[SWAPlist] FW: Fwd: women in philosophy

[shay welch]

i am forwarding you all an email that melissa has sent to the dean.  i 
thought some of you might be interested in the efforts melissa is going 
through in order to help us gain funds through the university.  i think that 
it is great that we have an older graduate student stepping up to the plate. 
  keep your ears open and i'll let you know if anything comes out of it.  we 
should all give melissa props for her help.
shay

>From: mbl1088 at garnet.acns.fsu.edu
>To: shaywelch at hotmail.com
>Subject: Fwd: women in philosophy
>Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 17:37:41 -0500
>

-------------- next part --------------


----- Forwarded message from mbl1088 at garnet.acns.fsu.edu -----
    Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 17:33:15 -0500
    From: mbl1088 at garnet.acns.fsu.edu
Reply-To: mbl1088 at garnet.acns.fsu.edu
Subject: women in philosophy
      To: travis at csit.fsu.edu

Hello Dean Travis-
I am writing to you regarding our department's attempts to address
complaints made by women regarding discrimination and harassment.  I am
encouraged by the involvement of Piers and other faculty who have
actively addressed these concerns. As well, Anne Rowe has shown a
particular interest in assessing the needs of women in our department.
This semester, she held a meeting of women students and faculty (and
Piers also) to discuss harassment and discrimination.  This meeting
turned into a bit of a brainstorming session.  We discussed possible
strategies for promoting women's inclusion, including adding women to
syllabi, hiring women faculty, and promoting feminist philosophy in the
department.  Ultimately, I left the meeting with Anne thinking that the
department and the university had a real interest in promoting women in
the department.  However, figuring out what to do about it is difficult
- especially for philosophers. For instance, how do we go about
encouraging professors and instructors to include women in their
syllabi?  What sorts of works matter?  What if a professor includes
works by women only to batter them intellectually?  If we require women
to be included in 'traditional' syllabi, do we have to require male
authors to be included in feminism classes? Problems of intellectual
freedom also arise.  All the ideas we addressed met serious
difficulties when we tried to figure out what to do about them.  In the
end, we didn't come up with any real solutions.
One good thing that has happened for women in our department is the
SWAP organization that Shay Welch has created (Society for Women's
Advancement in Philosophy).  The SWAP conference last year brought in
Sally Haslanger and Linda Alcoff, two of the leading philosophers of
feminism.  As I am sure you know, the department was pleased with the
conference and encourages Shay in her efforts to organize the next
conference to be held this spring.  The conference presents a good
opportunity to promote women in philosophy and it is organized by
motivated graduate students.  It is an opportunity to promote women in
our department without facing the sorts of problems that we discussed
in the meeting.   However, her request for funding from the small
grants program was denied.  We are all discouraged.  I know that Zack
wrote to you for approval on the funds request and that you were
supportive of the idea.  I do not think that the grant commission is
aware of how useful this conference will be in meeting the goals of the
university and the department regarding women in our department.  Piers
has offered $900 to help with the conference, but SWAP was denied their
request for $3000 by the grant commission.  I am hoping that you can
help me find a way to get funding for this conference.  Shay and the
other organizers raised the funds through grass-roots efforts last year
- meaning bake sales, soliciting donation from the community, and
putting in their own money as well.       These women really have
worked hard to keep SWAP going without university funding for their
conference.    I am not directly involved with organizing the
conference myself.  I am writing because the conference offers a
problem-free way to address the role of women in our department - and
it gets great results.  It legitimizes women's work in philosophy and
exposes all students to a field of philosophy that is currently
marginalized at this university.  Also, it provides an opportunity for
students to make contacts.  The denial of funds just seemed, to me, to
be glaringly contradictory to the values that the university is trying
to promote in our department.  I am certainly aware that this was not
an intentional attack on women's equality in the philosophy department.
  I just wanted to point out the bigger picture that I see here.   I
certainly hope you can help out and I appreciate your attention to this
matter.  I would be happy to discuss it with you further if you like.
Hope that you and your family are doing well this holiday season.
Best-
Melissa Lammey
----------------------------------------------------------------



----- End forwarded message -----


----------------------------------------------------------------