Probably the youngest participant at philosophy conferences...

A story was recently going the rounds on facebook in Hungary, where I live... it's about an associate professor at a prestigious university who is proud of dragging her small kid to conferences (several times the kid is actually in the room where the conference is held, and if anyone complains of the noise, s/he gets some momsplaining about how it's within the rights of mommy and baby...)

To be fair, the professor has some good insights on how European maternity leave laws screw with the employment possibilities of women. Still I find it annoying that her case is touted as a victory for feminism when she herself says -- when asked about why her husband can't look after the kid when she's at a conference -- that it's not Teh Menz' job to look after a kid and his career is more important (husband has the same job as her, same position, same university).

Here's what she writes about this lifestyle on her university website (note that the kid is actually named as a co-author...)
http://phil.elte.hu/zvolenszky/main/jointCV.pdf

What really irks me (other than the "kids on airplanes" thing, which is my pet peeve...) is that she expects everyone to suffer the noise a kid does during the conference. She should realize that not all of us can shut out background noises (I'm on the autism spectrum, and while thankfully I'm not the flapping tard type, I just can't concentrate when there's a constant noise... I don't expect the whole word to accommodate me but maybe not bringing babies to every fucking place is not too much of a thing to ask, and while luckily I've never been this woman's student, it's still alarming to see that this "bring your baby to every-fucking-where" craze gets more and more support). (sorry, this turned into a rant...)

It's so philosophical of her to completely bypass common sense, and seek more power for herself! Good God damn, what a moron. All philosophers EVER accomplish is identifying, without the smallest shadow of a doubt, what is it they want out of life, and then call themselves enlightened. GOOD FOR YOU! You went to school to figure out you want to be a mom, and have everyone worship you because of it! You could have fucking told yourself that. You're no different than the common teen mother; full of herself, and careless as to other people's goals, should they happen to interfere with yours.

What the hell is her philosophy? What everyone else can be doing to make her life easier? Welfare cows do just that, without fancy words, and they don't go to seminars for it. Why, she's a professionally licensed cow! She bothers to go to school for that? What a waste!!

Here's a logical insight, honey; the world doesn't revolve around you!

Reminds me of an old joke I heard in the 1980s when I was in college. It might have been a Jackie Mason joke. It went something like this:

"Philosophy majors can't get jobs when they finish college.....but at least they know WHY!"

No one needs a philosophy major to understand the world. All you need to know is how to introspect and you're good. I understand having a degree in philosophy because I got my (slightly more marketable and wildly useful on a daily basis) psychology degree because I want to know how people tick. It wasn't about a job for me. But then again, you don't have to make fucktons of money if you HAVE NO CHILDREN. I support myself and will be debt free decently soon and I only make 11 bucks an hour! Philosophize that! Lol!