A friend just sent me this

[endofthelinefinally]

quillette.com/2019/09/17/i-basically-just-made-it-up-confessions-of-a-social-constructionist/
It is an article by a social constructionist admitting that he just made it all up...

I am not sure I understand it tbh.

People talked about men in the particular way I had described, I argued, because gender was a social construction whose outlines could be traced to power and oppression: Canadians used gendered thinking to empower some men and disadvantage women, to structure masculinity as better then femininity

Well he's right about one thing. Doesn't mean you need to start thinking male and female aren't real things though. Which is what he did.

What screams out is that this kid has no idea what the difference is between sex and gender.

And the Canadian fuckwit has Tenure!

At least he admitted he made it all up.

I just wonder at the way it seems that people can just make things up and gain credibility just because they attend a particular institution or mix in a particular group.
It reminds me a little bit of a couple of people I worked with who got PhDs out of very basic, simple stuff that most of us were already doing in our work based on our own research and experience. Some people have the right contacts and others don't.
If you have enough nerve you can get away with it.

I think there is another thread on this article.

I don't think the problem is just that he dismissed sex as real. His ideas about gender, how it's structured, etc - a lot of that wasn't rigorous either. It's made up explanations that seemed right, and then he works backwards to "prove" that they are valid. Sometimes intuitions like that pan out, but you have to do the work to show it from the ground up, without biasing the work, which can be hard.

What's also interesting is that while he says that at some level he knew that he was on shaky ground it doesn't seem like he was being directly dishonest It's what was going on all around him in gender studies, and IME it goes on in many areas of study that deal with these kinds of political question. When the university is training young academics to think this is how it is done, of course that's what they will do.

I've wondered if studies areas are actually a good place for undergraduates, or if they should maybe strictly belong to graduate studies, while undergrads get a foundation in history, biology, etc.

It reminds me a little bit of a couple of people I worked with who got PhDs out of very basic, simple stuff that most of us were already doing in our work based on our own research and experience. Some people have the right contacts and others don't.

It's a business now too, these university programs that essentially, for a hefty fee, let you submit your paid work for accreditation. More masters degrees than doctoral programs, but they are becoming so common and they get to be a real factor in promotion and applying for positions.

I didn't know there was already a thread. I did look before posting.

I have noticed that a few other people have started threads on this since I started this one.
That is good, because hopefully more people will read the article.