“Calm Down, Dear”

That’s what David Cameron said to Angela Eagle, Shadow Treasury Secretary. There has rightly been criticism. Eagle’s own response:

she had been “patronised by better people than the prime minister”, adding that Cameron should instead be apologising for the economy, which had “effectively flatlined for six months”.

She told BBC News: “I don’t think any modern man would have expressed himself in that way.

“The prime minister is responsible for what he says in the Commons. I think if there is an apology to make it should be for the dreadful growth figures we have seen today, which demonstrated that the economy has effectively flatlined for six months.”

She said it was up to Cameron “as to whether he wants to annoy 51% of the population”.

(Thanks, Jender-Parents.)

Jason Stanley on how feminist philosophy has influenced him

Really.

My first book, Knowledge and Practical Interests, was in fact squarely in epistemology, arguing for the thesis that epistemic properties and relations have a practical dimension to them. I was helped in thinking through this project by my acquaintance with debates in feminist theory by scholars such as Genevieve Lloyd, who, at least on one reading argue that properties such as rationality are gendered, and hence not “pure” or “objective.” Thinking through this work when working with Chris Sturr at Cornell exposed me to the conceptual options for a thesis of the sort I advanced in this work, that epistemic properties and relations are not “pure” (to use the vocabulary of Jeremy Fantl and Matthew McGrath).

Jason Stanley is very much a mainstream philosopher of language and epistemologist so this surprised me. It also pleased me greatly, both to see feminist philosophy having having such unexpected influences, and to see it being discussed. It seems to me that this sort of thing is especially important for fighting the impression that feminist philosophy is a fringe endeavour.

On defending the arts and humanities

Jo Wolff:

The best we can do, I think, is to adapt an argument from GE Moore. Suppose we have to choose between two worlds. In one of them, universities have flourishing departments of arts and humanities. You, your children, your grandchildren, can study literature, language, fine art or ancient history, and, talent permitting, can contribute to scholarly debates. In the other, only the rich can do this, but technical progress is a bit faster. Which world you would prefer to live in?

Talking about stereotype threat

The undergraduate philosophy classes I teach are often in technical, male-dominated sub-disciplines (metaphysics, philosophy of language, logic, etc). More men than women take these classes, and the male students usually outperform the female students — at least if we’re judging performance based on grade distribution — even though all the grading is done anonymously, as far as possible. The male students also tend to be much more vocal in class discussion.

There’s a lot not to like about this, obviously. In an attempt to be proactive, I’ve started talking about gender and stereotype threat in these classes. Basically, I introduce the concept of stereotype threat, and explain to the students ways it might affect them. I talk through some of the cool experiments (the math test study, the chess player study, etc) involving gender and stereotype threat. Then I put up a bunch of information (including links to these and more studies, and links to further reading) on the course webpage. But I’m worried that, at least for some of my students, this effort may have backfired.

I’m reasonably confident that I managed to communicate the information clearly, because several of the *men* in theses classes have responded very enthusiastically — thanking me for bringing up the issue, wanting to talk about the cases further, etc — and they all seem to have understood what I was saying without any trouble. The most confident and successful female students in the class have responded similarly. What I’m worried about are the less confident female students — precisely those that are perhaps most vulnerable to stereotype threat in these kinds of classes. On several different occasions, some of these students have come to my office to talk over an exam or a paper, and ended up saying something like “I’m so bad at this — it’s like you were saying in class, how women just aren’t as good at making arguments.”

No! Not what I said! At all. But I tried to talk about stereotype threat in a context where the threat levels were (for at least some students) pretty high. So I said something like “You’ve probably been told at some point in your life that women are emotional and men are rational, or that men are better at making logical arguments. But that’s just not true. . .” [Proceed with discussion of stereotype threat.] But what some of my most vulnerable students heard was “Men are better at making logical arguments.”

Does anybody have thoughts about how to avoid this? That is, does anybody have ideas about how to talk about stereotype threat in a context where the threat levels are running pretty high without it backfiring on your most at-risk students?

Gail Dines on the Royal Wedding

The British and American press have run stories about the way William’s friends make fun of Kate for coming from a family that has actually had to work for a living. Evidently especially humorous is that fact her mother was once a flight attendant. William’s family is the richest welfare family in the world yet you won’t hear David Cameron attacking them for being lazy freeloaders. No one seems to be questioning why the British tax payer should be paying for a family that likes to party all the time. Especially as the average person is being told that their days of partying are over and now it is time to tighten their belts. As if it was their parties and not the parties of the rich that led to the economic meltdown.

Ever since Cameron got into power I have been waiting for millions of people to take to the streets of London. A royal wedding wasn’t exactly what I had in mind!

For more, go here.