The Guardian newspaper posted this article today about the gender pay gap and “hostile work culture” in the NHS.  The pay gap figures are shocking.  Especially the ones that suggest that women actually earn less (in comparison to men in similar jobs) if they work over a longer period of time.  Ugh.

A new study blames “gender fatigue” for the failure of companies to increase the number of women reaching executive ranks. “I call it gender fatigue, paying lip service to an underlying problem that people feel weary of discussing. They just assume that since policies are in place, the problem is solved and no more needs to be done,” says Dr. Kelan, a lecturer in work and organizations at King’s College London. In her research, she did in-depth interviews with 26 men and women who are employees of two large Swiss companies that promote themselves as having leading-edge policies and programs to promote gender equality. Kelan recommends holding business leaders responsible for change and spending more time making the business case for increasing the proportion of women. More can be found in the Globe and Mail article here.

Today’s NY Times has a discussion of the parenting of same-sex couples.  It looks at Abbie E. Goldberg’s new book, “Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children,” which  is an analysis of more than 100 academic studies, most looking at groups of 30 to 150 subjects.   Most of the focus is on lesbian parenting, since gay men parented much less until  recently.  The news is all good for the cause of same-sex marriages.  And some is  intriguing. 

First of all, the children are the same as children of heterosexual marriages on all the standard measures of doing well socially.  They are popular, make friends and don’t have gender identity problems – at least all in the same measure as other children.   And this is interesting:

More enlightening than the similarities, however, are the differences, the most striking of which is that these children tend to be less conventional and more flexible when it comes to gender roles and assumptions than those raised in more traditional families.

Girls in particular are more likely to be interested in jobs like being a doctor over being a nurse, and they’re more likely to play with “boy’s” toys.

Of course, when I first read it, I thought of all those studies that claim that within a few days of birth gender interests are showing up.  Could the environment of same-sex parents show that’s not innate?  But I now suspect not.  After all, supposing an interest in Barbie is innate, it’s just the sort of thing one might think lesbian parents lack and so don’t pass  on. O dear!  

I guess we’re just back to the basic implausibility of 20th century gender markers being carried by those pesky old genes.

So the US is getting closer to something approximating universal health care coverage.  I haven’t looked to see just what’s happened to, for example, legal foreign visitors, still less illegal ones, but it looks a lot better than the status quo.  And there are even provisions for same-sex couples that make their situation more equitable.

There is also a huge and horrible problem, one that Roman Catholic Church and of course many others apparently worked very hard to bring about.  And that is the complete lack of coverage for abortions except in the case of the mother’s life gravely threatened, incest and rape.

The RC Church bishops demanded that letters denouncing the bill and requests for actions and contributions to fight it be read out at  masses across the country.  This was an action with all sorts of political ramifications, not just about abortion, and it is a puzzle to me how they keep their tax exempt status.  

So what do you think about the compromise?  Pelosi is a strong abortion rights advocate and accepted the restrictions when it seemed either that or the bill will fail.   She’s said to be counting on the senate to have a better bill.  I think that’s the “right” decision, but that’s in large part because I’m worried that the possibility of no bill at all is very much alive still. 

What do you think?

Here is what is supposed to be one:

But clearly the identity conditions are at least vague:

And the Sunday Cat apologizes to dog lovers for  only finding suspect dogs.

Evelyn Brister has a great post over at Knowledge and Experience on women philosophers and administrative leadership.  There’s an interesting collection of statistics, facts and explanatory observations.  Among the last, there’s this interesting observation:

              This quote is from an article in the journal Women in Leadership:

Women presidents differ greatly in their approaches to leadership. In this report… [most women]…talked about their leadership in terms of their being trusted “to articulate the aspirations of my institution.” One reflected, “I’m almost entirely motivated by the desire to do meaningful and worthwhile work.” One said that she feels less pressure to be right than to “arrive at mutually satisfactory conclusions and decisions.”

You can also find a list of women philosophers who are or have been in leadership roles.

Check it out!  And tell us, here or over there, what you think and/or whether you’ve had any experience in administration.

“I’m in a board meeting. Having a miscarriage. Thank goodness, because there’s a fucked-up three-week hoop-jump to have an abortion in Wisconsin.”

Thus ran Penelope Trunk’s tweet, which she defends further here. 

Liberal Conspiracy provides a vehement defence of her action, in the face of a barrage of outraged responses. There Laurie Penny attacks such outrage as an attempt to police women’s emotional responses, and notes that the shame attached to public airing of biological function is peculiarly inconsistent (when that function is pornographic or sexualised, the shaming abates…). Interestingly, Penny argues that Trunk is engaged in an important process necessary for gender equality, advocated by Mill:

The knowledge which men can acquire of women …is wretchedly imperfect and superficial, and always will be so, until women themselves have told all that they have to tell.

Exam boards responsible for developing courses at secondary level compete with one another to sell their courses to schools. Unsurprisingly, schools like to buy courses that result in the best grades, since good grades = better position in league tables = more students at school = money to pay teachers and to buy resources. Given these facts, what’s the best way to sell your course? Make it easy, of course. It doesn’t take a genius to see that this brings a big risk of lowering standards. According to the Head of the Royal Society of Chemistry, this is exactly what has happened. Exam boards focus on simplicity and use multiple choice questions on exam papers, to the detriment of education. Studies carried out by the scientific community have found science papers with no maths in them, indeed, they have found science papers with no science in them. This all goes to show that applying a business model to education is a crap idea. You can read more here.

of little practices in philosophy departments that, well, if not exactly stink, then are definitely off.

The prize may go  to the department that keeps a web calendar  named after urinals you might have seen in Paris, le pissoir.**

Can you top that?  Get even close?  If so, please let us know! 

** Many thanks to someone who might not want to be identified.

‘Cause it’s just what girls like, of course.

Baby and Me comes with a doll, but not just any doll. This doll features a slot for the Wii remote so that the game can track feeding, playing, and excessive shaking motions. The game also features Balance Board support so that you can rock baby to sleep.

(Thanks, CR!)