Times article on academia

I have some sympathy for ordinary academics here. People can and do lose their jobs over this shit. Academia is insecure enough without playing with these grenades.

Perhaps that's why it's been so easily captured. Or part of it.

Management on the other hand are a disgrace for allowing this to unfold. They had a duty to protect their institutions as bastions of free speech and intelligent debate. They fired that under the bus rather than stand up to the vile bullies. What an appalling legacy.

I mean that sociologist is an academic. Where is her/ his data that gender is what correlates with the phenomena under study? And correlates better than sex? There is overwhelming evidence that sex is a predictive variable for a whole host of phenomena. So they must have pretty overwhelming evidence for the predictive power of gender to actually be correcting a student's work. Because its wholly unprofessional to be correcting an accurate statement from a student on the basis of ideology.

We may well be.

But these people are teaching students on this basis and preventing others who might want to have the hard discussions from
doing so.

It’s very dangerous when they’re in denial of the reality of (threats of and actually murder and other horrors because it doesn’t suit how they’ve lined up the victims and oppressors.

Genderist academics reported personally imposing bans from academic networks and events, along with language policing of colleagues as well as students. “If students write ‘female’ in their essay, I’ll cross it out”, a sociologist told me, because “what matters is gender [identity]”

Half way through the article. I knew the stuff preceding but this genuinely shocked me.

But they've got a 'denial of victim' mentality going on. Those GC feminists deserve it as they are waging genocide on trans people. They've completely made this accusation up. They don't even bother reading what we saw. Just as the Genderists in the LBG court case have not read the Cass Review.

How can they be so intellectual self deceiving and dishonest? How did people with some a contempt for critical inquiry get into academia? When and why did academia get so intentionally myopic?

I was just idly checking LOJ's twitter feed to see if he'd commented on the LGBA case (not that I could see)

Oh there has been quite the storm 😂

He didn't comment directly on LGBA but he's been responding to debate about whether it's transphobic for lesbians to exclude TW from their dating pool. The ensuing shit storm has been wonderful.

Off topic, but worth taking a look

This is extremely unfair @RoyalCorgi Female (mostly) academics all over the country are doing things. But we’re often doing things quietly, incrementally.

If you’ve ever had your job threatened because of your beliefs, as I have, then I hope you would understand that sometimes we do what we can, working through small steps, or behind the scenes.

I steadfastly teach history asa feminist and about women’s work. I discuss with students the difference at a structural level between sex (biological) and gender roles and stereotypes (historically and culturally specific).

I’m committed in my work to support young women and female colleagues. I use about 10% of my salary to garden and support feminist causes. There are thousands of us doing this. just because this isn’t front page news, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

Come and chat to us at FILIA in October.

I was just idly checking LOJ's twitter feed to see if he'd commented on the LGBA case (not that I could see). There a tweet thread from a female academic. She says she was approached by someone about an article. She claims the interview took her through all the nasty things and threats GC people have said, but provides no examples. She says this was all quite traumatic and triggering but decided against making any sort of complaint, but insisted on anonymity in the article. Then apologises for being involved.

Obviously, no one should be subject to threats and intimidation. Which is why I'm mentioning no names, don't want to stir the wrath of MN!

I don't know if the article being referred to is this one (especially as I still can't read it). Perhaps we've got another one to look forward to!

From the article:

A number of genderist academics recognised that “more nuanced, more honest, self-aware conversations [should] take place” – although strictly among genderists only and in private spaces, since, in public, “you’ve got to be for your team and toe the party line”, one education scholar explained.

Since when was academic inquiry a team sport?

The most shocking thing in the article is the acceptance of those death threats etc because it would be intellectually uncomfortable to do anything else.

Yes. The cowardice is remarkable. And bear in mind that academics, more than anyone, should understand the importance of freedom of thought, and should be aware (probably are aware) of what happens when free thought is suppressed. Yet they still do nothing.

I'm of the same mind @flyingbuttress43

This is the sort of nonsense that made me realise that modern feminism is not for me:
thefword.org.uk/our-position/the_f-word_bloggers_position_o/

Well yes, this is it! This a 'philosophy' which cannot define its own key terms - woman, man, trans, gender, gender identity. They can't define them!

They quite literally don't know what they are talking about. They talk about a 'woman' but they do not know what one is. Or they claim not to. Why aren't these views just laughed away? The whole thing is totally baffling.

apologist avoidance is a very human trait, though. Most of us are guilty of swerving things for a quiet life.

Well yes, this is it! This a 'philosophy' which cannot define its own key terms - woman, man, trans, gender, gender identity. They can't define them! Yet still don't see how this shows the conceptual vacuity at the heart of their ideology. Its astonishingly disturbing that something with such a lack of foundation, a lack of coherence, has gained such traction. I overheard a couple of staunch gender ideologist friends saying they did not know what to say to their young children now, when they ask what a boy is, as they can no longer say a boy is a young male or has a penis. Yet this still did not seem to get them to reflect that perhaps the ideology they are following does not actually make sense or hold up to scrutiny!

The most shocking thing in the article is the acceptance of those death threats etc because it would be intellectually uncomfortable to do anything else.

I say shocking, but actually it comes from the same place of apologist avoidance that has plagued left wing academic righteousness around all kinds of terrorist activities for decades. I remember being an undergrad many years ago and being taught about the ‘resistance’ tactics of all these marginalised groups in overly simplistic ways. With an added air of almost romanticism around this stuff.

It’s the same rhetorical move, which conveniently avoids all the messy complexity and lack of moral certitude in any of this.

Yes it does. It is infiltrating there too.

Wow! That is a scorching quote. Really nails the issue. Really exposes it for what it is.

But THE's remit is to cover what's happening in higher education. For the past five years this huge news story has been unfolding in front of their eyes: a news story about the bullying of academics, about censorship, about the collective denial in multiple academic disciplines of scientific reality in favour of a pseudoscience that is intellectually equivalent to flat Earthism or astrology. It ought to be a massive story for them. And yet there have been something like three stories in five years. What on earth is wrong with their journalists?

Why has nobody reported on the story that brings death threats, sackings and social ostracisation to anyone who raises it?

This is insane. Just insane. They're saying "I am prepared to condemn and silence a group of people who have a different opinion from me, but I don't understand what my own opinion is, or how it differs from theirs."

It is absolutely fucking batshit. And it is happening in our universities. Why is no one doing anything about it? Why aren't THE reporting on this every single week?

Exactly. Like the two dead women a week, it's just background noise to be ignored.

True. Also being reported in the Mail and the Times.

But THE's remit is to cover what's happening in higher education. For the past five years this huge news story has been unfolding in front of their eyes: a news story about the bullying of academics, about censorship, about the collective denial in multiple academic disciplines of scientific reality in favour of a pseudoscience that is intellectually equivalent to flat Earthism or astrology. It ought to be a massive story for them. And yet there have been something like three stories in five years. What on earth is wrong with their journalists?

This sort of stuff is being reported in journals like The Spectator, Spiked and The Telegraph. You won’t find it on the BBC

"When asked to describe their arguments, however, she responded: “I don’t know if what I understand or what I think are the issues, are the issues, I’ll be honest with you – I stay out of their way.” This remarkable coupling of condemnation and ignorance regarding gender-critical feminism was fairly common among genderist academics. Many readily admitted that they limit their academic engagements, including their reading, to their “echo chambers and bubbles” where, as one journal editor noted, “we all share basically the same perspectives”."

This is insane. Just insane. They're saying "I am prepared to condemn and silence a group of people who have a different opinion from me, but I don't understand what my own opinion is, or how it differs from theirs."

It is absolutely fucking batshit. And it is happening in our universities. Why is no one doing anything about it? Why aren't THE reporting on this every single week?

@acfree123 those disciplines may be free of this nonsense in some places but not at all. I've heard some unbelievable rubbish in physics for instance

Research does NOT involve research on people.

Can I ask what fields remain free from this because it's live in medical/physiology journals. (A hacked off reviewer may be commenting here.)

Engineering, mathematics, physics, chemistry, most of computer science, earth sciences, ocean sciences, .... All the fields that don't involve ethics clearance for their work, as their research does involve people.