CFP: Graduate Philosophy Conference

We’ve been asked to post this CFP:

We are pleased to announce a call for papers for Western Michigan
University’s 4nd Annual Graduate Philosophy Conference. Papers are
due October 22, and the conference takes place December 3-5.
Acceptances will be issued by October 29. All local expenses (inc.
housing and food) will be covered. Our keynote speakers this year are
Joshua Knobe (Yale) and Edouard Machery (Pitt HPS). While we are
especially interested in papers that engage their work, papers of any
topic will be considered. More details—including submission
guidelines—may be found here:

Click to access Phil_Grad_Conf_Poster_2010.pdf

Any questions may be addressed to the conference organizers at
wmich.philosophy@gmail.com.

(Go send some papers, and keep it from being all-male!)

Canada not a feminist paradise after all

Canada sits behind Sri Lanka, Lesotho and Latvia, at No. 20, in a global measure of equality between men and women. Not surprisingly, the Nordic countries – Iceland, Norway, Finland and Sweden – are still on top of the World Economic Forum’s gender gap study released Tuesday. Canada’s position actually improved from last year, when it was 25th, with its chief strengths in educational attainment and economic participation, the report said. The features of Canadian society that result in the relatively low ranking are a gap in income earning between men and women and the paucity of women in elected office. The Globe and Mail notes that women make up half of Canada’s population while holding just one fifth of the seats in Parliament. Coverage of Canada’s ranking can be found here.

Females Are Equal to Males in Math Skills, Large Study Shows

This is one debate I’d love to stop having but it does seem to be necessary. ScienceDaily today writes, ” The mathematical skills of boys and girls, as well as men and women, are substantially equal, according to a new examination of existing studies in the current online edition of journal Psychological Bulletin.” See their story here.

Good news, but…

Judge Orders Injunction on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’; click to read the rest in the NY Times.

Isn’t there a problem, though?  Suppose one takes this as an opportunity to come out, and the ban gets re-enacted later.  One will have informed the watch dogs.

Congratulations to beingawoman blog!

Usage statistics on “What is it Like to Be a Woman in Philosophy” are currently exceeding our own here at FP, and since Jender would never toot her own horn, I’m taking it upon myself to say, from the rest of us at FP, way to go with the  new blog, Jender!

Brian Leiter has moved his own announcement of beingawomaninphilosophy back to the front of the Leiter Reports, to make sure his own readers get a gander at it:

It makes for gripping reading, and more than one of the stories posted so far matches incidents I have heard about from students and colleagues elsewhere.  Hopefully once even more stories are recorded, someone or some organization (maybe the APA?) will undertake a systematic survey to find out how widespread such misconduct is using some of the recurring “types” of malfeasance recorded here as a benchmark.  In conjunction, it would be interesting to know how much of this kind of misconduct ever results in disciplinary action.