Femi-Nazi Tourist Playground: China Style

Za forwarded me this story from Yahoo about a tourism idea to build a "women's town" in China.

Chinese tourism authorities are seeking investment to build a novel concept attraction -- the world's first "women's town," where men get punished for disobedience, an official said Thursday.

The 2.3-square-km Longshuihu village in the Shuangqiao district of Chongqing municipality, also known as "women's town," was based on the local traditional concept of "women rule and men obey," a tourism official told Reuters.

"Traditional women dominate and men have to be obedient in the areas of Sichuan province and Chongqing, and now we are using it as an idea to attract tourists and boost tourism," the official, surname Li, said by telephone.

The tourism bureau planned to invest between 200 million yuan ($26 million) and 300 million yuan in infrastructure, roads and buildings, Li said.

"We welcome investors from overseas and nationwide to invest in our project," he added.

The motto of the new town would be "women never make mistakes, and men can never refuse women's requests," Chinese media have reported.

When tour groups enter the town, female tourists would play the dominant role when shopping or choosing a place to stay, and a disobedient man would be punished by "kneeling on an uneven board" or washing dishes in restaurant, media reports said.

The project, begun in the end of 2005, was expected to take three to five years to finish.

Oh boy! This is precisely what anti-feminists think that a feminist universe would look like. This project must have been hatched from the warped minds of men, whose imagination of what a feminist world would look like is the inversion of their own sexist, oppressive world-view.

A Father Has to Choose

Via Lindsay, I found this father's account of having to choose an abortion for his wife. It is precisely the kind of story that gets left out of the Pro-life rhetoric.

P.S. When I read blog posts like these, it only confirms my view that the dogmatism of the Catholic Church's position on abortion would change dramatically if Priests could marry.

Mexico City Legalizes Abortion

While I am still reeling from the Carhart decision, it is reassuring to see abortion legalized in Mexico City. Granted, it is still just Mexico City and that still puts burden on poor women all over the country to try and find a way to the city for an abortion, but it is better than nothing. This will also mean that thousands of women will not risk their lives try to cross the border to secure an abortion here.

Reading through the NYTimes article, it never ceases to amaze me how programmed and thereby unthinking the opposition's criticisms are to abortion. To the very serious claims that women denied abortions are dying, comes this:

“The women of the Federal District are dying from clandestine abortions,” said Leticia Quezada, of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, which controls the assembly. “What we want is not one more death, not here, not anywhere.”

One the other side, Jorge Romero, of the National Action Party, said legalizing abortion would encourage irresponsible sex. “What we are legislating now, what we are asked to approve, is to support juvenile imprudence, unexpected pregnancies,” he said. “Understand this, lawmakers, you are legalizing killing.”

Honestly, men (or women) like Jorge Romero really frighten me. When faced with all the evidence of why women seek abortions, when faced with the evidence of how many women die when they are denied a legal and safe abortion, his response is (a) to criticize that women will become more sexually promiscuous (???) and (b) that abortion is legalizing killing (but the outlawing of abortion doesn't kill?)?

In a recent study on how the OTC status of Plan B has affected pregnancy rates (a study I need to discuss another time), the researchers also found that:

And the research makes it clear that having emergency contraception on hand does not increase risky sexual behaviors, she says.

Putting to one side the fact that empirically this claim is suspicious, the motivations of this claim are equally disturbing. The focus is always on women's promiscuity, never on men's or the possibility that women were raped by men. The story is always told with a misbehaving, unchaste, and therefore sinful woman at the heart of it. This is just plain fantasy; it bears no resemblance to the reality of women risking life and limb to seek an abortion.

When the anti-abortion folks start grappling with the real stories of women in distress and the real, painful moral dilemmas they have to wrestle with , I will pay attention. But the misogynist ad feminem attacks illustrate how weak their arguments are, not to mention the nefarious motivations.

As for the second objection, that any feminist and proponent of reproductive freedom has heard--abortion is legalizing killing--I say: yes, it is. But, it is not legalizing murder. Abortion does terminate (kill) the life of a fetus. Let's not mince words about this. The abortion debate should never be settled on that pronouncement. The question is: is it morally permissible to kill the fetus (see, I am using their language!)? To resolve this question, you need to actually take a look at the facts on the ground: why do women seek abortions? Is it purely a murderous rage against unborn life? If that you answered "yes" to that last question, then your world view is so frightening and unstable to me that I, frankly, would be more concerned about your actions than the women, who you paint in such unsympathetic and hateful ways.

Can we kill others without justification? This is one of the questions of the abortion debate. The answer, even for the opposition to abortion, is almost certainly "yes." We legalize killing when we allow self-defense. We legalize killing when we send soldiers to war. The very fact of legalizing killing is not what is morally problematic.

Obama on Foreign Policy

A link to Obama's foreign policy speech. I just read it, being sent there from Kevin Drum. Fine speech in my view. What do you think?

Invitation to Debate Some Pedagogical Practices

Today's post is a call for discussion and resources on matters of teaching. One of the real benefits of blogging is my interactions with other academics or students, who have really pushed me to reflect on my pedagogy and the goals of teaching undergraduates. Specifically, what I have been mulling over the last few days are two common practices/attitudes I see among college professors.

The first is the desire to make examinations as "objective" as possible. There are lots of motivations for this: i.e., to ensure that multiple sections of a course are fairly standard or to ensure that faculty preferences or dislikes of students don't factor into evaulation. I am sympathetic to the last goal. I am not so enthralled by the first goal. The desire to ensure some kind of uniformity among multiple sections of a course, such as Intro to Philosophy, seems to me to take the judgement and expertise away from the faculty teaching the course, and opting instead for pre-programmed and "canned courses," which frankly, anyone could teach. If we were to standardize our intro courses, for example, we might begin by adopting a common book, which comes with pre-made lectures, exam and quiz banks. We would adopt a common syllabus and the faculty member would merely be an administrative type: giving the pre-programmed lectures, and the pre-programmed tests and quizzes that are easy to grade.

The obvious downside of this model is that the Ph.D. is totally meaningless in this context. It would be cheaper to hire upper-class students to run these sections, rather than waste the more expensive resource of Ph.D. faculty.

The other problem with this model is that "objective tests" often translate into multiple choice, T/F, fill in the blank type questions. What I want to hear, from my readers, is why on earth faculty think that objectivity is best captured in these sorts of examinations? I fully admit that I am skeptical, but I imagine that there are folks out there who are up on pedagogical techniques and aware of research that demonstrates the value of these sorts of examinations. The object, as I understand it, is to assess if the students are learning the material. But, I remain unconvinced that such standardized tests really teach us anything about what our students know, and how well they have absorbed the information and skills we are trying to impart to them.

My second agenda item is the importance of attendance policies. I am someone who has an attendance policy. I have adopted it for various reasons, including: that I think I am teaching students how to be successful by getting them to participate in their education; that class interactions and discussions are important means for reinforcing the material being learned as well as fostering other skills such as speaking in front of peers or learning to ask questions; and, to be able to better track students who are struggling. However, many of my colleagues forgo such attendance policies.

One common retort I hear is that if a student is perfectly capable of doing well on examinations and papers without attending class, then why force them to sit through a class. What bothers me about this response is that it, once again, demeans the role of the professor in the same way that the "canned" classes do. Why on earth should we even be paid to teach if our courses are so designed that students can do perfectly well on their own? I am not suggesting that we create a dependency in them, but rather that what underlies this attitude, it seems to me, is a very different view of what education is about. If it is merely about teaching students lessons in a book, written by one of our colleagues (who we may or may not agree with), then it seems to me that we are wasting way too many precious resources by hiring "teacher-scholars" to run these courses.

My bias is that faculty adopt these sort of teaching practices solely to free up their own time and to minimize the amount of time they invest in students. Sometimes faculty do this in order to focus on getting enough publications to get through tenure. Sometimes faculty do this because they are lazy. My sense is that they rationalize these practices as being more "objective," but that is not really what motivates them.

I would like to hear from other faculty or students on this, particularly if I am terribly mistaken in my views or being uncharitable.

Tarantino's Grindhouse: Did you like it?

Za finally succeeded in convincing me to see Grindhouse last night (along with IsThatLatin and her S.O.). It was a hard sell since I am neither a Quentin Taratino fan, nor a B movie fan, nor a horror flick fan. However, I have to admit that I liked the film (well, it's more than a film, more like two with all sorts of other hilarious 70s type interludes). Za kept telling me that it was a feminist film to try and get me to go. "A feminist film," I asked. "What makes it a feminist film"? Za would answer: "Well there is a chick who loses her leg, gets an AK-47 strapped on her stump, and kicks ass." Now Za knows perfectly well that this sort of description of a film is in no way likely to sway me that it is a feminist film. In fact, every time we had this conversation he would laugh as I would roll my eyes and say "how messed up are you if you think a feminist film denotes chicks kicking ass with large weapons."

So, I stand corrected. I do think that Grindhouse is a feminist film; and, in part, I think it does have to do with the nature of the violent, kick ass female characters in both films. What I finally concluded after the second segment "Death Proof," is that it was refreshing to see women characters, especially in a B movie horror genre, not just get mauled or violently dismembered. Sure, some of that exists in the films. But, overall, the female characters become the heroes, they are the ones who avenge the wrong, and protect the others. Now, they do so while kicking serious ass. But, when they do, man do their victims really, really deserve it. It's like the female Jack Bauer. Why doesn't she exist? So, I am grateful that directors like Tarantino is breaking with the usual formulae for horror flicks and portraying women who can resist and fight evil, while protecting others.

What did the rest of you think of Grindhouse? Some of you may not have appreciated the ode to 70s B Movie films. Some of you might not have liked the length (it was a strain on me these days!). But, of those who saw it, is it a step in the right direction for Hollywood to start portraying women this way?

UPDATE: Amanda already wrote a longer and more thoughtful post on this film. There are spoilers in her analysis, but if you don't care read it.

What if You Could Eliminate Your Period?

Za sent me an interesting article today from the NYTimes debating the cultural consequences of a new pill, called Lybrel, that allows women to "turn off" their period for months/years at a time. The article suggests that there are no serious health risks to taking this pill, and if we accept this as true, we need to debate whether or not it is a good thing for women that they can control more powerfully when they get their period.

Given that I tend to be less anti-technology and science than some feminist critics (not all), I don't really see a moral issue with this pill. I can imagine that some feminists can make more sociological arguments that I would be sympathetic to, rather than the ethical arguments. From the standpoint of whether or not I should be permitted to take Lybrel, I say "hell yes." But, there is always the larger question of the unintended consequences of such biotechnologies (the sociological argument). If the majority of women opt to take Lybrel (the Times quoted a study that said 2/3 of all women expressed an interest in giving up their period), what sort of effect will this have culturally on our tolerance for women who do not opt to take Lybrel?

At this point, the usual move is toward the alarmist, Brave New World or Gattaca type scenario wherein greater advancements in our ability to "intelligently (re)design" ourselves (a phrase I am borrowing from Daniel Dennett) will ultimately mean that we will use the technology for bad, for punishment of deviants, and to set up a superclass of periodless women who dominate all the power jobs over those who cannot access the drug or who choose to renounce such technology.

Over the years I have grown sort of disaffected with the alarmist rhetoric that creeps up everytime a new technology is reported on in the press or other popular journals. I am equally concerned that many of my fellow Philosophers tend to buy into this alarmist and Luddite rhetoric. I guess I don't see that scientific knowledge and advancement always lead to the dystopia scenarios that folks fret over. I don't even think that they necessarily lead to greater sexism or intolerance of sexual difference, as marked by biological events such as menstruation.

The core question here, to my mind, is what's wrong with women intelligently redesigning themselves in ways that fits with their ideals and aspirations. I personally get no deep meaning or satisfaction from having my period (especially since it hurts a whole lot). But, I also don't make the mistake (largely because I don't hold a particular theological view that God created all of nature and thereby it is all good) that what is natural is always better (naturalistic fallacy). There are lots of natural events and phenomena that are bad: let's take viruses. If we didn't try to combat them, I am pretty sure they would (and still might) wipe us out.

In any case, I am curious to hear what you all think of Lybrel. Perhaps you have some compelling arguments that I should pay attention to for why it is concerning to engineer away our periods?

Check out the Gender Genie!

Via Lindsay at Majikthise, I have discovered the Gender Genie. You can test the prose on your blog and the Gender Genie, via some algorithim, will predict whether or not the writer is male or female. I took two different paragraphs (from different blog posts) to test it out. The first paragraph (which I took from the first paragraph of my post today) was deemed to be written by a female. The second paragraph I took from my post on the Supreme Court ruling yesterday and Gender Genie judged it written by a male.

I guess I am an androgynous writer. Cool.

On Being A College Professor after the VT Massacre

I had nightmares about the VT massacre last night. It was on a two day delay. I knew that eventually the horror of what had happened would start to eat away at me. In part, I think my dreams haunted me precisely because I didn't talk, or rather listen, to what students thought about this. I didn't check in to see if they were suffering, in shock, afraid . . . I had to think a lot about why I didn't, especially after the Provost sent us a thoughtful email encouraging us to do so. What it comes down to is that I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to actually confront the horror of this event. I wasn't prepared for hearing any vitriol, anger or racist statements either (not that students would've made such statements, but I worried). I am scared and frightened by what happened, and in my selfishness, I didn't want to hear anything about it, or how it affected my students.

I started to realize how frightened I was by the events yesterday while talking to my colleagues in the Philosophy lounge. I had been studying the faces of the dead at the NYTimes website. But, more importantly, I had been studying the faces of the dead professors. One of them, Jamie Bishop, looked like the sort of colleague I have here. He was young, married, and well-loved by his students. Don't get me wrong, I paused on pictures of young women and men, who could've been my own students, and found myself speechless over the loss. But, seeing the pictures of dead professors haunted me the most. And, it is precisely that which I dreamt: being hunted by a former student, being called to protect my class from an armed assailant. These are not tasks that one signs on for when he/she becomes a college professor.

Kerry reminded me of a student we both had a few years ago, who I am convinced was schizophrenic. He was the right age and gender for the onset of schizophrenia. His papers were long, stream of consciousness writings full of references to disturbing sexuality. The more I was around him, the more frightened I became of him. I would shudder if he came to my office and I never had any idea of what to do with his papers. During his senior thesis presentation, I think we all just sat, aghast at what nonsense had been uttered and scrambled to figure out what to do.

I think that one of the hard realities that we, as college professors, have to face in the wake of the VT massacre is our responsibility to get troubled students serious help (even if they frighten us). Many of us like to just avoid this responsibility (me included). After all, we're not therapists! And, I am not claiming we should start acting like therapists either. But, I do think we have a serious obligation to pay attention to our students who seem deeply troubled, and figure out ways to get them help. If we just try to get them out of our class, or ignore them, or rationalize to ourselves that they are just lazy, mean or insubordinate, then we may find ourselves deeply regretting that we didn't do something to stop them from hurting others or themselves.

The story of Cho Seung-Hui is not an anomaly. We know that there are lots of disaffected, troubled young people in our schools. And while the news reports are starting to show that his professors, at least, tried to take action, what stands out to me is how most people just ignored his behavior. Everyone knows the loners on their campus. And, most of the time these loners are the butt of jokes. Allowing such a disconnected community to exist is no longer safe, forget the moral concerns.

So, the lesson I draw from the VT massacre is that I can no longer afford to ignore the students who are manifesting very troubling behavior; I am responsible to them as well as my community.

Supreme Court Upholds Late-Term Abortion Ban

I can't say that I am at all surprised by this decision. After all, this is precisely why Bush and Co. have been trying to stack the judiciary with folks like Robert and Alito. Moreover, I was out there protesting Roberts during his hearings because I knew, despite what well-meaning folks tried to tell me, he was no moderate.

Of course, my sentiments are best expressed by Ruth Ginsburg:

'Today's decision is alarming,'' Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in dissent. She said the ruling ''refuses to take ... seriously'' previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion.

Ginsburg said the latest decision ''tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.''

The most troubling part of this ban is that it will undoubtedly result in the death of women, whose lives are no longer as important as the fetus they are carrying.

I think that what troubles me even more about this decision is drive to "draw a bright line between abortion and infanticide." The sentiment here is that ethical question, particularly difficult and troubling ethical questions, can be easily resolved by "drawing a bright line." It astounds me that the administration even thinks this is possible, especially since we can rarely do this in scientific knowledge. Where to you draw a bright line between some species? When do you draw a bright line between clinical depression and grief? These are hard questions, and the scientists often recognize that such bright lines do not exist.

What hubris of this administration (and the SCOTUS majority) to think they alone have the ability to draw such bright ethical lines on matters that are inherently fuzzy and hence why they lead to such impassioned ethical debates. Ethical deliberation is not intended to answer "easy" questions, it's intended for the very difficult questions, such as a pregnant woman having to consider a late-term abortion to protect her own life.

The opponents of the act ''have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases,'' Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that it is true that most women will not die or suffer significant health consequences if they are denied a late-term abortion. What bugs me is that his own reasoning assumes that there is a small (tiny?) fraction of women who will die or be harmed. I cannot believe it is acceptable to these men (Ginsburg dissented) that any woman would die based on their decision today.

UPDATE: See Ann's post at feministing for more analysis of Ginsburg's dissenting opinion.

UPDATE UPDATE: It occurs to me the hypocrisy of the "pro-life" mindset expressed in this opinion. I wonder how they would consider a law that outlawed all guns?

Serious Pedagogical Differences

A commentor on my blog, Bunetta, just referred to my pedagogical practice of giving students study sheets before exams, as follows:

The pedagogy you describe is a little like drug-testing airline pilots on a schedule that you mail to them in advance.

I have already responded more in depth to the comments. I just thought I would see what y'all think of this analogy. Short story: Bunetta and I have very different pedagogical goals.

Gun Violence

Kerry has written a really kick ass post today, calling the clergy to preach against the NRA and easy access, in this country, to guns. Frankly, the only coherent thought I have had about the VT massacre is that this should, once again, be a wake up call to all of those 2nd amendment loving, NRA card holding Americans.

I am also wondering if there is a connection between where these incidents of violence occurs in schools and the guns laws of the state? Any thoughts?

More later, I am sure . . . .

Tragedy at Virginia Tech

As I wrapped up my afternoon course today, my students informed me of the 31 deaths at Virginia Tech today. It was the first I heard of it and so I immediately looked to the news and am now glued to the press conference airing on NBC.

It is uncanny that this shooting tragedy has occurred in the same week as Colombine, 8 years ago (the very day I was interviewing for my job here). I am not sure what to make of this event yet, other than to be utterly horrified by this event and sorrowful for the community at Virginia Tech. We don't yet know how many of the deceased are students and how many are faculty. These details are sure to emerge over time.

I am dismayed by the tone of the press, who launched into an attack of VT's President for not locking down the campus after the first shooting incident in the morning. The idea of lockdown and the idea that in the future we might have to post guards on our college campuses is frightening. This is a tragedy. This was an event that no one could've forseen (unless I am persuaded by evidence to the contray), and to respond to this event with greater militarism on college campuses horrifies me (perhaps more than the event itself).

I will no doubt have something more to say about this event after I learn more facts and digest the coverage. In the meantime, I would appreciate any links to blogs from VT students or other bloggers covering this story.

UPDATE: From the Huffington Post

A White House spokesman said President Bush was horrified by the rampage and offered his prayers to the victims and the people of Virginia.

"The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed," spokeswoman Dana Perino said

BARF!

Scientist, Heal Thyself.

SteveG has a really superb and thoughtful post up today on the difference between training and creating intellectuals (what might be the point of teaching, at least at "elite" institutions like our LAC). There is a context to his post: Steve did dare question the usefulness of some labs that are adjoined to science courses and thereby pissed off a great deal of scientists, beyond the gates of our esteemed college. I want to stress that he did not ridicule the notion of lab-based learning per se and I would go so far as to wager that Steve values the sort of learning that takes place in labs that are designed to maximize the learning of how to do science well (not sure, but that is my guess). My observation, as a member of the Pre-Health Committee (which vets applications to Medical and Dental school) is that the students who excelled best in the science departments here are those who did research with professors or were encouraged to design their own research project.

What I find interesting about Steve's post today is how Chad Orzel wholly misunderstands SteveG's point. But, I assume that is because he only knows Steve from his infamous "lab" post. Chad assumes that Steve's call for eliminating "canned" labs from, frankly "canned" introductory courses, is to make science even less threatening to a largely illiterate humanities-inclined student population, i.e. that Steve was calling for more "physics for poets" classes. Hell no! And if anyone knew Steve, they would see how utterly ridiculous this interpretation of his argument is.

The real problem is not that students are "afraid" of science or math. Rather, they are afraid of how science and math courses are taught. And, you know what, I don't blame them. As someone who also loves science and who spent most of her undergraduate career studying science, I can honestly say that what lured me away was not that humanities courses were "easier" (an obvious inference from Chad's comments), but rather that they put more emphasis on empowering me to be an independent and autonomous thinker. They did so, primarily, by pushing me to get the "big picture" first and then equipping me with resources and tools for resolving interesting questions and problems.

My science courses, on the contrary, spent most of the time equipping me with tools and lab techniques while deferring any relationship between these tools and techniques to big picture questions or hell even little picture, yet interesting problems. The material was totally disconnected from what Husserl would call the "life world," and so the exercise of learning all of these techniques and tools would start to wear on me as I could no longer remember why I had embarked on a career in Chemistry.

I think what bugs me more than anything else in the responses I read from scientists to SteveG's lab post was the implication that the only way to be rigorous is to teach in such a way that "weeds out" the students who aren't willing to stay up all night memorizing large swaths of information. Thank god not all science teachers proceed this way. Because if this was the only way to teach science--a sort of macho you-better-figure-out-what-you-should-know-on-your-own-or-sink--then we would see even fewer students entering the sciences.

They show up really interested, because hell, science is really interesting and exciting. But in the death match, demoralizing way that many profs teach--to "weed out"--they not only "weed out" the non-rigorous students, but they "weed out" the really engaged and interesting students who find themselves forced to jump through hoops to prove their worthiness to the sicence faculty, in order to finally get some big picture, exciting research opportunities.

If science faculty want to increase the science literacy, then you need to think long and hard about how you engage and lure students--students mind you who are quite naturally interested in your subject matter--into your departments. I am, frankly, sick of hearing science faculty whine about how students are too science phobic and that we are just pandering to their phobia.

Scientist, heal thyself.

UPDATE: I highly recommend reading Student A's blog entry on this subject for a student's perspective on the role of labs in science education.

UPDATE UPDATE: Another highly recommended read, by a Biochemistry Molecular Biology student, on this issue at A Stranger in a Strang(er) Land.

Poor Wolfie!

From NYTimes:

On Thursday, the World Bank’s 24-member executive board, the body that elected Mr. Wolfowitz to the job after he was nominated by President Bush in 2005, held hurried meetings amid mounting speculation that it might reprimand Mr. Wolfowitz or ask him to resign.

In a chaotic day of revelations and meetings at a normally staid institution on Thursday, Mr. Wolfowitz apologized for his role in the raise and transfer of Ms. Riza to the State Department, where she remained on the bank’s payroll.

He made the comments to a few hundred staff members assembled in the bank building atrium, only to be greeted by booing, catcalls and cries for his resignation.

I am a Pregnant Feminist

Today I stumbled across a student blog, wherein I was referred to, affectionately, as a "pregnant feminist." Mind you, I am not offended by this characterization; after all, it is quite accurate. But, in juxtaposition, to his description of my male colleagues, I am bemused. I am the pregnant feminist with heart, while my colleague SteveG is the smart and funny prof who talks about physics. Of course I am going to have to reflect on this. (Now I know the student is going to read this and perhaps be horribly embarrassed, but let me stress that I took your comments to be sincere, flattering and respectful).

I just can't help thinking about how easily it is to become the "pregnant feminist" professor. From one standpoint, it is almost an oxymoron, since rabid right wingers don't expect feminists to procreate. I recently got a flyer slipped under my door claiming that abortion was the worst genocide on the planet (and claimed more deaths than the Iraq war). So, from that point of view, it is good to be the pregnant feminist, if only to dispel the ridiculous stereotypes that feminists hate children.

But, then I am lead to muse on the emphasis that I am a feminist. While anyone who reads this blog and knows me personally is clear that I am a feminist, I have certainly never proclaimed my identity to be such in my Kant and the 19th Century course. Of course, the reason this student has correctly surmised that I am a feminist is most likely due to the fact that I included the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, J.S. Mill and Elizabeth Cady Stanton on the course syllabus. I wanted to make clear that the 19th Century was not "owned" by male thinkers, and in fact what a century in which massive social and political shifts occurred, the abolition of slavery, the industrial revolution and worker's rights, and the beginning of the suffrage movement.

We have read: Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, Jeremy Bentham, Mary Wollstonecraft, Auguste Comte, J.S. Mill, Soren Kierkegaard, Karl Marx, C.S Pierce, William James, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Friedrich Nietzsche: that is two women and 10 men. But the ratio is just enough to mark my identity as a feminist. (Although this isn't quite fair, since probably the student in question figured out my feminist identity via my blog).

I am, rather, taking off from his description of me to muse, out loud, about how the other students in the class see me precisely because I am have introduced them to 18th and 19th Century texts on the education of women, equality of the sexes and the evil of sexist oppression. When we enter into these discussions in class, I wonder if the students think this is somehow extraneous to what is important about 19th Century Philosophy? (Those of you in the class, what do you think?)

If they do, it is surely a product of the irresponsible ways in which the canon of Philosophy has been constructed (see Mary Ellen Waithe's "On Not Teaching the History of Philosophy"), since without doubt women philosophers have existed since the inception of Philosophy and philosophical discussions on the equality of the sexes and the nature of oppression have long existed as well (see Waithe's 4 vol. anthology, History of Women Philosophers. Martinus Nijhoff.) Unfortunately, these conversations have to be reinvented almost every decade/century, since women's voices get marginalized, lost, left out, and thereby forgotten.

Hence, when I do my small part to reclaim some of these women in my History of Philosophy courses, I am "pregnant feminist."

Give Senator Casey a Piece of Your Mind!

I wish I would have gotten this post up yesterday, when it was still possible to email or call Senator Casey and ask him to support the new Stem Cell Bill. But, it is too late. Senator Casey, the man we all held our nose and voted for to oust Santorum, voted against the bill.

I still think voters should give him a piece of their mind.
Senator_Casey@Casey.senate.gov

On Being Pregnant and Pro-Choice

Now that it's public knowledge that I am pregnant, I am finally able to write the post on being pregnant and pro-choice that I have wanted to for months. Early in my pregnancy an acquaintance (a man) asked me if I was still so staunchly pro-choice now that I was pregnant and had seen the ultrasound (this was at 11 weeks). I am going to be charitable and assume that it was an innocent question, but I assure you that it was absolutely relevant to me that it was a "he" asking the question. My response was: I have never in my whole life been more committed to widening and expanding reproductive freedom for women, including the option of abortion.

There are lots of reasons why being pregnant has only strenghtened my commitment to a reproductive freedom, but I will focus specifically on my recent experience. I am 36 years old (almost 37). When you get pregnant at my age, physicians will routinely remind you of the risk ratio for having a child with some chromosomal defects (either Down Syndrome (Trisomy-21), Trisomy-18, or Trisomy-13), which is 1/210 for Down's and 1/100 for any genetic abnormality. Now granted, these are not horrible odds, but they are what they are. I should also note that these genetic defects can occur for any pregnant woman. The latter two are really horrible, while Down Syndrome babies can live wonderful lives, lives that will, nonetheless require a great deal of resources from parents (and if parents are older it becomes another sort of moral issue if they die leaving the child without the support he or she needs).

Given the higher incident of genetic abnormalities at my age, physicians should offer you the option of getting a triple-screen, quad-screen, amniocentesis, and/or high risk ultrasound. The first three options need to be performed and results back before the 24th week in order to give the mother all possible options of what to do with the results (meaning she can opt to terminate the pregnancy, join a support group, etc.) My physician, however, made two serious errors with my pre-natal care. First, he forgot to order the triple-screen on the lab form (even though I signed a waiver that I wanted one) and secondly, he forgot to discuss with me the option of amniocentesis. When he realized this, I was already further along than 6 months, meaning that I would not have the option to terminate a pregnancy should I find out that I was carrying a child with severe genetic anomalies.

Now I don't think that my physician made these mistakes on purpose. And, I am a highly educated consumer of healthcare and I didn't catch these problems earlier. But, I wonder what happens to women who are not as empowered to advocate for themselves in pre-natal care (who don't have access to pre-natal care) or, worse, who have a physician who denies them pre-natal testing options out of religious convictions (and does not tell the patient he has done so).

Pregnancy is a time of lots of uncertainty and joy. Women ought to be able to rely on physicians to be honest, competent, and sensitive to the life-changing experience they are going through. Instead, many of them face this period in a highly charged political landscape where physicians or hospitals might impose their own religious convictions on mothers-to-be, denying her any right to be part of crucial decisions that will affect her life forever and thereby denying her basic right to human dignity. The only people who should be involved in decisions of what to do with a pregnancy, whether it is a healthy one or a high risk one, are the parents, and more particularly the mother carrying the child.

Another way in which my commitment to reproductive freedom has been strengthen is that I now prioritize the mother's choice far more than the father's. The reason for this is how risky pregnancy can be for a mother's life and well-being. While I have not (knock on wood) succumb to anything like cancer or other life-threatening illnesses during pregnancy, I did have a taste of viral gastro-enteritis while pregnant. The ER doctor made it clear to me that part of the reason I was suffering so acutely with this virus was because the fetus was getting all the resources that otherwise would help me better fend off the illness. Now, consider a pregnant mother who gets cancer. A perinatologist posed that exact scenario to me recently (I had asked him what sorts of cases face his ethics board). Should you treat the woman with cancer, even though there is a risk to the fetus? Should the woman terminate the pregnancy to improve her own chances of survival? These are very crucial, difficult decisions that need to be made. And, the only person who should be making the decision to get chemo or terminate a pregnancy is the mother. It is not up to the physician, the father, the hospital board or any other party to decide that a pregnant woman cannot get chemo, if she has made the decision to treat her cancer. Likewise, it is not up to the physician, father, or hospital board to overrule a pregnant woman's choice to forgo chemo in order to maximize the health or her child (even if this also poses risks to the fetus).

Pregnant women are not mere envelopes, plowed fields, or incubators; they are moral persons who are endowed with inalienable rights to make decisions about their pregnancy free of unwarranted interference. If you want to debate this issue, then focus on what counts as warranted interference with a pregnant woman's autonomy.

Stop Replicating Imus' Words!

Lots of ink has been spilled over the Don Imus scandal. The news analysts, pundits, spin doctors, preachers, and Imus fans have had their say. I am not terribly interested in wading further into the debate-that-should-not-need-to-take place. Imus' totally abused his position of power; his words are inexcusable.

What has been bugging me about this incident is how much play his words have gotten play by 'well-meaning folk' who want to harshly condemn him for his slurs against the Rutger's Scarlett Knights. Every article, news report and talk show host repeats, verbatim, what Imus said, thereby fueling the fire of these injurious words.

I just came from my Philosophy of Mind class wherein we discussed the idea of cultural transmission through memes. The idea here is that the transmission of culture, in this case racist and sexist views about women athletes, occurs by the replication of memes. Imus' infamous phrase is now such a meme and each time it is replicated in either the popular press, conversations around the water color, or over the family table, the cutural views therein continue to take hold.

It seems to me that if the press wants to do something responsible here, and thereby really censure this kind of behavior, they should refuse to replicate the very words that Imus used. It is making the phrase almost inert.

You Don't Teach the Driven Ones!

This past semester, Za has been teaching a course at my college. We have been on parallel tracks with how we designed assigments in his Bio class and my Phil of Mind class. We both agree, pedagogically, that it is best to help empower students to learn the material you are teaching rather than devise crafty ways for punishing them for not yet being sophisticated readers and synthesizers of complicated information. Both of us have given the students very clear directions about what we expect them to know for the examinations, e.g. what material they are responsible for, what type of questions are likely to appear, and how to best answer these questions. To put it bluntly, it is as if both Za and I have "broken into our offices, stolen the test, and circulated it to the students before the exam." If students take our study sheets seriously, they are asssured a good grade on the exam. The key here is taking our study sheets seriously.

It has been great fun learning how pedagogically sympatico Za and I are. So many of our colleagues design exams and paper topics that give students very little direction about how to succeed and then when, guess what, students bomb them, and the predictable whining about how lame our students are ensues. Of course, the problem lies in assuming that your students are as sophisticated learners as you are. They aren't. Part of what it means to be a great teacher is to not only teach the content of your courses, but design assignments that show them how to analyze information, write clear arguments, and amply prepare for exams.

I thought I was good at this stuff until Za showed me up. We both gave our first exams and our students did horribly in both classes despite all of the guidance we gave them about what was on the exam and how to do well. I scratched my head on this one, gave my students a good kick in the ass (i.e. told them to spend more than one night reviewing for the exam, form study groups, reread essays and visit my office hours). Overall, I was pretty hands off. I just told them how to succeed better, but basically left it up to them to figure out how to do so.

Za, on the other hand, was far more proactive. He sent emails to specific students struggling and asked them to make appointments with him. He met for several weeks with students before his second exam going over material, teaching them how to study and work together, showing the tricks for memorizing lots of material and showing them how to find ways to make sense of the material in terms or images that make sense to them. In a word: he taught.

So, his students really shined on the second examination (though it was no different in format from the first). The students walked away from this experience learning a lot more than the actual content (which they did!), but they learned what it takes to succeed in your classes, particularly in very difficult classes. The emails he got from students really speak to this.

And, I have been humbly reminded that teaching is work and requires more of me than giving some directions and sitting back and watching many of my students flail. I think what Za intuitively gets and I forgot is that you don't worry about the smart, hard working students. They are going to do well. You worry about the mediocre or failing students who are too terrified to figure out how to get help and therefore do better. Those are the students you teach.

Official Announcement: This Feminista is Pregnant

Many of the people that know me in 'real life' are quite aware that I am pregnant. I am already in my 6th month and am due sometime in mid-July. I wanted to finally unveil this news to my readers who don't know me in the 'flesh.' I am starting to grow very excited about the new addition to our life. Za already has wonderful children from his previous marriage and we look forward to introducing them to their new sister. We found out that we will be having a girl (unless the ultrasound was wrong?), which has delighted me and Za (since he has boys and was very concerned that they do not feel any sort of 'competition' for his affections).

Today I go for my third ultra sound, which the physician ordered because of my age (36). I am by far the most nervous I have been in my pregnancy so any good thoughts would be appreciated. My recent viral illness took a toll on me as well. I kept worrying what sort of potential threat my illness was to my tiny girl. But, the ER doc assured me that the fetus sort of wins the competition for resources (which I find to be a very, very interesting metaphor for the identity of the pregnant woman).

I have been reflecting a lot on how being pregnant has totally altered my relationship to my body. And, what I am striving to do is not become obsessively guilt ridden about everything that can potentially go wrong. I imagine that there will be plenty of guilt ahead, right?

In any case, it seemed the right time to make this news public to the blogosphere. I may start referring more to this reality in the future since it is clearly becoming a huge part of my identity.

Songs About Self-Destructive Chicks

Woke up in a much better mood with my color back and my stomach settled. I turned on my iPod and listened to Everclear's So Much for the Afterglow, while cleaning the kitchen. I usually listen to this music when I am working out and I generally feel a little like a fraud. Afterall, I didn't come from skid row, my dad didn't abandon me, and I am not a angry boy. But today I listened differently and it reminded me of something I was musing on with *I* a few weeks ago: I love songs that portray the female love interest as a wild child, as a bit self-destructive, and therefore causing great woe and anguish in the male lead. How weird is that? I think it's why I absolutely love everything that Lucinda Williams writes. She gets to be the fucked up song writer, breaking hearts, bleeding into her chords and haunting us with her tales. A few of the songs on So Much for the Afterglow feature wild child girls that the male lead wants to help.

So, why am I drawn to these songs? I think the answer is complicated. In part, I appreciate a more complicated female character than the usual "hot chick" or "low down woman." I like seeing men sing their little hearts out about complicated, sexy and damaged women. And, I guess it's partly due to how ironic it is. Afterall, I spent a good deal of time in my twenties tending to the complicated, self-destructive artiste male. I was drawn to their stormy moods and creative impulses, but I always played nurse to their tempestuous mood swings.

What I resented about playing nurse to artiste dude was that it always implied, at least to me, that they were more powerful, more important, more worthy than I. If I was going to drop everything and be on call for crisis, then it must be because their demons were powerful, awe inspiring and thereby in need of all available forces that can be mustered. I started longing for someone to sacrifice so much for me, to be so wrapped up in my demons, my torments. That was my twisted little notion of adoration. To be adored, I reasoned, was to have a man desperate to cure my wild child ways, and yet, I walk all over him and leave him bleeding on the floor.

This is the love you learn from disorder.

I don't have such longings to be the self-destructive woman tended for anymore. But, I am still drawn to music that portrays such a femme fatale. I would rather be her than the muse to artiste dude, who gets cast aside for his greater calling.

Aspazia is Still Recovering

I broke down today and went to the hospital. I was feeling the effects of serious dehydration and the nurses hooked me up with fluids and potassium (guess I was way low). I was informed that what I have is a 3-5 day virus that wreaks havoc on your digestive tract and is infectious. So, I hope Za is spared and I will stay away from the rest of you until this is gone. But, all is well!

Btw, what is going on in the world? I am totally out of it.

Aspazia is Recovering

I have just emerged from the worst stomach bug that I have ever encountered. I will spare you all details, but I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. I am staying home today to recover, sleep and catch up on the world. So, again, I have no content, but I leave it to you, dear readers, to clue me in or do some blogwhoring in the comments.

"I Snorted My Father'

LONDON (AP) - Keith Richards has acknowledged consuming a raft of illegal substances in his time, but this may top them all. In comments published Tuesday, the 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist said he had snorted his father's ashes mixed with cocaine.

"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," Richards was quoted as saying by British music magazine NME.

"He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared," he said. "... It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."

Richards' father, Bert, died in 2002, at 84.

Aspazia is Sick

I got some awful stomach bug that has put me out of commission. So I am relying on you, dear readers, to cheer me up today and tell me what I should read.

Manufacturing Marketplace Masculinity

I was haunted by this piece, "For Girls, It's Be Yourself, and Be Perfect, Too," in the NYTimes all day yesterday. I gave a presentation at a local church on my work on enhancement, Prozac and Gender and this article was pervading my consciousness through the whole talk. While this article focuses on the pressures that young women face, who want to be accepted to elite colleges, especially when women are overrepresented and men are underrepresented, I was much more intrigued by the insane pressure they live under at their age.

I am grateful that I grew up in California, went to a big Public high school and had never heard of most of the elite colleges these women aspire to attend. I was a girl in high school. I worked hard and enjoyed what I learned, but I didn't drive myself insane. No one pressured me to get into Williams, Smith or Bowdoin. And, I am pretty sure I turned out just fine having not taken that route.

But, the times are different in many ways from when I was in high school. The world of a child or teenager is more structured, more pressurized, and more driven by a fear that anything less than excellence will result in a destitute life. As I was reading about the young women at Newton North I couldn't help but worry about how much more burned out they will all feel once they get to college. I look around at my current students, who are trying to balance lots of co-curricular activities, a social life, classes and work, and they are stressed out. What I failed to note was how they had been living that stressed out life way before they got here. No wonder one of my top students is likely to graduate with an ulcer (yes Abby, I am talking about you!)

Another aspect of this piece that really haunts me is the new sort of 'femininity' fashioned in these high stakes times. These young women are not silly or frivolous. One could not imagine any of them trying to rush a sorority. They are passionate, intellectual, and driven to be leaders in all aspects of their high school experience. Their teachers (who sound excellent, but his is what a neighborhood with a median house price of $700,000 will buy you) groom these women to be intellectual giants.

And yet, it is not good enough to be intellectuals, they must be 'hot,' while putting off boyfriends, dating, or any other distractions from their goal of admission to an elite college. They want to be feminine, but err more on the assertive side than compassionate side.

It is this transformation in 'ideal' femininity that bothers me and was the basis of my talk with the church group. The intense pressures to succeed in 21st America cannot tolerate compassion, sensitivity, and softness. I am not nostalgic for the media-styled femininity of the 50s. But, I am worried about a culture so bent on success that we breed out of ourselves all the skills that are important and required for building communities and relationships.

Let me also add that I am not just worried that the young women are learning to adopt, what I call, "marketplace masculinity," but the men are pushed to even further extremes of hyper virility.

When I finished my talk yesterday, a woman came up to me and said: "Men manage things, women manage people. Things are easy to manipulate, people cannot be controlled. Hence, this is why women fall into bouts of misery and alienation at far greater rates than men." I thought her insight was clever, but clearly an oversimplification of reality. But, what is worth pondering in her insight is how important the labor of tending and caring for people is and why we can't lose sight of that . . . even if it brings us more misery.

More importantly, we need to recognize that if a high stakes competitive culture is at the heart of re-engineering gender roles, then feminism needs to step in and start asking some hard questions. Certainly, this is not the dream of all, or even most, of the foremothers who wanted to create a more just, more caring society.

Abstinence Jack Ass is Gone!

Good News! Here's what I had to say about him several months ago.

Today it was announced that Eric Keroack, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs has resigned!

The press statement from the Department of Health and Human Services stated that Keroack's resignation comes in response to action taken against him by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Office of Medicaid.

Planned Parenthood strongly opposed Keroack's appointment to oversee Title X, the nation's family planning program because of his stance as anti-birth control and anti-sex education. Prior to his appointment, Keroack served as the medical director for A Woman's Concern (AWC), a network of so-called "crisis pregnancy health centers" in the greater Boston area. In addition to their strict anti-choice policies, under Dr. Keroack's supervision, AWC health centers did not distribute, encourage the use of, or offer referrals for contraceptive drugs and devices.

PPFA wrote letters to Members of Congress and asked more than three million activists and supporters to petition Secretary Leavitt to rescind Keroack's appointment.

We will continue to keep you updated on further developments.

The statement from the Department of Health and Human Services is pasted below and attached:

STATEMENT BY DR. JOHN O. AGWUNOBI
Assistant Secretary for Health
On the Resignation of Dr. Eric Keroack, Director of the Office of Population Affairs
Yesterday, Dr. Eric Keroack alerted us to an action taken against him by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Office of Medicaid. As a result of this action, I accepted his resignation as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Population Affairs. The Department will move forward as expeditiously as possible to fill this position.

Via Planned Parenthood.

More on the Distinction Between Feminists and Man-Haters

A few days ago I sketched out some of the differences between being a Feminist and Man-Hater to set the record straight. Another salient distinction came to mind after I discussed J.S. Mill's The Subjection of Women. We turned to a discussion of the various customs and institutions that perpetuate gender roles that work against political equality for the sexes. A student brought up the unfair policies toward men and paternity leave. I acknowledged that indeed this was a problem for many men who would like to spend quality time at home with a child. That, of course, led me to a further discussion of how the workplace is structured in such a way that makes it nearly impossible for parents to spend any time with their children. I also pointed out that they needed to consider who had the power over crafting leave policies at workplaces!

Then we talked about how men fare in divorce, particularly custody issues. Here is where I would like to make another important distinction between Man-Hater and Feminist. I pointed out how many if not most men do not get custody (even partial) of their children in a divorce (see Fatherneed). The default reasoning for this is not, contrary to what the Men's Rights folks thinks, the product of the feminist revolution. Rather, the reason courts award children to the mother results from patriarchal thought. The idea here is that women are more naturally predisposed to take care of children: make sure they eat on time, get to bed on time, get to practice and whatnot.

It is Man-Hating to say that men are naturally incapable of taking care of children. A student in my class passionately argued that a court should never award 3 children to a 35 year old man. Her reasoning: men are too irresponsible to take care of children. I asked her if she believed that all women were necessarily better equipped to take care of children. She didn't answer right away, but I am sure she said "no."

But then my student proceeded to argue that women were more naturally predisposed to know how to take care of children, i.e. make sure they eat on time, get their rest, have structured play. I was totally taken aback. I can't think of even one of my friends with children who said, "hey, this is easy; it's like I was born to do this." My point was that the only way that men or women learn how to take care of children is by doing it. If women believe that men cannot take care of children, and then don't give them lots of opportunities to learn how, then they will find themselves doing the bulk of the labor of raising children.

Feminists want to see that the division of labor in childcare is equitable. Man-Haters want to rob fathers from any meaningful opportunity to take care of their children. Man-Haters are far more plagued, furhermore, by sexist gender roles than feminists.

P.S. It should go without saying that I don't think that violent and abusive men should be awarded custody. But the grounds for a man being violent and abusive are not established based on marital spats, which lead to a divorce.

On Why Men Don't Study Abroad

Sure, many men do take advantage of study abroad opportunities, but not enough. I have been debating with folks this semester why men don't like to study abroad, and what it would take to get more of them overseas.

Here are some of the reasons that I have heard for why men don't study abroad:

(1) Men are not mature enough. [The coordinator of study abroad programs at my school has started targeting junior men and trying to get them abroad by their Senior year].

(2) Men are not independent enough. [True example from a International Education Administrator from Denmark. A young man came over to Copenhagen to study for a semester and got lost on the first day of classes. He called his mother from downtown Copenhagen, who then called the office of the school (while he was on the other line) to ask for directions to his first class for her son. Second example: a colleague of mine led the Lancaster study abroad semester and told of how a young man brought a huge duffel bag full of food that his mother packed, fearing he would not find adequate nutrients in England].

(3) The courses offered by study abroad programs are too liberal artsy--they are "art history" or "literature" courses, not math, science or engineering courses that more likely appeal to men.

If (2) is largely responsible for why men don't study abroad, then we have a very difficult problem on our hands. What I want to know is if men are coddled by their mothers because (1) or because of entrenched gender roles. Why doesn't the mother simply tell her son to get a map, ask directions, or go to the office to ask for directions about where his class is?

Are men really incapable of this kind of problem-solving? If so, then how do they end up in all the "power positions" in culture?

My money is on the ways in which mothers participate in socializing the male gender role, i.e. not encouraging them to ask directions lest they look weak and not in command (although this pose oddly depends up female labor doing this work so as to allow a man to appear in control).

My mother used to confess to me that she never thought she needed to coddle me or help me, but always felt compelled to do so for my brother because of a deep sense that men are more fragile. I find this intuition, coming from a mother, so interesting. It is counter-intuitive. You would think, given the cultural messages that women are incompetent, that mothers were far more guilty of coddling their daughters, but instead they infantilize their sons.

And yet, infantilizing sons teaches them that women are there to take care of all the practical details of their lives: directions, food, home--so that they can do real work. Infantilizing daughters, when it occurs in the media (though oddly not at home) gives the impression that women are untrustworthy, wholly dependent, and not good problem solvers.

Amazing!

P.S. (3) bugs me as an explanation for why men don't study abroad. I am sure you can figure out why.

UPDATE: Most of the commentors thus far have rightly pointed out that I have shown no data that substantiates the core claim here: that there is a gender gap in study abroad programs. To correct that, here is a dissertation on the issue. I wrongly assumed that this trend in higher ed was widely known. Here is an older piece from the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Here Comes A Renewed Attack on Working Women

Putting your child in daycare might lead to disruptive behavior well into 6th grade, according to a huge study financed by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

The research, being reported today as part of the federally financed Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, tracked more than 1,300 children in various arrangements, including staying home with a parent; being cared for by a nanny or a relative; or attending a large day care center. Once the subjects reached school, the study used teacher ratings of each child to assess behaviors like interrupting class, teasing and bullying.

The findings are certain to feed a long-running debate over day care, experts say.

“I have accused the study authors of doing everything they could to make this negative finding go away, but they couldn’t do it,” said Sharon Landesman Ramey, director of the Georgetown University Center on Health and Education. “They knew this would be disturbing news for parents, but at some point, if that’s what you’re finding, then you have to report it.”

The debate reached a high pitch in the late 1980s, during the so-called day care wars, when social scientists questioned whether it was better for mothers to work or stay home. Day care workers and their clients, mostly working parents, argued that it was the quality of the care that mattered, not the setting. But the new report affirms similar results from several smaller studies in the past decade suggesting that setting does matter.

“This study makes it clear that it is not just quality that matters,” said Jay Belsky, one of the study’s principal authors, who helped set off the debate in 1986 with a paper suggesting that nonparental child care could cause developmental problems. Dr. Belsky was then at Pennsylvania State University and has since moved to the University of London.

It goes without saying that the findings of this study are going to cause a lot unrest on the part of parents and inspire a lot of retrograde vitriol on the part of social conservatives. So, rather than contest the findings of this study--something that I will leave to the social scientists to do--I will assume that the findings are accurate. So the question is now what?

Many, if not most, women have to work. And, many, if not most, workplaces do not accomodate schedules of mothers or fathers, for that matter. It seems to me that the best use we could make of this finding is figuring out how to restructure the institution of work to help parents spend more quality time socializing their children. The lesson to be drawn from this study should not be to further guilt working women. It should be a clear indication that our insane work hours coupled with the prohibitions on having children in our public spaces is anti-family values.

If I come across arguments that link the results of this study to a vindication of the traditional view that women should stay home, I can only respond by asking why on earth the findings of this report don't lead to the conclusion that more and more men should stay home? Or why not conclude that both parents should be paid by the state to socialize their children until they are ready for school?

Brace yourselves mommies! Looks like another reason to feel like shit.

Torture, Justification and the Limit Case [Guest Post]

By Jeff Maynes

Kerry's post at Subversive Christianity and Aspazia's subsequent discussion of it here has generated interesting dialogue on the issue of torture. Both Kerry and Aspazia registered shock at the fact that 18 out 22 students in a seminar on torture argued that torture, in some circumstances, is morally justifiable. Aspazia (as well as several comments) speculated that the students responded in this way out of a callous distance from instances of torture. This post contains two parts. In the first, I will advance a theory that explains the rationale of these students, and argue that it has little to do with personal experience or callousness. In the second, I will lend prima facie defense to the claim that the “ticking bomb” case is nevertheless not morally justified.

The question asked of the students in this seminar was “is torture morally justifiable?” There are two ways to understand this question. The first is “is there any feasible circumstance in which torture would be morally justifiable?” and the second is “is there any conceivable circumstance in which torture would be morally justifiable?” The political issue is bound up in the first of the two questions, where our concern is with law. I suspect, however, that it is the second of these two questions that the students answered.

To answer the second question in the negative, the students have to argue that it is necessarily the case that torture is immoral. A necessity claim can be refuted by counter-example. So it would be unsurprising if the students approached this question by looking for such a counter-example, and to find one, they looked at a limit case. It's a situation that strips all of the other variables out of the equation, and probably something along the lines of a “ticking bomb” scenario. Consider the following scenario; you have two choices, and two choices alone, either (a) torture one person and save a thousand lives or (b) do not torture one person and allow thousands to die. If we are interested in a question of feasible circumstances, then this scenario is easily dispelled. It is a false dilemma, it rests on mistaken assumptions about the effectiveness of torture, etc.

But what if this isn't the question at all? If the students are searching out a limit case for the ethical judgment, then this is a pressing issue, and one that deserves an answer. Further, it is a legitimately difficult philosophical question, because it has been stripped of everything except a classical ethical question – is any evil act ever morally justified? The initial question about torture can be taken in such a way that it isn't really about torture at all! As a result, the personal experiences students have had about torture (whether through education or insulation) are stripped away. These questions only come in to play if we interpret the question such that the students are asked, “would you ever sanction an actual or feasible act of torture?” Instead, the utilitarian calculus is the obvious method for making an ethical decision in this case, and when the crank is turned, it is likely to tell you that torture is justified in this limit case.

I am not a student in Kerry's class, and so I do not have any evidence that these particular students took the question in the way I have proposed. My point, rather, is that we ought to be aware of the ambiguity in the question because a conflation of feasible circumstances with logically possible circumstances makes torture much easier to justify in practice even when the argument only holds for a logically possible situation. These are distinct questions, and need to be kept distinct in debates over torture, because admissible answers in one circumstance do not necessarily apply in the other.

I turn next to Patrick's question, which he posted in reply to my initial comment on Aspazia's post. I speculated that in the limit case, we could claim that both actions were immoral. He rightly pointed out that I waffled about whether one ought to torture, even if it torture is an immoral act. The same disclaimer I offered in my comment applies here, I do not have an argument that can defend my speculation in a satisfactory manner, nor can I answer the deep moral issue about whether an evil act can be morally justified. Nevertheless, I can offer some cursory remarks which might make my solution more palatable and which will highlight the complexity of this issue.

The position clearly hinges on three issues – what one ought to do, what counts as moral, and what counts as morally justified? These are intricate and difficult concepts, and as I said, I am merely gesturing towards a way of addressing the problem. What I wish to suggest is that “moral” applies to types of action, whereas “ought” applies to action tokens (or maxims prescribing action tokenings). In this case, torture, as a general practice (let us assume a general and accepted definition) is a type of action and torturing in the limit case is a tokening of that type. This gives a clear answer to the question, that in the limit case, torture is what one ought to do, though torture nevertheless remains categorically immoral.

The first question that one would rightfully ask is, what good does this do for us? Haven't you just justified torture sans the “moral” label? This is a fair question precisely because this is exactly what the picture does. So what good is it? The value is that moral responsibility is saved. The person in this limit case situation has had poor moral luck, but is nevertheless morally responsible for either decision he or she makes. This notion of moral responsibility, then, can be used to justify laws on torture. The limit case is irrelevant to the universal immorality of torture, meaning that laws proclaiming torture universally illegal are ethically justified. Further, it serves an important purpose in guiding behavior, which is perhaps the most important function of ethical rules.

From whence does the ought derive? The obvious answer is from the utilitarian calculus, but what justifies using utilitarian calculations in a case where both choices are immoral? Simply put, we have to make a decision, and therefore we have to ask which immoral decision is the better one to make. Since the choices are strict and clear in the limit case, and a decision is mandatory, we do have to make a moral decision. The question is not, however, which action is morally right, but rather, which action is morally preferable? The utilitarian calculus then, is the tool used to make this unfair and difficult decision. The ought of individual action tokens tracks morality, but comes apart in cases where no moral outcome exists.

I am under no delusion that this brief sketch will have convinced anyone of the truth of this position. In fact, I'm not convinced of its truth myself. There are a number of open questions (can ought and moral come apart? should they? do we wish to accept that individual actions do not admit of morality?, etc.), which undoubtedly the many intelligent readers of this blog will identify and critique. The reason I have presented it is to shed light on the complexity of this question and to stimulate discussion on possible solutions. The complexity of this problem is central to the aim of this post – that the answers' from the students are not particularly shocking, because they, like many people dealing with ethical theory, are trying to make sense of the question 'is an evil act ever morally justified?' This is a question that does not admit of an easy answer, but it is also a question that can be kept distinct from questions about actual instances of torture-decisions provided we are clear about the parameters of our inquiry.

No Wonder! Patriotic Correctness Censorship in High Schools

After reading this NYT article on a Wilton, Conn High School principal canceling a drama production about the war in Iraq, my reaction was: "no wonder!" So many of my students hail from CT and similar school districts. I had surmised that many of them came from very affluent and homogeneous neighborhoods, but I was naive enough to think that their high school teachers and administrators were interested in giving them a good education. Not so, at least, not in Wilton, CT.

Principal Timothy H. Canty canceled the production of a play entitled "Voices of Conflict," written by and to be performed by Wilton students. The play was comprised of a series of monologues of soldiers, near in age to these H.S. students, sharing their perspectives on the war. The play would've connected these students to the reality of the world and the war. But, the principal pulled the plug.

He cites all sorts of reasons to the press and a free speech lawyer partially defends him. But, at bottom, if this is what principals do in high schools, then no wonder our students show up at college with deplorable ignorance about the world.

I thought the days of Patriotic Correctness were over. With the Dems taking over congress during the last midterm election, I thought it was clear that the nation no longer supported Bush's war. Not so in Wilton.

One of the most annoying criticisms launched at this production was that the students were not sophisticated or mature enough to be illuminating the rest of the student body about this issue. And yet, teenagers their age are fighting in this war.

Perhaps what this article has done for me is to question the wisdom that the best schools are to be found in affluent neighborhoods.

On the Distinction Between Feminist and Man-Hater

I had to write this post today because I take deep offense at women who call themselves feminists when all they really are are man-haters. It happens. Let's admit it and confront it. I am not sure that this real phenomena is responsible for the pop culture view that feminists=man-haters, but I'll leave that for someone else to figure out.

To make my point, I am going to use anecdotes (look I am a phenomenologist, if you want to hear what the "facts" are then go read a sociologist's blog).

Case #1: A female faculty member with vaguely conservative politics (anti-welfare, anti-African-American studies or Latin American studies, etc.) styles herself a feminist before inhumanely and harshly cutting down the male faculty in her department. Every man in her department is, necessarily, a sexist pig out to ruin her life and must be castrated. She in no way participates in any Women's Studies programming, she does not ally herself with progressive movements that want to fight sexism, racism or classism. She abhors colleagues with children and complains that they are getting "extra" compensation that she isn't because they are "breeders."

Case #2: A woman in a marriage with a man, who is perhaps passive or a bit oblivious. She doesn't respect his choices, ridicules his flaws (without consulting how she herself might be flawed), and proclaims that whenever he disagrees with her that he is a sexist. She conveniently uses "sexist" as a way of gaining power of a rather ineffectual husband. This case is particularly dangerous if such a woman conveys this sort of attitude toward her children. A man is not a sexist if he disagrees with your, or points out when you have been unfair or mean. A man is a sexist iff he is trying to control you out of a sense of his inherent superiority.

Perhaps some of you can think of other cases. My basic point here is that there are indeed women who have gained control over men, unfairly and ruthlessly, by asserting that the men were sexist pigs. When women do this they are no friends of the feminist movement. They also send very harmful and damaging message to younger people about inappropriate ways of treating men.

I have written about this before, but by embracing feminism, I am not embracing a worldview that sees all women as pure victims of maniacal males. Being a feminist does not mean all women are off the hook for what they do. Being a feminist does not prevent me from pointing out (see above) that some women are ruthless.

Feminism should mean that women are no better or worse than men are. In the pre-feminist days women were either the eternal feminine or chattel. Neither option left women with much humanity. Feminism should be about restoring humanity, including all the foibles and weaknesses, in our pictures of women. Women are not ruthless because they are women, from a feminist stance, they are ruthless because they are.

On Being Indifferent to Torture

Kerry has an excellent and haunting post up on torture, more specifically his experiences of teaching about torture. He writes:

Last semester I taught a seminar for senior philosophy majors on torture. It was a grueling experience for all of us. We combed through personal accounts from torture victims and perpetrators; we looked at UN and Amnesty International documentation on the prevalence of torture throughout the world today; we forced ourselves to explore the details of "favored" torture techniques; we read all the pertinent ethical analyses of torture, focusing especially on the "dirty hands" and "ticking bomb" justifications of it; we spent a great deal of time examining the psychological and spiritual disintegration experienced by torture victims--Elaine Scarry and Ariel Dorfman were especially helpful here; and we investigated "enhanced interrogation" and "extraordinary rendition" practices in the U.S.

There were 22 students in the seminar. They all worked hard, and I know that the material we went over frequently disturbed them immensely. I liked all of them. They're all good, decent, smart, well-informed people.

In our final meeting together, I invited each of them to share, now that the seminar was over, whether they thought torture was morally justifiable. One by one, each of them spoke. And when it was over, 18 of the 22 had said "yes." For them, at least under certain circumstances, torture was justifiable. Yes, yes, torture was a horrible thing. Yes, it was shocking. But for the sake of national security, it might be morally justifiable to do unspeakable things to one person in order to save others. In fact, it might even be morally obligatory.

In nearly 25 years of teaching, I've never been so shocked.

I am with him on this. He concludes with some speculations about why knowing more about torture simply does not make you more outraged that torture exists. But, ultimately, he is at a loss over why so many of us refuse to confront what a horrific damage torture does to persons and why it is one of the most abominable things we can do.

I wonder about this too. I have often wondered about it in a more, perhaps, mundane context of pledging for Sororties or Fraternities. I am amazed by how people who have actually been tortured by these experiences just chalk it up to tom foolery. Why would you ever want your precious child subjected to this horrific treatment. And, more importantly, why do we foolishly believe that we would emerge unscathed from torture, that we could move on and put it behind us?

In general, I wonder if I am just not made for this planet. I seem to lack a thick layer of indifference that might shield me from awful truths. I am too raw. But, I find it hard to believe that our students are so well insulated. Perhaps they are able to "justify" torture, because they truly believe that it will never happen to them. It is a form of magical thinking. And, more depressingly, a profound narcissism. They can care, suffer, and wince for the horror another experiences, but only to a point, because at bottom they are perhaps young enough, lucky enough, or foolish enough to think it will never happen to them.

It is downright distrubing to think that compassion or exasperation only flows from those who have already been injured (especially because being injured does not necessarily lead to those outcomes, it can make one more callous). I hope I am wrong about this.

On the "National Security Begins at Home" Bill: Sadistic PA Immigration Reform

I just caught the local news and the big story of "Immigration Reform." Apparently 4 Republican lawmakers unveiled an immigrant reform package entitled "National Security Begins at Home." These bills aim to prevent illegal immigrants from coming to PA by restricting them from almost all social services or privileges. One of the lawmakers in favor of this bill, Rep. Jim Cox, argued that there was noting harsh about this bill, it was quite simply a "strict enforcement of the law." Another Representative, Daryl Metcalfe, argued that illegal immigrants were harming P.A. citizens. The idea is that by allowing illegal immigrants to get health care at our hospitals we are costing PA taxpayers millions of dollars.

I hear these sort of anti-immigration arguments all the time and I generally shake my head and turn the channel. But this new proposed bill really bothers me. The idea that we would simply deny people working and living in our country access to healthcare is unconscionable. And, Rep. Cox's cavalier attitude is downright frightening to me. Who elects these people? What you have here is a distortion of the facts, aimed at startling PA taxpayers enough to support utterly inhumane legislation that further harms immigrants--whether legal or illegal in this country--and fuels racist sentiment.

Every time lawmakers go after illegal immigrants, and especially when they title their attacks "National Security Begins at Home," they are painting a bullseye on any immigrant that lives in PA or elsewhere in the United States. While the lawmakers stated purpose is to prevent illegal immigrants from crossing the borders, the unstated purpose (or to be more charitable, unintended consequence) is to fuel public intolerance to brown people with accents. Whenever you see news stories run about illegal immigration, you never see a handsome Swede or a young German woman working as an au pair. You get either images of "dirty mexicans" or jihadist Arabs. This fearmongering legislation effectively creates racism. When you hear repeated, over and over again, that illegal immigrants are costing tax payers and getting something that they don't deserve or that these same illegal immigrants are being incarcerated for other crimes, then you are teaching your average resident to resent if not hate these people. Consider what Rep. Metcalfe said:

"The taxpayers are picking up the tab, whether it's incarcerating illegals who have committed crimes or it's paying for health care benefits for illegal immigrants that are tapping into our system -- or if it's paying for the education of the illegal aliens' children that are here."

The ACLU of PA have helpful "talking points" to combat this kind of hateful distortion of how immigrants affect PA citizens. What is worth noting, in particular, is that illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes that native citizens and are going to prison "in smaller proportions than their share of the population at large." But, hey, as Rep. Cox says

"I personally don't think it's harsh. I think it's strictly an enforcement of the law. And if we stick to the law, we're not going to be caught up in the emotional argument."

I love it when people who use fear tactics and emotionally charged "arguments" turn around and say things like, "hey, stop being emotional about this, its a simple legal issue." You have politicians misrepresenting the immigrant population, teaching citizens to see these people as a threat to national security, wanting to deny them the few services they do have, and then you have the balls to say it's not harsh. Of course these same politicians fail to mention that these same immigrants pay Social Security, Income Tax and Sales Tax. To do so would be too level-headed, to evenhanded, and thereby less effective in persuading ill informed, down on their luck, PA citizens to support their sadistic legislation.