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Feminist Philosophers

News feminist philosophers can use

Constructing the Myth of the Crack Baby May 21, 2013

Filed under: disability,discrimination,gender,intersectionality,law,medicine,miosgyny,race — Stacey Goguen @ 5:12 pm

Ta Nehisi Coates has a short blurb about about the crack baby ‘epidemic’ in the early 1980s in the US.  You can also watch a ten minute video / short documentary about it here.

pic

a pregnant woman with one hand resting on her belly.

Coates mentions the influence of racism in how women were being prosecuted for being pregnant while addicted to cocaine. In fact, there’s a whole confluence of racism, classism, misogyny, and ableism that feed into the crack baby hysteria:
–the racism and classism that goes into poor WoC being more easily seen as irresponsible mothers who were recklessly endangering their unborn children
–the general misogyny that a woman’s health (like helping her with her addiction) is not nearly as important as the health of the her unborn child (so she should be prosecuted for potentially harming it.)
–the ableism that influence our standards of health.  Part of the hysteria was that babies would be born with physical and cognitive disabilities, which not only lead us to think of them as not being fully human, but we were then also concerned about all the extra money they disabled kids would cost us.  Because you know, the *tragedy* here is not that there are a bunch of women addicted to a dangerous drug, but that people’s taxes will go up from from all these costly, disabled babies.

Eek, it’s like a messed-up game of “spot how the -ism influences our moral concerns.”

 

Rape conviction rates up, but… April 29, 2013

Filed under: domestic violence,law,police,rape — cornsay @ 5:25 pm
Tags: , ,

It was reported last week that conviction rates for rape in the UK are higher than they’ve ever been. 63% of prosecutions in 2012/13 resulted in a conviction, which is 5% more than five years previously. Similar success is reported regarding domestic violence. This is, of course, good news. However, it’s not quite a straightforward success.

First,  the ‘conviction’ rate includes all convictions resulting from the prosecution, many of which are not actually for rape (someone might, for example, be tried for rape and convicted of a lesser sexual offence). In 2010/11, the actual rate of conviction for rape was 33% out of an overall conviction rate of 58%. The same is likely to apply to the reported figure for 2012/13.

Second, as the initial linked article points out, another main complaint about the legal process concerns the proportion of reported rapes which result in a prosecution. According to this article, an annual average of 15 670 reports results in an average of 2 910 prosecutions. That’s about 19%. So even if 63% of those 2910 cases result in convictions, that’s a mere 11% of the original reported total. In other words, 89% of reported rapes don’t result in any sort of conviction. Bear in mind that the Crown Prosecution Service recently released a report (pdf) which establishes pretty comprehensively that false allegations of rape are extremely rare.

Third, yet another problem with the legal process is the fact that so many people are discouraged from reporting rape in the first place. For fairly obvious reasons, statistics on under-reporting are hard to come by or verify (one estimate attributed to the Ministry of Justice in the Independent article above is 60 000 to 95 000 — that’s quite a variation between the upper and lower limits). But it’s apparent that this is a problem, and it’s apparent that even if conviction rates continue to increase, there’s a lot more to be done to improve the legal and policing environment which results in under-reporting and under-prosecution.

 

 

Picking Our Battles: The Paradox of Power & Social Justice March 26, 2013

Filed under: discrimination,family,glbt,hostile workplace,internet,law,social activism,trans issues,work — Stacey Goguen @ 8:04 pm

Yesterday I was watching the Melissa Harris Perry (MHP) Show and legal scholar  Kenji Yoshino talked about a possible paradox at play in regards to the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruling on Prop 8 (and the other case that no one seems to reference by name).  He brought up the following point: a group has to have a significant amount of political power in order to even make it to the Supreme Court, who will rule on whether they are being discriminated against.  This can be restated as,

“A group must have an immense amount of political power before it will be deemed politically powerless by the Court.”

I can’t find the exact clip, though here is Sunday’s MHP show.  And since I was forced to search the internet for another mention of Yoshino’s quote, I stumbled across a law review article he wrote on the topic (no pay wall!).

Today I was reminded of this paradox as I logged onto Facebook and was greeted with a newsfeed awash in red and pink:

equal

a pink equals sign on a red background

(more after the jump)

(more…)

 

More forced ultrasound measures February 26, 2013

Filed under: abortion,autonomy,health,law,politics — philodaria @ 3:47 am

This time in Indiana, with double the ultrasounds. 

“The bill, approved by the state Senate Health and Provider Services Committee on Wednesday, would require clinics to conduct trans-vaginal ultrasounds on women both before and after dispensing the abortion-inducing drug known as RU-486.”

Oh, and the “argument” against medically unnecessary trans-vaginal ultrasounds being too invasive? Sue Swayze, the legislative director of Indiana Right to Life, had this to say:

“I got pregnant vaginally.  Something else could come in my vagina for a medical test that wouldn’t be that intrusive to me.  So I find that argument a little ridiculous.”

I take it the natural reductio to this argument is obvious.

 

Marriage Equality in the UK: Big Progress February 5, 2013

Filed under: law,marriage,sexual orientation — Jender @ 8:41 pm

It’s passed the House of Commons by a huge majority. Now on to the House of Lords. Of course, philosopher Roger Scruton was on the wrong side of this one, with the argument that “gay marriage is homophobic”.

Note: this post has been updated in light of the excellent point made in the first comment!

 

Who is Notre Dame? January 30, 2013

Filed under: health,law,reproductive rights — philodaria @ 1:07 am

More on the Notre Dame lawsuit regarding the federal contraceptive coverage rule from Kathryn Pogin and Bridgette Dunlap at the Huffington Post.

The claim to RFRA’s protections for “persons” would seem to rest on one of two theories: either that the term “person” should be read to include a corporation, or, that the corporation represents as-of-yet unidentified human persons, as when a church sues on behalf of parishioners. Notre Dame’s court submissions exhibit confusion on this point, referring to Notre Dame both as having a “conscience” in the singular (suggesting the former), and as having plural “consciences” (suggesting the latter). . .

Regardless of who the lawsuit envisions as the protected belief-holder(s), we believe the proposition that Notre Dame can hold one unified religious belief is antithetical to the very purpose of a university. Notre Dame’s administration appears to disagree. Should it appeal the dismissal of the lawsuit or refile once the contraceptive coverage rule is finalized, the plaintiff should plead who or what is the person that holds the beliefs alleged. Perhaps more importantly, it should inform the members of the Notre Dame community, and those considering joining it, who can rightly claim “We Are ND.”

 

Are you irresistible? You can be fired for that. December 22, 2012

Filed under: appearance,law,work — philodaria @ 1:13 am

I’m no legal scholar, but it strikes me as wrong (on so many levels) that you could be fired because some one else can’t keep their libido in check.

A dentist acted legally when he fired an assistant that he found attractive simply because he and his wife viewed the woman as a threat to their marriage, the all-male Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday.

The court ruled 7-0 that bosses can fire employees they see as an “irresistible attraction,” even if the employees have not engaged in flirtatious behavior or otherwise done anything wrong. Such firings may be unfair, but they are not unlawful discrimination under the Iowa Civil Rights Act because they are motivated by feelings and emotions, not gender, Justice Edward Mansfield wrote.

Read the full story here.

 

Trivializing the legal system. December 16, 2012

Filed under: law,rape — philodaria @ 2:34 pm

By not taking rape seriously (though, I’m glad to see the public admonishment that followed… four years later). This makes me sick:

“I’m not a gynecologist, but I can tell you something,” the judge said, according to documents released Thursday. “If someone doesn’t want to have sexual intercourse, the body shuts down. The body will not permit that to happen unless a lot of damage in inflicted, and we heard nothing about that in this case.

“That tells me that the victim in this case, although she wasn’t necessarily willing, she didn’t put up a fight,” the judge said.

The judge, who has been with the Orange County Superior Court since 2000, also declared the rape “technical,” and not “a real, live criminal case.”

“To treat this case like the rape cases that we all hear about is an insult to victims of rape,” the judge said. “I think it’s an insult. I think it trivializes a rape.”

Judge Johnson has now been publicly admonished, and has apologized, but the sentence he imposed four years ago was likely influenced by the views reflected in these comments (which, of course, don’t even comport with the law).

 

Promoting job-sharing: let’s start at the top! November 14, 2012

Filed under: law,politics — Heg @ 6:31 pm

Next Tuesday, John McDonnell MP will introduce a bill to the UK Parliament which would change the law to allow members of parliament to job-share.  According to the explanatory notes,

Over recent decades the practice of job sharing has been introduced into many fields of public administration, private sector companies, professions and civil society organisations.

There is considerable research evidence to demonstrate that job sharing is not only possible and practicable but also benefits both the individuals involved and the organisations that they serve.

More recently the proposal that the role of a Member of Parliament could be job shared has been proposed to enable more people to become MPs who may not be able to at present because of their disabilities or their caring responsibilities.

It has also been suggested that job sharing could be a way of attracting into Parliament people who may wish to contribute to our society by representing their community as the local MP but who also want to continue to contribute to society by working in their chosen field or profession.

It’s being supported by Disability Politics UK and the Fawcett Society, among others. There’s an e-petition you can sign, and if you’re in the UK, encourage your MP to support it!

 

It’s about politics, not morality. November 3, 2012

Filed under: glbt,law,marriage,politics — philodaria @ 4:16 pm

Says the one of the strategists who helped put the marriage amendment on the Minnesota ballot this year; the proposed amendment would amend the state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.

Brodkorb was former Deputy Chairman of the State Republican Party and top Senate staffer, and says GOP Senators knew a driving force behind the gay marriage amendment wasn’t morality. It was political reality.

Top GOP leaders thought they couldn’t beat incumbent Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, and Republicans would stay home.

“The belief was, the United States senate race was not going to be close, and that Republicans needed and social conservatives needed a reason to get to the polls in November,” he said.

 

 
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