New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

Gender balance: a mere formality

Our friends in Munich still don't get it.

Women in logic -- Historical figures

Prompted by the changes to the ‘Women in Logic’ list announced earlier this week,* Erich Reck writes to inquire on historical figures of female logicians. The ‘Women in Logic’ list focuses on researchers currently active, but Erich rightly points out that it would be very important to pay more attention to female logicians from the past, in particular but not exclusively in the context of logic courses.

A similar work of ‘rediscovery’ of the importance of female philosophers for the history of philosophy has been undertaken by a number of people (see here); it is a well-known phenomenon that history tends to be rather ‘forgetful’ of these important female figures (as well as of other groups – see my post on the neglect of Arabic Philosophy in standard curricula). But I am not aware of any list of historical female figures specifically for logic, so I’d like to ask readers to add suggestions here in comments (another list in the making…).

Changes to the 'Women in Logic' list

Almost three years ago, I initiated the ‘Women in Logic’ list, intended to serve as source of ideas for conference organizers seeking to improve the gender balance of their conferences,in the spirit of the Gendered Conference Campaign. More generally, it was intended to increase the visibility of women working in an area that is strongly associated with men. The first draft of the list was compiled on the basis of responses to a query I had sent to the Philos-L mailing list, and since then I’ve been updating the list as I continued to receive suggestions of additions.

Now, inspired by Bryce Huebner’s wiki on feminist philosophy and Lisa Shapiro’s list of women working in history of philosophy, I decided to experiment with a new format: a Google docs spreadsheet which can be viewed and edited by anyone, so that everyone can add themselves and others. The aim is for the list to contain much more information than it did before, with names filed by geographical area/continent, information on areas of expertise and topics, webpage and email etc. In this way, it should be a much more useful tool than it has been so far, as well as being a modest attempt at data collection on the number of women working in these areas. See here for instructions on how to add names to the list, and on how to use it at a later stage.

A List of Women Historians of Philosophy

A note from Lisa Shapiro: "We've finally incorporated all the information we received (and we received A LOT of information!). Thanks very much to everyone who responded. And a big thanks to Dave Gaber, who did all the dirty work of organizing and updating the file. The updated document can be found here. One of my colleagues is going to be turning this into a web based searchable database. I'll be back in touch when that is set up (she anticipates it be user-ready in about a month). Please send any corrections, additions (including self-additions), etc... to womenhistoriansofphilosophy@gmail.com"

Call for submissions to a special issue of Disability Studies Quarterly (DSQ)

[I don't normally post calls for papers on this blog but given the importance of the topic and its direct relation to a recurrent theme on this blog, I am making an exception in this case]

Improving Feminist Philosophy and Theory by Taking Account of Disability

Guest editor: Shelley Tremain, PhD 

 

A growing body of literature demonstrates that disabled people confront poverty, discrimination in employment and housing, sexual abuse and violence, limited educational opportunities, incarceration, and social isolation to a far greater extent than their non-disabled counterparts and furthermore that disabled women experience the impact of these disabling social and political phenomena even more severely than do disabled men.  Although feminism is purported to be a social, political, and cultural movement that represents all women, disabled feminists have long argued that the concerns, political struggles, and socio-cultural issues that directly affect disabled women (and disabled people more generally) remain marginalized, and often ignored, within mainstream feminist movements.

Remembering Iris Einheuser

Feminist Philosophers just published a short remembrance I wrote about Iris Einheuser. I learned about Iris' premature death due to cancer here at the aesthetics and semantics conference in Victoria. Iris was supposed to be here but she lost her battle with the disease last week. I am deeply saddened by her death. My sincere condolences go out to her family, friends and colleagues at Duke University.

Being (networked) with boys...

An apparently all-boy "private ontology seminar held in Darmstadt during 2008" leads to an all-boy edited volume with Ontos in 2011 (reviewed here).

"What's in a name? Whatever it is, it's for boys"

Metaphysics, in Geneva.

Reflections on Academic Passing

[This post is an invited contribution from Professor Kristie Dotson.--ES]

Professional pressures exist for some of us to pass as mainstream philosophers. Academic passing is the performance of legitimating one’s projects as “properly” philosophical by attempting to conceal or neutralize what might be perceived as threatening identities, positions, topics, and/or methodologies (Dotson 2011 [or here]). Some strategies for passing concern taking great care to travel only trails blazed by previous philosophers, showing emphatically that one’s ideas flow from professionally acceptable intellectual traditions, when in reality they are inspired by rather different ones. For example, I know colleagues whose philosophical ideas spring from the writings, histories and social realities of members of their own non-European communities. Yet career maintenance requires them to show these ideas as being the natural outgrowth of some tradition in epistemology or political philosophy or phenomenology, for example, when in fact they are not.

While examples abound the issue I explore concerns a specific question that often prompts academic passing. That question, often asked of a paper written or presented by someone with a Ph.D. in philosophy, is “How is this paper philosophy?”

Can we learn something from the Vincent Hendricks Controversy?

This note just appeared in the major Danish newspaper Politiken. As most of our readers don't speak Danish, I decided to translate it. The newspaper changed the original title, which is the title of this blog post, to "Philosopher's photo shoot presents women as stupid sex objects". The original note was drafted by Mikkel Gerken, University of Copenhagen and signed by Mikkel Gerken, University of Copenhagen;  Berit Brogaard, University of Missouri, St. Louis; Anna-Sara Malmgren, Stanford University; Anders Schoubye, Carnegie Mellon University; and Andreas Stokke, The University in Oslo.

Philosopher's photo shoot presents women as stupid sex objects

A photo shoot of philosophy professor Vincent Hendricks with a bunch of sexy female 'students' has recently given rise to debate internationally and now also in Denmark.

Unfortunately, the debate in Denmark has been unproductive. In our opinion, it has been unproductive for two reasons. First, the debate has not focused on why the pictures are unfortunate. Second, the national debate has been entirely off-topic.

The pictures are unfortunate for several reasons.

Underrepresentation of women in philosophy is a major problem. The underrepresentation is at least as bad in Denmark as it is internationally, but in Denmark, the problem has been given much less attention. Internationally, the issues have been widely discussed. People have tried to figure out what the cause of the underrepresentation is, and presumably the cause is rather complex. (See all the pictures from Connery.dk here)

Extended cognition and gender balance

Now that Eric has (duly) highlighted a conference on extended cognition with a very bad gender balance (11 men, 0 women), for the sake of fairness I’d like to draw everyone’s attention to another conference in the same area/topic which does have a much better gender balance, the ‘Distributed cognition and distributed agency’ workshop, taking place at Macquarie University pretty much as we speak.

On non-apologies, and the Dutch old-boys-network in action

As our friends at Feminist Philosophers noted, this conference has a silly non-apology: "Apology :: The organizers of the conference sincerely regret the gender imbalance in the list of contributors. They admit that they should have, before the list of contributions became final, taken more proactive measures to guarantee a better gender balance in the special issue/conference line-up." It's really great to see (my?) Dutch tax money support the old-boys-network so that folk can be flown in and publications in Philosophical Explorations can come from a privileged, well connected group. The advertised sister conference in Delft, is also all-boy. It appears the only woman mentioned by name in either website handles registration. For those that still think that the academy in small (once) "progressive" European countries does not have a huge problem with gender equality, think again. UPDATE AND CORRECTION: I should not have called this a "non-apology." It is an apology and I really do not doubt it is sincerely expressed. I could have made my sociological point without suggesting otherwise.

The Vincent Hendricks Sexism Controversy: Interview

This interview initially appeared in the Danish newspaper Universitetsavisen. Since most of our readers don't speak Danish, I decided to translate it.

INTERVIEW WITH VINCENT HENDRICKS

BY ANNA MEERA GAONKAR

Vincent Hendricks was criticized for sexist behavior, when he was posing surrounded by half-naked girls in a steamy men's magazine in February. Henricks also used the photos to promote a course at KUA [a campus of University of Copenhagen]. Universitetsavisen is here investigating these issues.

A: First, why did you agree to be photographed as ‘the man of the month’ for Connery.dk?

V: I, along with many other Danes engaged in cultural, political or business projects, help promote a nonprofit charitable project called ‘youmeshopping.dk’. The pictures for Connery.dk were made in collaboration with youmeshopping.dk to build awareness of the charity initiative. This is the reason I agreed to be the man of the month in February. It is in this context that the images should be seen and understood. I consider youmeshopping.dk an important initiative that is involved in creating a connection between citizens and companies in an attempt to support various charitable organizations, such as Dansk Flygtningehjælp [The Danish Refugee Council] and Kvindernes Ulandsudvalg [The Committee for Women in  Developing Countries].

A: But wasn’t the criticism directed at the photos as displayed in a different context, namely that of your own website?

"the right of dominion over the child dependeth on her will, and is consequently hers."

At NewAPPS there is a healthy discussion over the scholarly origins of the recent debate on the moral equivalence (and permissibility) of abortion and infanticide. Ever since writing a paper on Hobbes and Cathrine MacKinnon in a seminar taught by Martha Nussbaum (way back when), it has been my view that Hobbes has a story about common moral origin (and permissibility) of abortion and infanticide in the state of nature. (To be clear, I don't have a view on the way Hobbes anticipates and differs from Tooley!) Below two passages (one from De Cive, the other from Leviathan). I admit that neither passage speaks directly of abortion, although the first passage suggests it in various ways.

"Amazons, have in former times waged war against their adversaries, and disposed of their children at their own wils, and at this day in divers places, women are invested with the principall authority. Neither doe their husbands dispose of their children, but themselves; which in truth they do by the right of nature; forasmuch as they who have the supreme power, are not tyed at all (as hath bin shewed) to the civill lawes. Adde also that in the state of nature it cannot be known who is the Father but by the testimony of the Mother; the child therefore is his whose the Mother will have it, and therefore hers; Wherefore originall Dominion over children belongs to the Mother, and among men no lesse than other creatures: The birth followes the belly."

(De Cive, Chapter 9.)

Ruth Barcan Marcus

To date the New York Times has not published an obituary of Ruth Barcan Marcus. Michael Della Rocca, Don Garrett, and Diana Raffman have started a campaign. The full story here.

Male minds, or mindless men?

The conference Interfaces of the Mind, taking place in Bochum in July, looks rather excellent except for one but crucial aspect: 13 invited speakers, all men. As far as I can tell, the only prominent female presence is the woman on the picture at the conference's website:

Ratio, really irreal: ethics without the ladies

Does a corporate sponsor (Wiley-Blackwell) wish risking adverse publicity with a boys only line-up?

Aesthetics (almost) without the female gaze

This Routledge Companion "contains fifty-four chapters written by leading international scholars covering all aspects of aesthetics." By my count at most 10% of these scholars is female. Not...ahum...a pretty picture.

CORECTION: It has been pointed out to me I was mislead by the contents page on the Routledge website; I should have consulted the table of contents in the volume: The percentage is closer to 13%. Maybe this makes a material difference for one's judgment.

There is hope for women in formal epistemology

I probably don’t need to remind anybody of the bad press that 'formal philosophy'* has gotten as of recently along the gender dimension. More generally, the area has the reputation of having an even worse gender balance than other sub-areas of philosophy, and some even say a particularly bad climate for women. (I wouldn’t subscribe to the latter though, as I’m not under the impression that it is substantially worse than elsewhere – and I do hang out with ‘formal philosophers’ quite a bit! But that's obviously merely anecdotal.)

Ruth Barcan Marcus, 1921 - 2012

I first met Ruth Barcan Marcus when I was first starting out in philosophy. She was sometimes attending the meetings of the American Philosophical Association. Someone -- I don't recall who -- introduced me to this legend, a woman I had only read about in books, a person whose logic I had studied for years. Of course, I already knew that Ruth would be extremely insightful but I quickly learned that she was also a lot of fun, supportive, forward-looking and adventurous.

After our initial encounter at the smoker we agreed to have lunch the following day. I was still addicted to cigarettes back then and after lunch I was going out for a quick smoke. To my surprise Ruth joined me. She even had half a cigarette with me. "I haven't smoked for years," she said, "but I still enjoy one now and then." Ruth told me that she was working on a grand theory of belief. Sadly, she never finished it.

Outreach goes a long way

The distinguished philosopher Ned Markossian writes:

I think it is worth keeping in mind that it takes only a little bit of outreach effort to ensure that a healthy number of women submit papers to a conference, apply for a grant, etc. The program committee for the Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference typically sends emails to a select number of women to let them know that we would especially value submissions from them (with no suggestion of special treatment or anything like that), and this seems to work pretty well. We tend to get lots of papers from women, and all the papers are then reviewed by referees who do not know anything about the identities of the authors. Two year’s ago the eventual gender breakdown among accepted authors was 5 men and 4 women; last year it was 3 men and 6 women.

Given that such minimal outreach efforts can generate such results, I think we should all be reluctant to justify ongoing gender imbalances merely by saying that very few women submitted or applied. There is usually more that can be done.

"Preference will be given to graduate students and/or female speakers"

I came across an interesting CFP for a conference on theoretical virtues in theory choice, taking place in Konstanz. (It’s not like I read every single CFP that goes around, but I happen to have a dilettante interest in the topic.) It goes as follows:

We invite submissions of abstracts (500 words) of papers of approximately 30 minutes presentation time. The deadline for submissions is March 15, 2012. Please upload your submissions at https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=tvtc2012. Preference will be given to graduate students and/or female speakers. The decisions will be announced by April 1, 2012. (My emphasis)

Women in Grad Admission Applicant pool

Over at a great new blog, The Mod Squad (a group blog on modern philosophy), Antonia LoLordo (Virginia) writes in the context of graduate admission, "We have 16% female applicants – this is lower than I would’ve expected, but I don’t have data from past years." Any folk involved in graduate admission in other departments want to share their data? It would be especially interesting to be able to report trends, if any.

Martha Nussbaum on her childhood

Yesterday someone told me about an interview with Martha Nussbaum for a series entitled ‘Beauty & Consolation’, produced by and for Dutch TV (btw, she is not the only philosopher interviewed for the series). I’ve been watching the interview since (youtube is one of the best things in life!), and the main theme turned out to be her childhood and how her experiences as a child still permeate the person she is now. Nussbaum is very open about her mother having been an alcoholic, and describes in detail the impact this has had on her life at the time and still now. I was particularly touched by this, having had an alcoholic parent myself (my father); I could recognize my own life in many of the situations and experiences she talks about.

Here is the first part of the interview (the other 5 parts are also to be found on youtube):

Is the field of philosophy of religion more gender-imbalanced than other fields?

I am at the Society for Christian Philosopher's regional meeting in Westmont College, Santa Barbara. Out of a total of 20 speakers, there are 4 women (20 % of speakers are women, which seems roughly in line with the percentage of women in our profession). One of the four keynote speakers is female (Eleonore Stump, arguably one of the top authors in philosophy of religion). It is not difficult to come up with names of prominent women philosophers in philosophy of religion (e.g., Eleonore Stump, Lynne Rudder Baker, Nancey Murphy, Linda Zagzebski, Christina Van Dyke, Celia Deane-Drummond.)

Women Working in Philosophy of Mind

Carolyn Dicey-Jennings, John Schwenkler and I put together the following list of women working in philosophy of mind. It is no doubt incomplete. E-mail jlschwenkler@gmail.com with addenda and corrigenda. Or put them in the comment section.

A G.I.R.L. conference

On Philos-L, I came across the announcement for the following conference to take place in Lund, which at first caught my attention because of the funny acronym: G.I.R.L., which stands for ‘Games, Interactive Rationality and Learning’. Now, as it turns out, there is another aspect in which this is a G.I.R.L. conference, check out the (preliminary) list of invited speakers:

Proofs that P from Women Philosophers

Our friends at feministphilosophers are hosting a great discussion (initiated by L.A. Paul on Facebook) on "Proofs that P from Women Philosophers." My current favorite is (of course) "Anscombe’s proof that p: But if someone really thinks, in advance, that it is open to question whether p — I do not want to argue with him; he shows a corrupt mind. Therefore p."

Request for information on women working in the history of philosophy

New APPS is happy to post this appeal for information. We also encourage those working on similar projects to contact one of us to arrange a similar appeal.

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We (Donald Rutherford and Lisa Shapiro) have been compiling a resource of women working across the history of philosophy, from the ancients through to the early twentieth century, in the English speaking world.

The aim is pretty straightforward: to make it easier for those planning conferences, edited volumes, speakers on panels, and the like, to think of women to invite.

You can help us out by first visiting the draft document here. Please note that it is a DRAFT. No doubt there will lots of room for improvement, but this is a start. There are tabs at the bottom for each geographical region.

Second, if you see that someone obvious is missing, please send an email with as much information as possible (name; email; general area of the history of philosophy; specializations) to fill in the spreadsheet to womenhistoriansofphilosophy@gmail.com  

If "16 out 54 is really unjust" then we philosophers....

"The promotion of gender equality is something which matters very much to me, and I’ve been shocked in my own profession by the extent to which the seeming gains of the women’s movement in the 1970s turned into the merest kind of tokenism in the professions.

Everything remains harder for women, at every stage, and it remains to my mind quite a scandal that at Cambridge when I last counted, there were 54 members of the Faculty of History and only 16 were women. I remember mentioning this in my farewell speech to the Faculty, and Melissa Lane said to me afterwards, “Are you sure it’s only 16? It feels much more.” I said to her, “That’s only because the women are amazing!” Of course it feels more because they have to be that much cleverer, more prominent, more committed, more everything. But 16 out of 54 is really unjust. I feel strongly that we’ve got to keep pushing on these doors that are not open in the way that they should be."--Quentin Skinner. (Thank you Petra Van Brabandt for the pointer.)