New Year Honours - Professor Stock, OBE

[DangerFrog]

Just spotted this in the New Year Honours list:

Officers of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
Professor Kathleen Mary Linn Stock. Professor of Philosophy, University of Sussex. For services to Higher Education. (Lewes, East Sussex)

Excellent to see her getting some positive recognition!

www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/scotland/2778163/new-year-honours-all-the-incredible-people-recognised-in-the-2021-list/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Does a soul have a sex though?

No use asking me! How many angels dance on the head of a penis?

:)

Arabella I think maybe that’s a bit generous calling them a ‘bunch of philosophers’.
Unless I became a part of bunch of by doing my undergrad degree..?

I googled a couple of UK signatories and they’re not anywhere near Stock’s peers or experience level. Also, even if a handful of senior academics did sign it, that’s fine they have views, they don’t like her, but a silly letter like this is hopefully nothing for prof Stock to lose sleep over. Nobody who signed this was arsed to write an actual rebuttal to anything she’s said, they just added their names and their institutions (but no personal job title ) in a signally way..

Oh, are some of these people students? I see.

I hope Keira Bell gets one next year for what she has done to protect vulnerable children.

Academic philosophy used to be my field and it’s so embarrassing to see open letters like this. One of the signatories , Sally Haslanger, is a big deal. What’s interesting is she is famous for her revisionary definition of woman - a woman is anyone who is oppressed. On her theory woman is a term you want to get rid of - no one should be a woman. She thinks for instance that the queen isn’t a woman because she suffers no oppression. I’ve always thought her theory is kind of pointless because it isn’t how we actually use the word woman, and no one will change it to mean this. And why call oppressed people women? What does this even achieve? I guess it makes feminism all about everyone, which is very male pleasing I suppose. But I just wanted to chime in to point out that loads of people in philosophy have been sick of this childish nonsense for sometimes. It’s not what I think philosophy should be about.

Look at all those men lining up to tell a female professor to stop talking about women's rights and biological sex as the root of women's oppression. Like we haven't been here before. Yawn.

‘woman is anyone who is oppressed’ - what a silly sally... and there’s money in spouting balloon juice is there? 🤪

What I find so weird is these "philosophical researchers" can't even be bothered to research or read what Kathleen Stock actually says.

They just fabricate their hot takes based on some out of context screenshots that US PhD students have misrepresented because they don't understand UK laws and have zero cultural awareness of the fact that in the UK, trans people have the same rights as everyone else in law.

Do they think the general public can't see through their lies and misrepresentations?

As Professor Stock tweeted, they completely misrepresented her stance on the GRA in the letter:

"I've just read bit where they say I'm "well known" for my opposition to GRA - except that I am actually against repeal of the GRA, and am definitely pro retention of protection of gender reassignment under Equality Act. But details, right?"
twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1346505244243603457?s=20

"If you are going to slander me to colleagues
@jIchikawa and @lastpositivist
can you not even get the basic details about my view right? (You won't see this obviously, because you blocked me months ago as potentially harmful to your presumably delicate eyeballs)."
twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1346505868813234177?s=20

It's just really depressing to see people in trusted positions completely lacking in basic integrity. At least so far it's mostly foreign academics signing (who patently don't have a clue what's going on here) and a handful of blokes from UK universities - mainly Scotland.

Scotland is truly the land of the woke - not sure why happened over the last 30 years.

I hope she sues.

Woke = same old misogyny repackaged.

a woman is anyone who is oppressed. On her theory woman is a term you want to get rid of - no one should be a woman

Silly sally is right. What a daft idea. Is she so much of a 'big deal' that nobody will tell her she's talking mince?

As for Scotland - eurgh. I apologise. I really hope that as the woke pioneers here push things too far, we'll also be one of the first places to robustly challenge the nonsense .

Congrats Doc! And Molly - thanks for the link to the Hines thread. Outstanding.

I would love to add my name to the list of those congratulating Professor Stock OBE. In fact, I just did. Keep on keeping on Prof.

Kathleen personally said to me that, when I lost my affiliation due to Stephanie Hayden and Adrian Harrop's complaint, that she could not publicly support due to being friends with the Head of Dept (all the more reason to challenge, or so I naively thought). It would therefore be easy to say "so what" about this letter. But I will not be that person. It is appalling, vindictive, bullying disguised as a progressive fight. Every single signatory of that letter really should be ashamed of themselves. You are contributing to hounding, and making a professionally accomplished woman feel ostracized. You may not like her, but most normal, sane, people keep that private and do not go on some deranged vendetta. Right now, I am thankful to no longer be an official part of the discipline.

Dr Moody.

Lovely to see you here Ginge. I admire greatly any woman who has stuck her head above the parapet to challenge the nonsense, you have far more to lose than a thick arse like me. I'm uneducated but grateful to those who are cleverer than me, which means most who post in this forum.

That letter is about more than berating Kathleen Stock. The signatories are sending a clear message to those in less secure positions in academia, that they better keep their mouths shut. -and that is a really chilling thing to do.

Agree, Fallingirl. Otherwise, what is the point of it? It's not saying anything, really. Just empty virtual signalling was what I was hoping, but your take makes more sense, unfortunately.

I think it's about time the work of academics in the arts was peer reviewed, like the sciences, that would get rid of some of the crap or at least cause some professional embarrassment so that they actually thought before publishing. It would protect people like Kathleen Stock and it would show us tax payers whether we were getting value for money. At least with covid-19, science has been given an almighty boost

sorry, Social Sciences

I’m not sure it could work that way for a lot of the humanities though highame. It’s perfectly legitimate to write subjectively about non-scientific subjects like philosophy. (Its not legitimate to do shoddy social science research like you say, but that’s different from philosophy, ie thinking about ideas). It’s definitely not OK to effectively disallow and ostracise colleagues and students from having a plurality of subjective (legal and peaceful) views.

So universities could enforce the requirements around free speech better, defend their staff better, and they could require critical thinking to be taught for Arts subjects. Not just research skills. Honestly with the signatories of that letter I think it’s a symptom of what seems from the outside like quite a horrible academic culture for a lot of them. Of the UK ones various are junior, may not really have any particular awareness of these specific issues particularly but (I would bet) want their name going around on social media attached to virtuous-looking things alongside a few big name people making them all look like peers. It’s lazy but it comes from insecurity too.

I don’t know if academia was always this way but the low pay, job insecurity, the REF, the admin load, the hours, the requirement to be on social media, all seem to conspire against women (especially with kids) and to promote dickish signally behaviour like this ‘open letter’ ostracism tactic which has no solid foundation in actual academic argument.

Stock seems like a straw man here for most of the signatories- as they haven’t even got their objections straight. To me it looks more about self righteous, self serving careerism from junior people tilting at windmills by signing this thing. ‘Problematic views’ or insufficient commitment to the cause has always been a good way to clear out or mute the middle and upper tiers in any political hierarchy. It’s a dangerous culture to feed though because nobody is ever perfect enough when political goal posts can be moved all the time but must be stuck to. Academic work will always be political but it is also a discipline with an aim to continuously improve knowledge, it should not be just paid political advocacy with penalties for those who don’t adhere to the dogma.

That’s why its essential that academic culture needs to robustly maintain that debate is OK and is needed- debate has an essential purpose in maintaining academic rigour and freedom and defending the central purpose of gathering and sharing and testing out knowledge. #yesdebate

Just seen that letter. What an incredibly nasty thing to do.

We do not say Stock should not be permitted to say the things she does. We believe in the principles of academic freedom, and note that objecting to someone being lauded or honoured for their speech simply does not conflict with those principles.

In other words: "We can't ban her from saying these things...but we will do our best to bully her into submission...and that's allowed...because free speech". These people should be ashamed of themselves.

This letter had two main points - Kathleen has called for an end to the close association between Stonewall and universities and that she was opposed to the GRA.

They have now had to publish a correction to one of their two statements - the people that signed this should be mightily embarrassed and ashamed of themselves for being involved in such a pathetic attack on an individual.