That the Rutgers women are so content, even happy, shows only how deep their oppression goes. They've been fully acclimatized to male hegemony, and so now see their subjugation as not only "normal", but healthy. Classic false consciousness.
The pluralist guide rulz!
Friday, July 22, 2011
The Pluralist Guide Rulz!
I take it from the final sentence that the following comment was intended to be ironic. If so, well done!
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25 comments:
Comments with that same basic message were posted (and then deleted??) on the Feminist Philosophers blog. Crazy!
I don't see this as likely to be ironic, but it's not sincere, either. It's more like a POE, with a winky-thing at the end.
The target of the Poe comes from this fool:
Analytic philosophy remains and will always remain closed to ‘continental philosophy’ of any but the ‘analyticized’ kind (i.e., the kind of continental philosophy that eliminates all the continental bits like style and like authors referred to in favor of analytic bits).
The reason for denying the distinction between the two, for arguing that such distinctions should be abolished, is the logical consequence of this closed approach. Thus one speaks of “philosophy” just philosophy – which is coincidentally the method of choice in analytic philosophy to exclude or banish whatever one does not wish to engage, one argues that the refused is simply not doing philosophy.
Q. E. D.
[comment #30 @ http://www.newappsblog.com/2011/07/queering-the-analyticcontinental-distinction.html]
There really is an air of unreality in some of these controversies regarding gender, and, for that matter, race.
Am I the only one who thinks it odd that, in a discipline in which it is not considered odd to speculate that we might all be brains in a vat, it appears to be considered completely beyond the pale to entertain the possibility that women aren't so numerous in philosophy importantly because of biological differences (on average)?
Is it really simply beyond possibility that, just as women are different in a thousand obvious ways physiologically from men, they might be in their distribution of mostly inherent cognitive and personality traits?
It is worthwhile exercise, I think, for philosophers to engage a thought experiment in which they suppose for the moment that there really DO exist such differences. What, in those circumstances, comes, or should come, of the many policies that are now adopted as essentially beyond dispute with regard to how philosophy departments (among others) must promote women beyond their current numbers?
The un'analyticized' kind of philosopher and friends:
http://www.facebook.com/people/Babette-Babich/685917806
http://theoriekritik.wordpress.com
Also, http://philosophicalchasm.blogspot.com, for more of the same.
11:52. Everyone knows Asians are better at math
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe%27s_Law
12:50:
"Everyone knows Asians are better at math"
No, the issue is, how right is it to adopt policies that take as a given that Asians simply can't be better at math (again, in their distribution)? Should we, say, try to suppress their numbers in engineering disciplines?
At the risk of legitimizing 11:52's silly view by responding to it:
When your project is to ask what there is and what we should do about it, if roughly half of the population is (as you propose) constitutionally incapable of participating in your method for addressing those questions, then it's a standing criticism of your methodology not a curious fact about the project.
This isn't arm wrestling; this is trying to figure out how to navigate the world around us. Insofar as women are included in the 'us' (And I think we're all on the same page about civil rights, yes? Women are people.) they're a part of the project.
wv: gesses
As in: I'll give you three gesses as to why you're defending an utterly absurd position, and the first two don't count.
to 11:52. we don't have to imagine anything. There are known differences between men and women. But they simply cannot account for the disparity in the gender distribution especially compared to how many women are in some related fields like linguistics and many of the sciences. On the other hand, there has been a long history of extreme discrimination against women. So the most likely explanation for the differences lie in social not biological explanations.
1:32:
"When your project is to ask what there is and what we should do about it, if roughly half of the population is (as you propose) constitutionally incapable of participating in your method for addressing those questions, then it's a standing criticism of your methodology not a curious fact about the project."
Frankly, that's a truly awful argument. Where, I ask, did I say anything to the effect that all women ("half the population") were "constitutionally incapable" of engaging the issues I raised? Where? Where did I set up a threshold under which no women, but any number of men, might be able to address these questions?
Again, it's an issue of distributions and numbers and abilities at certain disciplines. It may be that, say, in the natural course of things, far more men than women reach the top level of achievement in physics. But that does NOT imply that there can't be a Lisa Randall who attains that level.
Maybe I misread this paragraph:
"Is it really simply beyond possibility that, just as women are different in a thousand obvious ways physiologically from men, they might be in their distribution of mostly inherent cognitive and personality traits?"
Which seemed to suggest to me not that philosophical ability is unconnected to differences of sex and that its random distribution just happens to come out in an unbalanced fashion (i.e. that we're recognizing a pattern where there isn't one), but rather that the distribution of philosophical ability is systematically connected to differences of sex in the same way that physiological differences are.
If the latter isn't what you're suggesting, then the comparison with physiology is a pretty odd way to go about it. If it is what you're suggesting, then the argument is that this isn't possible given a) the kind of questions philosophy addresses and b) our general acceptance of equality of men and women in certain relevant respects.
The "half of the population" phrasing was admittedly unclear; I had in mind a rough washing out of the probabilistically advantaged men who still didn't make the cut and the probabilistically disadvantaged women who did. This is sloppy, but also completely beside the point. The point is the incompatibility of the nature of the project, what we know about actual women/minorities/whoever, and this sort of systematic differentiation in ability along those lines.
2:50:
The point of my bringing up obvious physiological differences between men and women was to support the point that many kinds of differences in traits IN DISTRIBUTION between men and women might well hold as well.
Now some physiological differences between men and women effectively separate them across the groups, including, plainly, differences in sex organs. But other physiological differences are better understood as differences in distribution (or at least as having an effect on certain distributions). Thus men tend to be stronger and taller than women, even if there are many women who are taller and stronger than many men.
This, I suggest, may be the case with certain cognitive and personality traits. At bare minimum, there is simply no good reason in the world to believe otherwise.
So what kind of policies would be the fairest if such differences in distribution hold? If, say, 20% of tenured faculty in philosophy are women, is that less than one would expect, based on actual underlying abilities, or more? I don't claim to know the answer to that question. But the presumption that it absolutely MUST be less is based on nothing but a scientifically ungrounded assumption.
I generally back the idea that Affirmative Action is important, even if it may force the numbers of women and/or minorities to a higher level than the underlying level of abilities would in isolation support. There's something important to be said for members of groups enjoying role models, and feeling part of an endeavor.
But if those numbers are pushed too far beyond their "natural" level, then it is a recipe for rather grotesque unfairness on an individual level, and a corruption of the intellectual enterprise.
Anon 3:21
Rather than pointing out the fact that there are physiological differences between males and females, and claiming that this gives good reason for us to believe that there could be some physiological mechanism that alters the distribution of philosophical talent, why not point out what exactly this mechanism is or might be?
If you have no theory other than "men and women aren't physiologically identical, therefore we have good reason to believe that their differing physiology affects distribution of ability" you should probably hesitate to endorse that position publicly. Unless you can point to the actual mechanism (like we can in your strength example) it seems like you're reaching.
You also say there is no reason in the world to believe otherwise, yet it seems to me that there is. We can point out differences in the sociological treatment of women that explain the differences in numbers better than physiology can. We can actually provide real sociological explanations, while you've provided no real explanation at all.
You're making an empirical claim, but one that is too nebulous to be tested. If you believe physiology affects the distribution of philosophical ability, suggest a mechanism through which it works.
Are there really THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of differences between males and females? Whoa. And there I was, thinking there were BILLIONS and BILLIONS.
Well put 4:28.
There has been decades of scientific and social scientific research on 'sex differences' that when subjected to meta-analyses show that there are few to no innate differences in cognitive abilities or aptitudes. Any individual studies that have show differences have results that are not statistically significant.
Also:
"women are different in a thousand obvious ways physiologically from men"
For the sake of comedy could you please try to draw up a list of 1000 obvious ways? or even 100? In reality, this is simply not true either. The physiological differences between the sexes, scientifically speaking and at general population levels, are minuscule, with more significant difference occurring among males and females than between them as groups. Even reproductive systems are related in terms of fundamental structures that develop differently depending on hormone exposure in the womb. Indeed, they are identical in the early stages of gestation.
Philosophers too often argue from the basis of subjective intuitions and never bother to acquire an adequate understanding the objects in question.
Is Anonymous 11:52 the very same David Stove that published one of the worst articles ever in the 1990 Proceedings of the Russellian Society?
There really is an air of unreality in some of these controversies regarding gender, and, for that matter, race.
Am I the only one who thinks it odd that, in a discipline in which it is not considered odd to speculate that we might all be brains in a vat, it appears to be considered completely beyond the pale to entertain the possibility that women aren't so numerous in philosophy importantly because of evil misogynist gremlins?
Is it really simply beyond possibility that, just as the coelacanth was thought to be extinct, purportedly fantastic creatures like gremlins might be actual – and might be responsible for the status of women in the profession of philosophy?
It is worthwhile exercise, I think, for philosophers to engage a thought experiment in which they suppose for the moment that there really DO exist such gremlins. What, in those circumstances, comes, or should come, of the many policies that are now adopted as essentially beyond dispute with regard to how philosophy departments (among others) must promote women beyond their current numbers?
You demand that I provide a detailed mechanism as to how genetic differences between men and women might underpin differences in cognitive abilities. I don't know why you think that demand must be satisfied.
Would you seriously argue that, say, before the discovery of the mechanism whereby men were on average stronger and taller than women, it was simply unknowable, or rank speculation, that these differences were based on genes, or something inherently physiological that differed between the genders?
Look, we routinely attribute all sorts of differences between men and women to the underlying difference between XX vs XY chromosomes in advance of a detailed understanding of how the genetics brings about the phenotypical differences. Many diseases, for example, strike one gender more frequently than others. We don't need a mechanism to assume as the most likely explanation that the difference is due ultimately to the chromosomal difference between the genders.
And you claim that all of the cognitive differences between men and women can be well explained by purely sociological accounts, and so we can discount any genetic explanation. I just don't see how you come to that conclusion. There are, in fact, competing explanations as to the true cause of the differences between men and women's achievements in various disciplines. One explanation strongly emphasizes the environment; one the genetics; and there are between the extremes all degrees of combinations. I can't for the life of me see on what ground one can simply dismiss the genetic explanation as unworthy even of consideration.
One useful summary of the current debate can be found in the following link, which pits Stephen Pinker against Elizabeth Spelke.
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/debate05/debate05_index.html
Now I can see how someone might find Spelke's argument more convincing than Pinker's -- though I will say that I don't. Yet what I don't see is how one can simply dismiss as below consideration even the possibility that genetics might play a major role in the relevant differences between men and women. The plausibility of the largely genetic account seems very hard to dispute.
Which returns me to my overarching point. Namely, we need to adopt policies which do NOT assume as given that the differences in achievement between men and women in various disciplines and sub-disciplines are simply going to go away with properly enforced social and professional restrictions. Those policies should, instead, be flexible enough that the numbers of women in a given field might reach a natural level quite different indeed from 50% (and, again, one might quite reasonably adopt some Affirmative Action addition to the "natural" numbers, in service of the goals I mentioned in a previous comment).
Oops,
The previous comment (of 11:46) was meant in response to anon@4:28.
It's too bad that there's no way to empirically test whether gender-related differences in achievement are more strongly influenced by gender-related differences in genetics or by gender-related differences in the environment, and so the issue has never been studied in any detail whatsoever, which means that all we are left with is consequent-affirming thought-experiments of the sort proposed by the anonymous nitwit @ 11:52.
I strongly believe that most women's love for ponies prevents them from any deep or careful thought about the nature of reality.
Thanks for this post, pretty effective piece of writing.
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