Why Can't Philosophers Talk About Gender? Kathleen Stock On How A Rich Topic Became The Third Rail

The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.7 • 855 Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2021

⏱️ 96 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For most of her career, University of Sussex Professor of Philosophy Kathleen Stock was known primarily as a scholar on philosophical questions related to fiction and the concept of imagination. But in 2018, she began to speak and write about the issue of gender identity. Among her questions were why her philosophy colleagues were so reluctant to discuss something so seemingly ripe for the kind of inquiry philosophers live for. The backlash came swiftly but so did tacit messages of support and over time Kathleen has become a leading voice on gender identity theory, policy reform, and their effects on women and girls. Kathleen spoke with Meghan about this unexpected turn in her career and also the various tensions between recognizing the rights of transgender people and recognizing certain material facts. She also explained the difference between sex and gender, which, despite the ubiquity of those terms, many people remain confused about. Guest bio: Kathleen Stock is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sussex in England. Her book, Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism was just published by Little Brown in the U.K. and is available everywhere on Kindle. The U.S. edition will be published on September 21, 2021.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm just very annoyed at my profession, to be honest, although there are lots vulnerable
0:08.2	exceptions, but, you know, I went into philosophy thinking that here was an arena where we could
0:14.0	slug it out conversationally, and I know people who will, philosophers who will argue with me
0:20.5	about literally anything.
0:21.6	I used to be Facebook friends with those philosophers, not so much anymore, but you know, I used to be friends for them and I'd see the marketing about tiny, tiny matters that no one gives a toss about out in the world.
0:33.6	And then this comes along, this big issue about identity and politics and policies and,
0:39.9	you know, and they suddenly just go deathly quiet.
0:49.0	Welcome to the unspeakable podcast. I'm your host, Megan Dowm. My guest, Kathleen Stock, is a professor of
0:56.5	philosophy at the University of Sussex in England. For most of her career, Kathleen was known
1:01.8	primarily as a scholar on philosophical questions related to fiction and the concept of imagination.
1:08.2	But in 2018, she began to speak and write about the issue of gender identity,
1:13.6	specifically why her colleagues in philosophy were so reluctant to discuss something so seemingly
1:19.6	ripe for the kind of inquiry philosophers live for. The backlash came swiftly, but so did
1:26.1	tacit messages of support. And over time, Kathleen has become a leading voice on gender identity theory, policy reform, and their effects on women and girls.
1:36.2	She spoke with me about this unexpected turn and the tension between recognizing the rights of transgender people and recognizing material facts. Perhaps most
1:45.7	usefully of all, she explains the difference between sex and gender, which admit it, you still
1:51.8	may be confused about. A few quick notes about this episode. First, as with the last few,
1:57.4	there is a brief message from the new productivity platform, The Process about halfway through. For ad-free versions of this podcast, you can subscribe
2:05.8	at patreon.com slash the unspeakable. Also, at one point in the conversation, I refer to a recent
2:12.4	guest I had on talking about the Academic Freedom Alliance or AFA. I mistakenly call it the Academic Freedom
2:19.9	Association. It's the Academic Freedom Alliance. Anyway, here's my conversation with Kathleen Stock.
2:29.9	Kathleen Stock, welcome to the podcast. Hi. You are a philosopher.
	...

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