…by Ralph Wedgwood for The Stone.
Illuminated Manuscript Cookies May 25, 2012
These are rather lovely. Made by Annina, for a friend. Each cookie depicts a letter from a different manuscript.
Where are the women? May 25, 2012
Here’s Stuff’s list of 25 top movie lines. Not bad. Except that of the twenty five only two are by women. A friend suggested they’re missing good lines from Mae West, Katherine Hepburn and all those other strong, saucy women. Which great movie lines, by women, do you think should be on a ‘best lines from the movies’ list? Here’s one of my favourites.
Hey Zuckerberg: where’s the dislike button? May 25, 2012
So by now we all know that the Facebook IPO mess highlights a plethora of corporate governance problems. But here’s yet another problem that doesn’t bode well for the future of Facebook stock:
Facebook has become much more profitable and innovative since Mark Zuckerberg brought COO Sheryl Sandberg on board. Sandberg brings a diverse perspective outside of the all white-dude mind frame that previously dominated Facebook’s senior leadership. Despite Sandberg’s successes as COO, Zuckerberg has chosen to exclude women from Facebook’s board. So the questions stands: Will Facebook be able to continue to innovate with zero women at the boardroom table, when its demographics are composed of 55% women?
According to the Catalyst report, The Bottom Line, Corporate Performance and Women’s Representation on boards, Fortune 500 companies that had at least three women boards of directors saw on average:
- Return on equity increase by at least 53%.
- Return on sales increase by at least 42%.
- Return on invested capital increase by at least 66%. Diversifying boards also brings different perspectives to companies’ big picture objectives, product development, and problem solving. Companies can’t continue to innovate without diverse leaders at the table.
(Aha! Fortune 500s with least 3 women on the board. I think I might have to try tweaking my portfolio using this principle, and see what happens.)
One employer will not tolerate sexism! May 24, 2012
This AP story about Trip Airlines is really making the rounds. I’m trying to imagine a world in which every employer is like this! Fab:
A Brazilian airline said Tuesday that one of its female pilots ejected a passenger from a flight because he was making sexist comments about women flying planes. Trip Airlines said in a statement the pilot ejected the man before takeoff on Friday as he made loud, sexist comments upon learning the pilot was a woman. The passenger, who was not identified, was met by police officers at the plane and escorted out of the Belo Horizonte airport. The jet continued on to the state of Goias after a one-hour delay. The airline said it would not tolerate disparaging remarks made about any of the 1,400 women working for it.
“The Wall” May 24, 2012
Roger Waters has been taking Pink Floyd’s ” the Wall”, which he wrote, on a new concert tour. Below is a favorite part of the show. I try to remind myself I represent the other side now! (in case it isn’t obvious, I am a teacher!) That doesn’t work.
Why (we hope) you keep hearing about protests in Montreal*UPDATED May 23, 2012
UPDATE 24 May: Looks like the New York Times has noticed the heavy-handed attempt to prevent gathering. So much for U.S. news outlets failing to pick up the story!
News of the protests here only trickled out in fits and starts to our readers in other countries. It started one hundred days ago, with the announcement by the government of Quebec that they plan to raise university tuition over the next four years by 65%. Quebec’s average annual cost to attend a university — $2,519 — is low, intentionally so. A student could actually pay their way through university. Students protested the announced increases in the hopes of keeping it that way. Those of us with tens of thousands of dollars in student debt could only look on with wonder. The symbolic red squares popped up on t-shirts, on facebook. I feel lucky that I went to Montreal to present a paper at a conference during the first month of protests, and there met some of the students and professors involved. Otherwise, I would only have had Canada’s English-language press coverage to rely on, which means I’d only hear about those protesters who committed vandalism or resisted arrest, a small number compared with those who earnestly protest the direction in which the province is going, especially with respect to funding higher education with the incomes of employed workers rather than the upfront fees of underemployed students. The Minister of Education resigned, calling her resignation a sacrifice and “the ultimate compromise,” although those of us with eternal education debts might think that was a bit overstated. But it was the government’s attempt to crack down on protesting and bring the unrest to an end that really brought out citizens of all ages: Bill 78 , “the most odious law,” as Weinstock says, includes many provisions, including the initial rule that gatherings of more than 9 people required prior government permission, a measure that got so much resistance the number was increased to 49 people. As Brian Leiter notes, “The protesters are unimpressed with the new law.” (The page title says, ‘Arrest me, someone.’ The signs say ‘I disobey.’) This is how Montreal responds to being told not to gather:
Tens of thousands of protesters of all ages disobey the new Bill 76 prohibiting gatherings of more than 49 people without permission.
Man candles May 22, 2012
Yes, truly. And here are their names and descriptions:
Man Town™ – Escape to the man cave with this masculine blend of spices, woods and musk.
First Down™ – This combination of orange, patchouli, vetiver and leather is as exciting as game day.
Riding Mower™ – Hot sun. Cool breeze. And the intensely summery scent of freshly cut grass.
2 x 4™ – The warm, unmistakable scent of freshly planed wood and sawdust evokes a sense of confidence and quality.
From the Yankee Candle Company.
Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/05/18/man-candles-for-that-manly-riding-mower-smell/?iid=nf-article-mostpop1#ixzz1vdbHZHtl
Reader query on family-friendly conferences May 22, 2012
A reader writes:
I wanted to report something that I believe has cropped up in attempts to be at least somewhat helpful to people who need childcare in order to attend conferences.
As part of a conference I’m currently co-organising [at Scottish university], I asked the university admin person in charge of the registration site to include a part where people could report that they would possibly need childcare and express an interest in our helping them to find some. We made no promises about what we could provide but were intending to use university and local contacts in order to try and find suggestions and recommendations, thus saving would be attendees from blindly googling. Despite the university administrator initially being happy with this they then unilaterally removed this question, saying that we shouldn’t get involved in organising this. At the time I thought that this was just officiousness. Then someone else organising a conference (elsewhere) mentioned that they were not even allowed to recommend or point people in the direction of local childcare, on the grounds that this would make the university liable in case something went wrong.
There seem to be at least these two possibilities (I’ll leave aside the possibility that this is a convenient myth intended to reduce the workload for conference organisers):
(a) the university would be liable in such an event
or
(b) universities sincerely but falsely believe that they would be liableKnowing which of (a) and (b) is true makes a big difference to how this obstacle to making conferences more family-friendly can be tackled. Sadly, I have literally zero expertise in this area but I thought it would be good if someone who does could advise whether, and when, universities would be liable in the event of something happening to a child in childcare that had *in some way* been suggested/recommended by the conference organiser.
I’m pleased to report that at my own UK university, the conference people will be including on their form for conference organisers a query about whether they’d like a “mobile creche”. If organisers want it, the university nursery will (for a fee) provide onsite childcare to all conferences held at our university. So I know that it is possible in the UK to do this. However, this is England, so there may be different laws. And of course universities my take different views of the law. Anyone else have information/anecdotes to offer?
We can’t ‘cure’ homosexuality; can we forgive the scientist who said we could? May 20, 2012
In 2003, the highly regarded Dr. Robert L. Spitzer published what purported to be a study of the success of “conversion therapy” which said that it was possible to change one’s sexual orientation from gay to straight. This study is the foundation of a very great deal of anti-homosexual propaganda and programs. Nonetheless, it and its publication were deeply flawed. For one thing, such is Spitzer prestige, it was not peer reviewed by the journal. In addition, it relied on self-reports, some of which asked for data from the distant past, as one criticism said. Many experts in the field think it is worthless. And now so does Dr. Spitzer.
With descriptions that may seem designed to win sympathy for Spitzer, the NY Times reports:
Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, considered by some to be the father of modern psychiatry, lay awake at 4 o’clock on a recent morning knowing he had to do the one thing that comes least naturally to him.
He pushed himself up and staggered into the dark. His desk seemed impossibly far away; Dr. Spitzer, who turns 80 next week, suffers from Parkinson’s disease and has trouble walking, sitting, even holding his head upright.
The word he sometimes uses to describe these limitations — pathetic — is the same one that for decades he wielded like an ax to strike down dumb ideas, empty theorizing and junk studies.
Now here he was at his computer, ready to recant a study he had done himself, a poorly conceived 2003 investigation that supported the use of so-called reparative therapy to “cure” homosexuality for people strongly motivated to change.
And certainly there are praise worthy facts here. Spitzer in fact is largely credited to getting homosexuality off the DSM’s list of mental disorders.** And not that many people are happy to confess to errors in public.
On the other hand, the supposed study has done a great deal of harm. Some of it is recounted in comments on the Times’ article. Here is one:
My mother died of Parkinson’s disease but I never got to see her in her waning years because she and my father cut me entirely out of their lives — because I’m gay. They refused me entry to their (formerly our) home. They wouldn’t respond to emails or take calls. All of this was after I “failed” reparative therapy — instead (in their minds) “choosing” a suicide watch in a mental hospital and “continuing” to be gay. They relied heavily upon this man’s “research” in their analysis, assessment, opinion and rejection of me.
I’m sorry to hear of this man’s illness. But his illness, and his apology, make his use of gay people as pawns in his game of professional status-seeking no less reprehensible. I, too, only have one regret — it’s this man’s “work” and contribution to my life. He made a very difficult road all but bitterly impossible.
No letter he ever writes will negates what he did.
A large number of the responders praise Spitzer’s recanting, and recommend he be forgiven for his study. That may be very facile. Should the people harmed, even demonized by those using the study forgive him. “It’s time to move on,” some people are saying. Unfortunately, there are things that one cannot simply move on from. The damage may be permanent, written on one’s mind and body in ways impossible to ignore. Ask victims of torture, among whom some commenters regard themselves. A successful life may be the best revenge, but the harm done may make success unfairly very much harder.
So how should we think about forgiveness in such cases? What do you think?
**A number of commenters on the article claim that the forthcoming DSM and psychiatry more generally is still very hostile to sexual differences.
The Sunday cat thinks sphinx are great, but you need to be the right sort of companion for them. May 19, 2012
A clip from “My Cat from Hell,” Animal Planet’s insightful program into cat problems:
Discussing triggering issues, etc in philosophy classes May 18, 2012
I’ve just been having a discussion about this issue, and would like to know what all you wise people think. Obviously, one important thing to do if you know you’ll be teaching triggering issues is to tell students when you’ll be e.g. teaching rape, and let them know that they don’t need to come to those classes or write about that topic. Another is to remind the class that it’s quite likely some of the people in the room, or those they’re close to, have been victims, and to ask everyone to bear that in mind. But a much harder question is what is off-limits in discussion. For example, there are lots of widespread victim-blaming views on rape that could be very triggering and/or upsetting. This seems like a reason to not allow their expression. But these are widespread views, so surely we should discuss them. One might even argue that there is an obligation to discuss them, so that they can be shown to be false.
What do you do in your classes? What works? What doesn’t? What do you wish people would do?
Meat and masculinity May 18, 2012
For those feminist philosophers with an interest in links between vegetarianism/veganism and feminism, this article in the Journal of Consumer Research might be of interest.
The authors conclude, “To the strong, traditional, macho, bicep-flexing, All-American male, red meat is a strong, traditional, macho, bicep-flexing, All-American food. Soy is not. To eat it, they would have to give up a food they saw as strong and powerful, like themselves, for a food they saw as weak and wimpy.”
“Is Meat Male? A Quantitative Multimethod Framework to Establish Metaphoric Relationships,” Paul Rozin, Julia M. Hormes, Myles S. Faith and Brian Wansink, Journal of Consumer Research
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/664970
How to explain white male privilege to geeks May 17, 2012
This is awesome.
So, the challenge: how to get across the ideas bound up in the word “privilege,” in a way that your average straight white man will get, without freaking out about it?
Being a white guy who likes women, here’s how I would do it:Dudes. Imagine life here in the US — or indeed, pretty much anywhere in the Western world — is a massive role playing game, like World of Warcraft except appallingly mundane, where most quests involve the acquisition of money, cell phones and donuts, although not always at the same time. Let’s call it The Real World. You have installed The Real World on your computer and are about to start playing, but first you go to the settings tab to bind your keys, fiddle with your defaults, and choose the difficulty setting for the game. Got it?
Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.
(Thanks for the tip, J!)
“Got Women” poster now available May 16, 2012
From Peggy DesAutels, chair of the APA Committee on the Status of Women:
The APA Committee on the Status of Women is please to open an online store! Our first product is a poster. When you purchase, be sure to select a large size so that you can read the names of those featured in the collage. If you are missing from the collage (and have a PhD in philosophy), please send a high-quality head-shot to apa.csw.mail@gmail.com to be included in future posters and products.There will be more products to follow (mugs, t-shirts, etc.).
Men are athletes, women are accessories May 16, 2012
Hey there, sexy ladies! Do you know what a champion Olympic athlete needs in the run-up to the 2012 London Games? Why a hot beach-babe, of course. That’s right, let’s kick it Baywatch-style! Wait, what’s that? You’re a champion Olympic athlete too? Doesn’t matter. Just grab yourself some beefcake arm and smile for the camera.
That, at least, seems to be the message of this special Olympics-themed cover of Vogue. Vogue rarely features men on its covers, but they’ve made an exception for swimmer Ryan Lochte. Lochte and his abs are joined by fellow-Olympians Hope Solo and Serena Williams, photographed rocking the classic female beach-model pose. (You can see some additional photos from inside the magazine here.)
What’s wrong with dying? May 15, 2012
Shelly Kagan has a new book out on the topic and an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. I don’t think it is behind any wall or requirement, and it is interesting to read. And quite puzzling.
Kagan favors the deprivation view:
Maybe nonexistence is bad for me, not in an intrinsic way, like pain, and not in an instrumental way, like unemployment leading to poverty, which in turn leads to pain and suffering, but in a comparative way—what economists call opportunity costs. Death is bad for me in the comparative sense, because when I’m dead I lack life—more particularly, the good things in life. That explanation of death’s badness is known as the deprivation account.
Dying is bad for you, on this view, because you are deprived of the good things in life. But there is a huge problem right on the surface: If you are not around, then how can you be deprived? It seems you can’t.
Most of the article discusses this problem; Kagan concludes that not all the puzzles can be resolved.
Now, let me admit that I know there is a lot of writing on this that I haven’t read. So I mean be rushing in, etc, etc. Still, for various reasons I have recently read a great deal written by women with terminal illnesses, particularly stage 4 cancer (which I am not anywhere near having, in case you wonder). Any stage 4 cancer is terminal; it can’t be cured and it will kill you if nothing else does. In what I have read it is very clear what the women hate about the thought of dying. The awful thing about dying for most of these women is that they are integral parts of social groups, particularly families, that they care a great deal about, that they put a large amount of energy into, and that will be harmed by their death, or even destroyed.
Even women who lament that they will not see their youngest daughter graduate, or their son get married, are often not thinking, “O, that’s a good time I won’t have.” Rather, their thought is more about how their child will have a large gap in the normal social surrounding. Other grads get photographed with both parents; theirs will stand out as not having a mother.
Is this true for all of us? It might seem not. A young person might not give a fig about children, or her parents for that matter. What is most important is winning academic recognition, perhaps. Having the honor of receiving the Nobel Prize, or an Oscar. Such desires might be much more self-regarding than those of nurturing one’s family. Still, it may be that these desires are less about one’s own experience and more about the social world one is invested in.
For myself, the thought of death right now is most frightening because I will leave someone who does actually need me to be around, and who is helped a lot by my presence in the world. I expect we vary on this, but I’m pretty sure I’d be close to indifferent to survival if all my social world was somehow evaporated. Or so it seems right now.
I am saying this, I should say, after 4 weeks in Oxford where we’ve had, it seems, about 3 sunny days. Perhaps during a period of fine weather, I’d feel the emotional ebullience that leads to the thought: Not me! I can’t go! Take all my friends, but I must be left (along with enough good food, music, art, etc). Death is too awful.
I just don’t know that we should expect to find that rational. What do you think?
Or, to put the point simply: if we think of the goods that accrue individualistically, then death means one doesn’t get any more, but then one isn’t around to experience the lack. If, however, we think of the good socially, one’s death can be very destructive to things one has spent significant parts of one’s life on. One might not feel the destruction and loss, once dead, but it will be there unless, as many people do (I think) one goes to some lengths to see that such things will survive one’s death.
How not to cope with one’s own bias in grading May 15, 2012
For a lot of people, knowledge that one is biased about a group of people, or even an individual, is little help in grading fairly. Quantifying one’s standards is also of limited help. Most of us can just tell when a paper exhibits genuine understanding or insight, but rules for detecting it are very likely to be elusive. The human mind often operates with intuition and insight best, and, as people working with those who lack insight in an area of life find, using rules and reason can be very limited.
So what to do? Removing names from papers is not always possible or, with small groups, effective.
One thing one might try is to compensate by systematically awarding higher grades than one’s biased judgment indicates. E.g., “This feels like C work to me, but I’ll give it a B- because it is too likely that I’m being biased.” Clearly, one should worry about doing this when it will harm other students; e.g., in a competition. But otherwise, can it do harm? Unfortunately, yes, it can.
It turns out that students of groups liable to be targets of bias know when they are getting graded up because of their race or ethnicity. They experience it as a kind of invalidating practice that puts them further outside the normal practices of the majority. Or so this interesting article from the Atlantic argues.
So what to do?
Citing the original report and a researcher, the article says:
So how can this problem be solved? Harber and his colleagues found that teachers who have greater social support at school are less likely to show a positive feedback bias toward black students. The theory is that teachers with support feel less anxious about their performance and can concentrate on being fair graders.
But this comment seems odd, because it does not seem to be addressing a context in which anonymous grading can actually be helpful. The problem discussed seems to be more general that the one we started with, though I don’t think that’s a reason for dismissing the idea that inflated feedback can be damaging.
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