FIVE COLLEGE FEMINIST SCIENCE STUDIES TENURE TRACK POSITION
UMass Amherst/Five Colleges
Assistant Professor, tenure track to begin Fall 2011
Emphasis on race, gender and science. Specialization in natural, social sciences or humanities, or interdisciplinary work. Focus could include the environment, technology, medicine, sexuality, transnational contexts, and/or the theory and practice of science. Ability to teach core Women’s Studies courses assumed. Qualifications: PhD required by 9/2011; teaching experience preferred. Annual teaching load: two courses at the home campus, UMass Amherst (Women’s Studies); one at Mount Holyoke College (Gender Studies); and one at Hampshire College.
Review of applications to begin September 22, 2010. Application should include a letter of application, curriculum vita, a syllabus or course outline for a course on “Race, Gender and Science” as well as other relevant syllabi and course descriptions, and three letters of recommendation. Send application materials to Chair, Feminist Science Studies Search Committee, Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies, Bartlett Hall 208, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003. UMass Amherst is a member of the Five College Consortium along with Amherst, Smith, Hampshire, and Mt. Holyoke Colleges. The University of Massachusetts and the Five Colleges are Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employers. http://www.umass.edu/wost
Day: October 1, 2010
Name change puzzle
Lots of feminists think it’s really problematic for women to take their husband’s names after marriage. (Though many who view this as problematic still don’t think women should be *blamed* or *criticised* for doing it.)
But there’s also a good case to be made that it’s important for same-sex unions to get all the trappings of heterosexual unions– marriage ceremonies, certificates, etc.
What, then, should one think about Portia DeGeneres’s new name? (Not that we should necessarily think anything! But people who do have quite general views on name changing post-marriage might want to think about whether these views apply to same sex marriage as well.)
(Thanks, E!)
A beautiful dream
Slavery on fishing trawlers
The Environmental Justice Foundation set out to investigate illegal fishing off the West coast of Africa, which is decimating fish stocks. They found a bit more than that: several trawlers with licenses to supply European fish markets were crewed by modern-day slaves. The men are kept in horrendous conditions, some with little access to clean water, confined aboard the trawler for months, even years, subjected to violence, their pay is withheld and their documents confiscated. You can read more from the Guardian here.
UK Equality Act
This morning there is much discussion of the Equality Act 2010, which is implemented in the UK today. It includes new provisions to protect individuals who have caring responsibilities from being discriminated against (a phenomena being referred to as ‘associative discrimination’); prohibitions on asking employees about their health (unless relevant to the specifics of the job); and ‘third party harassment’, which includes further provisions for dealing with hostile environment harassment (e.g. overheard discriminatory banter). It also includes positive duties for employers to take positive action in recruitment and promotion in relation to members of under-represented groups.
Fawcett have objected to the partial implementation of the act – the requirement that employers make public pay differences is not yet enacted (apparently it will be later).
And of course there is much discussion in the media about whether the act has ‘gone too far’, is just a ‘headache for employers’, contains provisions that are ‘barking mad’. Ug. You can hear discussion of the act on the BBC Radio 4 here .
You can read the full provisions of the act here (I’m yet to scour the details yet!).
Feminist Philosophers 