ESRC sending millions of pounds to Sally Hines / Leeds Uni to research gender bollocks

Ok she's really giving me the rage now. Talking about Rosa Freedman:

"I disagree with you but I very much respect you Jane. I think you’re super smart and I reckon you’re pretty funny. I wish we were on the same side or at least could have a pint and talk but hey... But RF is something else, she’s a slippery snake and I’m not having it."

twitter.com/sally_hines/status/1074119462524252161?s=19

I’m sorry. I know it’s sunday and some may be contemplating going to church...

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/child-sex-change-charity-handed-500-000-by-national-lottery-dvbt7t2kb

SH is an excellent example of a stupid clever person as my dear mother would put it.

Those tweets - wtaf????

And half a million grant to mermaids from lottery fund.

Thank you SunsetBeetch for posting those tweets here.

Sorry but typically respectable academics don’t try to compel speech and offensively label free, commonplace speech like this- eg Hines’ tweets asserting no one without an anti-trans agenda says...

Furthermore, academics don’t tend to make witless and easily disprovable points in the first place (‘sex is irrelevant to feminism!’) but if they do say something highly contested in the public, typically academics are capable to argue their point then and there.

Or let’s say if they’re trying to have their ‘lovely lazy’ Xmas break already i mid December and (?somehow can’t resist tweeting about their contested idea), typically, academics will be able to just provide a link to their published, peer reviewed recent articles in reputable journals, or to their recent speeches at academic conferences, which can make the case for their contested idea for them.

Suffice to say, way that this academic conducts themselves is not how academic rigour and intellectual probity are normally demonstrated.

It is, however, very much how advocates for a political or religious cause (who are not held to the same types of standards as academics), might behave.

Also is there a link for complaints.

My new year's resolution will be to call out any organisation that persists with this silliness. Itf we all do it, perhaps funders will think a bit more critically before dishing out money just to tick the woke box.

And how does she describe "people".

Presumably only those she does not describe as "transphobic".

Trouble is that some of this really borders on lesbophobiamism (is there a word - there needs to be) and misogyny. But presumably Sally, definer of humxns, does not allow that.

Wtf.

"Very much looking forward to a lovely lazy Xmas break and then to cracking on with my article about why ‘sex’ (as in ‘biological’ not desire) is no longer applicable to contemporary feminist theory and activism."

"No one without an anti trans agenda says female any more. People say women."

twitter.com/sally_hines/status/1074082314945249280?s=19

Marking thread

Oh dear.

There are so many things in society that need researching that would have profound effects on so many people! Spending so much on studying social effects of 40 people who say they are men when they are pregnant with so little result seems a bit of a waste of public money to me. It is not even studying the effects of taking testosterone on subsequent pregnancy or the child or anything.

twitter.com/GoonerProf/status/1065769809894346755

That moment when you realise a Professor has received more than £1million funding from research councils but has not published anything REF-able in this cycle. In most universities that would be a red flag, and a reason for people to get off social media and focus on writing.

twitter.com/APatchOnCinamon/status/1065916208661348352

This, about Sally Hines, isn’t unexpected but should be a big deal in academia. She’s produced nothing her university can submit as an example of good quality research

I think it's fine to say social studies and of course society needs good social studies (the research being discussed here is not that) but I think classifying things that don't use the scientific method as science is really misleading. Didn't Hines actually say on womens hour "we're not scientists"?

Note this research is funded by the economic and social research council NOT one of the science research councils.

In my opinion the social sciences are not in any way science. But of course it comes down to definitions. They probably identify as scientists

If it helps you be less condescending feel free to think of the discipline as 'social studies'. Women's studies (different from 'gender studies') from which gender critical feminism came was a social studies discipline.

In my opinion the social sciences are not in any way science. But of course it comes down to definitions. They probably identify as scientists.

There are a lot of academics in quite useful and relevant fields (e.g. antibiotic resistance, climate change) who struggle to get their work funded, so the fact that this sort of stuff is funded to such high figures is really shocking, particularly given there is no balance, no gc research funded, people like James Caspian denied an opportunity to investigate real concerns.

I am all for arts subjects being funded as well as science, I think it's important but there are those who have been quite vocal who think only subjects that have direct relevance to real world problems and tangible impact should be funded. Sometimes I wonder whether funding bollocks like this is actually a clever ploy from those who want to throw out most of the funding for the arts in favour of the sciences.

But the idea that no-one does it for the money is laughable. No-one working in those disciplines which would actually get you a reasonably paid job in the real word do it for the money. There are a lot of disciplines where well-paid real world jobs simply aren't available.

I should also say I know amazing academics who are brilliant and who choose academia over what could be very profitable careers in the private sector (e.g. engineers and medics) - basically because they love what they do and don't want anyone else to direct their research.

nobody does a PhD for the money. There are much more efficient, less painful ways to get a good salary.

Not if you're useless at everything except bullshitting.

I have extensive experience of academia and I know academics who wouldn't be a able to keep a job in the real world they're so rubbish at anything other than word salad.

I put it to the assembled vipers