activist cartography
I finished reading Halpern's Sex Differences in Cognitive Ability, trying to check my cognitive bias here and there (which I think has leaned toward giving some weight to the influence of biological factors without claiming, as Freud did, that "biology is destiny").
On one hand, it's telling that a few studies performed a decade or so ago showed that measured levels of prenatal testosterone correlated positively to test scores on mental rotation tasks some eleven years later. Other studies have shown that both men and women show daily (men), monthly (women), and yearly (men) fluctuations in selected tests of verbal and spatial ability, which Kimura has attributed to hormone levels which fluctuate in a correlated way.
On the other hand, it's fairly suspect to extrapolate from basic water level, mental rotation, and reading/emotional comprehension test scores to mathematical or scientific "ability", and it was good to be reminded that
While I'm on the topic of The Importance of Being Geolocal, I happened to come across a post on Shakespeare's Sister titled "Maps for Rape Victims", which makes me think that another worthy effort would be to develop a non-profit startup that builds on modern mapping tools to responsibly provide geolocalized information on nearby (non-profit?) services.
When I say "responsibly," I mean that such an organization should be upfront about its values, and not do things like pretend to be an org that supports pregnant women, but exist mainly to delay them from exercising their own rights, only to throw the women out when they can no longer legally have an abortion...
I also mean that the org should value accuracy in geolocalized reporting. Certain other mapping technologies which shall remain nameless have, in my anecdotal experience, been fairly accurate most of the time, but obviously wrong here and there.
I have a lot to write about activist cartography, noting, for example, that these services lack an integrated analysis of class/gender/race/disability. For example, where are the technologies for those of us that don't want to drive everywhere? Even though I was fortunate enough to have a fuel-efficient car which got 39.3 mpg on the way to the Bay, algorithmic work in human motion planning doesn't seem to realize that most trips are short, or that not everybody has or wants a gas guzzling automobile.
If I do work on this kind of activist cartography, which I think I will, I'll try to at least think about how to talk about safety in navigation from the start, which is in itself troublesome to think about even when you're talking about neighborhoods with your homophilous peers.
Sigh, so much to do!
When I think about it, it's not surprising that the big GoogleAmaYahoo boys may not think about these issues, and even if they do, it might be hard for them to justify paying attention to any of them. I have had incidental contact with some of these guys, but I admit that the other day, when I was hanging out on campus, and my prof asked me if I knew who That is (That being That Guy who he was just talking to) and didn't recognize Mr. Page when I saw him.
I didn't recognize Larry Brilliant when he was on TV either, but when he talked about Googly philanthropy being focused on the "bottom 20%" I later thought about how Halpern points out (p. 5) that more than "60% of all adults living below the poverty line in the United States are women (Contrary to common stereotypes, the majority are White women.)".
When BillG was on Oprah, he talked about the growing disparities and crises in our education system, but I don't think that many people mention, when we complain about how poorly our teachers are paid, that most Elementary school teachers seem to be female. In other words, how much of it is that we don't value education, and how much of it is that we don't value women's work?
On one hand, it's telling that a few studies performed a decade or so ago showed that measured levels of prenatal testosterone correlated positively to test scores on mental rotation tasks some eleven years later. Other studies have shown that both men and women show daily (men), monthly (women), and yearly (men) fluctuations in selected tests of verbal and spatial ability, which Kimura has attributed to hormone levels which fluctuate in a correlated way.
On the other hand, it's fairly suspect to extrapolate from basic water level, mental rotation, and reading/emotional comprehension test scores to mathematical or scientific "ability", and it was good to be reminded that
- spatial skills can be trained with practice
- females tend to score slightly better (half the delta between an A and an A-, says one study, on average) in school up to and including college
- there's good research which supports the hypothesis that socialization exerts a very strong influence on our measured performance, such as Steele's "stereotype threat"
While I'm on the topic of The Importance of Being Geolocal, I happened to come across a post on Shakespeare's Sister titled "Maps for Rape Victims", which makes me think that another worthy effort would be to develop a non-profit startup that builds on modern mapping tools to responsibly provide geolocalized information on nearby (non-profit?) services.
When I say "responsibly," I mean that such an organization should be upfront about its values, and not do things like pretend to be an org that supports pregnant women, but exist mainly to delay them from exercising their own rights, only to throw the women out when they can no longer legally have an abortion...
I also mean that the org should value accuracy in geolocalized reporting. Certain other mapping technologies which shall remain nameless have, in my anecdotal experience, been fairly accurate most of the time, but obviously wrong here and there.
I have a lot to write about activist cartography, noting, for example, that these services lack an integrated analysis of class/gender/race/disability. For example, where are the technologies for those of us that don't want to drive everywhere? Even though I was fortunate enough to have a fuel-efficient car which got 39.3 mpg on the way to the Bay, algorithmic work in human motion planning doesn't seem to realize that most trips are short, or that not everybody has or wants a gas guzzling automobile.
If I do work on this kind of activist cartography, which I think I will, I'll try to at least think about how to talk about safety in navigation from the start, which is in itself troublesome to think about even when you're talking about neighborhoods with your homophilous peers.
Sigh, so much to do!
When I think about it, it's not surprising that the big GoogleAmaYahoo boys may not think about these issues, and even if they do, it might be hard for them to justify paying attention to any of them. I have had incidental contact with some of these guys, but I admit that the other day, when I was hanging out on campus, and my prof asked me if I knew who That is (That being That Guy who he was just talking to) and didn't recognize Mr. Page when I saw him.
I didn't recognize Larry Brilliant when he was on TV either, but when he talked about Googly philanthropy being focused on the "bottom 20%" I later thought about how Halpern points out (p. 5) that more than "60% of all adults living below the poverty line in the United States are women (Contrary to common stereotypes, the majority are White women.)".
When BillG was on Oprah, he talked about the growing disparities and crises in our education system, but I don't think that many people mention, when we complain about how poorly our teachers are paid, that most Elementary school teachers seem to be female. In other words, how much of it is that we don't value education, and how much of it is that we don't value women's work?
posted by L. Wu @ 11:53 AM
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