Philosophy 201

“gender is produced primarily NOT by individual choices, but, more…by social and….culturally distinctive meanings.” We are shaped then by other factors – so much for free will.

Interesting that what is womanly is different from culture to culture. I remember though when banking jobs/accounting were mostly held by men. Now there are many female acountants. In the early 1900’s secretary jobs were filled by men.

“how the strenghs of women’s ways of knowing promise to provide valuable resources for human social relations more generally.” To work together for the good of all and stop killing each other. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that read: By love your enemy did Jesus mean not to kill them?

The west has often laid too heavy a burden on other countries by laying a “template” of our society over their society and asking them to function in our world. A world that is flawed – and many of its citizens have trouble functioning up to its standards. Why do we require of others what we ourselves cannot accomplish?

It does make a fitting conclusion doesn’t it. That after all the theories are presented and clarified, after the different persprectives are defined…in the end “We seek to know what inspires or intrigues us, what we can connect to, and we tend to forget or disreguard the rest.”

Here we begin to see how the author defines “feminisms.” Starting with how social and cultural differences affect each woman’s “gendered” indentity.

The author goes on to show how gender was redefined: through understood relations between man and woman; that it is socially and culturally influenced: changeable/not a known identity; it is connected to class, race religion,etc.; and it is a power struggle. Paragraph’s 14-19

How can feminisms justify their knowledge claims when those epistemologies that they have helped to delegitimate are no longer available to do the job?

I think that this is her thesis, and she begins to answer it clearly in paragraph 12 by showing how looking at “other epistimologies” helps to clarify what is truely a “woman’s way of knowing.”

A lot of this discusses the paper that the author is referencing without a lot of background information, or information on the original topic. It makes it a good model for our own posts on epistomology, but a difficult read, and hard to take much substance from.

I just wrote this, but I’ll try again.

The first sentence of this paragraph makes the most sense of anything in this reading. The way that we come to know what we know, either as individuals, or as larger bodies, is based purely on what interests us. We seek to know what inspires or intrigues us, what we can connect to, and we tend to forget or disreguard the rest.

Okay, so I feel slightly idiotic, but I had to accidentally type in the wrong address in order to gain access to this reading, AND I also just now figured out how to use this annotation box. Am I caught up with the class yet??

Also, down at 449
“culturally respectful”—i like this. It says a lot in just two words.

“…much more than the causes to be found within their environments…military policies that tolerate environmental toxicity…economically vulnerable.”
In any place like Chernobyl, Ukraine, it is positively the pollution “causing” the diseases rather than anything to do with a person’s biological makeup.
I think it’s easy for those in power to try and find these biological causes rather than find ways to cut back on all things causing pollution, like mining, coal burning, and nuclear power plants.

“she may have to “demonstrate manliness”
in order to succeed as a physicist.”
This reminds me of an argument i heard that stated that women try to be thin and muscular and wear pantsuits in order to appear more masculine so as to compete with men in the job market.

OOPS! The second post was supposed to be for paragraph 20. sorry.

“Yet in important respects they converge to challenge…”
For some reason this reminds me of The Matrix, and Neo’s challenging of the matrix and the machines.

“However, they clearly attribute…in the dominant groups.”
I agree with this sentiment.

it’s definitely true that women are not a homogeneous group with common life opportunities and experiences.

“epistemological” –what a mouth full.

Not surprising that we look only for what we want to see and close our eyes to the rest.

I’ve always found it interesting that when referring to all people, it is appropriate to use a term such as “mankind” instead of “humankind.” What’s up with that? You never hear someone say “all womenkind” with the intention of meaning men and women.

Are we to interpret feminisms as feminists? That seems to make more sense to me…

Sorry about the shape this text is in. It was scanned for me by faculty support, and I didn’t realize until too late how corrupt the file is. I am working on it, and will keep on working on it. Do the best you can, and check back often!