Gender
Jan 04, 2005Are gender roles and differences fixed, once and for, all by biology? Or is gender socially constructed and culturally variable?
Conceptual Penises and Failed Hoaxes
Truman Chen
09 June 2017
Recently, an assistant professor of philosophy at Portland State University named Peter Boghossian and a PhD in math named James Lindsay attempted to reinvent the Sokal Hoax in an effort to discredit an entire field of academic study. Like those who were involved in the Sokal Hoax, Boghossian and Lindsay deliberately wrote a meaningless and obscure article cloaked in the moral and conceptual language of a given field to see whether they could trick a journal into publishing it. The piece they co-authored was titled "The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct," designed to debunk the legitimacy of the field of gender studies by demonstrating how it is "crippled academically by an overriding almost-religious belief that maleness is the root of all evil."
But the joke seems to be on them. After some brief investigation, philosopher James Stacy Taylor revealed that the journal in which the article in question was published was a unrespected, "pay to publish" publication that has no real authority on the argumentative content of the field of gender studies.
See Taylor's full response here: http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2017/05/conceptual-penis-hoax-just-big-cock/
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