Thread by @DrJessTaylor

I have a friend who is a brilliant forensic psychologist who has recently conducted a set of studies which has seriously upset the apple cart. Originally, they were all kept in academia until recently, she decided she had a duty to women who had been raped to make her work public

She wrote some accessible style blogs and has started to post publicly about her studies and findings, and what it means for women who have been raped whose statements are discredited or disbelieved.

As soon as she stepped outside of academia, she’s been vilified

Her findings and methods are very different to the norm. Her arguments are vital for women. She’s been trolled and bullied online now for about a fortnight. Academics in her specialism keep RT and subtweeting her saying she’s full of shit, questioning her method and findings

We both agree on making our work as public and as accessible as possible, and yet, that’s when most of the anger kicks in. Her work has been known about for about 2 years, but she stepped up to say it publicly and all hell has broken loose in her field

One of the top academics who opposes her has been directly harassing her for a week. It’s turned personal very quickly.

It’s just making me reflect on how fickle academia really is, and how quickly it moves to personal attacks, trying to get women sacked and ridiculing them

I thought the point of academia was to critically debate, write transparently and then ultimately, develop more and more understanding of a topic and of approaches. So much of this turns into personal insults and harassment nowadays - mainly over social media

There’s SUCH a lot of bullying going on in academia. A couple years ago a woman I knew resigned from her senior post in top uni due to bullying purely because of her approaches to a topic in social work.

My friend is now being trolled and harassed for contributing new findings

What on earth do these people want academia to be? A huge field of people all saying the same thing about the same topic using the same method and the same ideas over and over so the big wigs are all kept happy until they die?

What hope does this leave for young academics and researchers?

What about the ones who want to make their work public and accessible? Why would they do this if they will get dragged every time they do it? The ones who write accessibly and get called ‘unscholarly’?