What to give the Salvation Army

One these vouchers, explaining your lack of support for bigotry.

What it’s Like to be a Women’s Officer at a Student Union

Makes for grim reading. From the courageous and awesome feminist philosopher Amy Masson.

On the night of my election I received a death threat which told me to ‘DIE BITCH DIE’ with a side note suggesting that this vitriol was deserved because of my feminist beliefs.

Holiday shopping idea

Do check out the APA Committee on the Status of Women Store!

Mugs, posters, water bottles…..

Black teenager killed for loud music “in self defense”

Disgusting.

Jordan Russell Davis, 17, and several other teenagers were sitting in a sport utility vehicle in the parking lot when Dunn pulled up next to them in a car and asked them to turn down their music, [Jacksonville sheriff’s Lt. Rob] Schoonover said.
Jordan and Dunn exchanged words, and Dunn pulled a gun and shot eight or nine times, striking Jordan twice, Schoonover said. Jordan was sitting in the back seat. No one else was hurt.Dunn’s attorney Monday said her client acted responsibly and in self-defense. She did not elaborate.

UPDATE: I have both closed comments and deleted a bunch of the comments that appeared here. Many of them were appalling, but many of them were really excellent people being really reasonable and carefully pointing out the appallingness. It’s only the former I really wanted to delete, but the latter make little sense on their own.

Femen: Ukraine’s Topless Warriors

Interesting piece on today’s Atlantic front page about these bold feminist activists based in Ukraine:

Founded in Kiev in 2008 to protest the country’s burgeoning sex industry (“Ukraine is not a brothel!” was the slogan of their first — and still clothed — demonstration, which aimed to dissuade foreigners from visiting prostitutes in the capital), Femen has since evolved into a vanguard of militant activists who have dubbed themselves the storozhevyye suki demokratii (the “watch-bitches of democracy”) and “modern-day Amazons,” some of whom demonstrate topless to, says their website “defend with their chests sexual and civic equality throughout the world.”

The article ends with this remark: ‘Just what de Beauvoir would have thought of topless demonstrations is anyone’s guess.’ Perhaps our erudite readership would care to weigh in? This seems unduly dismissive about the possibility of anticipating and reconstructing the views of a very important philosopher.

It’s your fault the drunk cop walked up and groped you

Last summer, a drunk Arizona police officer named Robb Gary Evans drove to a bar, flashed his badge so he didn’t have to pay the cover charge, then walked up behind a woman, put his hand up her skirt, and pressed his fingers into her genitals.

A jury convicted him of felony sexual abuse, and he was fired from the force.

This summer, Arizona trial Judge Jacqueline Hatch decided his felony sentence didn’t warrant him any jail time or qualified him for being registered as a sex offender – and told the victim that it was her fault she had been assaulted! 

 

“If you wouldn’t have been there that night, none of this would have happened to you,” Hatch, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, told the woman, urging her to take something “positive” out of the “lesson” she experienced. “When you blame others, you give up your power to change.”

 

Sigh.  There’s a petition to sign, but given that it’s directed at Jan Brewer the odds of success seem low.

CFP: The Phenomenology and Science of Emotions

This CFP looks like it would be a great fit for feminist philosophers interested in issues surrounding emotions.

Feminist Philosophy can be bodacious!

Feminist Philosophers’ own Anne Jacobson (neurofeminist philosofunskster!), interviewed by 3:AM Magazine.

Sexism at Science Journal Nature

A pretty striking statement about the underrepresentation of women from the Editors at Nature. A cause for cautious optimism? Might have been nice if they’d said more about what those ‘unconscious factors’ are, but the resulting heuristic is still a promising one:

We believe that in commissioning articles or in thinking about who is doing interesting or relevant work, for all of the social factors already mentioned, and possibly for psychological reasons too, men most readily come to editorial minds. The September paper speculated about an unconscious assumption that women are less competent than men. A moment’s reflection about past and present female colleagues should lead most researchers to correct any such assumption.

We therefore believe that there is a need for every editor to work through a conscious loop before proceeding with commissioning: to ask themselves, “Who are the five women I could ask?”

Thanks JI!