The board of Philosophy in an Inclusive Key Institute (a week long summer institute designed to encourage undergraduates from underrepresented groups to pursue graduate study in philosophy) is now accepting 2012 applications.
You can find out more about the institute and how to apply here.
I have students who have attended and found to be incredibly helpful, professionally productive, and indeed, life-changing.
[Moderator’s note – After the positive response to anonfemphil’s posts on breast cancer, we’ve invited a series of posts from another female philosopher on another taboo women’s health topic: infertility. Please note that we’re allowing comments on these posts, but we will be moderating them very strictly, given the sensitive nature of the topic.]
I have a disability which leads to a variety of medical “complications”, some of which require surgical intervention. Usually, there’s nothing terribly dramatic about the process. I go in for a battery of tests, a procedure is recommended, and then that’s that. But the most recent “complication” was different – it was different because it involved, among other things, my reproductive system. All my doctors agreed that I needed surgery. There was some debate about which procedure would be best, but the consensus was that something surgical had to be done.
But. All of the standard corrective procedures would prevent me from ever getting pregnant. I was 27, with no children and no history of previous pregnancies. And so I was told, rather vaguely, that any procedure which would end my fertility was “contraindicated”.
Not to worry, I assured the surgeons, my partner and I weren’t planning on having kids. Naively, I thought this extra bit of information would settle the matter. As it turned out, it had surprisingly little impact on the (male) surgeons. You think that now, they told me. But if you lose your ability to have children, it’s permanent – and you may regret it later. Sure, I thought, of course I may regret it. But then, having kids is also permanent – and I might regret that too. I couldn’t see how my potential regret should factor into this decision, especially given that people are statistically more likely to regret child-having than non-child-having. (Turns out I would also end up with very good reason to regret a surgery delayed by medical hand-wringing about my childlessness. But this was the sort of potential regret that didn’t matter in this context, as it was only indirectly connected to lack of babies.)
My case – which is medically unusual and complicated – ended up being taken for discussion to the surgical board of the medical school which runs the teaching hospital where I’m treated. The decision they handed down still shocks me, every time I can bear to think about it. The director of the surgical team advised tactics to delay the operation as long as possible, so that I could “try to complete my family”. That my family could already be complete was not, apparently, something they considered.
It was never obvious what exactly they wanted from me, when they advised that I “try to complete my family”. My condition – especially given what was happening at the time – made it unlikely that my body could sustain a pregnancy beyond the first trimester. And if I could manage to carry a pregnancy to term, it would be very dangerous for me, and would likely cause me permanent harm. It seemed that I was being told to undergo a series of frustrating miscarriages in pursuit of a dangerous pregnancy I didn’t want. When I asked my primary care physician why this was happening, she sighed, rolled her eyes, and said “They want to be able to say that they told you to try.”
The expectation throughout seemed to be that I should try, that I should pursue biological reproduction regardless of the harm or danger. That’s what the brave woman would do. If it worked, I would have the moral victory of motherhood against the odds. If it didn’t, I would have the moral reassurance that at least I’d tried. And if it ended up killing me – well, I would die in the noble pursuit of motherhood, surrounded by understanding women, like Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias.
What followed were a series of increasingly frustrating conversations with (male) surgeons. One responded to my claim that I didn’t want children by patiently explaining: “You shouldn’t say that. You never know about these things. Children are a wonderful blessing.” I have a hard time imagining how a doctor could think that’s an appropriate thing to say to any adult woman. But that a doctor could think it’s an appropriate thing to say to an adult woman for whom pregnancy would be a serious risk defies belief.
Another surgeon, when faced with a similar declaration from me, reacted quite differently. He smiled, as though he suddenly understood something sad and profound, and then said: “Ah, I see. Is it that you’re afraid your child would have [your condition]?” This wasn’t the first time I’d heard something to this effect. In fact, it sometimes felt like the only way to avoid the doctors’ rampant paternalism was to embrace their equally rampant ableism. My condition is genetic – autosomal dominant – so my biological children would have a 50% chance of inheriting it. But this was never a part of my decision not to have children. Insofar as I wanted children, I would’ve been delighted to have children with my condition. It’s just that I didn’t want children, disabled or non-disabled.
Things finally changed when I saw that rarest of treasures – a female surgeon. She was as incensed and mystified as I was by the long delay, and promptly set about putting a stop to it. She also told me, with refreshing frankness: “A pregnancy would be completely disastrous for your body. It will be a very good thing if we end your fertility.” As I was leaving her office, one of the nurses pulled me aside. “That was good advice she gave you,” she said quietly, “very good advice. You won’t hear that from a male surgeon.”
And so I had my operation, and am now unable to get pregnant. Because of the delay, I ended up having to have a more invasive, riskier procedure than I would otherwise have needed. And, of course, I had the long months of lots of medicine, lots of pain, and nagging awareness of the list of “things you must go to the emergency room ASAP if you notice” that the surgeons’ stalling incurred.
But what I find most frustrating about the whole thing are the more intangible elements. The attitude of most of the doctors I dealt with made me feel like my preference for childlessness was somehow unnatural, and shouldn’t be given the same respect as most women’s preference for having children. And what upsets me most about this, on reflection, is not what happened to me specifically, but what must surely happen to many women like me. I’m fortunate – I’ve never wanted children, and so in this case the needs of my body didn’t conflict with my preferences. But there are so many women in similar situations who do want children very much. I suspect that these women feel a lot of pressure – sometimes subtle, sometimes not-so-subtle – to forge ahead fearlessly in their attempts to get pregnant, and to view adoption as a distant second-best.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t doubt that there are women in my situation with an intense desire to have their biological children, and I respect their attempts to make this happen. But attitudes like those I encountered from doctors make facing infertility much more difficult, whether or not you have a strong desire for biological children. When I was facing permanent infertility, the expectation was that I would fight it with everything in my power, consequences be damned (cue Steel Magnolias music). Expectations like that create a tremendous amount of pressure, and a creeping sense that if you aren’t willing to make extreme sacrifices in order to have babies, there’s something odd about you.
Expectations like this must surely hurt adoptive families just as they hurt women facing infertility. Whenever I would point out to my doctors that I could have children without having my biological children, they would look at me like I’d just sprouted a second head. Adoption, surely, was the last resort – to be countenanced only once you’ve lost the battle for biological children. I never understood this – but then, I’m an unnatural childless woman so maybe I’m missing something. I guess it’s always seemed like adoption is something to consider, insofar as you’re considering having kids, whether or not infertility is part of the equation.
Expectations about what families should look like are harmful. They stigmatize families that fall outside the white-picket-fence idyll. And they make life harder for people in situations that are already perfectly hard enough.
Click here for a webpage that contains more information about the issues explored at this wonderful looking conference.
Click here for a webpage that contains a list of conference speakers, titles of conference papers, and brief speaker bios.
Remember the video from the Miss America pageant in which contestants responded to the question “should evolution be taught in schools?” Remember how it made you despair for the future of society? (Watch it here, if you dare.)
In response, a group of female scientists have put together an awesome video: Let’s Talk About Evolution. Go watch it! It’ll ease some of the despair.
From Joan Callahan –
As many of you know, Sara Ruddick died on March 20, 2011 of complications from Parkinson’s Disease.
Sally’s husband, Bill, has set up a memorial webpage, where visitors can leave messages, and view photographs and a film of the October 29, 2011 gathering at Judson Memorial Church in NYC.
Bill invites you to contribute to the page with comments, photos — anything you would like to include.
If you google “implicit bias and blameworthiness” you are likely to find a number of philosophers asserting that acting on an implicit bias is outside the realm of moral blameworthiness.** After all, such biases operate automatically and without our awareness, it seems correct to say. But blame has a place only when we act knowingly and intentionally, it also seems correct to say.
Reading Alexis Shotwell’s Knowing Otherwise: Race, Gender, and Implicit Understanding, has led me to think that this way of thinking about bias and blame is flawed. I should say, by the way, that a number of books about, e.g., white privilege, might have had the same effect, but Shotwell does remarkably bring together the concepts we need, I think.
Let me backtrack for a minute. There is a blogger on this site who says the the first conference she organized was all male! The old story applied; her philosophy world consisted very heavily of white men and that’s who came to her mind. You don’t need much more than Humean associationism to get there. And surely that action does not mean she is a horrible bigot, or was at that moment.
There is, however, a profound difference between her and those whose implicit biases have lead to a life that has seriously damaged others. Most alarmingly, most of us who teach have the opportunity to commit acts of great epistemic injustice. It is certainly possible to discount a whole group’s ideas over decades of classes.
There seem in such cases to be two areas at least for moral concern. One is the harm, perhaps continued for long periords. The other is the kind of person one is, participating in and perpetuating an oppressive social context.
Since I am thinking about this topic, and perhaps speaking on it shortly, I would love to hear what others think. I have in fact had a tune in the back of mine mind that I fortunately discovered on the web. So do share your ideas!
The lyrics to the tune in the back of my head:
by Tom Lehrer
Who made me the genius I am today
The mathematician that others all quote
Who’s the professor that made me that way
The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat
One man deserves the credit
One man deserves the blame
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name, hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobache-
I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky. In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics. Plagiarize!
Plagiarize Let no one else's work evade your eyes Remember why the good Lord made your eyes So don't shade your eyes But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize Only be sure always to call it please "research"
——————————-
** A notable exception is Peter Kirwan’s prospectus.
All kinds of awesome, and talk about your counterstereotypical exemplars!
She “invent[ed] a process by which remote-controlled torpedoes could evade signal-jamming attempts by the enemy. This process, which was patented, is essential to much of the wireless and cellular communications technology we use today.”
I first read about her a few years ago, and I’m still amazed. For more, go here.
When she’s recovering from an abortion, of course.
[The nurses’ attorney] argued that requiring the nurses to get involved before and after an abortion violated their right to refuse based on their conscientious objections.
“Nursing is a healing profession, and the law protects our right not to provide any services related to abortion,” Vinoya said at a news conference this month.
That’s right, nursing is a healing profession. And only people who don’t violate your conscience deserve to be healed.
Kate Bolick’s article on Marriage in the Atlantic is apparently producing quite a bit of buzz. One of her central claims is that “If dating and mating is in fact a marketplace—and of course it is—today we’re contending with a new “dating gap,” where marriage-minded women are increasingly confronted with either deadbeats or players.”
Here’s what she had to say in this interview for the Guardian, when asked what Feminism means in 2011…
“In essence, the old-school feminist principles such as equal pay, equal rights, a woman’s right to be in control of her own body and her own life – these things still hold true today for everyone. But because of the way the arguments are sometimes framed, there is a lot of misperception of what feminism is now. People say they’re not feminists but then if you ask them if they agree with equal pay they’ll say yes. I wanted to discuss these ideas in a way that was open and accessible. A lot of feminist discourse can be alienating because it is more polemic.”
I plan to read the article this evening (it’s long), and would love to hear what FP readers think.
Such as:
John Kittentrane and Cuteness on the Edge of Town
and the RaMEOWones
thanks, B!
Feminist Philosophers 