̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Paulina Sliwa

Men may not ‘perceive’ domestic tasks as needing doing in the same way as women, philosophers argue

fpjl2 — Thu, 22 Dec 2022 09:39:23 +0000

Philosophers seeking to answer questions around inequality in household labour and the invisibility of women’s work in the home have proposed a new theory – that men and women are trained by society to see different possibilities for action in the same domestic environment.

They say a view called “affordance theory” – that we experience objects and situations as having actions implicitly attached – underwrites the age-old gender disparity when it comes to the myriad mundane tasks of daily home maintenance.

For example, women may look at a surface and see an implied action – ‘to be wiped’ – whereas men may just observe a crumb-covered countertop.

̽��ֱ��philosophers believe these deep-seated gender divides in domestic perception can be altered through societal interventions such as extended paternal leave, which will encourage men to build up mental associations for household tasks.

Writing in the journal Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, they argue that available data – particularly data gathered during the pandemic – suggest two questions require explanation.

One is “disparity”: despite economic and cultural gains, why do women continue to shoulder the vast majority of housework and childcare? ̽��ֱ��other is “invisibility”: why do so many men believe domestic work to be more equally distributed than in fact it is?

“Many point to the performance of traditional gender roles, along with various economic factors such as women taking flexible work for childcare reasons,” said Dr Tom McClelland, from Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Department of History and Philosophy of Science.

“Yet the fact that stark inequalities in domestic tasks persisted during the pandemic, when most couples were trapped inside, and that many men continued to be oblivious of this imbalance, means this is not the full story.”

McClelland and co-author Prof Paulina Sliwa argue that unequal divisions of labour in the home – and the inability of men to identify said labour – is best explained through the psychological notion of “affordances”: the idea that we perceive things as inviting or “affording” particular actions.

“This is not just looking at the shape and size of a tree and then surmising you can climb it, but actually seeing a particular tree as climbable, or seeing a cup as drink-from-able,” said Sliwa, recently of Cambridge’s philosophy faculty and now at the ̽��ֱ�� of Vienna.

“Neuroscience has shown that perceiving an affordance can trigger neural processes preparing you for physical action. This can range from a slight urge to overwhelming compulsion, but it often takes mental effort not to act on an affordance.”

There are dramatic differences in “affordance perception” between individuals. One person sees a tree as climbable where another does not. Objects offer a vast array of affordances – one could see a spatula as an egg-frying tool or a rhythmic instrument – and a spectrum of sensitivity towards them.

“If we apply affordance perception to the domestic environment and assume it is gendered, it goes a long way to answering both questions of disparity and invisibility,” said McClelland.

According to the philosophers, when a woman enters a kitchen she is more likely to perceive the “affordances” for particular domestic tasks – she sees the dishes as ‘to be washed’ or a fridge as ‘to be stocked’.

A man may simply observe dishes in a sink, or a half-empty fridge, but without perceiving the affordance or experiencing the corresponding mental “tug”. Over time, these little differences add up to significant disparities in who does what.

“Affordances pull on your attention,” said Sliwa. “Tasks may irritate the perceiver until done, or distract them from other plans. If resisted, it can create a felt tension.”

“This puts women in a catch-22 situation: either inequality of labour or inequality of cognitive load.”

This gender-based split in affordance perception could have a number of root causes, say philosophers. Social cues encourage actions in certain environments, often given by adults when we are very young children. Our visual systems update based on what we encounter most frequently.

“Social norms shape the affordances we perceive, so it would be surprising if gender norms do not do the same,” said McClelland.

“Some skills are explicitly gendered, such cleaning or grooming, and girls are expected to do more domestic chores than boys. This trains their ways of seeing the domestic environment, to see a counter as ‘to be wiped’.”

̽��ֱ��“gendered affordance perception hypothesis” is not about absolving men say Sliwa and McClelland. Despite a deficit in affordance perception in the home, a man can easily notice what needs doing by thinking rather than seeing. Nor should sensitivity to domestic affordances in women be equated with natural affinity for housework.

“We can change how we perceive the world through continued conscious effort and habit cultivation,” said McClelland. “Men should be encouraged to resist gendered norms by improving their sensitivity to domestic task affordances."

“A man might adopt a resolution to sweep for crumbs every time he waits for the kettle to boil, for example. Not only would this help them to do the tasks they don't see, it would gradually retrain their perception so they start to see the affordance in the future.”

Collective efforts to change social norms require policy-level interventions, argue the philosophers. For example, shared parental leave gives fathers the opportunity to become more sensitive to caring-task affordances.

Added Sliwa: “Our focus has been on physical actions such as sweeping or wiping, but gendered affordance perceptions could also apply to mental actions such as scheduling and remembering.”

By adding a gender dimension to the theory of “affordance perception” and applying it to the home, a new hypothesis may help answer questions of why women still shoulder most housework, and why men never seem to notice.

Men should be encouraged to resist gendered norms by improving their sensitivity to domestic task affordances

Tom McClelland

Getty images

Wiping down the countertop

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What makes a good excuse? A Cambridge philosopher may have the answer

ehs33 — Sun, 30 Jun 2019 23:01:00 +0000

We’ve all done it, offered an excuse for our poor behaviour or rude reactions to others in the heat of the moment, after a long commute or a tough day with the kids. Excuses are commonplace, an attempt to explain and justify behaviours we aren’t proud of, to escape the consequences of our acts and make our undesirable behaviour more socially acceptable.

̽��ֱ��things we appeal to when making excuses are myriad: tiredness, stress, a looming work deadline, a wailing infant, poverty, a migraine, ignorance. But what do these various excuses have in common that allows us to recognize them all as plausible? Do they differ from the excuses used in criminal law, like duress or coercion? And what does having an excuse get us – does it really exonerate us?

A researcher from Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� has suggested that the answers lie in what they all tell us about our underlying motivation. When excuses are permissible, it’s because they show that while we acted wrongly, our underlying moral intentions were adequate.

Intentions are plans for action. To say that your intention was morally adequate is to say that your plan for action was morally sound. So when you make an excuse, you plead that your plan for action was morally fine – it’s just that something went awry in putting it into practice. Perhaps you tripped, and that’s why you spilled the shopping you were helping to carry. Or you were stressed or exhausted, which meant you couldn’t execute your well-intentioned plan.

This research presents for the first time a unified account of excuses - the Good Intention Account - that argues our everyday excuses work in much the same way as those offered in a courtroom. When lawyers appeal to duress or provocation in defense of their client, they are claiming that the client may have broken the law but had a morally adequate intention: she was just prevented from acting on it because fear or anger led her to lose self-control.

Until now little light has been shed on what unifies the diverse bunch of everyday reasons we offer when making excuses. Dr Paulina Sliwa’s study from the Faculty of Philosophy, suggests a morally adequate intention is the crucial ingredient.

Recent work in psychology suggests that intentions have a distinctive motivational profile, with philosophers and psychologists both arguing that they are key to understanding how we make choices. Dr Sliwa argues that intentions are the key to making sense of our everyday morality.

Dr Sliwa goes on to explain that appealing to excuses has its limits. “Successful excuses can mitigate our blame but they don’t get us off the hook completely. Saying we were tired or stressed doesn’t absolve us from moral responsibility completely, though they do change others’ perceptions of what we owe to make up for it and how the offended party should feel about our wrongdoing.”

This means that when we make excuses we are trying to haggle, to negotiate whether we deserve anger and resentment, or punishment and how much we need to apologise or compensate. This is why it can be so annoying if someone makes spurious excuses – and also probably why we continue to make excuses in the first place.

Dr Sliwa said, “A successful excuse needs to make plausible that your intention really was morally adequate – but something beyond your control prevented you from translating it into action. That’s why considerations like the following often work: I am sorry for forgetting the appointment – I had a terrible migraine / I haven't slept for the last three nights / I was preoccupied with worries about my mother's health; or I'm sorry I broke your vase – I stumbled over the rug. They all indicate an adequate underlying moral motivation that was thwarted by external circumstances.

“Things that will never work are appeals to weakness of will ‘I just couldn't resist’ or ‘it was too tempting’ don't work. Nor do appeals to things that are obviously immoral.

“ ̽��ֱ��same is true of legal excuses: not every appeal to duress, coercion or provocation will be successful – it will depend on the details of the case.

“Philosophy can give us a better understanding of our mundane, everyday moral phenomena. There are a lot more puzzles to think about in relation with excuses: what's the difference between explaining someone's bad behavior and excusing it?”

̽��ֱ��study is published in the ethics journal Philosophy and Public Affairs.

A free version is available at: http://paulinasliwa.weebly.com/uploads/1/9/0/4/19046427/final_submission.pdf

Dr Paulina Sliwa argues that intentions are the key to making sense of our everyday morality.

Duncan C

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