Day: June 5, 2014

British history of philosophy with women.

axiothea3 Comments

Feminist History of Philosophy

I just received the announcement for the 21st Anniversary issue of the British Journal of the History of Philosophy. The issue, which has good gender balance as far as authors are concerned, contains one favourite article from each of its 21 issues.  Three of the articles chosen are written about female philosophers:

Perhaps not a roaring success, but – I feel – a success nonetheless.

View original post

New law on sexual crimes in Turkey

axiothea1 Comment

Women’s associations in Turkey are fighting a new law which looks like it will result in reduced sentences for criminals:

The platform underlined seven main objections regarding the law:

–    The draft law contains new arrangements providing “reduced sentences” for violence during rape and sexual abuse.

–    It lacks a legal provision that could prevent the reduction of sentences on the grounds that a victim may have allegedly “provoked” her assailant.

–    It also lacks a provision that will consider the testimonies of the victims as fundamental and ascribes the obligation of proving the contrary to the assailant.

–    It limits the time for filing a complaint to a barely six months after the attack.

–    The draft law also accentuates the risk of harsher sentences for teenagers between the ages of 15 and 18 engaging in consensual sexual intercourse.

–    It brings a separation between “attack” and “abuse” in cases of sexual crimes against children, which leads to potential reduction of sentences.

–    It also mentions the possibility of a “cure” for assailants, which constitutes according to the platform an attempt to define sexual crimes as a disease, rather than a crime.

This should be read in the context of a large increase in reported sex crimes in Turkey over the last nine years:

Some 32,988 files were reportedly opened on sex crime charges in 2011, while the number of files was just 8,146 in 2002.

Book reviewers sought for APA Newsletter

KateNorlock

It’s summer, so possibly some of our readers were going to hunker down with some research and read one of the following in the coming weeks.  From Margaret Crouch, editor of the APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy:

I welcome reviewers for the books listed below. I am looking for reviewers with specific expertise on the subject of the text.

Abbey, Ruth, ed. Feminist Interpretations of John Rawls. Penn State University, 2013.

Barrett, Michele. Women’s Oppression Today: The Marxist/Feminist Encounter. Verso, 2014.

Brand, Peg Zeglin, ed. Beauty Unlimited. Indiana University Press, 2012.

Cook, Jane. Sex, Metaphysics, and Madness: Unveiling the Grail on Human Nature and Mental Disorder. Peter Lang Academic Publishers, 2013.

Failinger, Marie A., Elizabeth R. Schiltz, and Susan J. Stabile. Feminism, Law, and Religion. Ashgate, 2013.

Fineman, Martha Albertson, and Michael Thomson, eds. ExploringMasculinities-Feminist Legal Theory Reflections.Ashgate, 2013.

Goswami, Namita, Maeve M. O’Donovan, and Lisa Yount, eds. Why Race and Gender Still Matter: An Intersectional Approach. Pickering & Chatto Publishers, 2014.

Grebowicz, Margret, and Helen Merrick. Beyond the Cyborg: Adventures with Donna Haraway. Columbia University Press, 2013.

Hay, Carol. Kantianism, Liberalism, and Feminism: Resisting Oppression. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Hirschmann, Nancy J., and Joanne H. Wright, eds. Feminist Interpretations of Thomas Hobbes. Penn State University, 2012.

Jia, Jinhua, Xiaofei Kang, and Ping Yao, eds. Gendering Chinese Religion: Subject, Identity, and Body. SUNY Press, 2014.

Lee, Emily S. ed. Living Alterities: Phenomenology, Embodiment and Race. SUNY Press, 2014.

Lehtinen, Virpi. Luce Irigaray’s Phenomenology of Feminine Being. SUNY Press, 2014.

Mann, Bonnie. Sovereign Masculinity: Gender Lessons from the War on Terror. Oxford University Press, 2014.

McWeeny, Jennifer, and Ashby Butnor, eds. Asian and Feminist Philosophies in Dialogue: Liberating Traditions. Columbia University Press, 2014.

Phillips, Anne. Our Bodies, Whose Property? Princeton University Press, 2013.

Sullivan, Shannon. Good White People: The Problem with Middle-Class White Anti-Racism. SUNY Press, 2014.

Welch, Shay. A Theory of Freedom: Feminism and the Social Contract. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Zeiler, Kristin, and Lisa Folkmarson, eds. Feminist Phenomenology and Medicine. SUNY Press, 2014.

If you are interested in reviewing one of these texts, or wish to review a text not included here, please email me at mcrouch at emich dot edu with an attached C.V. and an explanation of your particular interest in and qualifications for reviewing the chosen text. If you do not own the book, I shall request a copy from the publisher. Deadlines for reviews are negotiable.