I don’t know much about feminism, but the “waves” model seems clumsy for describing at least the development of the philosophy. Perhaps it works for the politics.
The philosophy seems to have developed more like parallel lineages with continuity of ideas across generations.
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For example, one I think I grok goes: Virginia Woolf —> Hannah Arendt —> Ursula Le Guin, Donna Harroway (temporality approach)
Or Simone de Beauvoir —> Betty Friedan —> Judith Butler (“other” theory/identity-constructionist approach)
Does this make any sense?
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I read Friedan and part of Beauvoir out of “need to grok female viewpoint” motive in my early 20s. Not strong enough a motive to get far.
Renewed interest now is narrower and not about women so much as temporality where women thinkers seem to have had unusual amount to say.
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There’s also evidence that if you control for personal experience growing up, the difference disappears. Female textile workers for example completely ace mental rotation tests.
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Yeah, Penn State profs basically erased the difference in engineering design classes by adding some fairly minor interventions
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Replying to @niftynei
Iirc spatial reasoning is one of the very few documented cognition differences between men and women on average. Penn State had (female) engineering profs improve CAD course outcomes by addressing the gap directly engr.psu.edu/AWE/misc/ARPs/
Ja, if you give boys engineering toys and girls dolls for their whole lives you get this difference which “is small where it exists”. No genetic explanation required.
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