Is there a simple explanation for why so many academics have fallen for this?

[resistingreality]

Hi all, this is a bit of a woolly question but I am trying it anyway. I am an academic in the broad area of equality and diversity (not specifically sex-based inequalities). I am aware of many other academics, people far senior to me and much more 'successful,' and who I admire for their work, who are fully behind gender ideology. Some are advocates of queer theory and work in this area, but not all. Most are feminists, and one very prominent example posted on twitter this week saying that anybody who called themselves gender critical was not (a feminist, that is). It sent a shiver down my spine partly because I simply cannot understand this. I can sort of understand how people not immersed in these debates could be swayed by the 'be kind' thing and not see how trans rights and women's rights might clash. But these are intelligent, well-read, people who are supposedly (as academics) led by evidence. I simply can't understand how they can't see the very active harms caused by gender ideology. Or ... perhaps they can, and they don't care? But this requires a shift in my thinking to accept that women (and some men) who profess to stand for other women and have often built a career on this ... simply don't. I'll also admit to not knowing what to do. I want to stand up for my beliefs and I absolutely hate this conspiracy of silence but I am also aware that these more prominent academics could damage my own career and I don't feel brave. Help!

Oh dear. I hope you aren't an academic.

Academics haven't been taken in by this ideology they created it.

All the premises it's based on were developed in the unis within the social sciences/ Grievance studies depts.

Post modernism took hold: everything is a social construct there is no truth only lived experience/ phenomenology.

Focault et al dominant epistemology: everything is a power struggle, language is just a tool for power and is not related to any underlying truth. So you can just change it to mean what you want.

Critical theory - structural power struggles between oppressed and oppressors.

Intersectionality - everything looked at through the lense of identity and oppressed groups.

Queer theory - a mishmash of the above claiming everything in society oppresses those who don't fit, so all norms must be queered.

Then this all packaged up as kindness and DEI, and cowardly academics too scared to point out it's load of bullshit.

Then students trained in this crap leave and get jobs in the civil service and charity sector to enact this moral overturning of the oppressed. With trans tacked to lgb and the most queer and therefore most oppressed.

Tbh many of the women's studies, gender studies etc courses have been involved with or responsible for this insanity they just didn't see how it was going to bite them on the arse.

We’re all on a spectrum right? Some more one way that others.

Why would all being on a sex/gender spectrum, even if we were/are (I agree gender is a spectrum), mean there is no need for categories or segregation in particular circumstances?

Age is a continuous spectrum, and our age changes, but nonetheless we have age categories, and they are arbitrary, but they are still important. There are children's hospital wards and children's sports, and age limits on buying alcohol and going to nightclubs, and driving, and having sex, and so on. Because there are some situations where categories and differences matter.

The same applies to sex. (Not gender, sex.) The sexes aren't normally segregated for everyday activities, but they are for specific situations where being female means you are vulnerable to or different from men. Like prisons, hospital wards and sports.

Anyone can do any gender stuff they like (masculine/feminine presentation, interests etc) and they do and have done for ages. That's not the same thing as sex, which like age is a physical reality.

If you think it's so regressive to have sex categories in some situations, does the same go for age categories? No kids/youth categories for sports? No separation from adults in terms of sex, driving, voting, hospital wards etc? If not why not? It's a spectrum.

This ridiculous idea that if you can argue something is a "spectrum", then anything goes, falls down at the first hurdle.

And nor should it, btw. It just doesn’t fit around our society that is still very gendered.

It is gender ideology that is "gendered". It says that you're a man or woman (or boy or girl) based on stereotyped preferences and gendered performance, and "feeling like" the other sex based on a sexist presumption of what they feel like, because you can't ever know.

Sex is simply a physical reality that we come in two gamete-making types for the evolutionary purpose of exchange genes for reproduction. We can all have a sex - and do - without having to be controlled by gendered expectations and stereotypes. Arguing that sex doesn't exist or matter does not stop sex from existing and mattering, and arguing that it should be replaced with gender stereotypes is saying society should be more gendered, not less.

If society wasn't "gendered" at all, there would be no trans men or trans women, would there?

I think because unlike most people on mumsnet seem to believe, it isn’t actually black and white. Scientific studies have shown that those identifying as trans have a brain structure more similar to the gender they say they identify with. You can’t ignore that science.

It's always funny when this one pops up!

You can't ignore that science!!

My sides!

I wonder if part of the issue is with all the non-science academics who don't understand scientific method and evidence and deduction. They just think someone saying "a study says..." means something is true.

That doesn't explain the sciency ones like Alice Roberts, but I think it's part of it.

Give it 50 years and there will be no sex/gender like it is today. People will raise their eyebrows that we segregated ourselves like that.

Are we going to discover that we had been missing the Spegg producers for the past thousands of years? You are telling us we are going to discover extra gametes? Yes?

Please do tell us what is going to happen within the next 50 years that has not occurred yet in human history?

Just like many of us are starting to roll our eyes at those who still segregate everyone between straight and gay.

You obviously think this is a good analogy, but it is not. Do you have any statistics that show that homosexual males commit sex crime with females as the target at a higher rate than heterosexual males?

Because 'segregation' between females and male happen for safeguarding mostly. And the statistics are fucking obvious when 99% of sex crime is committed by males. And I doubt that you can produce any statistics that show transitioned males to have a lower rate of committing sex crime?

Or if you do, please post it because we have been chasing that holy grail for years now.

We’re all on a spectrum right? Some more one way that others.

Spectrum of what?

If you honestly believe that human sex categories are on a spectrum, you need to stop reading blogs. Or start bringing the evidence to this thread. You know Claire Ainsworth clarified her article, right? Still two sexes with plenty of variations within those sexes? And you know Fausto-Sterling admitted that she was not serious at the time of writing her article as well.

@resistingreality at a guess
They truly believe
popularizing
or better to be part of the in crowd

Many people will believe any old shit if they think it will benefit them in some way, for example will make them look good or (in the case of academics) clever.
For some an added advantage is that it enables them to look down on others. I think that’s most of it.

This a thousand times over :

"The other issue in academia is that Arts Departments have flirted with post-modernism for decades. Those theories were consigned to essays and lectures - where they had a place. When they tipped into RL without any of the constraints of academic rigour or a basic political undermining or a standard of educational attainment to see them in the wider context of other theories, that's where problems started."

Quote from @PoundShopPrincess

I've enjoyed reading this thread so much. Thank you everybody for engaging. I have so many thoughts. One is that I use Foucault in my research but I don't take it to mean there is no objective truth. I think what I was also really talking about was not just the many academics who outwardly support gender ideology (though that is also confusing) but the especially eminent ones who are actively pushing it. There is one in particular who I probably shouldn't name who is a Judith Butler follower. I think part of my confusion is that, if she is so completely wrong on this subject (IMO), how much of her other work, which I have often thought brilliant, do I need to discount? Probably none. I can just use my critical judgment. But it's strange when you find people who you thought were broadly on the same side, on this issue are completely and to my mind irrationally not.

I think it can be fairly summarised that middle class, white males will talk about anything and everything other than class, race and sex. They don't want to discuss material facts when they can use post modernist clap trap to divert attention from addressing real inequalities. I say this as a lefty. I think its important also to point out that no truly critical thinking is required, tolerated or invited because the institutions themselves are now so completely interpellated into liberal ideologies around politics, ethics, and economics that no academic is going to run the risk of not getting funding or losing their tenure, if they are lucky enough to have tenure. It isn't left wing to espouse gender ideologies. Its liberal. Its entirely tolerated and even encouraged on that basis, the very basis that it doesn't indeed upset the apple cart. I have long since given up any ambitions to go into academia, I would find myself tied up, and gagged in a corner no doubt.

I’ve just had an argument about this stuff with an self described anarchist who was prone to using academic language. I got the impression that the internal logic of his argument was more important to him than it’s practical implications/ the fact that what he ending up arguing was patently preposterous, unscientific and inhumane. I think that’s sometimes the case with academics.

Are we going to discover that we had been missing the Spegg producers for the past thousands of years? You are telling us we are going to discover extra gametes? Yes?

It's certainly going to make the surrogacy industry a bit harder more complicated, eh?

make the surrogacy industry a bit harder more complicated

Grr, dreadful habit of not re-reading after editing, so leaving the drafts in. Everyone gets to see how the sausage is made...

Which is ironic because there is zero internal logic to gender ideology. The reasoning is always circular because they can never define either gender or man/woman.

i know quite a few academic who’ve drunk the gender ideology koolaid in ways that baffle me. Mostly this is driven by a bit of an ivory tower view of disadvantage and the need to champion on behalf of the most oppressed. So lots of well meaning, white, comfortably off women who are driven by some sort of guilt and feel this is where they can make a difference. There’s almost some mix of denial and atonement driving it - they’re picking the category in which they are the ‘disadvantaged’ group (sex/gender) and making up for their privilege elsewhere by deciding they’re not really disadvantaged - they’re actually the privileged ones, because transgendered people are the mostest disadvantaged.

One woman in particular, who is totally lovely, whose research is all about the fleshy materiality of bodies (as these things are often put in these bits of academia), seems unable to see that the arguments she makes in her research (which is not about tra gender) are totally at odds with all the gendered intelligence and cool girl ally feminism she shares in social media. It is baffling.

Well yes we didn’t get on to that, it was more about the free will and the responsibilities of society. And whether parents should allow their children to make serious decisions that could turn out to be life limiting mistakes. And whether or not children should be bankers.

(He was all for child bankers and eschewing parental responsibility btw. When I asked him how a child would get to the bank- would they drive?- he said they could get a bus. I gave up at that point.)

Tbh many of the women's studies, gender studies etc courses have been involved with or responsible for this insanity they just didn't see how it was going to bite them on the arse.

Women's Studies caved and became gender and sexuality studies. Academic feminists were unable or unwilling to stem the tide. Typical course offerings are narrowly ideologically focused and reflect the oppression narrative. They do not reflect the full richness of women's lives, especially motherhood. There appears to be very little actual research other than theoretical pontificating. Easy peasy, as they say.

These departments are like ponzi schemes. They are cheap to run and suck in attract students who are less capable academically and who otherwise would not have gone to university. This huge money spinner benefits both the university and the professors. It is not in their financial interest to challenge the prevailing narrative.

I’m an academic and agree with a lot of what’s been said here. I think the intensification of academic roles in the past 15 years is a big factor. Teaching and admin take up most time for most academics, lots of people post PhD don’t realistically have that much time to think in depth about new ideas or read widely. But at the same time there’s this pressure to innovate, be at the cutting edge, and be saying new things all the time.

It leads to a lot of surface engagement with ideas, intellectual insecurity and short cuts in thinking. Taking a surface approach where you jump on the latest theory and adopt the right terms can be well rewarded as it means people can churn out papers and grants which sound plausible but take a lot less time - and papers and grants are usually what secure promotion (even if 90% of your job is teaching.) Obviously not everyone does this but there is pressure to produce rigorous groundbreaking research in maybe 15% of the time it would take to do it properly, so the incentive is strong.

Gender Self ID on the surface can look like the latest progressive movement and also allows people to use long words, feel superior/morally righteous and tell people off a lot. So think it can slip down easily with a lot of academics who are used to adopting positions and ideas moving quickly, without necessarily thinking them all through.

Academia today selects for individuals with various properties that have little to do with intelligence. It is not actually very good at rewarding original thinking most of the time, whereas people who can stick to a particular tribal position are more likely to do well.

If you're aware of Foucault and you can't see how the postmodernists and social constructivists are behind the ideology that this is premised upon I'd really recommend reading Cynical Theories by James Lyndsay.

So many social science departments only use this epistemology now and positivist approaches are seen as oppressive. Yet so many academics don't even seem to see this as a problem, or what that actually means when it's no longer just mental wanking in an ivory tower but real people.

And the introduction of DEI into even the pure sciences is the infiltration of this thinking into reality itself.
There is no reality only the just use of power to protect the oppressed.