In honor of teddy bears

Inspired by the Sunday bears

California may require schools to teach gay history

In California public schools, students are required to learn about black history and women’s history. And if a bill approved by the State Senate this week becomes law, the state will become the first in the country to mandate that schools also teach gay history.

More here. (Thanks, L!)

ewwwwe – one perspective on why women have problems as surgeons.

About 50% of the students going to medical school are women, but only a third of them want to become surgeons. Why is that?

[It is] in part because of a perceived male bias, negative attitudes of surgeons and a lack of female mentors. Once in practice, studies have shown, well over half of all women surgeons report feeling demeaned, and nearly a third say they have been the objects of inappropriate sexist remarks or advances. …
Dr. Diane M. Simeone, a professor of surgery at the University of Michigan who was a co-author of a recent article on barriers faced by women in academic surgery, agrees. “There still is a lot of gender bias in surgery, and I have seen it myself on multiple fronts,” she said

Of course, to a woman in philosophy, that can seem even hundrum. However, one particular event has brought things to a head:

A Valentine’s Day editorial in the official newspaper of the American College of Surgeons has set off a firestorm of controversy … The editorial, written by Dr. Lazar J. Greenfield, an emeritus professor of surgery at the University of Michigan School of Medicine and president-elect of the American College of Surgeons, extols the mood-enhancing effects of semen on women. It begins with a reference to the mating behaviors of fruit flies, then goes on to discuss studies on the menstrual cycles of heterosexual and lesbian women who live together. Citing the research of evolutionary psychologists at the State University of New York, it describes how female college students who had been exposed to semen were less depressed than their peers who had not, concluding: “So there’s a deeper bond between men and women than St. Valentine would have suspected, and now we know there’s a better gift for that day than chocolates.”

Ewwwe. Ewwwe. Still, it can be good to get a problem infocusl

Sunday bear and tiger cubs

(Thanks, Synaesthetik!)

Ancient Philosophy Conference, lots of women

Check it out!!

The organiser, Matthew Duncombe, tells me that the submitted papers were chosen by anonymous review, and *all* turned out to be by women. He notes that “The respondents are mostly men, but sadly that was unavoidable, as they are all PhD students at Cambridge in a rather male-dominated department.”