MatintaP

I'm sorry, but "that sometimes things aren't fair" is no legitimate argument. Sure, finding a job as a philosophy professor is to an extent a bleak prospect for everyone. That, however, does not mean that it is not infinitely more difficult for women and other historically excluded minorities to go to grad school in philosophy or that it must continue to be so. You cannot simply acquiesce to systematic injustice simply because that is the way things are or because "not everyone can be a philosophy professor." That is the worst kind of meritocratic fatalism. And I think it's wrong to suppose that the government is the sole entity responsible for correcting historical injustice. It is also incumbent on individuals and other institutions, including universities to correct the wrongs in which they also have historically partaken. Independently of everyone's particular experience with MA's, the bottom line is that funded MA's are far scarcer than funded PhD's. Even if funded spots in PhD programs are already scarce enough, it seems to me that few people would be inclined to go into debt to get an unfunded PhD, whereas many, given their professional goals, would feel forced to do an unfunded MA, if they think it will improve their chances of getting into a funded PhD. Now, you could say that it is their own personal choice, for which they are responsible, but I think there is something really unfair about a person having to either give up on their professional goals or acquire huge amounts of debt to achieve it. To me that is a problem to be contended with, despite the scarcity of academic positions. That sometimes things aren't fair just won't do it.

SL12, follow Table's advice. In fact, I was going to mention the UCL case on the results list, but Table beat me to it. Even though it may not be a "compelling evidence" to buttress a cold argument, it still serves as encouragement and proof that such cases are not entirely unprecedented in the UK. And that's what matters. Again, they accepted you for a reason. What is the point of offering an acceptance with an impossible condition? They are likely familiar with GPA calculations and they still admitted you. My guess is that the announcement of the condition is merely bureaucratic and obligatory. In fact, it usually comes in the form of "on the condition that you MAINTAIN your GPA above." So, if you make them aware that your GPA will never be above the required minimum, surely they will be able to work something out with you.

Congratulations! I hope you also get a Fulbright scholarship! I spent the last academic year, doing an MA in England and it was a very worthwhile, though expensive, experience. Coventry is lovely and not so fat from Birmingham and London. I think you will enjoy it very much.

I didn't use footnotes and wouldn't advise you to do it, mostly because I think it is kinda superfluous. After all, it's a statement of purpose and not a paper. Professors will not refer to the text you cited. Actually I don't think it is at all necessary to include any sort of in-text or footnote citations. Yes, you will briefly discuss or mention certain ideas and arguments in your statement, but I don't think it is a format in which you're required or strongly encouraged to use them. I do not think, however, that in-text citations will hurt your application in any way whatsoever. Though there's so little space allowed for personal statements that citations felt to me like a waste of characters.

Though I cannot say anything about Yale in particular, I received a general email from Emory after I submitted my application in which they told us quite emphatically to not inquire about GRE scores. They said that if I sent the scores to them, "that was all I needed to do" and "if necessary they would contact test score providers directly." Again, I don't know if that helps at all or if it applies in this situation.

That more men are killed in homicides than women does not mean they are killed in virtue of their being men and/or because they do not comply with their gender-role as men. Women, when victims of homicides, are largely killed because they are women OR because they break some norm of womanhood. For instance, when they are killed because of adultery or when they are raped. Yes, I am speaking politically, though again I fail to see why that is coextensive with "less objectively." If I have a political stance, it is because I deem it justified and more or less (never absolutely) objective and right. And so I defend it. By western civilization, I meant broadly ancient Middle Eastern and Greek history. Though really, I could have said World History and mysogyny would still be as old as speech.

No, we stay where we are and recognize that misogyny is an ideological and political reality with 8000+ years of history. "Misandry," on the other hand, is a reactionary anxiety caused by a perceived challenge to power.

Loric, as much power and status as 8000 years of male domination have given and still do give men? You cannot collect isolated 20th Century 'examples' of a supposed "misandry" (the charges of which sound suspiciously like male anxiety at challenges to their power) and compare it to the intellectual, political and cultural history of western civilization, which is, to this very day, mysogynist.

No* special authority, I meant.

Original or common definitions have special authority in virtue of being so. I'm not changing the person's intent, I'm only trying to show what the word "racist" designated in speech, which is a hate-discourse a person reproduces and not a person's isolated hatred. If a white person claims a black person is being racist, given our actual structures of power, then this white person is using the term erroneously, in my opinon. To use the above example a black person who refuses to rent a house to a white person in virtue of their whiteness is not being racist so much as she is being stupid and hateful, responding in a morally reprehensible manner to the racism she does encounter in society.

I don't get it, Loric. It has very much to do with what is or isn't, but it is also a political problem. Sexism and Racism are actual abhorrent structures of power and are, as such, political. I think there is a right definition of the terms, which does not exist independently of a political and historical actuality.

I think Catwoman's definitions of the terms sexism and racism make perfect sense. By definition sexism or racism do not designate the individual intentions of social agents or even a number of them. Those terms designate primarily social systems of practices and values in which people find themselves and which they reproduce in their practice and speech. Sure, a woman may earnestly say that she hates men in virtue of their being men and truly mean what she says. That, however, does not allow us to claim that misandry or 'reverse-sexism' exists as a coherent system of beliefs, practices and values, historically founded on religious and social institutions of power in the same way as misogyny does. If a woman does say that, it will be nothing but an isolated anomalous case that is likely a misguided response to the power structures that are actually the case. To say, "That statement is racist," does not mean, "That statement expresses the hateful thoughts of the speaker towards a race." It actually means, "That statement reiterates the beliefs of a socially objective system of thought that legitimizes a socially objective power structure that oppresses a socially constructed race." So the actuality of a power structure and its ideology are (and must continue to be) fundamental aspects of the definition of those terms. To apply those concepts universally to mean a speaker's personal and isolated hatred is a (suspicious) attempt to neutralize their critical and political efficacy.