Ban on ‘uterus’ in Florida House: UPDATE

UPDATE: It’s gone national!

It started this past week in the Florida House of Representatives when Rep. Scott Randolph, D-Orlando, suggested during a floor debate that his wife ought to incorporate her uterus.

If women’s wombs were businesses, Republicans would have no interest in regulating them, Randolph was saying.

Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach, thought his colleague was making a serious point.

“They don’t want to regulate business, but they’ve come up with 18 abortion bills this session,” Pafford said.

The Republican House leadership responded by admonishing Randolph for his language and banning the word “uterus” from being spoken from the floor….

…Banning “uterus” might prove to be a tough task for state lawmakers who continue to dream up new ways to regulate it. They’ll probably have to authorize “baby garage” or some other acceptable substitute so they can continue to shrink government until it’s small enough to slip under the bedroom door.

No, it’s not April Fool’s Day. Here’s the link.

New Mary Wollstonecraft Blog!

Reader S writes:

The author, Roberta Wedge, was on Woman’s Hour a couple of weeks ago talking about the Mary on the Green project. Part of what she doing with this blog is trying to gather information relating to missing documents (first edtions, some letters) and to bring together Wollstonecraft scholars and others interested in her life and work.

The blog is A Vindication of the Rights of Mary.

Women speakers

Just in case you’ve been wondering how many women you can get to speak in fields such as philosophy of science, check out the Rotman Institute of Philosophy’s line-up for next year:

Frederique De Vignenont Friday, September 16th, 2011 Institut Nicod, Paris
Sandra Mitchell Friday, September 30, 2011 University of Pittsburgh
Katherine Brading Friday, November 4th, 2011 Notre Dame
Alison Wylie Friday, November 18, 2011 Washington
Nancy Cartwright March 7,8, 2012 London School of Economics
Michael Parker March 30, 2012 Oxford
Moira Howes Friday, April 13, 2012 Trent

“The Rotman Institute of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario brings together philosophers and scientists to examine some of the most complex issues and most engrossing problems emerging from contemporary science. Members of the Rotman Institute include scholars who work on history and the philosophy of science, research ethics, bioethics, science and values, and feminist approaches to science. We come together in a unique collaborative workspace to engage, explore and exchange ideas. This “philosophy laboratory” is the heart of the Rotman Institute.” For more information, visit the website.

CFP, and a question

I wanted to attract attention to the call for papers for this conference we are organizing in Amsterdam, here.

The Classical Model of Science II – The Axiomatic Method, the Order of Concepts and the Hierarchy of Sciences from Leibniz to Tarski (Amsterdam, August 2-5, 2011 Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

It has 50% gender balance among invited speakers (4 and 4) and among the scientific committee (13 and 13). It took some effort and time but most of all it is the result of paying attention. We proved it is possible! I wanted to thank the blog and the gendered conference campaign for raising awareness on this point. It helped us getting clear on how important it is – or at least it helped me making it clear to everybody involved that
this is important.

A question: as said in the call, we are currently investigating child care facilities. Professional child care for the duration of the conference would amount to 3200 euros. If there is need and interest among invited speakers we will try to raise the money but I am not optimistic that we will manage. We were less prone to use students as suggested on the blog, also because legislation and rules on the matter in the Netherlands are quite strict. Is there any institution that you might recommend to us for apply to with some chances of success?

Thank you in advance – and best wishes!
Arianna Betti

OMIGOD: eagles nesting and hatching.

It’s almost too much.

The site is here.  On the site you can get a sense of what the fuss is about, and why there have been 11 million views. 

There were three eggs; the third is yet to hatch.