Faculty Hiring and “profound social inequality”

Below is an abstract from a paper by Aaron Clauset.  He uses network theory to bring out inequalities in gender that are less visible with some other methods.

(The paper: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005.full)

The three disciplines in his study are business, computer science, and history.

The faculty job market plays a fundamental role in shaping research priorities, educational outcomes, and career trajectories among scientists and institutions. However, a quantitative understanding of faculty hiring as a system is lacking. Using a simple technique to extract the institutional prestige ranking that best explains an observed faculty hiring network—who hires whose graduates as faculty—we present and analyze comprehensive placement data on nearly 19,000 regular faculty in three disparate disciplines. Across disciplines, we find that faculty hiring follows a common and steeply hierarchical structure that reflects profound social inequality. Furthermore, doctoral prestige alone better predicts ultimate placement than a U.S. News & World Report rank, women generally place worse than men, and increased institutional prestige leads to increased faculty production, better faculty placement, and a more influential position within the discipline. These results advance our ability to quantify the influence of prestige in academia and shed new light on the academic system.  (My stress.)

The finding, though in some ways obvious, that increased institutional prestige leads to increased productivity is quite depressing when linked to the idea that women in general get less prestigious positions.

 

Mother-friendly conference organising: an experiment

To see how far we could get with small fixes — improving the aspects of academic conferences that are pretty easy to change — I organized an experimental conference along with June Gruber, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Colorado Boulder (and a fellow academic mom). The conference, held at the University of California Berkeley earlier this month, brought together an outstanding group of speakers using the latest psychological work to challenge misconceptions about the mind — from the idea that pursuing happiness is a good way to achieve it, to the idea that babies are born racist. We called the conference the Misconceptions of the Mind Conference: MoMiCon 2016. And we didn’t just invite the mommies: We invited the babies.

For more, go here.

CFR: Philosophy of Iris Murdoch, Oxford

This one day event will consider a number of different themes from the philosophical writings of Iris Murdoch.

This page will be updated with the schedule closer to the time, but the list of talks is as follows:

Justin Broackes: “Reading On ‘God’ & ‘Good’.”‘

Edward Harcourt: “The Last and Secret Name of All the Virtues?”

Mark Hopwood: “Murdoch, Moral Language, and the Universality of Moral Reasons.”

Sabina Lovibond: “Iris Murdoch and the Quality of Consciousness.”

 

For more information, go here.

Dialogues on Disability – Bryce Huebner

Time to celebrate: yesterday was the first year anniversary of Shelley’s excellent series of interviews with disabled philosophers! For this month’s special instalment, she invited her first guest, Bryce Huebner, to reflect on the insights provided by the series so far, and the issues surrounding disability and philosophy more generally. As always, it’s an important and thought-provoking read.

During the past year, I conducted landmark interviews for Dialogues on Disability with twelve disabled philosophers who are variously situated with respect to disability, race, gender, institutional status, age, culture, nationality, and sexuality, and whose philosophical work covers a wide range of areas of specialization and research interests. This first-anniversary installment of the series is designed to highlight insights and lessons that each of the twelve philosophers offered the philosophical community and to reflect upon the implications of these contributions to philosophy. Bryce Huebner, who was my first interviewee of the series and who has generously provided technical support over the course of the year, has returned today to assist me in this celebratory retrospective installment of the series.

You can read the full interview and join in the discussion here.

Sexist attacks on Clinton

Feminist philosopher Kate Manne:

“Ditch the witch,” and “Burn the witch,” Gillard’s opponents cried in her time, and their wish was soon granted. Now some of Sanders’ supporters are chanting, “Bern the witch,” in turn – unwittingly echoing misogynistic cries once heard across the Pacific ocean. There are many valid criticisms of Clinton, and legitimate reasons to vote for Sanders instead, whose political goals happen to be more in line with my own. But justifying such means in terms of these ends doesn’t survive moral scrutiny.

 

Read the rest!

Like mother, like daughter

Apologies in advance to all the admirers of the targeted politicians, should any see this.

Mother
.

Daughter
.

 

 

h/t dailykos

Saba Fatima on Women in Islam

Feminist philosopher Saba Fatima:

 I have been thinking about writing this blog for over a year. My reservation stemmed from the fact that for as long as I can remember, there has been a plethora of negative misconceptions about gender & Islam in the Western world, and I would hate to add any fuel to the fire.

Just recently, at the Republican debate in Miami on March 15, Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner, stated: “There is tremendous hate. Where large portions of a group of people, Islam, large portions want to use very, very harsh means…Let me go a step further. Women are treated horribly. You know that. You do know that. Women are treated horribly, and other things are happening that are very, very bad.”

Such rhetoric (and its tamer forms) has been historically used to justify imperialistic wars against Muslim men, women, and children and has made the American public complacent to war crimes committed by Western governments. For some Americans, part of bombing the Middle East until ‘the sand glows in the dark’ is for their own benefit. To kill indiscriminately, in order to save their women from their men…. Or so the thinking goes.

Thanks, A!

Melissa Harris-Perry interviews Anita Hill

I really don’t need to say more than that, do I?  But if you want a teaser…

HARRIS-PERRY: How did race and gender affect how you were heard -during your testimony?
HILL: Those members of Congress had never even considered that Black women had our own political voice. They assumed that Black men spoke for us. For an African-American woman to have her own political voice and own political position, and to believe that our perspective should be added to the conversation, was just something they hadn’t even considered. I think that’s why, politically, things changed. I think that’s why women -became so agitated and so energized to make change on this important issue. And for Black women, it was like, Okay, we have to make sure we are speaking for ourselves.

 

For the rest, go here.

Kinds of sexism?

The following quoted passages are from Hana Schank, Salon, Mar. 2,2016. I’m quoting her observations for a number of reasons. One is that they deeply resonated with me. At one point in her essay she says,

Then a few weeks ago I heard a clip on the radio of a young man questioning Clinton at a town hall meeting in Iowa. “I’ve heard from quite a few people my age that they think you’re dishonest,” he said. “But I’d like to hear from you on why you think the enthusiasm isn’t there.”

It was subtle, but there was something in his tone I recognized. It was not a tone you would use to speak to someone who was a former secretary of state and senator. It was the tone you reserve for that dumb chick in your meeting who probably doesn’t know what she’s talking about. It was a tone I’d heard countless times over the course of my career, and in that moment I suddenly saw Hillary Clinton in an entirely different light.

I cannot be the only one who is sick to death (as it is said) of such treatment. And it happened again to me at the Pacific APA 2016, though the specific APA form is better described in the italicized passage below.

A second reason for thinking about the passage is that she rather casually refers to two kinds of sexism, and it is worth asking how complete her distinction is. Is she looking at kinds of sexism principally experienced by white women, for example? And might we also put domestic violence against women in a very different class? I have also thought it could be profitable for us to look at the sexism Hillary Clinton is now encountering. At least one kind is “Cut her absolutely no slack.” I’ve seen this sort of sexism at work in job interviews, but women were always the targets. Perhaps that is just my experience.

A third reason is to bring out the interesting ideas in this passage, “And the female politicians we “like” are few and far between, because they remind us of our mothers or wives or that girl you hated in gymnastics class. We don’t have a frame of reference for what it looks like for women to be running the show, so if she’s not a man, she comes across as all wrong.” I am reminded her of Dr Johnson’s comparison of women who think with dogs walking on two feet. Roughly, “It isn’t that it is done well; the remarkable thing is that it is done at all.”

The larger passage; let me stress here that I am not endorsing her diagnosis of the millennial women supporting Sanders; I am rather concerned the sexism that is surfacing in the media:

And in that moment… I knew I would support Hillary. Not just because we both have a uterus (thank you, Killer Mike). Not because I’m afraid of going to a special place in hell (thank you, Madeleine Albright). I’m supporting her because as a member of Generation X, I’ve lived through enough to understand that if Hillary were a man she’d be the front-runner hands-down. I haven’t suffered the overt sexism of earlier generations, but in its place has come a more oblique, more insidious variant. It’s the kind that makes you question whether the fault might lie with you and your abilities. It gives rise to questions about why people aren’t enthusiastic about you, why they didn’t like it when you took a strident tone with them and then, when you adjusted course, complained that you weren’t aggressive enough, or why there’s something about you that just feels wrong. In politics people call this likability. And the female politicians we “like” are few and far between, because they remind us of our mothers or wives or that girl you hated in gymnastics class. We don’t have a frame of reference for what it looks like for women to be running the show, so if she’s not a man, she comes across as all wrong. In the tech world people don’t talk about “likability.” Instead they say, “Mike is going to present to the client because he’s got a great style. But don’t worry, you’ll still have a few slides that you can really own.”

I suspect that the millennial women who are supporting Bernie may simply not have gotten to a place in life where they’ve experienced this kind of chronic, internalized, institutional sexism. In order for someone to ignore you at a senior level, you need be old enough to have reached that level, and most millenials [sic] aren’t quite there yet. They’re still where I was in my early 30s, hopeful that we’ve come through the other side to a post-sexist world. Because nothing says “sexism is dead” like a woman voting for Bernie.

As much as we may want the battle to be over, the truth is that there is still much more to fight for. I understand that Hillary may not feel to voters like the perfect candidate in the same way that I don’t feel to clients like the perfect technology consultant. I understand what it’s like to be the most qualified person in the room and still be overlooked in favor of the charismatic guy just because, well, you’d rather have a beer with him. And I know that until the world sees what it looks like for this country to have a female president, we’re going to forever be finding reasons not to vote for one. I’m done finding those reasons. I’m voting for Hillary.

Hana Schank

Register now: SWIP UK Conference on Precarity

 

To register, go here.

IMPORTANT:  They have a strong need for early registrations for planning purposes, so if you’re planning to go, don’t delay!

Thursday 16–Friday 17 June 2016

University of Brighton 

 

In the current context of austerity, growing levels of inequality, insecurity and injustice mean that many around the globe are forced to eke out an existence under increasingly precarious conditions. Few remain sanguine in the face of this, and whilst some argue that precarity is necessary given current conditions many others express anger, frustration, resentment and a passionate determination to find alternatives. In the academy, the term “precarity” has gained currency across disciplines to both describe conditions and theorise responses. However, this conference problematises precarity as both an analytic tool and topic of academic investigation. Firstly, since precarity is structured unevenly via our social identities and positions it asks whether (and why not) those experiencing precarity can express this within the academy? To what extent can they be heard and responded to before the embedded hierarchies, structures of power and language dilute, deflect and silence their angry and passionate articulations, by twisting them via requirements for “reasoned arguments” as defined by others?

Furthermore we note that precarity has a more positive resonance when it describes the destabilisation of norms and binary frameworks; such as those that structure gender, sexuality, nationality and race. Here, precarity is seen as something to celebrate; a field within which to challenge authority and constraint. Additionally, as destabilisation – in terms of working and living conditions, and identity – precarity is celebrated as “flexibility” through the neoliberal paradigm, with fragmentation and uncertainty seen as conditions for creativity, choice, motivation and competition. As a consequence, we ask whether precarity’s radical potential needs to be revised.

 

For more on the conference go here