Philosophy of Gender, Race, and Sexuality

Several feminists have been arguing on the superiority of women over men. This debate, instead of being biological, revolves around the gender roles and moral characteristics of humans, based on wh...

The traumatic stress experienced by our black healthcare colleagues is often overlooked. This work contextualizes workplace racism, identifies some interpersonal barriers limiting anti-racist growth, and calls for solidarity.

This article argues that because racial inequalities are embedded in American society, as well as in medicine, more evidence-based investigation of the effects and implications of affirmative action is needed. Residency training programs should also seek ways to recruit medical students from underrepresented groups and to create effective mentorship programs.

Racial inequity has influenced both personal and public health in the United States and has impacted enrollment in medical schools and training programs. The effects of racial inequity on training and how it is perceived can differ depending on who is being affected. Recommendations are offered for positive changes through mentoring of individuals, institutional leadership, and structural changes in organizations.

Calls to abolish race as a proxy for biology or genetics in clinical care have reached a fever pitch in the latter half of 2020, including articles in the New England Journal of Medicine, and urgent letters from prominent Senators.

This article aims to analyze the effect of the combination of the variables - victim characteristics, observer sex, Belief in a Just World, and ambivalent sexism - on sexual violence victim blaming. Three studies were conducted with university students, who were asked to answer some items on victim blaming, Belief in a Just World, and Ambivalent Sexism. The ANOVA and ANCOVA analyses have shown that the combination of these variables resulted in higher black and counter-normative victim blaming. The results confirmed (...) that victim skin color, victim normativity, and the observer sex influence victim blaming for sexual violence ; that bjw predicts the attribution of the victim’s accountability for sexual violence, and that only benevolent sexism, together with bjw, was responsible for predicting victim blaming for sexual violence. (shrink)

The tremendous toll that COVID-19 has taken on this country’s minority population is the most recent reminder of the health disparities between people of color and people who classify themselves as white. There are many reasons for these disparities, but one that gets less attention than it deserves is the lack of physicians of color available to treat patients of color.

Ideas of racial genetic determinism, though unsupported by scientific evidence and atavistic, are common and readily apparent in American medical education. These theories of biologic essentialism have documented negative effects in learners, including increased measures of racial prejudice.

The struggle by black people to obtain freedom, justice, and dignity is as old as this nation. At times, great and inspiring leaders rose out of desperate situations to give confidence and feelings of empowerment to the black community. Most of these leaders urged their people to strive for racial equality. They were firmly wedded to the idea that the courts and judiciary were the vehicle to better the social position of blacks. In spite of dramatic civil rights movements and (...) periodic victories in the legislatures, black Americans by no means are equal to whites. Racial equality is, in fact, not a realistic goal. By constantly aiming for a status that is unobtainable in a perilously racist America, black Americans face frustration and despair. Over time, our persistent quest for integration has hardened into self-defeating rigidity. (shrink)

The culturally pervasive tendency to identify aspects of the body as aesthetically imperfect harms individuals and scaffolds injustice related to disability, race, gender, LGBTQ+ identities, and fatness. But abandoning the notion of imperfection may not respect people’s reasonable understandings of their own bodies. I examine the prospects for a practice of aesthetic assessment grounded in a notion of the body’s function. I argue that functional aesthetic assessment, to be respectful, requires understanding the body’s functions as complex, malleable, and determined by (...) the projects and interests of the person whose body it is. Aesthetically relevant functions, on this account, are determined neither by the body’s status as organism nor by cultural assumptions about how bodies should function or be used. (shrink)

What is the American rule of law? Is it a paradigm case of the strong constitutionalism concept of the rule of law or has it fallen short of its rule of law ambitions? -/- This open access book traces the promise and paradox of the American rule of law in three interwoven ways. -/- It focuses on explicating the ideals of the American rule of law by asking: how do we interpret its history and the goals of its constitutional framers (...) to see the rule of law ambitions its foundational institutions express? -/- It considers those constitutional institutions as inextricable from the problem of race in the United States and the tensions between the rule of law as a protector of property rights and the rule of law as a restrictor on arbitrary power and a guarantor of legal equality. In that context, it explores the distinctive role of Black liberation movements in developing the American rule of law. -/- Finally, it considers the extent to which the American rule of law is compromised at its frontiers, and the extent that those compromises undermine legal protections Americans enjoy in the interior. It asks how America reflects the legal contradictions of capitalism and empire outside its borders, and the impact of those contradictions on its external goals. (shrink)

The Age of Enlightenment is more global and complex than the standard Eurocentric Colonial Canon narrative presents. For example, before the advent of unscientific racism and the systematic negligence of the contributions of Others outside of “White Europe,” Raphael centered Ibn Rushd in his Vatican fresco “Causarum Cognitio” ; the astronomer Edmund Halley taught himself Arabic to be more enlightened; The Royal Society of London acknowledged the scientific method developed by Ibn Al-Haytham. In addition, if we study the Transatlantic texts (...) of the late 18th century, it is not Kant, but instead enlightened thinkers like Anton Wilhelm Amo, Phillis Wheatley, and Toussaint L’Ouverture, who mostly live up to the ideals of reason, humanism, universalism, and human rights. One obstacle to developing a more balanced presentation of the Age of the Enlightenment is the influence of colonialism, Eurocentrism, and methodological nationalism. Consequently, this paper, part II of two, will also deal with the European Enlightenment’s unscientific heritage of scholarly racism from the 1750s. It will be demonstrated how Linnaeus, Hume, Kant, and Hegel were among the Founding Fathers of intellectual white supremacy within the Academy. Hence, the Age of Enlightenment is not what we are taught to believe. This paper will demonstrate how the lights from different “Global Enlightenments” can illuminate paths forward to more dialogue and universalism in the 21st century. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophy of art generally assumes that aesthetic experience is constituted by a certain ontological-phenomenological structure: the apprehension by a subject of an object. This article explores an underexamined critique of this philosophical model found within the black intellectual and artistic tradition. I will specifically focus on the version of this critique proposed by the similarly underexamined black philosophers Adrian Piper and Fred Moten. This critique, which I dub the subjectivizing concern, takes issue with the notion of ontological distance that (...) I argue defines the subject-object model. I define ontological distance as the removal and alienation of the subject’s fundamental sense of self from that of so-called objects. The subjectivizing concern holds that this distance is not value neutral. Rather, the subject-object model is considered to be directly entwined with projects and practices of aesthetic and extraesthetic racism and antiblackness. After offering Piper’s own model of aesthetic experience—which she dubs catalysis—as an alternative, I propose three possible ways in which the subject-object model can be conceived as tied to antiblack racism. (shrink)

Philosophers have rightly condemned lookism—that is, discrimination in favor of attractive people or against unattractive people—in education, the justice system, the workplace and elsewhere. Surprisingly, however, the almost universal preference for attractive romantic and sexual partners has rarely received serious ethical scrutiny. On its face, it’s unclear whether this is a form of discrimination we should reject or tolerate. I consider arguments for both views. On the one hand, a strong case can be made that preferring attractive partners is bad. (...) The idea is that choosing partners based on looks seems essentially similar to other objectionable forms of discrimination. (In particular, the preference for attractive partners is arguably both unfair and harmful to a significant degree.) One can try to resist this conclusion in several ways. I consider three possible replies. The first has to do with the possibility of controlling our partner preferences. The second pertains to attractiveness and “good genes”. The last attempts to link certain aspects of attractiveness to a prospective partner’s personality and values. I argue that the first two replies fail conclusively, while the third only amounts to a limited defense of a particular kind of attractiveness preference. So the idea that we should often avoid preferring attractive partners is compelling. (shrink)

Lately, there has been a lot of talk about the Ghettos, about wayward youths and Instagram rappers that glorify violence. In this piece, a Warsaw-based philosopher contributes to this discussion by examining the music of the ghetto and the culture of riots. Not in opposition to how bourgeois society usually frames such acts of discontent but rather as a reasonable democratic right that minorities are entitled to.

Este trabalho objetiva analisar a contribuição da literatura infantil no processo de construção da identidade étnico-racial na educação infantil e discutir as representações de crianças negras nas histórias infantis. Pretendeu-se também discutir a importância de se trabalhar literatura com temáticas voltadas às relações étnico-raciais na educação infantil. A metodologia utilizada foi a análise cultural das obras literárias infantis “Betina” e “Makeba vai à escola” a partir da revisão bibliográfica de autoras negras, como: Nilma Lino Gomes e Ana Fátima Cruz dos (...) Santos, que tratam das relações étnico-raciais representadas por personagens infantis. Referente à literatura infantil para as relações étnico-raciais, em sua maioria as negras e negros são representados de forma estereotipada. A lei 10.639/03, evidenciou a necessidade de se trabalhar a cultura da população negra e indígena na escola, estimulando a oferta de materiais que tratem desse tema. É importante que as crianças negras se vejam etnicamente representadas em obras literárias que lhes possibilite a construção de sua identidade e pertencimento. A análise dos dados nos permitiu reflexões e novos olhares voltados para a construção da identidade étnico-racial na educação infantil através da literatura infantil. (shrink)

O artigo apresenta uma discussão acerca da percepção do imaginário da cultura africana e afro-brasileira e da construção da identidade étnico-racial no enredo escolar. A investigação foi realizada a fim de: 1- analisar os tipos de suportes e referenciais culturais que a escola fornece para a construção da identidade étnico-racial; 2- identificar as consequências do tipo de representação do negro construída e percebida na escola para o desenvolvimento da identidade étnico-racial dos alunos do Ensino Fundamental I. Para tanto, utilizou-se a (...) abordagem de pesquisa qualitativa, empregando o uso da modalidade pesquisa-participante e análise documental do Plano Municipal de Educação de Corrente-PI, município onde a pesquisa foi desenvolvida, Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais e a Base Nacional Comum Curricular. A participação direta ocorreu por meio da realização de uma oficina de leitura realizada em uma turma do 2º ano do ensino fundamental, contemplando a literatura fornecida pelo PNBE, que versa sobre a construção da identidade étnico-racial. Diante da problemática e da dificuldade de implementação das leis que regem o ensino da temática, a pesquisa torna-se relevante, pois, longe de se esgotar a uma conclusão final, este estudo reforça a necessidade do constante debate e a busca por efetivação de práticas educativas que formem cidadãos emancipados e forneçam subsídios para os negros se autoafirmarem e para a valorização da cultura de matriz africana. Assim como a necessidade da busca por adequação, implementação, monitoramento e avaliação constante das leis que regem o ensino de história e cultura africana e afro-brasileira. (shrink)

Analisa-se a constituição da sexualidade da mulher negra na obra cinematográfica Mignonnes, da feminista Maïmouna Doucouré. O contexto cultural do refugiado, a religiosidade muçulmana, o patriarcado poligâmico são analisados em conjunto com a puberdade, a inserção em grupos de pares, a delinquência juvenil, a influência da internet e a hipersexualização do corpo feminino, frequentemente objetificado e assediado. Associa-se a postura provocativa de Mignonnes com o afro-feminismo francês na denúncia da dominação racista, sexista, classista e colonialista.

A precariedade ou até mesmo a ausência de políticas públicas que concorram efetivamente a favor da diminuição da desigualdade racial dificulta que negros ocupem cargos considerados de maior destaque, prestígio na iniciativa privada e no serviço público. Além disso, apesar do senso comum de que não existe racismo no Brasil, quaisquer inciativas de inclusão racial são amplamente criticadas, principalmente no âmbito das redes sociais, por indivíduos contrários ao protagonismo negro no mundo do trabalho. Inclusive, nessa perspectiva, no ambiente interacional tecnológico (...) mediado pela internet, muitos internautas acusam as marcas de racismo reverso quando o protagonismo não é branco. Mas, será que existe racismo reverso no país? A partir daí, então, o presente artigo busca problematizar a questão da existência de racismo reverso, tendo como base as narrativas em disputa produzidas no contexto da inciativa da rede varejista Magazine Luiza de abrir vagas apenas para negros para o cargo de trainee. (shrink)

O profissional de enfermagem figura entre os primeiros que presta os primeiros cuidados as mulheres vítimas de agressões sexuais, necessitando, dessa forma, de competência e sensibilidade para cuidar no âmbito clínico, garantindo a preservação de vestígios da violência e salvaguardar os direitos das vítimas. O objetivo do presente estudo foi evidenciar estudos na literatura científica nacional que enfoquem a assistência de enfermagem em situações de violência sexual contra mulher. Estudo de revisão integrativa de literatura com abordagem quanti-qualitativa, realizada no período (...) de fevereiro a março de 2021. A coleta de dados foi realizada por meio de busca de estudos bibliográficos disponíveis nas base de dados SciELO, Google Acadêmico e BVS. Foram levantados 24 artigos e após aplicação de critérios de elegibilidade, 11 artigos foram utilizados para análise. O cuidar em enfermagem à mulher vítima de violência sexual leva à compreensão de que a assistência destes profissionais estão centradas, em sua maior parte, no cuidado técnico. Mesmo sendo um dos principais profissionais que cuidam deste tipo de violência, urge a necessidade de um cuidar mais humanizado. Torna-se imprescindível maior atenção a formação permanente e continuada destes profissionais para uma assistência mais efetiva às mulheres vítimas de violência sexual no Brasil. (shrink)

I argue that according to Kristie Dotson, non-epistemic motives such as social, ethical and material harm can motivate a speaker to smother her testimony. I present this exegesis of Dotson's view of testimonial smothering in response to J. L. Lee's and Trystan Goetze's reply to my commentary of Lee's view that anticipatory epistemic injustice is distinct from testimonial smothering.

The goal of the paper is to consider whether women are vulnerable or protected on the labour market during the pandemic crisis, seeking answers in the wider context of previous downturns and economic theory. In times of crisis, female employment is likely to be more susceptible to cuts, for several reasons explained i.a. by the flexible buffers hypothesis or sex segregation hypothesis. Since the pandemic crisis is still unfolding, many of its effects are still unknown but it can be expected (...) that the COVID-19 crisis may have an unequal impact on women and men. Additional challenges in this crisis can be found in the home. Gender effects vary across EU countries, however, it is essential to develop at both the European and national level effective policy responses leading to gender balance in various dimensions. (shrink)

Louise Keralio-Robert began publishing translations, novels, history, and a collection of women’s works in the decade prior to the French Revolution. She was a republican journalist during its initial stages and then, after a period of obscurity, returned to publishing translations and novels at the end of the first decade of the nineteenth century. This article offers an overview of the works produced during these three periods of her literary endeavour and defends her against the charge of having been ‘une (...) pionnière du républicanisme sexiste’. It argues that Keralio-Robert sees certain traditional feminine characteristics as valuable antidotes to pre- and post-revolutionary fanaticism and that she proposes that an ideally virtuous character will combine ‘masculine’ greatness of heart and firmness of spirit with ‘feminine’ sweetness, modesty, and charity. (shrink)

This article examines Re Imogen 61 Fam LR 344, a decision of the Family Court of Australia, which held that an application to the Family Court is mandatory if a parent or a medical practitioner of a child or adolescent diagnosed with gender dysphoria disputes the diagnosis, the capacity to consent, or the proposed treatment. First, we explain the regulatory framework for the medical treatment of gender dysphoria in children and adolescents, including the development of the welfare jurisdiction under Section (...) 67ZC of the Family Law Act 1975. We then provide an overview of the Re Imogen decision, and discuss the balancing exercise involved in determining a child’s best interests in the medical treatment context. We challenge the Family Court’s conclusion that, in relation to a dispute about diagnosis or treatment, a finding that the child or adolescent is Gillick competent to consent to treatment is not determinative, and the Family Court must determine the dispute. We argue that this conclusion represents an unjustified incursion into the right of Gillick competent transgender children and adolescents to make decisions about their own bodies and identities, and that the protective role of parents and the Family Court cannot justify interfering with their bodily autonomy in this context. Finally, we propose an alternative regulatory framework that removes the Family Court from the medical treatment process for gender dysphoria in circumstances of dispute between a parent and their Gillick competent child. (shrink)

Studies on the mediatisation of war point to attempts of governments to regulate the visual perspective of their involvements in armed conflict – the most notable example being the practice of ‘embedded reporting’ in Iraq and Afghanistan. This paper focuses on a different strategy of visual meaning-making, namely, the publication of images on social media by armed forces themselves. Specifically, we argue that the mediatisation of war literature could profit from an increased engagement with feminist research, both within Critical Security/Critical (...) Military Studies and within Science and Technology Studies that highlight the close connection between masculinity, technology and control. The article examines the German military mission in Afghanistan as represented on the German armed forces’ official Facebook page. Germany constitutes an interesting, and largely neglected, case for the growing literature on the mediatisation of war: its strong antimilitarist political culture makes the representation of war particularly delicate. The paper examines specific representational patterns of Germany’s involvement in Afghanistan and discusses the implications which arise from what is placed inside the frame of visibility and what remains out of its view. (shrink)

Ascribing autonomous status to agents is a valuable practice. As such, we ought to care about how we engage in practices of autonomy ascription. However, disagreement between first-personal experiences of an agent’s autonomy and third-personal determina- tions of their autonomy presents challenges of ethical and epistemic concern. My view is that insights from a dialogical rather than nondialogical account of autonomy give us the resources to combat the challenges associated with autonomy ascription. I draw on Andrea Westlund’s account of dialogical (...) autonomy—on which autonomy requires a dialogical disposition to hold oneself answerable to external critical perspectives—to make my case. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This study focuses on the notions of ‘ruins’, ‘savage knowledge’, and ‘American race’ in the works of the German naturalist Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius. A somewhat neglected figure in the history of anthropology and of natural history, Martius was regarded by scholars from Europe and the Americas as a leading figure in botany and ethnology in the nineteenth century. In this article, I discuss how Martius articulated: the notion of American race, that is, a broad characterization of the (...) native peoples of the Americas rooted in a complex natural history which brought together seemingly disparate fields of knowledge, such as medicine, botany, theology, philology, and mythology; having ruins as a guiding concept, which helped him to make sense of American natives; and savage knowledge – a concept semantically aligned to that of ruins, and among whose principal modes of expression was shamanic practice. (shrink)

Postgenderism is an extrapolation of ways that technology is eroding the biological, psychological and social role of gender, and an argument for why the erosion of binary gender will be liberatory. Postgenderists argue that gender is an arbitrary and unnecessary limitation on human potential, and foresee the elimination of involuntary biological and psychological gendering in the human species through the application of neurotechnology, biotechnology and reproductive technologies. Postgenderists contend that dyadic gender roles and sexual dimorphisms are generally to the detriment (...) of individuals and society. Assisted reproduction will make it possible for individuals of any sex to reproduce in any combinations they choose, with or without "mothers" and "fathers," and artificial wombs will make biological wombs unnecessary for reproduction. Greater biological fluidity and psychological androgyny will allow future persons to explore both masculine and feminine aspects of personality. Postgenderists do not call for the end of all gender traits, or universal androgyny, but rather that those traits become a matter of choice. Bodies and personalities in our postgender future will no longer be constrained and circumscribed by gendered traits, but enriched by their use in the palette of diverse self-expression. (shrink)

The alleged threats to human nature are at the root of many concerns about the use of nanotechnology to extend human health and capabilities. Bu the concept of human nature is illusory, selectively deployed, and does not impose any ethical constraint on human enhancement. Human nature is not only a meaningless concept, a product of our imperfect human cognition and a relic of the idea of a "soul," but, as it is deployed today against human enhancement technologies, it is also (...) a morally offensive, racist concept. The "human-racists" who deploy the concept of human nature are more inclusive than their forebears, but the make the same mistake of tying citizenship and value to biology. By setting aside the concept of human nature, we can affirm the value of the myriad aspects of human existence that we wish to preserve and extend using human enhancement technologies, including whatever genetic capacities and limits we may discover. Human enhancement technologies, such as those that may be enabled by nanotechnology and genetic engineering, enable us to define a new and more dynamic set of human capabilities, and to better achieve many moral virtues, regardless of whether they are part of "human nature" or not. (shrink)

A woman's right to know the contents of her own body, and to make a choice about whether to continue her pregnancy or not, should be defended against laws trying to stop prenatal sex selection, either in the developing world or in the developed world. Restrictions on women's reproductive freedom harm the interests of women and girls, and ignore myriad social policy solutions, such as education and income incentives to have girls and universal old age pensions, that provide better answers (...) to the strains of unbalanced sex ratios. The opponents of sex selection trumpet all accounts of increased discrimination against women resulting from unequal sex ratios while ignoring growing evidence of positive cultural change and women's empowerment fromwomen's enhanced marriage prospects. Opponents of sex selection reify a conservative heteronormative model of sexuality, gender roles and family structure, while arguing that unmarried men are social time bombs who can only be controlled by a wife. Eventually the social policy dilemma around sex selection will presumably be made moot since would-be parents will be able to use pre-conceptive technology to determine a conceptus's gender without abortion or in-vitro fertilization. But until the sex selection argument unravels before technological innovation, women's rights to control their bodies must be defended against laws banning - or requiring - prenatal ultrasound and abortion. (shrink)

In the coming decades humanists and trans-humanists need to wage a global campaign to radicalize the idea of human rights. We need to assert our rights to control our own bodies and brains, whether we choose to change our genders or medicate our brains. We need to assert that the measure of a society’s fairness is how universally available we make the prerequisites for achieving our fullest potential. We need to defend the right to enhance ourselves - whether through education (...) and exercise or genetic engineering and cybernetic implants. We need to extend these “human rights” and citizenship not only to all humans, regardless of nationality, but to all persons, ape, human, posthuman or machine. We need to build the global institutions that can protect the rights of persons, and expand the freedoms they enjoy. (shrink)

While transgender studies and philosophy intersect on occasion, there are few books that focus on the ontology of gender while also taking transgender experience into account. Phenomenal Gender doe...