Feminist Philosophy Draft Exchange

There’s an amazing new resource starting up for feminist philosophers, the Feminist Philosophy Draft Exchange. Here’s what is planned:

Ideally, this will give people a chance to participate in discussion forums about submission, revision, or other aspects of the research and publication process, to post work of their own for advice and feedback, and to offer helpful tips and suggestions to others. “Google Document” technology means that – if you like – you can post works in progress directly to the group, and others can offer comments directly online, rather than having endless numbers of drafts circling through cyberspace. If you would prefer a more private option, you can also request volunteers to read your work through the Google Group, then email your files directly for comments and feedback.Everyone – junior, senior, or grad student – is welcome to join. You do not need a gmail address: either sign up to a google account with your existing email address and request membership in the group, or send just an email to the administrator, requesting to join (feministdraftexchange AT googlegroups.com).

This looks like a great thing. I’m off to sign up now!  Many thanks to Alice MacLachlan for setting this up, and to Sally Haslanger for letting me know about it!

“Know Thine Enemy”

The title is from an Op-Ed piece in today’s electronic version of the NY Times.  It is a  documentary about the  US occupation of Iraq.

The occupation raises many feminist issues, and I’m not even tempted to try to give some simple statement of some of them.  But the  6+ minute documentary is well worth watching, even if you can just bear to watch some of it. A central and important conclusion it supports is that the invasion could not have worked, even if it had been well planned; the insurgency is enacted often by ordinary people who care about things such as honor/honour much more than the architects of the war understand even today.

Among the feminist questions raised is:  Whose are the  values  and who is paying the price?  There aren’t easy answers.

Rape or theft of services?

A prostitute in Philadelphia was gang-raped at gunpoint after she had agreed to have sex for money with two of the men. The judge down-graded the charge to “theft of services”. She (yes, the judge is a woman) feels great about this, as she thinks that treating this case as rape would be an insult to “real victims”. So if you’re in Philly and feeling a murderous urge, do feel free to throw stunt-people off buildings– it’s only theft of services. (Thanks, Calypso, for this one.)

Update: Want to complain? Do it here. Thanks, JJ, and also Zuzu and Mike at Feministe.