Day: November 25, 2014

Philosophical issues about Gender Schema

annejjacobson1 Comment
We have had a request for biblio resources for a student.  She has done some experimental work on gender schema and is now some more theoretical resources dealing with gender schema.
I sent her three suggestions (see below).  The second is very recent and contains interesting thoughts on inferences that vary with stereotypes.  It’s by Susanna Siegel.  The third may look more applied than she wants, but as I remember it contains enlightening work on self-assessment, motivations and stereotypes.
In any case, she’s like some more suggestions!!

Ferguson: Demand Justice

Jender

Today, a St. Louis Grand Jury refused to indict Mike Brown’s killer — Police Officer Darren Wilson. On August 9th, the nation was horrified to learn that Mike Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, was targeted and killed by police as he walked down the street with a friend.

Now, Mike’s killer may never be held accountable — unless President Barack Obama and US Attorney General Eric Holder take action. The Department of Justice is investigating Mike Brown’s death and has the power and responsibility to arrest and prosecute Officer Wilson under federal criminal charges.

Go here.

In Praise of Damns

Prof Manners1 Comment

Dear Professor Manners,
Some days the state of the profession gets me down. I know it’s Live Like a Stoic Week, but I just can’t seem to get my apatheia on, especially when I read the blogs.

Sincerely,
Philosophus Feministus (who doesn’t know Latin and it’s a shame since that might help with the whole Stoic thing)

Dear Philosophus Feministus,
Alas, the profession does too often resemble a Roman spectacle. One goes to the blogs, as Seneca might say, in quest of “some fun, wit, and relaxation” only to find “pure murder” (in the strictly figurative bloggy sense only of course). Indeed, Professor Manners herself is often obliged to retire to her Roman couch, if not in despair, then in something like it. Still, she recommends (in addition to referring to oneself in the third person for kicks) borrowing from the regrettably obscure writer Mary McClain’s technique and giving oneself a therapeutic damn a day. To wit, McClain:

“I say on Monday, Damn the ache in my left foot; on Tuesday, Damn that rattling window – I hate it; on Wednesday, Damn this yellow garter – it’s too tight; on Thursday, Damn my futile life; on Friday, Damn the solitude; on Saturday, Damn these thoughts; on Sunday, Damn my two dresses… [T]he morale of my Damns remains perfunctory. But they are apt and useful… I begin each day with a Damn of sorts. I end each day with a Damn of sorts… Let my Damns be always brave, always contemptuous of disaster to me, and they will be first-water value though their kind alter never-so.”

Yours in damning the spectacle,
Professor Manners

And meanwhile back in Turkey…

axiothea2 Comments

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is arguing, once again, that women are not equal to men, and that their delicate nature precludes them being granted equal rights and opportunitites. Feminists, he says, ‘do not accept the concept of motherhood’.

This is terribly deppressing, of course – one more thing for Turkey to worry about. My redeeming hope is that Erdoğan is in fact doing under cover work for Sacha Baron Cohen, in preparation for a second installment of Borat.