Trevor Wiemann Midterm Post 1/3

For my blog, I am going to attempt to talk about the concept of Credibility and Discrimination. This concept was introduced and discussed in Philosophy Bites by Miranda Fricker from Birkbeck. Fricker mainly talks about Testimonial Injustice in this chapter. This is just the basis for my blog, as I plan to (purposely) digress into subjects stemming off from this topic.

The first concept I want to talk about in my blog is sexism. The roles of man and woman in society have been hotly debated in America since our country was founded. However the general topic of sexism is not really worth discussing as most people are in agreement on most arguments. Women should obviously be allowed to vote. Women should obviously have the same opportunities as men in the workplace. Women should be allowed in the military, etc. The main issue I see today with sexism is credibility. I believe Fricker would agree with this. There have been great strides made to place women in places like the business world, military, television, etc., now the issue is how to get people to give them credibility.

 I loved the example Fricker gave about her in depth knowledge of football. I will do a brief recap to refresh the reader’s memory of this chapter: Most people would agree that on average, men know more about football than women. Therefore, women are stereotyped as knowing little to nothing about football. Is this fair? Of course not. However, Fricker has a deep knowledge of football. She noticed that when she is in a room of men, and someone is inquiring about the score from yesterday’s game, or who the best free agent pickup is for fantasy league, she is the last one approached. Furthermore, in the rare chance she gets to inform the person about the score from said game, her information will be questioned. This is testimonial injustice. The instant discredit of someones testimony based on a stereotype. Now in this situation, a very minor injustice has been committed. Fricker is most likely an exception to the rule. If you flip to ESPN, the number of male sportscasters will far outcome the number of females sportscasters. Can you blame the guy for assuming Miranda did not have a working knowledge of football? Fricker says no. The empirical data would in fact show women having a less knowledge of football than men. However, like I said, this is a very minor case just to give a simple illustration. There are women in the workplace everyday whose opinions and ideas are repeatedly ignored until a male counterpart puts a voice to them. It is hard remove these discredits against women using any method except time. 

The majority of American history as seen the woman viewed as nothing more than a housewife and mother. But does this mean that in the past women have been viewed as less than equal to men? Or just has having a different role in society?

 I know I can’t answer this question, but it is definitely worth talking about. Many women are setting the example by constantly aiming to achieve notoriety in everything from the business to the sports world. In fact, Danica Patrick just placed 8th in the Daytona 500 a week ago!

 Hilary Clinton is arguably in the top four or five most recognized political figures in America. Brittney Griner is currently smashing both male and female NCAA basketball records. With all this awesomeness going on, is it wrong for a 13 year-old girl to dream of being a housewife and mother for the rest of her life? Should she feel guilty for not striving to be more? And if she does in fact grown up to choose a career as a homemaker will her opinion (in general) be discredited in her community? (As compared to a woman who chooses a different occupation)  These are all most definitely tough questions. As of right now, my opinion is that the answers to these questions will be No, No, and unfortunately Yes, respectively. As mentioned earlier, the only solution to the discredit of women's’ opinions and knowledge in American culture is time. Many steps have been made to put women on an equal playing field as men, now we will have to wait for society’s views to change.