Author Archives: Regan Penaluna

Dear Larry

Posted by on May 13, 2011 48 comments

In 2005, I was a philosophy graduate student across the Charles River from MIT where the then president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers, made his infamous remarks questioning the intellectual capabilities of women. He was giving a speech at a conference where he offered that a possible reason for the low number of women in high academic positions in science and engineering was due to an innate limitation. He said this was a more likely explanation for women’s underperformance than discrimination. I remember sinking lower in my chair as I heard the news. Summers’ remarks, though they were geared explicitly to other fields, nonetheless threw into doubt women’s capacity for deep thought in general.

In my field, I found that women were just as intelligent as the brightest men, the only difference was that there were far fewer of them. If Summers was questioning the reasons for the underrepresentation of women, then it would follow that he should suspect the same for people of other ethnicities. As Dr. Mary Waters, Chair of Sociology at Harvard said after his remarks: “Has anyone asked if he thinks this about African-Americans, because they are underrepresented at this university? Are Hispanics inferior? Are Asians superior?” Yet, this is something he didn’t publicly do, and if he had, he certainty would have enraged the public far more than he did with his comments about women’s inferiority. But I will leave that point to the side.

To be fair, in a way Summers’ claim that discrimination cannot be the cause for women’s comparatively inferior performance makes sense. We live in a society in which job discrimination is illegal and where there are quotas for hiring women. Furthermore, it is no longer socially acceptable, the way it was a generation or two ago, to discourage women from pursuing careers outside of the home. It could be argued that to all appearances, women no longer have any external barriers preventing them from success. Thus, persons such as Summers conclude that the barrier must be internal. I am sure that Summers, a person very much in the public eye, would not see himself as personally standing in the way of women’s performance. Indeed, he likely took his comments to be mere commentary on the facts of the situation—a neutral discussion of a phenomenon. Yet this is why it was so insidious.

Enter Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender: How our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference (2010). In this book, Fine argues that sex difference on the level of intellectual capacity is bogus. She analyzes the studies often cited by defenders of women’s inferiority, and shows how they have subsequently been proven fallacious by other scientists or that others have drawn the wrong conclusions from them. One of the most famous experiments that still captivates many, despite having been invalidated by subsequent studies, is the case which claims that there are cognitive differences between male and female babies of only a few days old: female babies are drawn to faces whereas male babies prefer mechanisms. The truth is that the science in favor of women’s intellectual strength doesn’t get much press. But this is only part of the problem. Even if there is no innate intellectual difference, why are women underrepresented?

Fine says that despite society’s attempts to eradicate explicit sexual discrimination, there is a more subtle type of discrimination at work. Recent studies in psychology bear this out. Fine highlights studies that reveal how we are deeply affected subconsciously by the expectations that our environment puts on us. In one study, a group of women were informed prior to taking an exam in mathematics that women tend to underperform compared to men, and another group of women were not. The group that was exposed to the stereotype threat performed far worse than the other group. Fine quotes Gregory Walton and Steven Spencer, two professors at Stanford University who argue that women’s performance is affected by stereotype threats like “the time of a track star running into a stiff headwind.” The reason that women perform less well than men on intellectual tests is a consequence of a tacit signal they are receiving from those around them that they are not good enough.

Of course, men are also affected by stereotype threats. Fine discusses studies that challenge the claim that men are “more aggressive” or “less empathetic” than women. One study, for example, reveals that men who are primed before a questionnaire that scientific studies show they are very empathetic creatures answer positively towards their abilities to nurture, unlike a group of men who were not primed.

What Fine suggests is that—whether we like it or not—the expectations our society has for us affects our self-perceptions, and thus our performance. In the case of intellectual pursuits, women still underperform men because they are getting the message that they do not belong there. Thus it is not enough to simply offer women equal opportunity. It is necessary for those in positions of influence to identify and eradicate the stereotype threats that they unwittingly promote. It is only then that we can actually achieve the ideals that liberalism promised so many of us centuries ago.

Is Childhood an end in itself?

Posted by on March 31, 2011 25 comments

Here I sit in a room littered with toys, colorful books, and tiny dirty socks. I like to think of myself as an aesthete, but as a new parent my living room floor has been taken over by forces far more powerful than my aesthetic sensibilities. My desire to entertain my son coupled with my wish to do something other than clean while he is asleep have resulted in this. As I scan things more carefully, I see another theme arising. It’s not only a wish to preoccupy him that these toys are here, but also a desire in me to help him develop. I see flashcards to facilitate reading, boxes with images of animals to open his mind to the diversity of life on earth, and a miniature plastic piano for him to discover music. Although the ultimate goal of his development is not always clear to me (insofar as I’m not exactly sure what the purpose of life is), it seems much of his existence could be viewed as steps—no matter how small—towards adulthood.

Numerable philosophers throughout history have theorized about how to shape children into their idea of a fully-formed human being. Aristotle wanted children to receive a thorough education in correct moral conduct so that as an adult they could experience a life of virtue, which for Aristotle was synonymous with the good life: “train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed society corrupted people, and so he argued that education needed to help children preserve as much of their natural goodness as possible. John Dewey, who tried to sidestep the issue of the purpose of life as defining of education, still wanted to prepare children to continue to grow and have more educative experiences.

Recently in the U.S. media, there has been a debate regarding the proper way to raise a child. Amy Chua, who kicked it off with an essay in the Wall Street Journal (based on her memoir) said that, for parents, “the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they’re capable of, and arming them with skills work habits, and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.” For Chua, this meant not allowing her children to have play dates or sleepovers, demanding that they get only straight As, and sometimes calling them “garbage” and “fatty.” It also meant that they had to spend grueling hours every day studying mathematics or practicing an instrument (she only allowed them to play violin or piano). Many critics argued that Chua was far too extreme, and that the end she had in sight for her daughters was in fact a rather narrow take on human life (see here and here, for example). The better approach to raising children, some said, would be to encourage children to have new social experiences and to delve into the humanities, both indispensible to the good life.

I am not suggesting that the focus on children as a means to adulthood is inherently bad; indeed it’s absolutely necessary to prepare them for what is to come, and to guide them in the process of learning. We could even say that to neglect this would be immoral. Yet, I still wonder: is there a feature of childhood that ought not simply be a means to an end? Is there something of moral value that we ought not reduce to an investment into the future, whether theirs or ours?

Should government support breastfeeding?

Posted by on February 22, 2011 37 comments

The First Lady of the U.S., Michelle Obama, has made combating childhood obesity her mission. Her initiative, Let’s Move, has the ambitious goal of eradicating it within a generation. Given that obesity in U.S. kids has tripled in the last thirty years, it’s incontrovertibly an important issue. Yet the approach she takes has not been without its critics. This is especially true of late, when Mrs. Obama stated in a discussion with the press that she advocates breastfeeding because “kids who are breast-fed longer have a lower tendency to be obese.” Around the same time, the IRS announced that it would offer tax breaks for employed women who purchase breast pumps.

This two-pronged effort by the government set off a firestorm of debate. It also created interesting bedfellows. Some feminists and conservatives found themselves agreeing that, on this point, the government has no business interfering in the lives of women.

I think the government’s message puts undue pressure on women. As of yet, there is no evidence of a strong link between obesity and formula fed babies. Moreover, anyone who has breastfed a baby or consistently spent time with a woman who breastfeeds realizes that expressing milk takes a lot of time. Additionally, not all women enjoy the experience of breastfeeding or are even able to do it.

Certainly it is right for the government to protect working women who choose to breastfeed when corporate America fails to do it on its own. An admirable example of this is last spring, when the government required that businesses provide non-bathroom space and breaks for nursing mothers. Yet it is careless to send the message that breastfeeding is better than formula when the evidence is not there to support it.

Mrs. Obama has subsequently toned down her rhetoric and said that “[b]reastfeeding is a very personal choice for every woman. We are trying to make it easier for those who choose to do it.” This is fine if by “trying” she doesn’t mean supporting policies that are based on little scientific evidence.

Is Motherhood Liberating or Confining?

Posted by on January 13, 2011 14 comments

This past year, two significant feminists have spoken out against an increasingly popular trend in parenting. French philosopher Elizabeth Badinter says that today’s mothers are experiencing a “relapse to times long past.” American essayist Erica Jong writes that contemporary motherhood is like a “prison.” Are we truly experiencing a devolution in women’s liberty?

The trend in question, attachment parenting or, a similar variant, green-parenting, encourages mothers to breastfeed, make baby food from scratch, frequently carry them around in a sling, and to generally not be absent the first 3-5 years of the child’s life. Badinter and Jong both see this as severely restricting of a mother’s time. But that is not enough to warrant criticism. On their view, this trend is problematic insofar as it has become so popular and in cases so self-righteous as to eliminate alternate ways of mothering. Women are pressured to always be at their baby’s side, and if they’re not, then they’re made to feel guilty. In this oppressive environment, argue Badinter and Jong, mothers are likely to toss out their ambition with the bath water. In short, Badinter and Jong believe that the ideal for mothers today is counter to the feminist ideal of self-actualization. But is this true?

Not according to everyone. There are some who argue that being a mother is a political act. For instance, these mothers extol breastfeeding because by denying to buy formula, they are shunning consumerism and so sticking it to the man. Similarly, they reject the medicalization of birth, in which hospitals and pain killers alienate women from their bodies. For these women, being a mother is empowering because it allows them to take back control over something that they feel society has progressively taken from them: their bodies and their relationships to their babies.

Who is right? Badinter and Jong have us believe that in the current climate, motherhood keeps women from acting in the world, whereas the other school of thought tells us that motherhood can have a significant impact on society. Yet both sides argue that they are feminists fighting the good fight against oppression. In a way, this is an iteration of the age-old battle in feminism between defenders of women’s individualism and defenders of women’s ability to nurture others. It seems that the question of whether motherhood is liberating or not requires us to answer a deeper question: are we best defending women’s liberty by advancing their individuality or rather their woman-ness?

Plato and Modern Motherhood

Posted by on November 19, 2010 25 comments

“I’d rather be making cupcakes!” said my sister.

She said it so many times in fact that our mother had it printed onto a t-shirt for her birthday. Cupcakes to my sister meant spending time at home with her baby. Before she gave birth, she had set out to become a scientist. Yet now that her baby was here, she wasn’t so gung-ho.

In truth, my sister did not want only to make cupcakes as much as she did not want only to be a scientist. But splitting her time between the two was not that simple. My parents raised us with the belief that we could “be anything we wanted if we only put our mind to it,” and now my sister found herself of two minds: she wanted to be a mother raising her baby but she also wanted to be a successful scientist. Like many modern mothers—myself included—she could not do one without feeling as though she were significantly shortchanging the other.

Plato would not be surprised. Even though he was writing over two-thousand years ago in ancient Greece, entirely unaware of the modern woman’s condition, he said a few things about motherhood that were interestingly spot on. Or, at least the character of Socrates did in Plato’s most famous dialog the Republic.

In this work, Socrates proposes to build a city from scratch in his mind. Many wild things come of this, such as a eugenics program and a “noble lie” told to citizens to get them to accept this program. Socrates’ willingness to vastly reconsider everything also leads him to a somewhat forward-looking take on women. Challenging Greek tradition, Plato has Socrates pitch the idea that women have the same “souls” as men, by which he means that they have the same mental capacities as men. That is, women can reason and so are capable of jobs typically reserved for men, like politics or doing philosophy.

To persuade his friends that a woman can do a man’s job, he tries to persuade them that it’s absurd to allow one’s physical appearance to determine their ability to do a job. He says that “if bald men are shoemakers, we won’t let the longhaired ones be shoemakers, or if the longhaired ones are, then the others can’t be (454c).” It’s absurd that one’s hair-length should determine one’s profession; Socrates wants us to see that and then to consider that it is also absurd to allow other physical traits, such as one’s sex, to decide one’s professional destiny. Just because women are physically different from men, he argues, doesn’t mean they should have different jobs from men. In fact, he argues that when it comes to thinking and doing politics that “men and women have the same nature” and so women should also be in the business of politics, too (456a).

But what does this all mean for motherhood? Socrates wants these women to also be mothers (smart women have smart babies, he assumes, which is good for society). But he also wants them to keep their jobs. His solution? “[T]he children…will be in common, and neither will a parent know his own offspring, nor a child his parent (457d).” He wants to break the mother-child bond “so she won’t recognize her own.” As a result, Plato presents us with women who are mothers and professionals. But the catch is that these women are not torn between these two worlds, like some of us moderns, because by teaching women to see their own children as common to all Socrates conditions the mother out of them. Literally.

Getting rid of the mother’s soul, as Socrates does, is not a solution for me or my sister or any modern woman for that matter. And Plato didn’t really seem to think it was a solution for ancient women either. There are suggestions throughout his text that he made the creation of the city so absurdly impossible that he didn’t really wish for it to exist (for example, Socrates tells us that the annihilation of all persons over age 10 is necessary for the city to come into being, since those over the age 10 are corrupted by tradition. Not only is that downright immoral, but you run into the absurdity of who will teach all of these 10 year olds how to construct this city anyway?). What we can say is that the difficulty Plato saw facing women, that they are smart like men but also by nature drawn to care deeply for their children (he didn’t seem to think the same bond could be found between babies and their fathers) is probably why every morning, as the legend goes, he thanked the gods for having made him “a philosopher, an Athenian,” and foremost, “a man.”

Before my son was born, I looked forward to the connection that I would feel for him. Everyone told me how the parent-child bond was so unique. Yet I also harbored a deep seated fear that this love would take from my professional drive. Somewhere lurked the belief that the more time I spent with him, the weaker my ambition would become. My mother liked to tease me once I was pregnant by reminding me of my proclamations that I “will never marry!” and “never have kids!” which were in a way my own self-inflicted conditioning to “get the motherliness out of my soul,” as Socrates might say.

Still a part of me didn’t totally believe myself either. I did get married, and now I have a child. Like my sister, a part of me wants to enjoy staying at home and making cupcakes, but that is quickly overcome by my desire to do other things too. There is an undeniable joy I derive from both the maternal and the professional sides of myself. Yet that doesn’t solve the pull I feel in either direction. Being a mother is rewarding, and Socrates’ attempt to remove that from women’s lives is too extreme. Nonetheless, maybe there is something a modern mother can take away from his discussion, which is that for mothers who also aspire to have a professional life, at least some sort of conditioning is necessary for them to be convinced that the balance they have struck between their professional endeavors and the caring of their children is right. I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that like the people over the age of 10 in Socrates’ city, my soul is already too set in its own ways for any conditioning.