Your Gender? A Friendly Guide to the Public Debate - a male philosopher writes at length on an issue he clearly doesn't understand

[stumbledin]

I realise this is nothing new, but here is the latest example of how academics, especially male ones, think they can turn a real life issue for women into a paper to add to their CV.

The blog post is open for comments, but maybe the best thing is it having no comments to illustrate nobody cares what he thinks!

Published by Practical Ethics of University of Oxford blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2020/03/what-is-your-gender-a-friendly-guide-to-the-public-debate/

Jesus Christ, he might not know definitively if he is a man or a woman or indeed what a man or woman is, but he sure can talk a load of bollocks.

There’s no “manness” written in my genes.
No self awareness either.

Brian needs to do less talking and more listening.

Oddly, that's one of ways you can tell he's a man.

Bloody hell that was made for “TLDR” the major error (after publishing) was to “lightly” edit his talk.
I could let you know that, under the right conditions, I would be able to engage in penile-vaginal intercourse if it was consensual, and so forth.
Never even once has this chap given a women the Fanny gallops

Christ, I can't imagine any woman gets 'three drinks in' without going to the loo and trying to figure out if she can fit through the window to escape from Brian's mansplaining.

I'd be all "oh will you look at the time, I have to go hoover my cat and power wash the linoleum" before I'd finished the first drink.

Yeah, I think 'three drinks in' is probably 6 for the poor pub date, but Brian hasn't noticed because he's too busy with the sound of his own opining. Not sure at what point she will have texted her mates to ask them to phone her with a fake emergency, but I would think it's way before he makes his sexy suggestion of penile/vaginal intercourse.

The best thing to do if you meet somebody who says, “I’m a woman,” or whatever, is just to talk to them, hear their story, and let them tell you what’s important about their life. Hahaha. Like Brian would ever do that. He'd be too busy trying to butt in with his POV.

The first several thousand words could have been covered by "I'm a man"

Whenever I read these things now, I tend to have the theme tune to Two and a Half men in the back of my head...

@ScarlettBlaize - brilliant anagrams, really rather poetic.

I just cant understand how he was every asked to give a talk, and why after that someone thought to publish it.

Is it just some university thing of racking up number of talks given, number of papers published, even if no one listens to the talk or reads the paper.

Where is he working and what feedback is he getting that made him think he had anything to contribute.

[groan]

First thing I thought of was Red Dwarf, Rimmer and C.L.I.T.O.R.I.S.

Is anyone else bored enough to hope he might venture into FWR to defend his work?

It'd while away a few minutes, wouldn't it?

That would be fun

What if he 's gender critical though? Will he expect cookies?

I'm sure Philosophy For Planks or some such publication must have some handy cartoons on an early page about knowing the difference between an objective fact and a subjective belief.

Am now going to sing the Monty Python Philosophy Song:

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, on half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.....

He's so not 'gender critical'. I read the whole thing.

I love that Monty Python song 'Aristotle Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle'

There is no way someone who wrote that should qualify for any sort of degree in philosophy.

Awful lecture. So he says he is going to discuss the question “What does it mean to be a man or a woman?” And then completely avoids answering this question by saying it’s impossible to answer, all we can know is that we are all people with properties and attributes such as an organ called a cliteropenis. Um...ok...let’s just make up nonexistent organs why don’t we.

That “man” or “woman” are only “social categories” and that there is “no science” because there is “no manness written in my genes” No science? But he wittered on about XY and XX chromosomes apparently not understanding that the Y is manness written in his genes. Is he so uneducated that he does not understand that chromosomes are part of our genes?

A lot of 20th century philosophy works that way, really. "We can't be sure about metaphysics, might as well act like it doesn't exist/matter, etc

No science? But he wittered on about XY and XX chromosomes apparently not understanding that the Y is manness written in his genes.

I think he thinks, like so many of these people, that because people with transgender identities and/or intersex conditions exist it's not possible to define men and women biologically.

He thinks he is cutting edge, avant garde, pushing traditional boundaries blah blah blah.

Like most people who think that way, it's got fuck all to do with the factual content, it's an ego grandstand. This is why you get irrelevant conditions brought into the topic and these deliberately obscurant responses to basic requests for definition.

It's trying to pass for intellectualism, when actually it's a barely veiled "I know you are, but what am I?" style of keeping attention as long as possible without having to produce anything of worth.

You really do notice it in these kinds of TRA 'analytics' - be they in article form, or the tedious YouTube videos of TED talks etc. They are not intended to assist understanding, they are designed to befuddle the reader/listener and create an impression that the author has authority and therefore the current will concede, step back, and acquiesce meekly.

That's why, without fail, they always get their arses handed to them whenever they've decided to show up here. It doesn't work in a dialectical setting, it only has power when it's a lecture without opponents having a right of reply. That's why #NoDebate is a thing. Pure survival on their part.

Meh - 'current' is supposed to be 'questioner', not sure how that happened.

That's why, without fail, they always get their arses handed to them whenever they've decided to show up here. It doesn't work in a dialectical setting, it only has power when it's a lecture without opponents having a right of reply. That's why #NoDebate is a thing. Pure survival on their part.

YY. They have no power in the face of sceptical people being able to freely challenge their thinking. No arguments which stand up. And they all know it.