Archive for the 'Ladies' Category

Can it be a child and a choice?

Published
by
Nicola Karras
on September 3, 2008
in Ladies and Politics
. 2 Comments

The GOP is more pro-choice than it thinks.

If you don’t think that abortion is murder — and, let’s face it, if you favor exemptions for rape and incest you really don’t — the morality of any given abortion comes down to what it says about the woman involved, not some deontological prohibition on abortion per se.

If the value of an embryo is as a potential person — the sort of thing that can one day have a mind and/or soul — then abortion isn’t a morally neutral thing. The trouble comes when this sort-of-bad-but-not-super-bad thing (destroying a thing that may one day become a person) comes into conflict with a woman’s decisions about her body.

If gestation happened in a box rather than a person, there would be no good reason to pull the plug. Since it does happen in a person — and since that person risks anything from discomfort and inconvenience to death — it’s not so black and white. Every circumstance is different: the ultimate question for woman with an unwanted pregnancy is how much pain, distress, and change to the rest of her life she’s willing to endure for the sake of a potential person.

It’s entirely coherent to say that abortion is bad, but that women should be able to have them. In that framework, the decision becomes a measure of circumstance and values: it tells us something about the character of the woman involved. (Of course, it might just tell us that she’s a fourteen-year-old who is psychologically unprepared to spend nine months carrying the memory of her rape — it can’t a blanket judgment of all women who have abortions or all women who don’t.)

For all the platform’s talk about banning abortion entirely, this is the framework that the McCain campaign has embraced. They want us to know that it was a choice:

Bristol Palin made the decision on her own to keep the baby, McCain aides said. (Reuters)

The emphasis here is not so much in the right outcome, but the right choice. And the emphasis on agency, on people rather than incubators, can only be good for women.

Feminism for some, miniature American flags for others!

Published
by
Nicola Karras
on September 3, 2008
in Ladies and Politics
. 0 Comments

I’ve been busy moving and protesting Yale’s extracurricular bazaar —

Alternate banners include: "Go back to class"; "Yale is not for fun"; "No, I don't sing."

…and, yes, blogging elsewhere. Today, I bring you Sarah Palin as Anti-Woman:

As the Democrats’ talking points remind us ad nauseam, Hillary Clinton put eighteen million cracks in the glass ceiling. They’d love to see a woman in the White House. They care about women’s issues. They would never hold a candidate’s gender against her.

No sir, no sexism here.

As they say, read the whole thing. I disagree with Palin about a lot (creationism, abortion, sex education), but freedom from sexist attacks shouldn’t be a reward for having the right stances on the issues.

More on Palin, women, and the politics of abortion after I’ve checked this out.

Breaking news - Sarah Palin is McCain’s running mate.

Published
by
Kate Maltby
on August 29, 2008
in Ladies and Politics
. 3 Comments

The Alaskan governor is pro-life and a Washington outsider, both of which will appeal to suburban America. McCain is really trying to pick up the angry women who supported Hilary at the same as load his ticket with representatives of truly rural, credit-crunched conservative Americans.

I’ll say it boosts his chances of winning, but at a steep price for the women’s movement. I was recently criticized by feminist friends by blogging here that a woman VP candidate, after the gender issues that have dominated coverage of Hilary’s defeat, would look like such tokenism that it could be the torchpaper to an anti-feminist backlash. Given that Palin is already being summarized as “young … and relatively unknown“, it’s not a far step to “only chosen because she’s female”. The yelling matches that erupt over her qualifications are unlikely to be helpful to the cause of women making it on merit.

Fortunately, however, there’s already a good scandal in her closet to distract us. The attack dogs are here and here.

Consolation Prizes

Published
by
Kate Maltby
on August 21, 2008
in Ladies, Links and Politics
. 5 Comments

Coates and Sullivan are both puffing this little paragraph from Dana Goldstein:

Sebelius, of course, would be the bold, unconventional choice — very Obama. But by choosing a female running mate, Obama would, unfortunately, thrust the Hillary die-hards and their ever-more marginal discontentment back into the spotlight. That said, anyone who believes that only Hillary Clinton deserves to be the first female president or vice president doesn’t deserve the designation “feminist.” So I’d relish watching the reactions to a Sebelius nod, not only because such a choice would double down on Obama’s most effective message — “change” — but because it would reveal exactly which Clinton boosters are ready to widen the lens and enthusiastically support women’s leadership as such.

Really? I’m surprised no one seems to be picking up that Obama appointing a female VP in these circumstances would mark a serious set-back for the feminist movement. It’s widely accepted that such an appointment would constitute an attempt by Obama to apologize to feminists for beating Hilary to the job that really matters. Goldstein herself draws her argument from the belief that it would “double down” on Obama’s message of change, i.e. remind everyone that he won’t let those nasty old white men keep all the jobs. So surely the great American public is quite capable of drawing the same inference - and then assuming en masse that Sebelius can dismissed as merely a token floozy.

While the VP’s job has long been little more than helping the candidate cover some demographic bases, it would be sad to see such a blatant confirmation of it. And the more superficial the VP job becomes, the less of a feminist triumph is it to see a woman in the post. Just as affirmative action inspires resentment, so parachuting a woman in to burnish Obama’s feminist credentials is only going to inspire the Rush Limbaughs of this world to claim that women are now doing down men. It might even give the naive cause to think that 2008 constituted a successful year for women in public life, instead of the year that exposed the endemic misogyny underlying media responses to strong women. So Goldstein is wrong to claim that feminists should be supporting “female leadership as such”. We want to see more women taken seriously on their own merits, not because they fulfill quotas. And we’d like to see it in jobs that actually count.

Chairman Dave’s Little Black Book

Published
by
Kate Maltby
on August 8, 2008
in Across The Pond, Extemporanea, Ladies, Politics and Social Theory
. 2 Comments

Anyone who cares about social decay should be heartened to see Michael Gove, the British Conservative Shadow Secretary for Children, Schools and Families speak out against the endemic pornographication of the female body in “Lads Mags” and “men’s magazines”. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, has dropped in a fair few references to our culture of sexualisation in his time as well. Being a Tory, he hasn’t even made the mistake of advocating censorship, but rather throws around concepts of “commercial responsibility” and “social awareness”.

It’s a shame, then, that “commercial responsibility” hasn’t started a little closer to home. Samantha Cameron, David’s elegant wife, is Creative Director of Smythson of Bond Street, London’s most exclusive stationary shop. It’s not a haunt I usually inhabit, but my sister has expensive tastes, so I recently trotted along, as firmly instructed by a birthday wishlist, to rub shoulders with the Duchesses and design divas gasping over bijou party invitations and business cards. Imagine my shock, in such illustrious surroundings, on seeing a display stack of a very special kind of gentleman’s notebook. For a mere £40.00, you can treat the man of your choice to a little black telephone book divided into three sections: Redheads (A-Z), Brunettes (A-Z), Blondes (A-Z). The shop assistant tells me that it’s one of Smythson’s most popular sellers. Now, I’m all for allowing politician’s spouses to retain an apolitical role, with an independent life. Samantha Cameron has never tried to make herself a public figure. But I’m sure David would agree with me that it’s a sad world in which a man’s record in casual sexual encounters remains a mark of such admirable prowess that it’s worth keeping a record in a beautifully bound Smythson quality leather product.

If you’re not a YPU nerd, look away now

Published
by
Kate Maltby
on July 21, 2008
in Ladies, Navel Gazing and Yale
. 13 Comments

So I’m a bit late to join the “women in academia or the YPU” party (some of us have real summer jobs, you know) but as a wannabe academic-cum-YPU hack I just couldn’t restrain myself. Dara’s right to argue that we should look at “success as the field defines it”, which is why I’m surprised that no one of my fellow “Union-theory” obsessives has mentioned the political elephant on the room : that according to the obscure nature of Yale Political Union, “Union” posts are actually fairly low-status, as opposed to “Party” office. With the strength of the Parties comes an assumption that “real leadership”, charismatic and intellectual, comes through Party Chairmanship - this is seen as glamorous leadership compared to the administrative responsibilities of the elected Executive Board. So on positions occupied, the YPU no longer seems such a women-friendly place after all, when you notice that for the forthcoming semester, only 1 out of 7 Party Chairmen will be a woman (Jane Hu, of the Progs, the smallest party). 

Within the YPU, the charismatic leadership to which the many aspiring politicos are taught to aspire is explicitly described as masculine.  I’ve never forgotten the very semester I arrived, hearing a dear and intelligent friend state that “leadership has two main areas - administrative management, and inspiration of other people to follow a vision. Obviously, a woman can do the first, but not the second.” This past semester, the very same friend told me “when given the option, a Fall Chairman should always be a man, because he has to inspire new recruits to join his party, and obviously a man in charge will always be more inspirational than a woman”. (N.B. It’s not who you think it is, and I’m not going to tell you).

Of course, if you’re still reading this you’re enough of YPUer to know that the cult of Chairmanship is more powerful in the POR than in any other party. But I’ve heard similar sentiment in other parties (the IP, Tories and POL) - and from members of AdComm explaining that the masculine / feminine dichotomy is  necessary to the very fabric of the YPU. 

The argument goes like this: the YPU is defined by conflict between Parties - at its best, this is competition for intellectual supremacy which makes us all fiercer thinkers. The members of EBoard have to co-ordinate these components and weave together the different parts to make a harmony. Men are naturally more aggressive and confrontational, women more harmonious…Male Party Chairman, Female EBoard = great.  Whether or not we actually buy into gendered conventions of “warrior” or “peacemaker”, as long as others around us in the YPU do, they will be part of the parlance that defines our YPU careers - even if there’s still a status inequality given that leading one’s close comrades is widely considered more significant than leading the Union.

So where does this relate to larger claims about affirmative action and academia? Well, certainly the analogy of warrior and peacemaker holds true for academia. A Yalie who graduated a few years ago and is now a PhD student in philosophy told me recently that “Academia at the highest levels is a blood sport, it really is. It’s all about whose argument you savaged last and whether anyone else has been able to tear a strip off your latest publication. When I meet academics socially, who don’t know my work, and tell them that I want to go into the field, they tell me ‘but you seem like a sweet girl, you’re probably too nice for this’.” In the other side of the field, a Yale academic who served her time on ExComm told me “they’re always trying to get women onto the pastoral and disciplinary committees, because we’re apparently more student friendly”. Anecdotal evidence, but in both cases stemming from years of experience at the hard end.

So for both our microcosm of the YPU and the only larger world that really matters, academia, affirmative action doesn’t stand a chance of succeeding unless it adapts to the subtle discourses that define and redefine success. And as both fields success is chiefly measured by the approbation of the community as a whole, the discourse has to change before anything approaching collective action, conscious or subconscious, can help anyone. Let’s face it, if communities frequently went in for affirmative action in combating their own stereotypes, affirmative action of the tangible kind we usually refer to would never have been proposed in the first place.

And because this is a late night (British time) rant to friends, rather than a structured blog post for public consumption, on that inelegant note I’m going to bed.

Overstretched, or Kicked Upstairs?

Published
by
Dara Lind
on July 17, 2008
in General Scholarship, Ladies, Navel Gazing and Yale
. 18 Comments

David Broockman thinks Kay Steiger’s post on women in academia could be turned into an argument against affirmative action. Maybe that’s true, but only because I think she infers too much too readily. Here’s the gist:

Once women earn tenure and arrive at the institution they immediately begin getting pulled into various “service” commitments. This includes heading committees, become program coordinators, or take other leadership roles. While this is good for women that long to go into administration at a university, it often pulls female professors away from research…I think the urge is to make sure women are represented in leadership roles but when this pulls time away from their principal mission of research, it becomes a bad thing.

On the face of it, I can see why it’s easy to read this as a simple affirmative-action narrative. But I’m surprised that Broockman didn’t pick up on the fact that the affirmative-action motive is inferred, and start thinking if there might be something else going on. Especially because he’s in the Yale Political Union, where a similar phenomenon takes place, and there is very definitely something else going on.

You see, the YPU on the whole doesn’t have anything close to gender parity, at least among active members. And at any given debate, women are much less likely to speak than men are. But the Union’s executive board has represented something pretty close to a 50/50 split during the three years I’ve been around, and the top three positions have been held by more women than men during that time.

But here’s the result, as in Steiger’s example: while women end up running the show — managing, that is — men are able to devote themselves to success in the field as the field itself defines it (for Steiger, research; for the YPU, debating prowess), and therefore continue to be labeled “leaders”. This is only progressive in the same way that, say, thanking a housewife for the hard work she does is progressive: it’s nice to have the recognition, but it’d be nicer to acknowledge that maybe she’d rather be doing something other than housework.

But even to get the acknowledgment, women have to get noticed and taken seriously, which is tricky in an environment where they’re underrepresented. And often, the way to get noticed and groomed for leadership is to get things done, and get them done well. It’s hard to mount an impressive track record in intellectualism as a freshman, because intellectualism doesn’t lend itself to track records; it’s much easier to hang posters and organize events and do other things that mark one for “management.” Like female academics, they get siphoned out early and therefore miss the chance to get everything they can out of the environment they’re in.

So I really can’t see this as a reason to oppose affirmative action, but rather to ensure that the pools from which candidates are selected are of equal size, so that women don’t feel the need to “prove themselves” in male-dominated settings. Much more importantly, though, we need to recognize that in plenty of fields (academia, sure, but what about advertising? Programming?) many of the roles that get marked as “service”, “management” or “administration” aren’t positions of authority in the least; rather, the managers are those who keep things running so that other people can do what they came to the field to do in the first place, and get all the glory in the long haul.

I’m all for specialization, but let’s be honest about it. Appointing a junior academic to the position of program coordinator, regardless of gender, isn’t a promotion but a qualitative job shift. I think many of the problems that affirmative action hasn’t fixed or has exacerbated might be addressed if we stopped thinking purely in terms of organizational flowcharts but also in terms of social capital or personal fulfillment. And I certainly think that the trends Steiger notices might begin to reverse if tenure committees et al. had it brought to their attention that their actions were the ivory-tower equivalent of telling their daughters: “Oh, no, little girls can’t be doctors. Why don’t you pretend to be the Head Nurse instead?”

Illicit: not the same as illegal.

Published
by
Dara Lind
on July 14, 2008
in Ladies
. 2 Comments

Helen asks:

We can debate the behavior of the clerk in question, but the fundamental question is: Should a fifteen-year-old’s experience of buying a pregnancy test be unpleasant for her?

I disagree. I think the question is: Why should it be permissible to invent a law that doesn’t exist for the purpose of shaming an individual whose behavior you feel to be immoral? It’s pretty clear to me that that’s what the clerk was doing — at very least, she was under a misapprehension and didn’t reconsider it in the face of contrary evidence — and in fairness, Helen hasn’t tried to argue otherwise. However, she seems to treat it as of a piece with anything else the clerk could have done: lecturing the girls, handing them a Bible, telling them her register was closed, etc.

I think it is probably true that the transgressing legal norms carries much more shame than transgressing social ones in contemporary America, so it’s likely that nothing the clerk could have done would have been as likely to be effective as what she did. But it seems to me that the right answer in the long term isn’t to appropriate the force of the law — especially when it doesn’t actually exist for this purpose — but rather to reinforce social norms so that they have comparable force.

This is especially true in this situation, when the would-be customer had an advocate with her who actually knew the rule, and therefore “defeated” the clerk by proving her wrong. Had the clerk kept her reaction within the realm of the social, the defender would have looked much more silly and petulant in writing her post — “How dare they judge us at all?” — and Helen’s response would be entirely justified. As it was, the post reads as much of triumph as of righteous anger: “They tried to lie to my friend; luckily, I was with her, and I knew the facts!” It’s extremely difficult to shame someone once she feels you’ve conceded the moral high ground to her.

Shame, with Love at strife.

Published
by
Kate Maltby
on July 13, 2008
in Ladies, Media and Social Theory
. 1 Comment

Helen continues her advance on the heights of literary society by getting paid to blog ’bout ha’ obsessions. Shame culture, as ever, is on the agenda, as today Ms Rittelmeyer applauds the cashier who told a teenager trying to buy a pregnancy test that “you shouldn’t be having sex in the first place”. Helen has long championed “shame culture” over “guilt culture”, a distinction known to popular parlance ever since ER Dodds identified Homeric society as a “shame society” (even if JT Hooker’s analysis of Iliad threatened to prove him wrong). According to Helen, in a moral society, there should be no “freedom from shame”. The problem is that the example she has picked to illustrate it, on further examination, actually illustrates shame failing to police the teenage sexual activity that Helen so deplores.

According to Helen’s argument, teenagers should cease a behavioural practice simply because other people will express disapproval (which is why Benedict, in her groundbreaking study of shame culture in Japan, defined it as fundamentally collectivist social trait).  Letting aside the obvious protests about the tyranny of the majority, this doesn’t involve the girl in question making a change to her own moral philosophy, just going to enough lengths not to get caught. What the individual does in private doesn’t matter, unless the consequences of that action ever become public and identifiable. This is fine if you think the problem can be solved by the teenager using enough contraception to ensure she never has to face another check out clerk. That’s not what the clerk herself had in mind, however, given that she was keen to dictate her customer that “you shouldn’t be having sex at all”. 

The social behaviour actually enforced by the clerk was: Buying pregnancy tests is shameful. Therefore, don’t buy pregnancy tests at all. 

This, of course, is no help to anyone. Whatever your views on abortion, it’s clear that the earlier a pregnancy is discovered, the better. 

We now live in a society where sex has been largely divorced from its visible consequences. So to use shame culture to stop someone having extramarital sex, you have to ensure that shame is inherent in the very moment of the sexual act. You can’t rely on pregnancy itself being shameful. Sexual acts only take place in the presence of people who approve of them. So the only way in which a disapproving spectator can be philosophically introduced is through belief in God. It is possible to teach people to feel shame in the sight of God. 

And isn’t that what we Christian cultures just call guilt?

Puts her cold feet on husband at night to warm them: minus one.

Published
by
Nicola Karras
on May 14, 2008
in Extemporanea, Ladies and Navel Gazing
. 1 Comment

 

From the APA, a 1939 rating scale for spouses. (The rest of the chart, including that for men, is on Flickr now. I love the internets.) I get a 27. The boyfriend gets 45. I suspect this is because, in the absence of children, I can’t get many of the merits.

Well, either that or standards for good spouses have changed significantly in the last 70 years. I would suggest a few additional merits, especially for college students:

  • Shows a genuine interest in $PARTNER’s computer or video games.
  • Willing to share the last Red Bull with $PARTNER.
  • Buys embarrassing things at the drugstore if $PARTNER can’t.
  • Agrees with $PARTNER about abortion. (10)
  • Is capable of sleeping in a single bed without elbowing $PARTNER in the face.
  • Agrees with $PARTNER about postmodernism. (20)
  • Does not mock $PARTNER’s major. Well, not excessively.