ve put “attendance” in quotes, because while this is the most common reply I’ve received when discussing the possibility of moving the meetings, it is entirely unclear to me how many philosophers who are primarily motivated by the location, actually attend the conference itself outside their own sessions.

Thoughts?

Update on Free Amina April 11, 2013

Article here.  (NSFW warning)

When asked about the Topless Jihad protest, Amina Tyler said,

” I am against. Everyone will think that I encouraged their actions. They have insulted all Muslims everywhere and it’s not acceptable.”

When asked what she thought of the reaction to her topless photograph, Amina replied: “At the moment I don’t regret what I did. But I do not know what the future holds.”

As to whether she supports Femen “whatever happens”, she says: “Until I’m 80-years-old. Because they are true feminists.”

Femen contacted Huffingtion Post UK and responded to Amina’s comments,

“It’s clear to us that she was not speaking freely. We know that she’s been constantly under the supervision of her family, and, as far as we know, they’ve been making her take some sort of anti-depressants, which could account for her halting speech. That Tyler incorrectly described Femen’s mosque protest proves to us that she has no independent access to the media. Her family is telling her things to make her stop her ‘playing around at being free.’ That she’s at home with her family in no way means she’s free or safe.”

 

Granted, Femen could be partially right about Amina being under supervision. But if Amina is not speaking freely, why would she have been allowed to say that she’ll support Femen until she’s 80 and that she didn’t regret what she did?  I don’t want to unreservedly assume that Femen is so narrow-minded and arrogant that they are reflexively taking a fellow feminist’s criticism of their protest as evidence of her not being in her right mind, but holy hell, it sure does look that way.  Unless there are big chunks of information missing from this report, this amplifies the criticisms of how Femen is engaging with the women they are trying to be in solidarity with.

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.

The new pope on women in politics? March 14, 2013

Someone please tell me this didn’t really happen. (Seriously, if anyone knows more, please do say so in the comments.)

Women are naturally unfit for political office (…) The natural order and facts teach us that man is a politician par excellence, the Scriptures show us that woman is always the supporter of man, the thinker and doer, but nothing more than that.

From here and here (in Spanish), among other places — all seemingly in Spanish, so if you find it in English, please post that, too, in the comments.

UPDATE: This is probably not a real quote. The only reference I can find (until the last few days, that is) online is the one in the yahoo answer forum Kathryn linked below. My guess is that the comments here are correct, that the quote was fabricated in 2007, and is being picked up now. See swallerstein’s comments below for more pressing concerns regarding Pope Francis’s history.

Catholic Hospital Argues Fetuses Are Not Persons January 26, 2013

A wrongful death lawsuit has been filed against St. Thomas More Hospital in Colorado. Lori Stodghill, who was pregnant with twins, died from a heart-attack shortly after she had been admitted. Her husband filed a suit in which his lawyers argue that a cesarean-section could have saved the twins, and so ought to have been performed.

Catholic organizations have for decades fought to change federal and state laws that fail to protect “unborn persons,” and Catholic Health’s lawyers in this case had the chance to set precedent bolstering anti-abortion legal arguments. Instead, they are arguing state law protects doctors from liability concerning unborn fetuses on grounds that those fetuses are not persons with legal rights.

You can read more here.

Almost laughing. January 5, 2013

From the BBC:

A gay priest has said an announcement from the Church of England over gay bishops “will be laughed at by the majority” of the country.

The announcement, from the Church’s House of Bishops, would allow clergy in a civil partnership to become bishops if they promise to be celibate.

It’s so absurd, it is almost funny — but there is so much serious injustice involved, I’m not laughing.

 

Some days, I just can’t. January 3, 2013

I do not know how to describe how disturbed, how heartbroken, how frustrated, and most of all, how angry I am at the moment.   (Trigger warning for the full story, and especially the video itself. )

A chilling video leaked by an Anonymous cell this week has added a new twist to a sordid tale of alleged rape that has shattered the peace of a close-knit Ohio football town.

The disturbing 12-minute video, posted online Tuesday by the hacktivist group “Knight Sec,” shows teens making jokes about the events that reportedly transpired on Aug. 22.

One teen appears to be refer to the victim as “deader than” Trayvon Martin, and adds, “she is so raped her p**s is about as dry as the sun right now.”

I am horrified by what happened in India. I am also horrified that being charged with rape apparently isn’t much of a detraction from one’s political candidacy there. I am absolutely sick and tired of how rape is treated like a joke, again, and again. I am so far beyond over the way our reverence for athletes and loyalty to our favorite teams enables silencing, suffering, and double standards again, and again, and again. I am tired of victim blaming. I don’t even know where to start on American politicians talking about rape. I am incensed that there was controversy at all about the Violence Against Women Act, and even more so that it wasn’t reauthorized.

I simply don’t have the right words at the moment.

Priest blames women for femicide December 28, 2012

Unfortunately, this is not a story from The Onion. A parish priest in Italy said that women need to engage in some “healthy self-criticism” when it comes to the issue of femicide, and in so doing, displayed that he’s in some serious need of “healthy self-criticism” himself.  The text, which he posted on a church bulletin board, said that women’s behavior —  everything from not keeping the house clean, “cold meals,” “fast food at home,” “babies left to themselves,” and the way women dress — is to blame for violence against women.

The core of the problem is in the fact that women are more and more provocative, they yield to arrogance, they believe they can do everything themselves and they end up exacerbating tensions.

And Erin Gloria Ryan comments over at Jezebel.

As part of an ongoing campaign to convince everyone to quit being Catholic, an Italian priest used his annual Christmas message to expound on a very Christmasy topic he’d spent many years studying in Priest JuCo — domestic violence. And like most instances when a celibate male Catholic official comments on what women should or should not be doing, it was epically stupid. His advice? Basically, ladies, if you don’t want your husband to kill you, then you should probably stop dressing like such a skank.

Femen: Ukraine’s Topless Warriors November 28, 2012

Interesting piece on today’s Atlantic front page about these bold feminist activists based in Ukraine:

Founded in Kiev in 2008 to protest the country’s burgeoning sex industry (“Ukraine is not a brothel!” was the slogan of their first — and still clothed — demonstration, which aimed to dissuade foreigners from visiting prostitutes in the capital), Femen has since evolved into a vanguard of militant activists who have dubbed themselves the storozhevyye suki demokratii (the “watch-bitches of democracy”) and “modern-day Amazons,” some of whom demonstrate topless to, says their website ”defend with their chests sexual and civic equality throughout the world.”

The article ends with this remark: ‘Just what de Beauvoir would have thought of topless demonstrations is anyone’s guess.’ Perhaps our erudite readership would care to weigh in? This seems unduly dismissive about the possibility of anticipating and reconstructing the views of a very important philosopher.

A very major cultural change? September 9, 2012

The following passage is from that liberal icon, The Nation. The idea is that now women reporting rape are automatically taken to be telling the truth, and the civil rights of the accused suffer as a result.

There is something about high profile cases, and perhaps she is trying to qualify her claim. If someone claimed Tom Cruise raped her, we’d all assume he did it? Maybe not so if he’s just your neighbor? (That doesn’t really make sense, I would have thought.)

If the Swedish claims against Assange had involved anything but sex, it’s unlikely that liberals, and even some self-described radicals, would be tiptoeing around this part of the story, either by asking “So I guess he’s a bad guy?” or by arguing “Of course he needs to answer for his crimes.” If it were anything but sex, we would insist on the presumption of innocence. We have instead gotten comfortable with presuming guilt and trusting in the dignified processes of law to guarantee fairness.

“Believe the victim” entered the lexicon decades ago for historically understandable reasons. Women had been denied their own due process, in a sense—their right to make a complaint and expect justice, not vilification or worse. They are still being denied and derided, as the idiot spewings of Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin illustrate. The mutation of basic rights into an imperative for belief, and of full citizens into victims, has not made women any safer, but its cultural manipulation—particularly in high-profile cases—has struck at the foundations of civil liberty in a way that may not have been anticipated.

For what it’s worth, I doubt that everyone believes Assange did sexually assault the two women in question. In any case, arresting someone means simply that there is good evidence of a crime. It isn’t a formal judgment of guilt. And I have certainly assume that those not consume by rage against him see the Swedish actions as heavily political.

Or have I missed out on a huge cultural shift? Are women claiming they’ve been raped automatically believed?