McKinnon, Rachel, Conrad, Aryn. Including Trans Women in Sport: Analyzing Principles and Policies of Fairness in Competition
2020, In: Philosophical Topics: Gendered Oppression and Its Intersections (Ed. Bianka Takaoka and Kate Manne)
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Lizzy VenthamAbstract: In this paper, we examine the scientific, legal, and ethical foundations for inclusion of transgender women athletes in competitive sport, drawing on IOC principles and relevant Court of Arbitration for Sport decisions. We argue that the inclusion of transathletes in competition commensurate with their legal gender is the most consistent position with these principles of fair and equitable sport. Biological restrictions, such as endogenous testosterone limits, are not consistent with IOC and CAS principles. We explore the implications for recognizing that endogenous testosterone values are a natural physical trait and that excluding legally recognized women for high endogenous testosterone values constitutes discrimination on the basis of a natural physical trait. We suggest that the justificatory burden for such prima facie discrimination is unlikely to be met. Thus, in place of a limit on endogenous testosterone for women (whether cisgender, transgender, or intersex), we argue that legally recognized gender is most fully in line with IOC and CAS principles.Comment: I would use this paper primarily as a key piece of reading in an applied ethics class. It's detailed, topical, and can be a great way to start discussions on trans* issues, gender, sport, and fairness. It makes some good use of science and statistics, but in a way that's accessible, and it offers original arguments. It would also be useful in classes on feminism or the philosophy of sport.
Mcweeny, Jennifer. Liberating Anger, Embodying Knowledge: A Comparative Study of Maria Lugones and Zen Master Hakuin
2010, Hypatia 25 (2):295 - 315.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Corbin CovingtonAbstract: This paper strengthens the theoretical ground of feminist analyses of anger by explaining how the angers of the oppressed are ways of knowing. Relying on insights created through the juxtaposition of Latina feminism and Zen Buddhism, I argue that these angers are special kinds of embodied perceptions that surface when there is a profound lack of fit between a particular bodily orientation and its framing world of sense. As openings to alternative sensibilities, these angers are transformative, liberatory, and deeply epistemological.
Melfi, Theodore. Hidden Figures
2016, [Feature film], 20th Century Fox
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Added by: Fenner Stanley TanswellAbstract:
The story of a team of female African-American mathematicians who served a vital role in NASA during the early years of the U.S. space program.Comment (from this Blueprint): This film depicts a historical biopic of African American female mathematicians working at NASA in the 1960s, focusing on the story of Katherine Johnson. In it, the plot depicts struggles with racism and sexism, as well as the impacts of the move from human calculation to the use of computers.
Menon, Nivedita. Seeing Like a Feminist
2012, Penguin India and Zubaan Books
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Added by: Anne-Marie McCallionPublisher’s Note:
For Nivedita Menon, feminism is not about a moment of final triumph over patriarchy but about the gradual transformation of the social field so decisively that old markers shift forever. From sexual harassment charges against international figures to the challenge that caste politics poses to feminism, from the ban on the veil in France to the attempt to impose skirts on international women badminton players, from queer politics to domestic servants’ unions to the Pink Chaddi campaign, Menon deftly illustrates how feminism complicates the field irrevocably. Incisive, eclectic and politically engaged, Seeing like a Feminist is a bold and wide-ranging book that reorders contemporary societ
Comment: Nivedita Menon is an influential feminist academic, who briefly taught in Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi, and is currently a professor of political science in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. What probably heightens her ability to see through the flawless nude makeup of our patriarchal culture is the fact that she was brought up in the Nair community of Kerala which, until her grandmother’s generation, was matrilineal. Seeing Like A Feminist is about both the challenges faced by feminism in India as well as global and intersectional movements of feminism. It covers a wide range of issues like the Hindu Code Bills, the Pink Chaddi campaign that was heavily criticized by the media, ‘gender verification’ tests for the Olympic Games, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, gender performativity, the Women’s Reservation Bill (Sharma, 2016). In this chapter, Menon critically examines the concept of ‘nature’ how it functions to corset our perception and actions, and in turn, constrain woBTQ+ emancipation.
Merritt, Michele. Instituting impairment: Extended cognition and the construction of Female Sexual Dysfunction
2013, Cognitive Systems Research, 25-26, pp. 47-53
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Added by: Maria Jimena Clavel VazquezAbstract:
I further the argument for a socially extended mind by examining gender and the role it plays in cognition. My first claim is that gender is a social institution that often if not always subtends our cognitive processes, especially those that are maximally embodied. The social institution of gender often serves to inhibit female embodied cognitive processing, as a quick glance at the myriad of oppressive forces at play in gender dynamics illustrates. To combat the potential objection that gender is not a vehicle for extending cognitive processes, but rather plays a shaping role in embodied practice, I propose looking at the history of Female Sexual Dysfunction and its construction by the social institutions of the pharmaceutical companies and media. By doing so, I claim a case can be made that these institutions have actually invaded the minds of many women to the point that cognition pertaining to sex, sexual functioning, and health are wholly dependent upon and constituted by the interplay of these social systems.Comment: available in this Blueprint
Mich Ciurria. An Intersectional Feminist Theory of Moral Responsibility
2019, Routledge
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: AnonymousPublisher’s Note:
This book develops an intersectional feminist approach to moral responsibility. It accomplisheses four main goals. First, it outlines a concise list of the main principles of intersectional feminism. Second, it uses these principles to critique prevailing philosophical theories of moral responsibility. Third, it offers an account of moral responsibility that is compatible with the ethos of intersectional feminism. And fourth, it uses intersectional feminist principles to critique culturally normative responsibility practices. This is the first book to provide an explicitly intersectional feminist approach to moral responsibility. After identifying the five principles central to intersectional feminism, the author demonstrates how influential theories of responsibility are incompatible with these principles. She argues that a normatively adequate theory of blame should not be preoccupied with the agency or traits of wrongdoers; it should instead underscore, and seek to ameliorate, oppression and adversity as experienced by the marginalized. Apt blame and praise, according to her intersectional feminist account, is both communicative and functionalist. The book concludes with an extensive discussion of culturally embedded responsibility practices, including asymmetrically structured conversations and gender- and racially biased social spaces. An Intersectional Feminist Approach to Moral Responsibility presents a sophisticated and original philosophical account of moral responsibility. It will be of interest to philosophers working at the crossroads of moral responsibility, feminist philosophy, critical race theory, queer theory, critical disability studies, and intersectionality theory.Comment: This book offers a critique of mainstream theories of moral responsibility and defends an intersectional feminist alternative that holds people responsible for their contributions, whether intentional or not, to intersecting systems of oppression.
Mihaljević, Helena, Santamaría, Lucía. Authorship in top-ranked mathematical and physical journals: Role of gender on self-perceptions and bibliographic evidence
2020, Quantitative Science Studies, 1(4): 1468-1492
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Added by: Fenner Stanley TanswellAbstract:
Despite increasing rates of women researching in math-intensive fields, publications by female authors remain underrepresented. By analyzing millions of records from the dedicated bibliographic databases zbMATH, arXiv, and ADS, we unveil the chronological evolution of authorships by women in mathematics, physics, and astronomy. We observe a pronounced shortage of female authors in top-ranked journals, with quasistagnant figures in various distinguished periodicals in the first two disciplines and a significantly more equitable situation in the latter. Additionally, we provide an interactive open-access web interface to further examine the data. To address whether female scholars submit fewer articles for publication to relevant journals or whether they are consciously or unconsciously disadvantaged by the peer review system, we also study authors’ perceptions of their submission practices and analyze around 10,000 responses, collected as part of a recent global survey of scientists. Our analysis indicates that men and women perceive their submission practices to be similar, with no evidence that a significantly lower number of submissions by women is responsible for their underrepresentation in top-ranked journals. According to the self-reported responses, a larger number of articles submitted to prestigious venues correlates rather with aspects associated with pronounced research activity, a well-established network, and academic seniority.Comment (from this Blueprint): Mihaljević and Santamaría here use large-scale quantitative research methods to investigate the gender gap in contemporary mathematics. I’ve recommended reading the introduction and conclusion in order to see what they were doing and what they found out, but the rest of the paper is worth looking at if you want more detailed methods and results.
Mikkola, Mari. Pornography, Art and Porno-Art
2013, in Pornographic Art and the Aesthetics of Pornography, ed. by Hans Maes (London: Palgrave Macmillan)
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Added by: Simon FoktAbstract: Philosophers involved in the ‘porn-or-art’ debates standardly assume that pornography is centrally about sexual arousal, while art is about something else. I argue against this assumption and for the view that there is no single thing that pornography (or art) ‘is about’. This suggests that there is no prima facie reason for claiming that some x cannot be both pornography and art. I further go on to develop an understanding of (what I call) ‘porno-art’ - a wholly new kind of thing developing from the extant categories of pornography and art, but still distinct and separate from them.Comment: This text can be used to introduce parts of the debate on art and pornography. The criticism it offers is interesting particularly because it focuses on non-mainstream and feminist pornography, and because it introduces a more nuanced analysis of what can be the aims of pornographers. The text can further serve a validating role for female students who might be interested to read about the existence and value of feminist pornography. Further, Mikkola’s use of Amie Thomasson’s work on artefactual kinds can serve as a good excuse to promote Thomasson’s work in class.
Mikkola, Mari. Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender
2016, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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Added by: Emily PaulIntroduction: Feminism is the movement to end women's oppression. One possible way to understand 'woman' in this claim is to take it as a sex term: 'woman' picks out human females and being a human female depends on various anatomical features (like genitalia). Historically many feminists have understood 'woman' differently: not as a sex term, but as a gender term that depends on social and cultural factors (like social position). In so doing, they distinguished sex (being female or male) from gender (being a woman or a man), although most ordinary language users appear to treat the two interchangeably. More recently this distinction has come under sustained attack and many view it nowadays with (at least some) suspicion. This entry (around 12 000 words in length) outlines and discusses distinctly feminist debates on sex and gender.Comment: A great first core text for any feminist philosophy, philosophy of sex and gender (or similar) module. Would also be very good to include on a social metaphysics course. Gives a clear and detailed overview of the main rival conceptions of gender, as well as of the relationship between the terms 'sex' and 'gender'.
Mikkola, Mari. Gender Concepts and Intuitions
2009, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 39(4): 559-583.
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Added by: Emily PaulAbstract: The gender concept woman is central to feminism but has proven to be notoriously difficult to define. Some feminist philosophers, most notably Sally Haslanger, have recently argued for revisionary analyses of the concept where it is defined pragmatically for feminist political purposes. I argue against such analyses: pragmatically revising woman may not best serve feminist goals and doing so is unnecessary. Instead, focusing on certain intuitive uses of the term 'woman' enables feminist philosophers to make sense of it.Comment: In my view this paper is a 'must include' in any feminist philosophy course with a unit on the metaphysics of gender - or on a social ontology course. Especially useful in conjunction with Haslanger's 'Gender and Race: (What) are they? (What) do we want them to be?' - since it provides some really interesting and discussion-provoking responses to this paper.
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