User:Swilksgu/sandbox

=Standpoint Theory- Women in Science= One example of this is women in the science profession. "Women still tend, however, to be concentrated in low-paid occupations: 60 percent of white professional women are nurses, daycare workers, or schoolteachers, while nearly half of all African-American women in the labor force work as chambermaids, welfare service aides, cleaners, or nurses' aides."

This practice is also quite evident when women enter into professions that are considered to be male oriented. Women in science are a perfect example as not only a select few are allowed, but those who get in find it difficult to climb the structural ladder. Londa Schiebinger states, "While women now study at prestigious universities at about the same rate as men, they are rarely invited to join the faculty at top universities...The sociologist Harriet Zuckerman has observed that 'the more prestigious the institution, the longer women wait to be promoted.' Men, generally speaking, face no such trade-off."

=Key Concepts of Standpoint Theory= That viewpoint can also be said about women who identify as feminists and exhibit strong preferences for specific issues. Kristina Rolin states, “Whereas the assumption of essentialism is that all women share the same socially grounded perspective in virtue of being women, the assumption of automatic epistemic privilege is that epistemic advantage accrues to the subordinate automatically, just in virtue of their occupying a particular social position.”

=Criticisms= Joseph Rouse also reinforces how pedagogy is such an important concept to standpoint theory as it is important for individuals to know and understand the concept behind standpoint theory. It is not simply a a theory of ideas that exist to create discussion but that it actually serves a purpose and that is to nullify the idea of pure objectivity. “The first lesson suggested by standpoint theories has not been sufficiently emphasized in the literature. Standpoint theories remind us why a naturalistic conception of knowing is so important. Knowledge claims and their justification are part of the world we seek to understand. They arise in specific circumstances and have real consequences. They are not merely representations in an idealized logical space, but events within a causal nexus. It matters politically as well as epistemically which concepts are intelligible, which claims are heard and understood by whom, which features of the world are perceptually salient, and which reasons are understood to be relevant and forceful, as well as which conclusions credible.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standpoint_theory#Feminist_standpoint_theories

=Sexual Division of Labor= =The Victorian Period= The Victorian era that has been so closely examined by Sally Shuttleworth and company shed light on women during the Victorian era. They played dual roles and were expected to deliver with conviction in the aspects in which they were required to perform duties in and outside of the household. She states, "Two traditional tropes are here combined: Victorian medical textbooks demonstrated not only woman's biological fitness and adaptation to the sacred role of homemaker, but also her terrifying subjection to the forces of the body. At once angel and demon, woman came to represent both the civilizing power that would cleanse the male from contamination in the brutal world of the economic market and also the rampant, uncontrolled excesses of the material economy."

=Religious Theory= The creation of Eve from Adam's rib insinuated the patriarchal idea that women were to be submissive and also created the illusion that men and women were inequal. Gerda Lerner explains, "We have seen how procreativity and creativity were severed in the creation of monotheism. God's blessing of man's seed which would be planted in the passive receptacle of woman's womb symbolically defined gender relations under patriarchy. And in the story of the Fall, woman and, more specifically, female sexuality became the symbol of human weakness and the source of evil."

Religious practices of the past and present are definite symbols of the superiority placed on men and those traditions have continued to thrive. Lerner Gerder gives us an example, “Hebrew monotheism conceptualized a universe created by a single force—God's will. The source of creativity, then, was the invisible, ineffable God. He created male and female in a significantly different way, out of different substance, though each enlivened by his divine breath. He covenanted and contracted only with males. Circumcision as the symbol of the covenant expressed that reality.

The simple fact that women were deliberately excluded from leadership roles and positions within the church insinuates that they were not capable to lead. Furthermore, they were not created to teach or give directions. The responsibility of leading was designed for men. “Only males could mediate between God and humans. This was symbolically expressed in the all-male priesthood, the various ways of excluding women from the most essential and meaningful religious spiritual: i.e., their exclusion from the formation of the minyan; their segregated seating in the temple; their exclusion as active participants from the temple service, etc. Women were denied equal access to religious learning and the priesthood, and thereby they were denied the capacity of interpreting and altering the religious belief system.”

=Sexual Division of Labor and the Evolution of Sex Differences= The discussion of the division of gender roles have been an ongoing debate and Gerda Lerner quotes the philosopher Socrates to demonstrate that the idea of defined gender roles is patriarchal. It also identifies how men and women are capable of performing the same job descriptions with the exception of when it calls for anatomical differences, such as giving birth. “In Book V of the Republic, Plato—in the voice of Socrates—sets down the conditions for the training of the guardians, his elite leadership group. Socrates proposes that women should have the same opportunity as men to be trained as guardians. In support of this he offers a strong statement against making sex differences the basis for discrimination: if the difference [between men and women] consists only in women bearing and men begetting children, this does not amount to proof that a woman differs from a man in respect to the sort of education she should receive; and we shall therefore continue to maintain that our guardians and their wives ought to have the same pursuits.

He continues to add that with the same set of established resources such as education, training and teaching, it creates an atmosphere of equity which helps to further the cause of gender equality. “Socrates proposes the same education for boys and girls, freeing guardian women from housework and child-care. But this female equality of opportunity will serve a larger purpose: the destruction of the family. Plato's aim is to abolish private property, the private family, and with it self-interest in his leadership group, for he sees clearly that private property engenders class antagonism and disharmony. Therefore "men and women are to have a common way of life . . . —common education, common children; and they are to watch over the citizens in common. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_division_of_labor_(evolutionary_perspective)#Sexual_division_of_labor_and_the_evolution_of_sex_differences

=References=