Monthly Archives: March 2016

gender, language, politics

Shlong Diplomacy

 

According to an article in the New York Times, many of Donald Trump’s supporters, especially women, are dismayed at his bullying and misogyny. But

 

Kathy Potts, a Trump supporter in Iowa who is a former chairwoman of the Linn County Republican Party, called Mr. Trump a bully and said she was offended by his insults of women. But with a son in the Army about to be sent to Iraq, Ms. Potts stands behind Mr. Trump because she believes he will be strong on national security. “He’s the one I’d pick to best protect Jason,” she said.

 

In other words, Trump’s female (and some male) supporters see the Donald as two Trumps, one of which has problems that are not serious and can be ignored (the misogyny and bullying), and the other, the “real” candidate, who is “strong” and can be trusted to keep us safe. One has nothing to do with the other, and if the latter is the one that means the most to you (as it does to many otherwise rational Trump supporters), you can safely ignore the former. This analysis might put you in mind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but neither of them ever sought political office. Continue reading →

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gender, language, politics

Listening to Her: Reprise

 

A couple of weeks ago, after undergoing a lot of criticism for her “unexciting” style, candidate Clinton made a public apology: she was not, she said, a “natural” politician like her husband. The critics have made much of this remark, but have failed to understand it correctly.

 

It is clear that the female Clinton does not sound like her male counterpart. She is not thrilling in the way he – like the very best “natural” politicians – can be. She appeals more to the mind than to the heart, which is not how many Americans like their politics. She is not “fun.”

 

But a more accurate perception of the problem may be that Clinton is not a “normal” politician, as of course she is not. The normal prototypical politician is still male, and at the presidential level, that is even truer. But the way we expect a “natural” politician to appeal to us is not at all coincidentally the way we expect a “normal” politician to do so. Continue reading →

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gender, other topics, politics

Keeping Women Out

 

A very interesting, if depressing, article appeared in the New York Times’s “Sunday Review” on March 6. In it A. Hope Jahren, a professor of geobiology, offered one answer to the question, “Why are there too few women in science?”

 

The problem doesn’t stop with science. An article, “Emoji Feminism,” by Amy Butcher, in the “Sunday Review” on March 13, notes that:

 

In most professions, women make less than men, but in academia this pay gap is compounded by the fact that women tend to spend more uncompensated time advising students while also being subjected to student evaluations that studies show are consistently biased against them. Female academics are promoted at much slower rates, and fewer still choose to stay in the field as a result, and even fewer, then, are even present when the time for tenure comes. Perhaps it’s no surprise that men hold three-quarters of full professorships within the United States.

 

The problem is arguably worse in the physical sciences (the STEM fields) because they are especially prestigious, so women lose more if they are kept out of those fields. But the reasons why fewer women than men hold tenured positions in all academic fields are similar. In the humanities as well as the social sciences, there is a curious downward spiral: in most of these fields, the number of women admitted to Ph.D. programs is at least equal to that of men, and often greater; but women fail to get their degrees, or drop out early in their careers, at disturbing rates. Something is keeping smart women from using their intelligence. Continue reading →

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gender, language, other topics, politics

Pro-Life “Feminism”

 

Check out the photo on the front page of today’s (3/3) New York Times, above the article about the arguments before the Supreme Court concerning Texas’s law restricting the operation of abortion clinics. What caught my attention was the signage. A sign in back said “Life Counts,” with a beguiling picture of what looks to me like a full-term infant, certainly closer to a full-term infant than a zygote, which the so-called pro-life contingent protects with equal fervor. I read intentional deceptiveness in the sign: the full-term infant’s picture is purposely deceptive, with the emotional response that a full-term baby evokes although anti-abortion groups are necessarily much more concerned with protecting non-emotion-evoking zygotes than adorable full-term babies. Worse, the picture covertly makes the accusation, “Abortion providers murder babies” – a canard as guilt-inducing as it is knowingly false. And because this untruth is expressed pictorially, it is hard to controvert it verbally. For a group that claims to hold the moral high ground, this multiple violation of the commandment against bearing false witness ought to be problematic, but apparently is not.

 

But the sign borne by the woman in front is even more troublesome: “I AM A PRO-LIFE FEMINIST.” Can you be a pro-life feminist? What do you have to be, and believe, to be a “feminist,” who can answer that question, and why? Continue reading →

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