Thread by @jichikawa

I'd like to make an observation about the conversation that has been happening on philosophy twitter about the state of philosophical discourse about gender.

I know a lot of philosophers are confused about this discussion and not sure what to think. This thread is for you.

This is not a thread about the first-order questions about trans identities and gender. It is an observation about the discourse itself, and civility, and who stands for what.

I want to convince you to reject the symmetric narrative, whereby "both sides" are behaving badly, tossing insults back and forth. On the contrary, so-called "gender-critical" philosophers are rampantly violating many norms of civil discussion. I want you to notice that.

These norm violations are far from symmetric. Yes, you will find people on twitter being inappropriately insulting or even threatening against gender-critical philosophers. But there is a staggering lack of symmetry here, especially if you restrict your attention to...

... professional philosophers (grad students and faculty) tweeting under their own names.

I've spent the last hour looking over tweets from the past few days. I have not pulled my punches. I have been deeply critical of various representatives of the "gender critical" movement.

In the past few days, I’ve given the following frank negative evaluations about one or more professional philosophers:

* not a serious scholar on gender
* ignorant about obvious factual matters widely known
* seems to pay more attention to me than women making the same points

There's room to debate about this, but imo, those are the three most cutting/negative things I said publicly about any professional philosopher on twitter. There are milder ones too; I've said someone e.g.:

* has a history of responding to me with insults
* said something false

If someone wants to add some of the insinuations I've made to the effect that someone e.g.

* doesn't seem to have read the tweet they're responding to
* doesn't seem to be acting in good faith

to my list of insults, OK, fair enough.

These are the most negative things I have said about any professional colleague. (I've been accused of saying stronger. If you want to argue that these aren't the most insulting things I've said, show me the tweet. I'll apologise and correct the record if I missed something.)

I'm not here right now to argue about whether those negative evaluations were correct. (I stand by them all, but that's not this project.) This is about what KINDS of negative things I've said. Compare my "out" list with my "in" one.

Professional "gender critical" philosophers have recently described me personally as:

* a misogynist
* insufferable
* engaged in entitled over privileged mansplaining off-the-fucking-scale
* making hilariously desperate passive-aggressive dickmoves
* an utter shit

Again, these are only the insults to me personally, from professional colleagues in philosophy. I'm setting aside the noise I get from others. These were their reactions to my criticisms listed above. Direct quotes.

The pattern I just measured about me is the same one I've observed about many people participating in these discussions over some months now. I want you to see it too.

The "gender critical" crowd often tries to take on the mantle of standing for civility and respect, but they don't come close to living up to those standards. This statement in IHE from earlier this week was co-written by the same person who called me "an utter shit" this morning

I was taught that it was both juvenile and counterproductive to descend to personal insults, and I aspire to a professional academic environment that is better than this. If you do too, then please don't treat this kind of rhetoric as normal or acceptable.

And never be tempted to buy the story they're selling about how philosophers are viciously attacking them for daring to question progressive ideology. They are much likelier than their professional critics to engage in personal attacks.

You might not want to just take me at my word on the comparative claims here, that would be very understandable. You can watch, and see it for yourself. But do pay attention. This actually is important. Our discipline is very unhealthy in a way a lot of people haven't noticed yet

(If you are a professional philosopher and you have been watching and agree with my sense of things, and you feel comfortable doing so, I'd be grateful if you'd say so. I want other philosophers to see that most people watching see it this way.)