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Category: Gender

Academia / Education / Gender

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The Philosopher Queens

Women in philosophy have been ignored. Help crowdfund The Philosopher Queens to have their voices heard.  Its editors Rebecca Buxton and Lisa Whiting tell us more about how and why this important book project has come about.  

 

When we began looking for a book on women in philosophy we were not prepared for what we found – or rather didn’t find. An afternoon in Waterstone’s, followed by a trip to Kensington library, followed by an evening of angrily searching online for something, anything on women in philosophy, had generated almost nothing. The only book we found was written by an incredible woman in philosophy herself, Mary Warnock, who wrote a book on women in philosophy over 20 years ago.  (more…)

Duties / Education / Gender / Moral values

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Iris Young, Bad Dates and #MeToo

Can Iris Young’s analysis of structural injustice, problematic norms, individual guilt and forward-looking responsibility contribute to contemporary feminism as #MeToo broaches the subject of bad dates and male privilege?

This blog post comes with a trigger warning as it contains discussions of sexual harassment and sexual assault and controversial opinions regarding them.

Last week much of my facebook feed was again  full of discussion regarding accounts of sexual abuse  and comment regarding the #MeToo movement.

One of last week’s stories concerned the behaviour of a male celebrity who publicly endorses calls to end sexual abuse in the entertainment industry and beyond. A woman who dated the celebrity detailed to a reporter how he acted in a pushy, forceful  manner. She explained how he ignored non-verbal cues to slow down their encounter and end more overtly sexual activity, and then re-initiated sexual activity after she stated that she was feeling pressured. The woman left their date feeling violated and miserable. The report has been broadly discussed with a spectrum of opinions emerging regarding the case: some sympathetic to the celebrity, others criticising his hypocrisy and abuse and some suggesting we are reluctant to acknowledge this as abuse because we want to protect ourselves from facing the reality of the problems we have encountered in our own sex lives.

Last week also saw criticism of the #Metoo movement gain momentum. A letter was published by concerned women in the French entertainment industry who believe that the movement has gone too far and begun to stigmatise men who make clumsy and persistent advances. The letter also suggested that the movement has begun to undermine women’s power and self esteem, prohibit people’s legitimate sexuality, censor artistic expression and prevent the enjoyment of art made by perpetrators of sexual violence.   The letter too has provoked extensive discussion, clarification, criticism and response.

How should we think about these cases and positions? There are two sorts of understandings that opponents in the debate often identify each other as falling into.

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Distribution / Economics / Gender / Liberty / Work

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From the Vault: Good Reads in Economic Ethics

While Justice Everywhere takes a break over the summer, we recall from our archives some of our memorable posts from 2016-2017.

Here are four good reads in economic ethics that you may have missed or be interested to re-read:

Anca Gheaus’ ‘There is too much division of labour‘

Lisa Herzog’s ‘If everything is measured, can we still see one another as equals?‘

James Hickson’s ‘Freedom for Uber Drivers‘

Mirjam Muller’s ‘Are Sweatshops Drivers for Gender Equality?‘

 

Duties / Economics / Gender / Health / Rights / Work

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Maternity leave: why should employers pay?

Labour Market Injustice

Labour markets are rife with questions of justice. This series of blog posts; explore cases of injustice, highlight theoretical puzzles and point towards possible solutions. They emerged from debates at the ‘Labour Market Injustice’ Workshop co-hosted by Newcastle and Durham Universities and generously sponsored by the Society for Applied Philosophy.  In this fourth post Sarah Goff discusses bearing the costs of maternity leave.

In a 2004 interview, Donald Trump described pregnancy as an “inconvenience” for business. Whether or not this remark reveals anything about President Trump’s intentions for his promised reforms to maternity leave in the U.S., it seems plausible as a statement of fact. For a business, it often will be an inconvenience for employees to have a legal right to take a leave of absence and return to their positions without penalty. Of course, the cost of providing paid leave is additional to any costs incurred from the inconvenience of the leave-taking itself.

Observing that there are costs to maternity leave does not imply new mothers lack a moral right to take it. The observation simply raises the question of who is responsible for bearing these costs. The case for employers to provide paid maternity leave is less strong than the case for employers to accommodate new mothers in taking a period of leave with a right to return to their jobs. While only employers can bear the cost of the inconvenience to business, there are many feasible arrangements for other actors to bear the costs of providing financial support during maternity leave. In fact, there is substantial variation across societies in: public provision for paid maternity leave, legal mandates on employers to provide paid leave, employers’ provision of paid leave in excess of legal requirements (particularly in high paying industries where there is a business interest in retaining skilled employees), and social and cultural practices of support for new parents from extended families and kinship networks.

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Gender / Work

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Are Sweatshops Drivers for Gender Equality?

Labour Market Injustice

Labour markets are rife with questions of justice. This series of blog posts; explore cases of injustice, highlight theoretical puzzles and point towards possible solutions. They emerged from debates at the ‘Labour Market Injustice’ Workshop co-hosted by Newcastle and Durham Universities and generously sponsored by the Society for Applied Philosophy.  In this third post Mirjam Mueller explores the putative connection between sweatshop labour and female emancipation.

In 1884 Friedrich Engels argued in The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State that women’s participation in the workforce was key to their emancipation. By entering the workforce on equal footing with men, women would become economically independent and traditional gender relations would be destroyed by capitals indiscriminate demand for labour. Does this mean we should put our hopes on capitalism promoting gender equality? (more…)

Academia / Distribution / Economics / Gender / Governance / International

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Reminder – Call for Papers: Labour Market Injustice Workshop

Newcastle University & Durham University, 14-15 December 2016

Labour market injustice is a pressing problem both domestically and globally. None the less, there continues to be considerable disagreement about how to understand and locate the moral concerns involved. Many commentators understand labour market injustice in interactional terms, viewing it as a problem with the wage or contract terms employers offer their workers. But, there is also an emerging trend towards thinking about it in more structural terms. One such thread involves conceptualising labour market injustices as systemic problems, such as understanding exploitation or discrimination as group-to-group phenomena. Another thread involves articulating proposals to prevent labour market injustices through institutional and policy level responses.

This workshop will operate as a detailed discussion of a set of works-in-progress that consider these emerging angles on (domestic and global) labour market injustice. We invite submissions grounded in any area of political theory, including both applied work and more theoretical or methodological contributions, and also papers that consider the intersection with importantly related disciplines, such as law and economics. Topics may include, but are not limited to, areas such as:

  • Labour rights
  • Discrimination
  • Work-life balance
  • Business organisation
  • Supply chains
  • Brain-drain
  • Exploitation

Confirmed participants

  • Anca Gheaus (University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona)
  • Martin O’Neill (University of York)

Workshop Organisers

  • Elizabeth Kahn (Durham University)
  • Tom Parr (University of Essex)
  • Andrew Walton (Newcastle University)

Submissions

Abstracts of up to 500 words, accompanied by contact details and institutional affiliation, should be sent to andrew.walton@ncl.ac.uk by 30th September 2016.  We will notify accepted papers by 14th October.

For further information, please contact andrew.walton@ncl.ac.uk, tparr@essex.ac.uk, or elizabeth.kahn@durham.ac.uk

Academia / Distribution / Economics / Gender / Governance / International

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Call for Papers: Labour Market Injustice Workshop

Newcastle University & Durham University, 14-15 December 2016

Labour market injustice is a pressing problem both domestically and globally. None the less, there continues to be considerable disagreement about how to understand and locate the moral concerns involved. Many commentators understand labour market injustice in interactional terms, viewing it as a problem with the wage or contract terms employers offer their workers. But, there is also an emerging trend towards thinking about it in more structural terms. One such thread involves conceptualising labour market injustices as systemic problems, such as understanding exploitation or discrimination as group-to-group phenomena. Another thread involves articulating proposals to prevent labour market injustices through institutional and policy level responses.

This workshop will operate as a detailed discussion of a set of works-in-progress that consider these emerging angles on (domestic and global) labour market injustice. We invite submissions grounded in any area of political theory, including both applied work and more theoretical or methodological contributions, and also papers that consider the intersection with importantly related disciplines, such as law and economics. Topics may include, but are not limited to, areas such as:

  • Labour rights
  • Discrimination
  • Work-life balance
  • Business organisation
  • Supply chains
  • Brain-drain
  • Exploitation

Confirmed participants

  • Anca Gheaus (University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona)
  • Martin O’Neill (University of York)

Workshop Organisers

  • Elizabeth Kahn (Durham University)
  • Tom Parr (University of Essex)
  • Andrew Walton (Newcastle University)

Submissions

Abstracts of up to 500 words, accompanied by contact details and institutional affiliation, should be sent to andrew.walton@ncl.ac.uk by 30th September 2016.  We will notify accepted papers by 14th October.

For further information, please contact andrew.walton@ncl.ac.uk, tparr@essex.ac.uk, or elizabeth.kahn@durham.ac.uk

Distribution / Economics / Gender

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Would an unconditional basic income be just?

On June 5th, Switzerland will be the first country to vote on an unconditional basic income (UBI). UBI is “an income unconditionally granted to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement”. Although not new, the idea is revolutionary in that it decouples income from work, and it conflicts with many people’s intuitions about justice. It cannot be fair if someone who chooses not to work because she wants to read novels all day is entitled to the same basic income as a person who cannot work due to disability, right? At the same time, the idea has been defended not only on economic and pragmatic grounds, but also for reasons of justice. I will assess the idea from the perspective of justice and conclude that justice recommends giving it a try.

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Gender / International

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Standing together for women’s empowerment: the UN strategic shift is worth a try

In his message on 2016 International Women’s Day, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon summarised the UN’s efforts for gender equality with an evocative metaphor: “We have shattered so many glass ceilings we created a carpet of shards. Now we are sweeping away the assumptions and bias of the past so women can advance across new frontiers”. Ban Ki-moon has recently been recognised as a champion of the promotion of women’s rights. His main achievement in the field has been to prioritise the issue on the UN agenda. As a matter of fact, the UN further the promotion of gender equality worldwide, not only through the CEDAW treaty and related instruments, but also through the adoption of a gender-sensitive policy of recruitment and the constant monitoring of women’s rights enjoyment in a number of domains (e.g. health, education, labour). UN efforts towards gender equality and women’s empowerment have been continuous and lately they have shown a remarkable degree of adaptability and pragmatism that might be conducive to a less immediate and visible, but more long-lasting and widespread diffusion of emancipatory principles worldwide. Apparently, the recent UN change of strategy for promoting gender equality is challenging traditional conceptions of feminism; however, this does not mean it is incompatible with them. Moreover, if successful, this new strategy might represent a model of agency for advocates of global justice. (more…)

Climate / Gender

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Climate Change’s “Climate Problem”: Where are all the women?

“Climate problems” is a metaphor that has become common parlance within philosophy, where gender ratios often mirror that of math, engineering, and the physical sciences. It functions as a possible explanation for the under-representation of women and minorities, referring to what is considered to sometimes be an inhospitable professional environment for members of these demographic groups. In this post I discuss the existence of “climate issues” as they relate to one of the greatest social justice concerns of our time: anthropogenic climate change (ACC), the subject of the COP21 international negotiations in Paris this week. In particular, I look at the under-representation of women in influential, high-powered roles across various dimensions of ACC. I present the results of a preliminary survey that suggests that there is a striking lack of women in these high-profile spaces (14%), and argue that we ought to be concerned for three key reasons: the likely presence of implicit bias and stereotype threat; the epistemic benefits of women’s situated knowledge; and the disproportionate wrongs and harms women face as consequences of ACC.

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