Ingrid

Harry’s post last week, and Kieran and Magistra’s comments on that post, reminded me of another problem with the academic labour market. In many professions, you have to be a certified, skilled and experienced person, but there is an upper-ceiling on what will be demanded and expected from you for hiring purposes. You have to be good and good enough, but you don’t have to be better than all the others. In fact, there may be no way to say who is better than the others if we compare candidates who are all above a certain threshold of competences and experience. In academia, it seems that the sky is the limit. So it is not good enough to have a PhD degree, some teaching experience, some experience in administration, some experience abroad and a handful of high-quality publications; no, you need more of this compared with your competitors on the job market. You don’t need to be just good; you need to be better than the others. So if there is someone competing for the same job, who has been able and willing to work significantly more hours than you over the last years, than all other things equal that person will have a more impressing CV and will be hired (except if this person is a really horrible character, or known to be a person who always causes trouble).
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We’ve had some discussions on the desirability of a basic income from a feminist perspective here before (here and here). So I thought I would mention that about a month ago a special issue of Basic Income Studies was published which addresses precisely the question whether, all things considered, feminists should endorse a basic income. All authors answered this question with (relatively) affluent societies in mind; so the question still need to be answered for developing countries.

I guest-edited this issue and, as I wrote in the introduction (which also summarises the papers), apart from Barbara Bergmann’s contribution, I genuinely did not know what the other contributors (John Baker, Anca Gheaus, Jacqueline O’Reilly, Almaz Zelleke, and Julieta Elgarte) would argue. So although these authors are all either feminists or generally supportive of feminist views, I was truly surprised to find out that they strongly disagreed on the desirability of a basic income for feminists. On the one hand this is due to the different kinds of feminism which they endorse. Bergmann is a ‘Total Androgyny, Male Style’- type of feminist, whereas Baker and Zelleke, for example, are much more concerned about the short-term interests of carers and those who do not want to or cannot take on large paid jobs, which are often mothers and female carers. Yet the other source of disagreement is the predicted effects of a basic income on the gendered division of labour. Gheaus thinks it will become more unequal (a view I share based on an empirical literature survey of similar policy instruments or financial changes, which I did as a graduate student). Elgarte thinks we need to make policy space for an ‘avantgarde’ who is practicing a more egalitarian gender division of labour while at the same time protecting those who are living in more gendertraditional households, whereas Zelleke doesn’t think the gender division of labour will worsen if a basic income would be implemented.

How is all this possible? The answer, I think, lies in the fact that these papers argue at a high level of generality and without specifying what the level of the basic income will be and what other elements of the welfare state (public goods, merit goods, etc.) will be kept and/or implemented. Of course, this critique is not true for Bergmann, who has done some interesting calculations and argues that if we have a Swedish-style welfare state with targeted transfers and subsidized public and merit goods, there is no fiscal room left to increase taxation rates for a basic income; and it is also not entirely true for O’Reilly, who compares existing social policies aiming at gender equality, and concludes that she is sceptical about what a basic income can do better.

So my conclusion? “…the main merit of this debate in Basic Income Studies is that it provides evidence of the consolidation of the conflicting feminist views about basic income proposals when analysed at a general level. Therefore, I believe that it is time to move to a second stage of feminist analyses that needs to focus more on the details of the entire package deal of a basic income society, in an empirically grounded fashion.” (introduction, p. 5)

Basic Income Studies is one of those wonderful Open Access Journals, so anybody interested can read it all here.

It’s quite depressing that 2008 had to end with this kind of violence in Gaza. On the 29th I signed the petition for a ceasefire that Avaaz initiated. I’m glad to see that by now more than 170,000 people worldwide are calling upon all involved parties to agree to a ceasefire. I am enough of a pessimist to seriously doubt that it will make any difference to what happens on the ground, but still. Sometimes one acts even when one finds it hard to believe that it will make a difference.

Luckily 2008 also had some wonderful moments of hope. For many Americans the election of Obama has been such a moment. One of the most touching Obama-related things I saw was when I visited South Africa during the second half of November. I am involved in a research-action project in Capetown in a township called Khayelitsha. My input in that project is merely philosophical/theoretical, and has so far been from a (physical) distance, so one of the main purposes of my visit was to get to know the women in the townships that are part of this project. One of them, Vivian Zilo has founded the Iliso Care Society which serves nutritious soup to the poorest, and especially to those who need to eat so that they can take their TB or HIV medication. Inside the house of Iliso were several newspaper clips on the walls, some about Iliso, some about local events. But in a prominent central place were a few about Obama, taken from South African Newspapers. Editorials in those newspapers wrote optimistic columns about the significance of Obama’s election not just for the US but for the prospect of a better world, and of course also for the position of black people. Parallels were drawn with what South Africans could do to make their country a better place to live.

Enough Bloggers here and elsewhere have warned us to be realistic about what Obama will be able to deliver – still it was really heart-warming to see how people can be inspired by an event that takes place thousands of miles of where they live, and even if they live in a situation in which many of us would have lost all hope for a significantly better life altogether. The strength and energy and optimism of some of these women from Khayelitsha were striking. So I hope 2009 will bring us more of such hopeful events, more than in 2008, and more than those events where many have lost all hope to reach a just and sustainable solution. Happy new year!

Among some groups of ‘Western’ feminists, perhaps especially within academia, there is a reluctance to draw attention to extreme instances of human rights violations in ‘non-western’ countries, especially in (predominantly) Muslim countries. The argument behind this position is that by highlighting the oppressions of women by some Muslim leaders or groups, one is playing into the card of Islamophobia, and contributing to the polarising rhetoric of ‘us’ versus ‘them’. Some also argue that Western feminists should focus on unjust global economic and political structures for which Western governments bear responsibilities, rather than on local sources of oppression in non-western societies.

I think such concerns are in many instances justified. Nevertheless from time to time I am struck by the intensity of the violence against women and girls by some groups or leaders in the world (and clearly this is by no means just a Muslim issue). Moreover, it would be hard to deny that it is of a different order than the disadvantages or hampering social structures experienced by mainstream groups of women in Europe or North America.

Take the latest one from the Taliban: they have warned that in North-West Pakistan they will kill all girls who still go to school on January 15th, and that they will blow up schools who will enrol female students after that date. Now one would hope they wouldn’t have the capacity to execute such a threat, yet surely they will be able to kill some girls, just as they’ve killed so many other targets. It is just very sad that these things continue to happen when we are entering 2009. It reached the newspapers and the 8 o’clock news here in the Netherlands – but then, what else is going to happen now? As far as I can tell nothing much – except what must be a terrible decision to be made by these girls and their parents.

Ever since the last elections in Belgium, in June 2007, there have been events and background conditions, which have led to a political crisis. We’ve discussed that ongoing crisis here at CT at length (one two three four five six). So it is super-ironic that the Belgian government fell last Friday, not because of the communautarian tensions, but because of a chain of events that is linked to the global financial crisis.
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The answer: they are too big for the afwerkplekken that were built around 1986 in Dutch cities such as Utrecht, and so the drivers are having a hard time getting access. Afwerkplekken? You don’t know what that is, and your Dutch-English internet translator doesn’t know how to translate this word?

Afwerkplekken are, as the picture in the newspaper article shows, places where the client of a prostitute can drive to, and have sex with her. Basically it looks like a parking, with walls and with bins. They are provided by the local governments. Literally it means ‘a place to finish the work’.

Sometimes this country really amazes me.

The events of the last weeks have made me wonder about the agenda of contemporary analytical political philosophy. There are many ways to describe the current financial crisis, but it’s not implausible to say that the foundations of capitalism are shaking. Yet I find little help in contemporary analytical political philosophy to help me understand what’s going on. Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong place. Perhaps I am ignorant. Perhaps I’m not trying hard enough (probably true given that there are so many other things that need to be done). Yet another explanation may be that in the last decades analytical political philosophers have focussed increasingly on issues to do with non-economic topics, or, as far as economic topics are concerned, on micro-economic topics and/or on issues of (re-)distribution or economic policies at the national/state level. Of course, there is quite a bit of related stuff – on the moral limits of the markets or on global justice for example. But are these literatures in themselves sufficient, or sufficiently integrated, to help us analyse capitalism? I doubt so.

I have friends and colleagues who work outside analytical political philosophy, have no background in economics at all, who are convinced they understand capitalism or neoliberalism and have strong normative views about these issues. So a possible thing for me to do would be to join them. Yet I have never found the ‘critical’ literatures they read very helpful – too rhetorical, too sweeping, insufficient analytical for my taste. Too much at the level of critique and deconstruction and too little at the level of helping us sort out the problems and propose constructive solutions. But at least the authors working in those literatures should be credited for having addressed crucial topics, which are, in my opinion, insufficiently addressed in the analytical tradition.

From informal talks over the last week I know I am not the only one with these doubts. Isn’t it time for a macro-economic turn in analytical political philosophy, that is, shouldn’t more of us put our efforts in analysing capitalism and alternative economic (global) systems, rather than focussing on micro-economic issues or non-economic issues? I suspect there is quite some (older?) literature out there, but that it just hasn’t been very fashionable in recent years. So what if we would start by collectively constructing a reading list on these issues for those who prefer to reason within the analytical tradition?

In July I couldn’t blog about a major episode in the Belgian political crisis – I was on holidays in the Walloon area of Belgium, in a cottage without electricity, and without access to the web. Today there is another sequel in the Belgian political crisis which has now been going on for about 15 months. By now most Belgians are suffering from political depression: they are no longer able to swallow yet another glass of this soap. Yet if anybody out there is still interested (I am, even if also politically slightly depressed), below the fold is a short summary of the last two episodes of the Belgian crisis. Warning: this post requires some knowledge on the Belgian political labyrinth, which I’ve tried to sketch here
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Finally and long overdue, here is my book review of Valuing Children, Nancy Folbre’s latest book. The overall goal of this book is to show how and why children matter for economic life, to provide estimates of the economic value of family (nonmarket) childcare and parental expenditures in the USA, and to raise critical questions about the size and kinds of public spending on children in the USA.

Folbre formulates four questions which she sets out to answer: (1) Why should we care about spending on the children? (2) How much money and time do parents devote to children? (3) How much money do taxpayers spend on children? And (4) who should pay for the kids (in other words, which share of the costs of children should be borne by parents and by the government)?
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I’d like to put an empirical claim on the table for discussion. The claim is that people who have never done a significant amount of informal carework, are extremely likely to underestimate the burdens of care. In this claim I include care for small children, severely disabled people, dependent elderly, or any other human being in need of significant amounts of informal caring. And with burdens of care I mean all sorts of burdens – they can be physical, or psychological, or emotional, or another dimension, or (most likely) a mixture of these.

Now, I am not entirely sure where to look for empirical evidence which can confirm, refute or help me to refine or revise this claim. Perhaps in a psychology or sociology of care literature? I have come across plenty of anecdotal evidence, but haven’t come across a study that has investigated this claim in a qualitatively-grounded quantitative way (or a similar claim, perhaps focusing on just one type of care situation). Anyone suggestions for literature? Anyone views on the plausibility of this claim?

Political philosophers/theorists may be interested in the latest issue of Social Theory and Practice , which is a special issue devoted to the debate on ideal and non-ideal theories of justice. This special issue is a selection of papers from a wonderful ECPR workshop which Adam Swift and I organised in Helsinki in 2007. There has been quite a bit of debate on this topic in recent years, and Harry and I have been mentioning in some of our posts that we should have that debate here too – Well, I wait till my copies have arrived. The journal sells single issues for a mere ten dollars (plus shipping for outside the USA); scroll down on the journal’s homepage for instructions in case you’re interested.

A study conducted by sociologists from Cambridge University seems to suggest that the support for working mothers is weakening. The researchers compared survey results from the 1980s till recently, and found “growing sympathy for the old-fashioned view that a woman’s place is in the home, rather than in the office”, caused by “mounting concern that women who play a full and equal role in the workforce do so at the expense of family life.”
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Just back from holidays in the Walloon woods of Belgium – with no access to the internet for two weeks (which feels like a health treatment). While I was there, the Belgian government almost collapsed, the ethno-linguistic battles intensified once more, and the Regime Crisis (now truly with capitals) reached a new height – but I will tell you more about the latest episode of that Drama after I’ve caught up with e-mails.
I only quickly want to flag something with a deadline soon coming up—Public Reason is organising an online podcast symposium for political philosophers next semester. Sounds like a laudable initiative, especially for those of us who are not physically close to the centres of academic debate and/or limited in their ability (or willingness) to travel to seminars, conferences and workshops. Abstract submissions are due by July 31st.

Recently I was talking with a political philosopher, who is based in Italy, about my reasons for supporting birthleave for fathers. He told me that in Italy parenthood is strongly gendered, and gave the example of a note put up at his kids’s school, stating that ‘Today Mothers should pick up their children at 2 pm rather than 4 pm’ (or something very similar). If I ever were to read such a note, I would be outraged that the school would assume that it could only be mothers who would get the kids from school; he, as a father, was outraged that the school assumed that there would be no fathers picking up the kids from school.

In my view there are plenty gendered messages in daily life, and many of the people I encounter are not aware of the gender codes they create, reinforce, and spread. I few months ago I thought I should write down during one year all the public and private gendered codes and messages that I encountered in daily life and explain why I find them problematic (or not). For time reasons, and perhaps also because it would be difficult pursuing such a project without violating people’s right to privacy, I haven’t embarked on that project yet, though I may do so one day. I think such a gender codes diary would show how many gender codes surround us, many of which are uncritically absorbed by consumers and citizens. Which was the last one you encountered?