Pina

            After midnight on Sunday I watched a video of a panel discussion between Peter Boghossian, James Damore, Heather Heying and Helen Pluckrose at the Portland University campus. Boghossian teaches philosophy at PSU; Damore is the Google employee that got fired for writing the memo that criticized Google’s gender equal hiring goals; Heying and her husband Bret Weinstein were left of centre professors of Evolutionary Biology at Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington, but they quit in the aftermath of a major student protest that went on for several days. Their side of the story is that the administration gave the students too much power and it turned to anarchy. The student side is that Weinstein and some other professors would block the free movement of protesters and just start screaming at them and then he started slutting himself out to FOX News, which caused the far right to get involved and the protesters to receive death threats; Pluckrose is a self-described ex-feminist and exile from the humanities. She thinks that feminism has grown to wrongly try to be all things with the same rules for all women from white to black to transgender. She also finds irreconcilable contradictions in feminist attitudes like protesting the criticism of the way rape victims dress while refusing to criticize the use of the niqab in Islam.

            The panel discussion was mostly on the topic of gender diversity in the tech industry in light of Google’s firing of Damore. Damore wasn’t denying that gender bias exists in the industry but he asserted that there are biological differences between women and men that tend to make each better at different things. He said that Google should take those differences into account so that certain areas of specialty will be enhanced. But he admits that there are overlaps, so I don’t get why he bothered to specify gender at all. If most women have certain advantages in communication, publishing, art and health while some men do as well, why bother to talk about gender differences. If you open up areas taking advantage of certain human abilities the people with those abilities, regardless of gender, will gravitate to those areas.
            Heying pointed out that the percentage of female computer engineers at Google corresponds to the fact that 20% those with degrees in computer engineering are women. She and Damore seem to think that means that it’s okay to only have that percentage of female techs represented at Google. I’m not seeing the logic in that. They are claiming that it has nothing to do with social conditioning. I suppose that’s possible but if Google wants to draw from that 20% of graduates to make 50% of women they may prove that theory wrong. Heying argued that in Scandinavia where there is greater equity and choice of fields, only 20% of women tend to go into technology careers.

            Pluckrose has said a few things that seem a bit Islamophobic. She said that ex-Muslims should not be shut up for criticizing Islam. I’d say nobody should be shut up but really the only people that are going to make any great changes to any religion are the people that change it from within. Anti Muslim rhetoric from ex-Muslims tends to just become a feeding frenzy for racists.

            My head was full of arguments when I went to bed and so I think I only finally got to sleep around 4:00. When I got up at 5:00 I managed to keep myself going till 11:30 or so but then I had to take a siesta.

            I’ve noticed over the last week that there is a big raccoon living somewhere nearby the building directly across Queen Street from my place. It’s quite bold and comes out in the morning to go through the garbage bins beside the sushi place.

            That afternoon I took a bike ride. I didn’t wear my long sleeved shirt under my hoody but I still had my motorcycle jacket on top. I was still too overdressed to take a very long ride, so once again I just turned on Yonge and went home along Queen.

            That night I watched an Alfred Hitchcock Hour teleplay that was based on a story by Ray Bradbury and co-starring Pina Pellicer (one of the most beloved Mexican actresses of all time, who committed suicide at the age of 30, two months after this story aired).

            Pellicer played Maria, the wife of Juan Diaz. They are poor and he is selling candied skulls as the Day of the Dead celebrations approach. He suddenly realizes that he is dying and pays the graveyard owner, Alejandro, two years rent on a grave, telling him that his wife will continue to pay after that time. In addition to his graves, Alejandro also owns the catacombs where he mummifies and displays for tourists the corpses of those whose families can no longer pay the grave rent. Juan dies but after a year Alejandro cheats Maria, saying that Juan only paid for a year of grave rent. She has no money and so he digs Juan up and puts him on display in the catacombs. Maria and her oldest son come to steal Juan’s body. Alejandro is drunk and is frightened when the boy is carrying it because it looks like Juan is floating towards him of his own power. They take Juan home and set up their own museum featuring his mummified body and tourists give her money to see it. Juan’s last wish had been that he would like to be able to still help his family after he dies, and so Maria had made his wish come true.