#Equity and inclusion

[femmefatalevibe]

Hey, I've recently discovered a Youtube channel, The Financial Diet, and they have some really good material. I've mostly been listening to the stuff about how domestic chores aren't evenly distributed in marriage. Whether a woman chooses to be a career woman or a housewife, she's still getting the short end of the stick and will usually bare the majority of the weight for the household. I'd recommend this video in particular, Solving The Problem Of The Adult Toddler Husband. They bring up some really good points that have sat with me since I first watched it. For example, a group of very accomplished women left the house for 2 hours and WWIII broke out at home because their husbands couldn't manage. All the women had to abandon their plans and go tend to the house. Hearing stuff like this gives me pause. I'd really like to get married and be a mother, but it just seems like a bad business move, no matter the type of man a woman marries. I'm not the sacrificial type--I want to be a mother and a wife and still maintain my own identity. Just thought I'd share this here because I live in a region where I'm not allowed to bring up these issues lest I sound like a, feminist (*gasp*).

Hi love! Yes, I think The Financial Diet channel is great. Chelsea has some great, easy-to-understand tips regarding personal finance/money management, and I love her guest contributors/podcast guest episodes. Oh, this notion highlighted in this episode is SO true IRL. A 2008 study found that husbands add 7 hours of housework a week to their wives' plates, while wives decreased a husband's household chores by 1 hour per week.

Check out Melanie Hamlett on TikTok if you want to dive further into this topic. She labels the man in this dynamic under the patriarchy as "King Baby," and it gets me every time!

The Commercialization Of Intimate Life by Arlie Russell Hochschild is a wonderful read on this topic (and the most intersectional text I've found on the subject).

Glad to share more on this topic in the future if there's interest xx

[jcmarchi]

More than an academic advisor

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/more-than-an-academic-advisor/

More than an academic advisor

Advisors are meant to guide students academically, supporting their research and career objectives. For MIT graduate students, the Committed to Caring program recognizes those who go above and beyond.

Professors Iain Stewart and Roberto Fernandez are two of the 2023-25 Committed to Caring cohort, supporting their students through self-doubt, developing a welcoming environment, and serving as a friend.

Iain Stewart: Supportive, equitable, and inclusive

Iain Stewart is the Otto and Jane Morningstar Professor of Science and former director of the Center for Theoretical Physics (CTP). His research interests center around nuclear and particle physics, where he develops and applies effective field theories to understand interactions between elementary particles and particularly strong interactions described by quantum chromodynamics.

Stewart shows faith in his students’ abilities even when they doubt themselves. According to his nominators, the field of physics, like many areas of intellectual pursuit, can attract a wide range of personalities, including those who are highly confident as well as those who may grapple with self-doubt. He explains concepts in a down-to-earth manner and does not make his students feel less than they are.

For his students, Stewart’s research group comes as a refreshing change. Stewart emphasizes that graduate school is for learning, and that one is not expected to know everything from the onset.

Stewart shows a great level of empathy and emotional support for his students. For example, one of the nominators recounted a story about preparing for their oral qualification exam. The student had temporarily suspended research, and another faculty member made a disparaging comment about the student’s grasp of their research. The student approached Stewart in distress.

“As your advisor,” Stewart reassured them, “I can tell you confidently that you know your research and you are doing well, and it’s totally OK to put it off for a while to prepare for the qual.”

Stewart’s words gave the student a sense of relief and validation, reminding them that progress is a journey, not a race, and that taking time to prepare thoughtfully was both wise and necessary.

Always emphasizing positivity in his feedback, Stewart reminds advisees of their achievements and progress, helping them develop a more optimistic mindset. Stewart’s mentorship style recognizes individual student needs, a trait that his students find uncommon. His research group flourishes due to this approach, and a large number of his graduate and postdoc students have achieved great success.

During his six years as director, Stewart has made significant contributions to the CTP. He has improved the culture and demographics due to strong and inclusive leadership. In particular, a noteworthy number of women have joined the CTP.

In his own research group, a large number of international and female students have found a place, which is uncommon for groups in theoretical physics. Currently, three out of seven group members are female in a field where fewer than 10 percent are women.

Stewart’s nominators believe that given the number of women he has mentored in his career, he is single-handedly contributing to improving the diversity in his field. His nominators say he supports diverse backgrounds, and financially supports and encourages participation for marginalized groups.

Roberto Fernandez: Professor and friend

Roberto Fernandez is the William F. Pounds Professor of Organization Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management as well as the co-director of the Economic Sociology PhD Program. His research focuses on organizations, social networks, and race and gender stratification. He has extensive experience doing field research in organizations, and he currently focuses on the organizational processes surrounding the hiring of new talent.

Fernandez describes himself as a “full-service professor.” He tries to attend to differing needs and circumstances of students and the situations they find themselves in, offering advice and consolation.

Fernandez is very understanding of his students, and is happy to speak to them about academic and personal problems alike. He acknowledges that each student comes from a different background with individual experience, and Fernandez attempts to accommodate each one in an ideal manner.

He advises in a way that respects a student’s personal life, but still expects a reasonable amount of produced work that motivates the student, allows for them to excel, and keeps them to a high standard.

Fernandez says, “It is just my sense of duty to pay forward how my mentors treated me. I feel like I would dishonor their work if I were not to pass it on.”

A nominator shared that Fernandez serves as both a professor and a friend. He has gone out of his way to check in and chat with them. They said that Fernandez is the only professor who has taken the time to truly get to know their story, and Fernandez speaks to students like an equal.

The nominator noted that many people at MIT enjoy a high level of privilege. Despite the differences in their circumstances, however, the nominator feels comfortable talking to Fernandez.

Happily, the professor continued to touch base with the nominator long after their class had finished, and he is the one person who really made them feel like MIT was their home. This experience stood out as unique for the nominator, and played a large role in their experience.

In addition to providing genuine connections, Fernandez advises incoming graduate students about the need for a mindset shift. Graduate school is not like undergrad. Being an excellent student is necessary, but it is not sufficient to succeed in a PhD program. Excellent undergraduate students are consumers of knowledge; on the other hand, excellent graduate students are producers of knowledge.

The nominator enthused, “[Fernandez] really went above and beyond, and this means a lot.”

[reasoningdaily]

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion - Harvard's Claudine Gay cited 'racial animus' in her resignation letter

In Claudine Gay’s resignation letter on Tuesday, Harvard University’s first Black — and now former — president cited the fear of being “subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus” while battling allegations of plagiarism and her congressional hearing comments related to the Israel-Hamas war. But Gay and DEI — or diversity, equity and inclusion — experts point out that racial animus was not the only driving factor that led to her resignation.

“She was targeted partially due to her race, but as part of the larger, extremist, right-wing push to reverse social progress under this banner of anti-wokeness,” Lily Zheng, a DEI strategist and best-selling author of DEI Deconstructed, told Yahoo News.

Here’s what racial animus means and how it fuels the resistance to diversity, equity and inclusion in academic and corporate spaces.

What is racial animus?

Zheng defined racial animus, in plain terms, as “racial hostility.”

“She is talking about having a target on her back for being a Black woman, the first in Harvard's history. That's essentially what I am reading, when I see her words, ‘racial animus,’” Zheng said.

A day after stepping down, Gay penned an op-ed in the New York Times in which she said she was “called the N-word more times than I care to count,” in her short six months at Harvard.

“It is not lost on me that I make an ideal canvas for projecting every anxiety about the generational and demographic changes unfolding on American campuses: a Black woman selected to lead a storied institution,” Gay wrote.

Racial animus is fueling resistance to DEI

Civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton said on Tuesday that the resignation of Harvard’s first Black president (she’s also only the second woman to hold the position) was “an assault on the health, strength and future of diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Gay also shared her views on diversity, calling it a “source of institutional strength and dynamism,” and said she advocates for a “modern curriculum.”

But as the academic world and corporations moved to create or enhance DEI initiatives in the wake of the May 2020 murder of George Floyd, conservative leaders in the U.S. have attacked such initiatives as “tactics of liberal elites who suppress free thought in the name of identity politics and indoctrination.”

“Understanding our current racial landscape as a zero-sum game, where only one group of people can ‘win’ is at the heart of a lot of the current anti-wokeness, anti-DEI movement," said Zheng.

In her op-ed, Gay spoke of the conservative campaigns that “often trafficked in lies” to oust her and “often start with attacks on education and expertise.”

“They recycled tired racial stereotypes about Black talent and temperament,” Gay wrote.

In an email to Yahoo News, Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist who has taken credit for leading a conservative campaign to push Gay to resign, compared Gay’s “racism” to that of her critics.

“Evidence that Gay is racist: she oversaw a discriminatory admissions program ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court; led a discriminatory DEI bureaucracy that sought, among other things, to reduce the visual presence of ‘white men’ on campus; minimized antisemitism and the call for the violent ��decolonization’ of Jews; supported policies that reduce individuals to racial categories and judge them on the basis of ancestry, rather than individual merit. Evidence that Claudine Gay's critics are racist: Claudine Gay claiming, but providing no hard evidence, that some unknown person or persons sent her mean emails,” Rufo wrote.

“It is a shame that some people appear to be using the tragedy playing out in the Middle East to further their agenda around attacking what they see as a too-liberal institution of higher education,” Sarah Soule, a professor who teaches organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, told Yahoo News. “If such attacks on higher education hadn't been playing out in other places in recent years, such as in Hungary, it might seem surprising. But it is just plain terrifying.”

‘Extremely strong desire’ for social progress

Zheng says that DEI efforts have historically been about “eliminating discrimination, creating fairness” and building organizations and universities that work for everyone.

“There are articles from Harvard themselves essentially admitting to, in the past and in the present, the social networks of these kinds of prestigious universities have been typically rich white men, building social, political and financial connections with other rich white men that weaves the fabric of America's political and corporate landscape for decades to come.”

Zheng added that this model of Ivy League institutions needs to change.

While Gay’s resignation, political efforts to ban DEI initiatives and the Supreme Court striking down affirmative action have been “disheartening,” according to Zheng, the decisions have not deterred people’s attitudes toward social progress. Zheng said DEI continues to be an “extremely strong desire” for working Americans and students pursuing higher education.

“There’s value for DEI for institutions at Harvard, institutions that have in the past, and in the present, continue to be bastions of this ‘old boys club,’ this kind of informal network that is fundamentally anti-meritocratic, and is about people from one set of social groups helping others from the same social group,” Zheng affirmed.

“We need to build institutions that actually work for everyone, that support everyone, that give everyone a fair shot for success that open up the doors of opportunity for everyone.”

[harmeet-saggi]

Fostering Well-Being: The Impact Of Workplace Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion On Mental Health

In the contemporary corporate landscape, the buzzwords of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have taken center stage. However, beyond the boardroom discussions and policy changes lies a profound impact on an often-overlooked aspect of our lives: mental health. This essay delves into the intricate relationship between workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion and mental well-being. We will explore the multifaceted benefits of fostering an inclusive environment, the importance of employee training, and practical steps organizations can take to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace, all in the context of enhancing mental health.

Know more

[happinessasasecondlanguage]

Privilege Explained Through Baseball - and It's So Easy to Understand...

It is amazing how much conversation is generated by the concept of privilege – both from those who want to know more about it (thank you!) and those who vehemently deny that they have ever had a modicum of it in their lives.  My favorite example of the latter was the 26-year-old CFO of a $240 million company who demanded that I acknowledge that he worked for everything he has and has never been…

[global-insights]

[reportwire]

MacDowell artist retreat org taps Chiwoniso Kaitano to lead

NEW YORK — MacDowell, one of the oldest artist residency programs in the U.S., has tapped Chiwoniso Kaitano as its new executive director, the organization announced Friday. Kaitano joins MacDowell with a mandate to “intensify outreach to traditionally underrepresented artistic voices,” among other charges, a release said. “Our search was rigorous, all our finalists compelling. But Chi’s…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ryan Adamczeski at The Advocate:

Donald Trump claims he has "nothing to do" with Project 2025, but he has a playbook of his own that would be devastating for LGBTQ+ Americans and other marginalized communities. The former president's reelection website features a section entitled Agenda 47, which hosts dozens of videos of Trump outlining his policies for if he returns to office. Several policies threaten the LGBTQ+ community, spanning across education, health care, and the military. In one video titled "President Trump's Plan to Protect Children From Left-Wing Gender Insanity," Trump promised to outlaw gender-affirming care for minors at the federal level, and “cease all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age.” He also promised to ban transgender athletes from competing on teams that match their gender identity.

Trump stated that he "will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female — and they are assigned at birth.” He then claimed that being transgender was "invented" by the "radical left," though he did not use the term "transgender" once throughout Agenda 47. “No serious country should be telling its children that they were born with the wrong gender — a concept that was never heard of in all of human history — nobody’s ever heard of this, what’s happening today," Trump rambled. "It was all when the radical left invented it just a few years ago.”

[...] As for public education, Trump vowed to "cut federal funding for any school or program pushing critical race theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children." He also promised to "create a new credentialing body to certify teachers who embrace patriotic values."

While Donald Trump may claim to have “nothing to do” with Project 2025, it and Agenda 47 are practically like-for-like in many key policy areas. #Agenda47 #Project2025

[femmefatalevibe]

Is this blog LGBTQ+ friendly? I'm a nonbinary femme lesbian, so I want to be sure that myself and people like me are welcome. I'm sure you're chill, just better safe than sorry, you feel?

Hi love. Absolutely! Sending you a very warm welcome to this community. As a general PSA, I desire to create a supportive, educational, and inclusive space for all women, anti-patriarchal men, non-binary folks, girls, gays, and theys, etc. No bigotry is tolerated here.

I understand they're certain nuances and lived experiences that members of the LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC communities, as a straight white woman I've never encountered first-hand or even thought to consider before, so I try my best to share these questions and thoughts from these individuals with our diverse community to ensure they can get some more first-hand feedback from those who have more knowledge and insights about these relationships/struggles/dilemmas/life hacks.

Hope this clarifies a few things. Sending love xx

[jcmarchi]

MIT philosopher Sally Haslanger honored with Quinn Prize

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/mit-philosopher-sally-haslanger-honored-with-quinn-prize/

MIT philosopher Sally Haslanger honored with Quinn Prize

MIT philosopher Sally Haslanger has been named the 2024 recipient of the prestigious Philip L. Quinn Prize from the American Philosophical Association (APA).

The award recognizes Haslanger’s lifelong contributions to philosophy and philosophers. Haslanger, the Ford Professor of Philosophy and Women’s and Gender Studies, says she is deeply honored by the recognition.

“So many philosophers I deeply respect have come before me as awardees, including Judith Jarvis Thomson, my former colleague and lifelong inspiration,” Haslanger says. “Judy and I both were deeply engaged in doing metaphysics with an eye toward the moral/political domain. Both of us were committed feminists in a time when it was not professionally easy. Both of us believed in the power of institutions, such as the APA and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), to sustain a flourishing intellectual community. Both of us have demanded that institutions we are part of abide by their values.”

Haslanger joined the MIT faculty in 1998.

Her research features explorations of the social construction of categories like gender, race, and the family; social explanation and social structure; and topics in feminist epistemology. She has also published in metaphysics and critical race theory. Broadly speaking, her work links issues of social justice with contemporary work in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind.

Her book, “Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique” (Oxford University Press, 2012), was awarded the Joseph B. Gittler prize for outstanding work in the philosophy of social science. She also co-authored “What is Race: Four Philosophical Views” (Oxford University Press, 2019). Her current book, “Doing Justice to the Social” (under contract with Oxford University Press), develops an account of social practices and structures, emphasizing their materiality, the role of ideology, and potential grounds for critique. She continues to document and ameliorate the underrepresentation of women and other minorities in philosophy.

Haslanger, a former president of the Eastern Division of the APA, singles out the collaborative nature of the field while also celebrating her peers’ recognition, noting her work is “inspired, nourished, and scaffolded by others.”

“Judy was a notable inspiration (and a clear example of how hard such work can be), but there are so many others who have been on this journey with me and kept me going, including feminist colleagues across the country and abroad, graduate students, staff members, and allies from many different disciplines and professions,” Haslanger says.

Awarded annually since 2007, the Quinn Prize honors the memory of Philip L. Quinn, a noted philosopher from the University of Notre Dame who served as president of the APA Central Division for many years. The prize carries a $2,500 award and an engraved plaque.

Kieran Setiya, the Peter de Florez Professor of Philosophy and head of the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, says Haslanger has played a “transformative role in philosophy.”

“Sally’s influence on the field has been vast. Bridging a deep divide, she has brought critical social theory into conversation with analytic philosophy, arguing for an account of social structures and practices that does justice to their materiality,” Setiya says. “This work earned her a Guggenheim Fellowship as well as membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, along with invitations to give lectures named after canonical philosophers past and present: Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Hempel, Kant, Spinoza, and others.”

Setiya noted Haslanger’s substantial contributions to the field, including her role in founding the Philosophy in an Inclusive Key Summer Institute (PIKSI) in Boston, which for 10 years has brought diverse undergraduates to MIT to show them that graduate study in philosophy is a meaningful option for them and to mentor them as they apply to graduate school.

“As Sally’s colleague, I am in awe not just of her extraordinary philosophical and professional achievements, but of her integrity and the seemingly limitless energy she invests in her students, in the Philosophy Section, in MIT, in the profession, and in fighting for social justice in the world from which academia is inextricable,” Setiya adds.

[imawitchywitch]

Buying copies of banned books is awesome, but I also want to put this out there. If anyone is in college and/or has access to peer reviewed academic journals PLEASE do the following:

Buy USB drives

Download as many articles from academic journals in the coming months as you can about topics under attack, such as gender variance, DEI, critical race theory, racism, reproductive rights, climate change, and so on. Maybe pick one or two journals and topics to focus on per month! (There may be pay walls or limits on how many you can freely download)

Keep them organized on your USB’s by topic or journal

We don’t really know what will happen, what will get erased or censored from the web, but they’re already taking websites down related to DEI and reproductive rights. We need to work together to save the research and literature that we have!

[liberalsarecool]

Do Republican women wake up every morning and punch themselves in the face?

Make no mistake, going after DEI is going after white women. Paternalistic weak men shrouded in Trump clothing want to force women to stay in their place and out of the workforce.

The racism about DEI is how Republicans sell it to their dumbass electorate.

[relaxedstyles]

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Costco Wholesale's actions regarding an upcoming annual shareholder meeting slated for late January 2025 are making headlines. Of particular note is a suggested agenda item for a proposal requesting a vote to report to outline the risks around Costco's diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies. Specifically, the group submitting the proposal expressed concern over financial, legal, and reputational damage to Costco if the organization stays committed to DEI. The proposals call out warnings around discriminatory lawsuits like that of Starbucks, retaining a chief diversity officer position, and citing concern over Costco's unwavering commitment to equity. However, Costco's Board of Directors reviewed the proposal and unanimously recommended against it, citing inefficient content and evidence for rigor in structures to ensure fairness to justify investment in investigating the effectiveness of DEI at Costco. The Board response also highlighted doing the right thing for its communities and highlighted concern over ulterior motives in the proposal submission. Essentially, the Board voted to favor inclusive leadership and encouraged stakeholders to vote for inclusion. Costco's move to not cave into competitive pressures and stay the course with DEI commitments earns the title of Inclusion Hero of the Week.

Inclusive Leadership Is About Walking The Talk:

Golden Compass Concept

Costco has a mission that encourages doing the right thing for its communities.

A guiding principle around inclusion is ensuring that leaders walk the talk, which essentially means ensuring alignment between leader language, behaviors, and actions; otherwise, it can appear disingenuous. Costco has done so and shown commitment to inclusion in the workplace in several ways.

There is clear leadership buy-in for DEI as a priority. Costco's site messaging includes a quote directly from the CEO about the value of appreciation for inclusion: "We flourish from having employees with different views, experiences, and ideas." Additionally, the Board's actions align with the goal of an inclusive workplace. For example, there are dedicated resources to foster an appreciation for differences across the enterprise.

The Costco mission states that the organization is vested in "doing the right thing—for our members, our employees, our suppliers, our communities, and the environment." The decision to stay the course aligns with the Company's mission, which is also expressed in the voter proxy ready information to support decision-making.

Business Opportunity

Representation opportunities still exist for Costco

Increased Representation Is Important For Inclusive Leadership:

Much discussion has been about the importance and necessity of representation in leadership to allow for the thriving of inclusive workplaces. While Costco is to be applauded for its decision to stay with DEI, FY24 demographics show opportunities for increased representation. The organization shows 54.2% of employees are male and 45.6% female. Management numbers show 62.9% male and 37.1% female. For executives in the United States, the numbers show that 72.3% are male and 27.7 % are female. For Race and Ethnicity non-management roles, 33.1% are Hispanic, 9.3% Black, and 8.5% Asian. Costco has 36% gender diversity and 9% race/ethnic diversity on its Board. Costco reporting shows more demographic breakdowns.

Inclusive Leaders take note. Organizations don't have to be perfect to make impactful strides in creating inclusion in the workplace. Costco continues to march forward unbothered by competitor actions, such as Walmart (owner of Sam's Club), which chose to move in the opposite direction, scaling back on DEI commitments. The example above shows Costco staying the course to appreciate employees, vendors, and customers.

[happinessasasecondlanguage]

The U.S. National Parks Welcome You! Unless You're a Girl...

I was in Zion National Park this past weekend, and noticed something so heartbreaking and infuriating, and such a slap in the face of inclusion, that I cannot believe our national parks would allow it. My friend and I were staying in the Zion Lodge, the only hotel inside the park, which is run by a private corporation and has a gift shop onsite. In the store was a spinning rack with wood-paneled…