What does 'Wuss' Mean?

I sometimes download and archive podcasts but find that I don't listen to them as often as I intend. But then something will strike my fancy. And that's how I came to listen recently to a Philosophy Talk podcast dated 12/5/10.

The topic is "Disagreement" and the interview is with Jennifer Lackey of Northwestern, a social epistemologist who examines testimony as a source of knowledge. The topic is a fascinating one, and the sort of thing that I would encourage my students to think about.

But I got caught on this piece of dialogue:

"What should I do in the face of disagreement? Should I change my opinion just because you disagree? If I change my opinion just because you disagree, that seems kind of wussy. On the other hand, if I don't at least reconsider, that seems kind of arrogant. So what should I do: be wussy or arrogant? chuckle"

Lackey: nervous laughter

Why the chuckle and the nervous laughter?

Could it be because 'wuss' is a not-quite-polite word to use here? What does 'wuss' mean, anyway, and what is its origin?

I've always thought of 'wuss' as one of those words that is like the phrases 'that sucks' and 'it really blows.' They've become part of the vernacular, but we are marginally aware of their sexual origin. You wouldn't say it to your mother-in-law. At best, isn't it like substituting 'witch' for 'bitch'? The meaning is the same, and the substitute doesn't eliminate the sexist nature of the insult, or does it?

I looked up the origins of 'wuss' and found much speculation but no authoritative origin. Suggestive, though. It means 'wimp' and comes from the expression 'pussy-wussy,' meaning 'sissy.' It became popularized in the US in the 1980's. Strangely, some seem to say that 'sissy' does not have a sexual reference, and that 'pussy' in this context refers not to women's anatomy but to men who act timid, subservient, weak, and ineffectual and in this way are like women.

Either way, the term is a way of insulting a man by calling him either gay or feminine, and it plays either directly or indirectly off the slang word 'pussy.' I wonder what Jennifer Lackey, philosopher of language, thought at the time of the interview. The word gets additional power, of course, by being directed at a woman by a man, and in the context of a male-dominated profession.

I checked my instincts by asking a few of my colleagues. Some guys said that it's just a slang word, not too polite, meant to be insulting, but basically harmless. Some guys said it was insulting to gays. But women said it was sexist: "Oh, that's a way of saying 'pussy' without saying 'pussy'."

What Do You Know?

Wikipedia is asking for more female contributors.

This is important in that it recognizes that, if Wikipedia says something about our cultural worldview, then the perspective of that worldview is skewed if those who write it don't represent the full diversity of interests.

I don't buy the line that it's because women don't use computers as much or in the same ways as men. I think the cause is a more broadly rooted phenomenon--women being less like to recognize their own epistemic authority or to recognize that what they have expertise on counts as knowledge.

We philosophers have a word for this--agnotology, or the epistemology of ignorance. Some sorts of things are deemed worth knowing, and others not; and social practices, some of them gendered, dub people experts. Feminist philosophers have examined how cultural values shape the understanding of what counts as knowledge--including Nancy Tuana, Shannon Sullivan, Lisa Heldke, Nancy McHugh, and Carla Fehr.

Thanks to Zoe for the link!

Feminist Theory and Analytic Sentences

I just came across a discussion of the analytic/synthetic distinction in a philosophy of science textbook (one that's still in print and available through Wadsworth).

As the only example of an analytic sentence, the (male) author gives

"All women are female"

with the further explanation that it's analytic because the "meaning of the words determines its truth and because nothing that has happened in the world, can happen, or will happen, can change its truth status."

This seems like a good time to bring up the sex/gender distinction, something that is taught in introductory women's studies classes. We may go on to question and trouble the distinction itself, but a good place to start is to note:

1. sex (female) is biological and gender (woman) is social

2. the male-female sex dichotomy does not hold perfectly in humans. Indeed, for about 1% of the human population one or more sexual features are out of step with the others--chromosomal abnormalities, hormonal abnormalities, anatomical abnormalities. Some argue that to call these "abnormalities" is itself ignorant of how common they are. Moreover, in the US, about .25% of the population has changed gender.

And yes, the beautiful woman in that image is not female.

More on Sotomayor and neutrality

In violation of the rules of blog time (namely, the NOW lasts only one day at most), here is a timeless clip evaluating last week's Sotomayor hearings.

Yes, objectivity, neutrality, bias. It would be easier to make fun of the view that bias isn't bias if you can't see it yourself if it weren't for the philosophical difficulty of theorizing what does count as neutral knowledge. 

And one more comment: Why did I hear over and over the statement that Sotomayor is "an admirable judge, an admirable woman," when we never hear someone called an admirable man in addition to being an admirable judge.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Neutral Man's Burden
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Jeff Goldblum

Unreasonable reasoning

Via the Women's Bioethics Blog, a series of special essays in the New Scientist covers 7 reasons why Reason is not enough (unfortunately the full series requires a subscription).

This tired chestnut? Define Reason narrowly enough, and of course it alone cannot solve problems of politics or engineering! But consider the alternatives on their own--emotion, tradition, hearsay, trial-and-error--and we come out even worse.

Yes, some say were were never modern, but I'll stand for the Enlightenment.

Do please consider....

Anti-Reason Reason #1:
"Reason stands against values and morals"
And thank goodness for that! How many brutal traditions have been used to dehumanize women and others? Hurrah for the power of moral reason and a universal sense of humanity.

Anti-Reason Reason #2:
"No one actually uses reason: If we had to think logically about everything we did, we’d never do anything at all."
What is meant is that "no one uses formal logic alone in solving real-world problems with complex contexts." But this is something we've known for just a little while--well, decades, at least. Thank you Rudolf Carnap!

Anti-Reason Reason #3:
"I hear 'reason,' I see lies: Science is routinely co-opted by governments and corporations to subvert people’s ability to make their own decisions."
This is a reference to pseudo-science's kissing cousin, pseudo-reason--including chart junk and all of its allies. Not reason itself.

Anti-Reason Reason #4:
"Reason excludes creativity and intuition."
Another narrow view. See #2 above. Deference to experience (sometimes known as 'intuition') is, again, dictated by reason. How else could we judge our experience and the experience of others?

Anti-Reason Reason #5:
"Whose reason is it anyway?: Real people don’t live their lives according to cold rationality."
This essay is from a bioethicist, and, I will admit, this is the challenge I am most likely to trip on. Indeed, the author writes:

Feminist theorists, for example, argue that the Enlightenment's focus on the individual, on rights, on reason, ignores the complicated and subtle web of networks that we are part of: the interdependencies and the relationships. For them, it's not just about individual choice, but about the context in which we choose.

Still, I would say that we can use reason to understand gaps in reasonability. Women have no doubt been left out of knowledge networks, and this is the observation that the literature on standpoint and situated knowledge responds to. Still, I hold that the problem is not with the theory or tools of reason but with the fairness with how they are distributed.

Anti-Reason Reason #6:
"Reason destroys itself: Even in formal mathematics, reason breaks its own rules"
Roger Penrose's supposed proof is none other than Hume's Problem of Induction. How do we know that reason is successful? How do we know that 2 + 2 = 4? The only way we can judge is by Reason's own lights, and perhaps (a little Cartesian flair, now...) we've always been deceived. Yes, without a benevolent God to rescue us from paradox, we are left with nothing but doubt.
This is a fun game for philosophers to play, I suppose, but a dishonest one assuming they've read Hume themselves. A naturalist's reason is not at odds with experience, and it is experience that drives us forward and allows us to live our lives, not Reason alone.

Anti-Reason Reason #7:
"Reason is just another faith."
But we know that Mary Midgley would not give up reason in favor of faith, would she? And indeed she does not: this is an essay against scientism.

Here she wraps it up for us:

"...in fact it is not clear that thought could go on at all in such a rarefied vacuum. In order to make actual decisions we need serious standards of what is or is not satisfactory. Hume's mistake lay in defining reason far too narrowly, as mere logic. This splits it off entirely from the rest of our thinking."

FEMMSS at NWSA

The U.S. National Women's Studies Association held its 2007 annual conference at the Pheasant Run Resort in St.Charles, Illinois, just outside Chicago. While attending, a number of scholars who've been involved with FEMMSS (Association for Feminist Epistemologies, Methodologies, Metaphysics and Science Studies) began a series of discussions we hope to continue in 2008 at the NWSA in Cinncinati, Ohio.

Philosopher Nancy McHugh organized an informal breakfast meeting to discuss some FEMMSS planning, given that it is a virtual organization at the moment. I think we might be encouraged that the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation, a similarly interdisciplinary international group originating in philosophy has existed for over ten years without any structure but with a series of very successful biennial conferences drawing a wide range of international scholars. However, it was clear at the 2007 FEMMSS conference hosted by Arizona State University (Tempe) that future biennial conferences are just the beginning of what our group wants. We want outreach to public policy, publications, workshops, and more.

Unfortunately, our breakfast meeting was cut short, but fortunately the reason was that our timing conflicted with a scheduled meeting of the NWSA Taskforce on Science and Technology. We adjourned our meeting to join theirs, and it turned out we increased their numbers from about four to about ten. Their group has a narrower academic domain (excluding larger epistemological and metaphysical issues) and a more U.S. membership than FEMMSS. However, by coordinating our efforts we can all benefit by complementing each other's work, rather than competing for people's energy.

NWSA also can run bulletin boards and discussion groups for Science and Technology Studies! And this is a great opportunity for FEMMSS to connect with STS since we have not been strong in history or sociology of science.

Those of us who attended the Taskforce business meeting will receive messages, and we hope to organize some sessions for NWSA in June 2008. They already plan an informal, off-the-program session for us to share research and explore possibilities for collaboration during the "pre-conference" official sessions.

Nancy, Marianne Janack and I were on a panel entitled "Do We Know Better?: Discussing the State of Feminist Epistemology" which did generate some fascinating discussion, just as Evelyn predicted. In particular, I came to realize that my own view runs somewhat contrary to Nancy's. Nancy spoke about the increasing situatedness of feminist epistemology -- it's nice to know we practice what we preach! However, I raised concerns about the loss of the original rhetorical concerns of the feminist critiques of epistemology and of the history of science. Marianne argued Richard Rorty's epistemological cynicism about feminism is unwarranted (to be part of her upcoming edited Rereading the Canon volume on feminist engagements with Rorty). Despite unfortunate timing on the morning of the last day, and relocating ourselves from an absolutely frigid room, there was a good turnout, and I think we could have continued the discussion much longer. Fortunately, we will! See you in Cinncinati in 2008!