Gender – Page 3 – Justice Everywhere

Norms and Bias: Minding A Different Kind of Gap

On 22 May, 2020

In Democracy, Duties, Gender, Governance

In this post, Lacey Davidson and Daniel Kelly discuss their recent article in Journal of Applied Philosophy on bias and social norms.

In our recent article, we argue that contemporary empirical work on norms and norm psychology provides a way to move beyond debates between proponents of individualist and structuralist approaches to understanding human social behavior, and to addressing oppression and injustice. We show how this empirical work fits into recent debates about implicit biases, and conclude how integrating norms and norm psychology into this conversation shows that theorists need not, indeed should not, choose between either the individualist or structuralist camp. We’ll briefly spell out the main elements of our argument below.

A new virus, an old problem: Why lessons from poverty and gender inequality in Brazil matter

By admin

On 1 May, 2020

In Gender, General

In this guest contribution, Katarina Pitasse Fragoso and Nathália Sanglard reflect on the current COVID-19 crisis, poverty and gender inequality in Brazil.

We have aggregated Brazilian socio-economic datasets in order to offer a diagnostic on why poor women should be identified as being in high-risk groups. We will also suggest ways of providing institutional opportunities for them to survive the crisis.

Photo by Andy Falconer on Unsplash

No more victims: Machismo and gender violence in Latin America advertising

By admin

On 20 January, 2020

In Gender, General, MediaPhilosophy

In this guest post, Marta Mensa writes on machismo culture and gender violence in Latin America, and argues that advertisements for social campaigns against gender violence should be carefully designed.

Latin America is one of the continents with the highest rate of violence against women. The most extreme form of this crime is called femicide, the murder of a woman for the fact that she is a woman. Advertising can be a good tool to reduce this violence, but social campaigns have portrayed women as victims and not as empowered. Unfortunately, Latin American advertisements for social campaigns reinforce the idea that women need protection, which is used as an excuse for machismo to control them.

Feminism for Working-Class Women Is the Best Feminism

By Anca Gheaus

On 9 January, 2020

In Distribution, Economics, Gender, Public Philosophy, Work

This extended post is a response to a recent Boston Review article by Gina Schouten, called “‘Flexible’ Family Leave is Lousy Feminism”.

This must be one of the most animated debates amongst feminists: how to find the best remedial policies for women who are disadvantaged because they serve as main care-givers for their children, elderly parents, sick relatives or friends. They are disadvantaged in many ways. Some are economic: lower lifetime earnings and fewer work-related benefits compared to people without care commitments – hence more dependency on spouses. Others are social: part-time workers take a hit in status, stay-at-home mums even more so. Finally, there are the relational and psychological disadvantages: women who are economically dependent on their partners have less negotiating power than their partners, and many face tremendous difficulties when they want to leave abusive relationships.

The gendered division of labour – women’s assignment to the hands-on care that we all need at different periods of our lives – explains, to a large extent, not only the gender pay gap but also the feminisation of poverty and the private domination to which many women are subjected. No surprise, then, that feminists have two distinct aims: to protect women from the risks of being a care-giver, and also to do away with the gendered division of labour, which is a main source of the problem. I am one of these feminists; I would like to see women and men equally engaged in the labour market, and looking after anybody who needs care.

But I’m also adamant that we should pursue these two aims in the right order: we should give priority to protecting women from the worst consequences of the gendered division of labour over the abolition of the gendered division of labour itself. Moreover, we should be aware of the unavoidable tension between the two aims, and keep this in mind when advocating for particular gender policies.

The Potential Mediating Role of the Artificial Womb

By Julia Hermann

On 9 December, 2019

In Children, Gender, Technology

On May 6th, I published a post about the artificial womb and its potential role for promoting gender justice. I keep thinking about this technology, and since there is more and more ethical discussion about it, I want to address it again, this time from the point of view of mediation theory and in an attempt to anticipate the potential mediating role of this technology. According to mediation theory, technology mediates how humans perceive and act in the world. The Dutch philosopher Peter-Paul Verbeek has extended this post-phenomenological approach, which has been developed by Don Ihde, to the realm of ethics. Verbeek sees technology as being intrinsically involved in moral decision-making. Technology mediates our moral perceptions and actions. Moral agency is not something exclusively human, but a “hybrid affair”. Moral actions and decisions “take place in complex and intricate connections between humans and things”. Verbeek illustrates technology’s mediating role by means of the example of obstetric ultrasound. I shall apply the idea of the technological mediation of morality to the artificial womb and discuss some ways in which that technology could play a mediating role in morality.

Should governments care about the fertility gap?

By Aveek Bhattacharya

On 11 November, 2019

In Gender

In most rich countries, and increasingly in low and middle income countries, there is a ‘fertility gap’: people say they want to have more children than they end up having. For example, two-thirds of Australian 44 year olds have fewer children than they intended to, working out at one and a half children per parent. While the size of the discrepancy varies from place to place, the pattern is the same in most of Europe and the US:

The Women Men Don’t Hear

By Diana Popescu

On 29 October, 2019

In Gender

“The female lead never stands out”, Rosalind Franklin’s character bitterly remarks in Anna Ziegler’s play, Photo 51, right before the curtain drops. With the unlikely topic of the first image of human DNA as its central theme – an image captured by Franklin and illegitimately acquired by Watson and Crick to develop their famous DNA model – the play is a brilliant depiction of the various levels at which sexism in science operates. One such level, of diminishing or erasing women’s contributions, was recently instantiated by a series of newspaper headings referring to Esther Duflo, a co-recipient of this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics, solely as the wife of another recipient, Abhijit Banerjee, sometimes without even mentioning her name (here and here).

From the Vault: Good Reads on the Ethics and Politics of Technology

By admin

On 5 August, 2019

In Democracy, Gender, Governance

While Justice Everywhere takes a break over the summer, we recall from our archives some memorable posts from our 2018-2019 season.

Here are some good reads on issues relating to the ethics and politics of technology that you may have missed or be interested to re-read:

Lisa Herzog addressing the question: What Would it Take to Turn Facebook into a Democracy?
Julia Hermann exploring the concept of Technological Justice and the issue of whether gender justice might be pursued via emerging biotechnological breakthroughs regarding the Artificial Womb.
Fay Niker interviewing Johannes Himmelreich on the Ethics of Self-Driving Cars and writing on ‘Hackable Humans’ and the Need for Philosophy.

Justice Everywhere will return in full swing on 2nd September with fresh weekly posts by our regular authors. If you have a suggestion for a topic or would like to contribute a guest post on a topical subject in political philosophy (broadly construed), please feel free to get in touch with us at justice.everywhere.blog@gmail.com.

My body, my self? – #everydaylookism

By Wouter Peeters

On 3 June, 2019

In Gender, Moral values

Beauty as a topic has been neglected in political philosophy and justice theorizing, but in this post I will try to convince you that it should be our concern. Beauty is not something trivial, but a major public issue which requires serious attention from all kinds of disciplines and stakeholders.

More Gender Justice Through the Artificial Womb?

By Julia Hermann

On 6 May, 2019

In Gender, Health, Liberty

In 2017, US-scientists succeeded in transferring lamb foetuses to what comes very close to an artificial womb: a “biobag”. All of the lambs emerged from the biobag healthy. The scientists believe that about two years from now it will be possible to transfer preterm human babies to an artificial womb, in which they have greater chances to survive and develop without a handicap than in current neonatal intensive care. At this point in time, developers of the technology, such as Guid Oei, gynaecologist and professor at Eindhoven University of Technology, see the technology as a possible solution to the problem of neonatal mortality and disability due to preterm birth. They do not envisage uses of it that go far beyond that. Philosophers and ethicists, however, have started thinking about the use of artificial womb technology for very different purposes, such as being able to terminate a risky pregnancy without having to kill the foetus, or strengthening the freedom of women. If we consider such further going uses, new ethical issues arise, including whether artificial womb technology could promote gender justice. Should we embrace this technology as a means towards greater equality between men and women?

Justice Everywhere

a blog about philosophy in public affairs

Category: Gender (Page 3 of 5)

Norms and Bias: Minding A Different Kind of Gap

A new virus, an old problem: Why lessons from poverty and gender inequality in Brazil matter

No more victims: Machismo and gender violence in Latin America advertising

Feminism for Working-Class Women Is the Best Feminism

The Potential Mediating Role of the Artificial Womb

Should governments care about the fertility gap?

The Women Men Don’t Hear

From the Vault: Good Reads on the Ethics and Politics of Technology

My body, my self? – #everydaylookism

More Gender Justice Through the Artificial Womb?

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