Gender-Critical Feminism (OUP 2022) | Sex Matters (OUP 2023) | Is It Wrong To Buy Sex? (Routledge 2024) | Feminism Beyond Left and Right (Polity 2025)
Melbourne, Victoria
Joined August 2016
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ICYMI -- all twelve lectures for THE PHILOSOPHY OF FEMINISM are now available @ my Y/T channel 👇🏼
Holly Lawford-Smith retweeted
"He wiped the floor with me"
How is philosophical excellence - even greatness - incubated? In a culture of searching questioning and criticism, not the faux politeness of softball questions and cosy "fireside" chats that is all too prevalent today.
Key to this culture is recognizing that others taking your ideas seriously enough to subject them to rigorous criticism is itself a mark of respect.
Here is Elizabeth Anscombe on when the young Wittgenstein met Frege
Holly Lawford-Smith retweeted
New from me: Royal Hobart Hospital insiders have disputed the Tasmanian Health Minister’s claim that gender surgery at Royal Hobart is not affecting essential and emergency care, warning resources are being diverted from a critical public waiting list. theaustralian.com.au/health/…
"Perhaps the reason young men and women are diverging on politics is not so much because they are being radicalised by the internet... but rather because they are failing to deradicalise each other through sustained, loving relationships in the real world".
—the wonderful Louise Perry in the @australian Weekend Magazine.
the journal of controversial ideas is now on substack, if you want an easy way to follow them and read the papers they publish! 👇🏼
substack.com/@jconideas
here is the transphobia and dehumanisation conference call for papers, as well as my abstract, sadly rejected on the grounds that 'it did not seem to be offering a good-faith argument'. ~good faith~ seems to have a special meaning here but i can't quite figure out what it is...
stephen rice is on fire! 🔥 two articles in today's australian about trans activism and the universities.
"For more than a century, universities have been intellectual battlegrounds where ideas, no matter how controversial, are stress-tested through argument. Today, that model is being dismantled from within as activist academics declare that any questioning of trans-affirming theories of gender is off limits. Dehumanising. Bullying. Dangerous."
Holly Lawford-Smith retweeted
Wow - trans activists at Uni of Sydney tried to get @aytchellesse Holly Lawford-Smith’s philosophy seminar cancelled. The University then used the cancellation attempt to support their application for a Gold award in ACON’s Pride in Diversity awards. They got boosted to Platinum 💀
Holly Lawford-Smith retweeted
Parents of gender-distressed children say they are deeply concerned after the Australian Psychological Society @AustPsych elected as its next president a board member who has been accused of intimidation by at least two mothers. theaustralian.com.au/nation/… via @australian
Holly Lawford-Smith retweeted
I only wish that men's rights activists, online (male) obsessives, and those wonderful people who clog up the phone lines of a rape crisis centre would read your perfectly sensible words and actually consider them, rather than immediately attacking, which is what they will inevitably do.
And that more of our colleagues in the literary world, people who actually trade in words, would do similar and finally stand up for women, lesbians and gay men, instead of throwing people from each of those 3 groups under the bus simply to appease men or gain some sort of social media following.
"Large numbers of women who’ve never been poor, who’ve never worked the kind of job where they’d be vulnerable to predatory men and who’ve never needed a rape crisis centre have spent the last few years vilifying members of their own sex for fighting to retain their hard-won rights and single-sex spaces. ... I freely confess that I feel an extra layer of abhorrence for any woman who claims to be a feminist while doing it."
I wrote a new piece about women’s rights and whether or not I want trans people dead. (Spoiler: I don’t)👇
jkrowling.com/opinions/an-up…
Holly Lawford-Smith retweeted
The Free Speech Union just signed up its 50,000th member, making it larger than the following unions:
• NAHT – 49,785
• Equity – 48,606
• Royal College of Midwives – 48,568
• Community – 43,595
• PDA Union – 38,024
• POA – 36,715
• British Association of Occupational Therapists – 36,015
• Musicians' Union – 34,563
• Society of Radiographers – 33,971
• Fire Brigades Union – 33,717
• ASLEF – c.25,000
• ASCL – 24,778
• FDA – 24,422
• NUJ – 23,066
• Accord – 21,451
• Nautilus International – 19,089
• Affinity – 18,574
• TSSA – c.17,000
• British Dental Association – 15,698
• Social Workers Union – 15,335
• Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union – 14,645
• BALPA – 14,375
• Society of Authors – 12,390
• Nationwide Group Staff Union – 12,361
• British Dietetic Association – 11,656
• App Drivers and Couriers Union – 9,205
• Workers of England Union – 8,862
• Royal College of Podiatry – 8,736
• Financial Services Union – 8,651
• National Association of Racing Staff – 7,809
• United Road Transport Union – 7,557
• IWGB – 7,380
• NAPO – 6,345
• Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association – 5,966
• Professional Footballers' Association – 5,834
• Advance – 5,512
• British Association of Dental Nurses – 4,585
• Association of Educational Psychologists – 4,256
• Aegis – 4,093
• Equality for Workers Union – 3,972
• United Voices of the World – 3,881
• National Crime Officers Association – 3,666
• UCAC – 3,644
• IWW – 3,332
• NSEAD – 3,085
• ISU – 3,080
• Writers' Guild of Great Britain – 3,074
• HCSA – 2,894
• AHDS – 2,774
• Association of Revenue and Customs – 2,676
• Currys Trade Union – 2,601
• Scottish Artists Union – 2,458
• CAIWU – 1,830
• Criminal Justice Workers Union – 1,796
• National Union of Professional Foster Carers – 1,735
• PFA Scotland – 1,618
• Fire and Rescue Services Association – 1,604
• British Orthoptic Society TU – 1,511
• Association for Laboratory Medicine – 1,407
• Leeds Building Society Colleague Association – 1,356
• News Union – 1,299
• RSPB Staff Association – 1,216
• Artists' Union England – 1,200
• Driver and General Union – 1,193
• G4S Care and Justice Services Staff Association – 1,080
• Prison Governors Association – 1,079
• Independent Pilots Association – 1,020
• UK Private Hire Drivers Union – 891
• NHBC Staff Association – 869
• Fire Officers' Association – 780
• Association of Local Council Clerks – 761
• British Association of Journalists – 731
• Retail Book Association – 706
• Skyshare – 635
• Rugby Players' Association – 590
• Professional Cricketers' Association – 534
• Stage Directors UK Union – 471
• Confederation of British Surgery – 450
• Locum Doctors' Association – 447
• Society of Union Employees – 434
• Security Industry Federation – 405
• Independent Federation of Nursing in Scotland – 395
• Union of General and Volunteer Workers – 354
• ALACE – 350
• Association of Flight Attendants – 328
• Cabin Crew Union – 278
• Empower the Workers' Union – 271
• Employees United – 232
• Union Workers' Union – 212
• Sales Staff Association – 209
• UPECC – 206
• National Union of Mineworkers – 196
• Solidarity – 185
• Equal Justice the Union – 145
• Women's Rugby Association – 125
• Palm Paper Staff Association – 117
• Welsh Rugby Players Association – 116
• WALGAS – 113
• Independent Oxfam Union – 105
• Warwick International Staff Association – 82
• NUM (South Wales Area) – 73
• Employees General Union – 27
• Solid Trade Union – 15
Holly Lawford-Smith retweeted
It seems that the level of newspaper and magazine coverage of Arday was about the same as the coverage of Raygun, but dramatically lower than that of Lance Armstrong.
does deja foxx's style—sugary sweet, intensely theatrical, emotional to the point of nearly crying at her own anecdotes—aggravate even the "be kind" feminists she is meant to be representing? or do some people genuinely find it compelling. for me it made the debate unwatchable.
Have feminism’s accomplishments actually made women happier?
At a live debate in Nashville hosted by The Free Press and CBS News, conservative podcaster @Conservmillen and progressive writer @Deja_Foxx discussed their views, often opposing, on feminism.
Find the debate at TheFP.com or on Paramount+.
Holly Lawford-Smith retweeted
🚨BREAKING: CAF has commissioned an independent investigation into Cambridge’s appointment of Dr Jason Arday as its youngest ever black professor, amid growing professional disquiet over his academic record, the circumstances of his appointment, the University’s handling of concerns raised about his scholarship and, more recently, the scope and direction of Cambridge’s own inquiry.
You can find out more here:
ardayinvestigation.net/
The investigation will be chaired by Professor Swaran Preet Singh, Lord Singh of Solihull, a former Commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission who previously led the independent investigation into allegations of discrimination within the Conservative Party.
He will be joined by a distinguished panel comprising Harvard psychologist Professor Steven Pinker, UCL sociologist Professor Alice Sullivan, Cambridge historian Professor Robert Tombs and Labour peer Professor Maurice Glasman.
Award-winning investigative journalist Nick Wallis, whose work helped expose the Post Office Horizon scandal, will lead the investigation with a dedicated research team.
CAF has been contacted by numerous Cambridge academics who are deeply concerned that the University’s own investigation will fail to confront the wider institutional culture in which the Arday affair unfolded.
Whether these concerns are justified is for the independent investigation to determine. But Cambridge is one of the world’s oldest and greatest universities, and what happens to its academic culture has implications for higher education as a whole. So we think it’s worth going the extra mile to make sure the right questions are asked and the right lessons learned.
CAF strongly encourages current and former academics, students and other members of the University community, as well as others with relevant knowledge, to come forward with information.
This might include policy documents, internal correspondence or first-hand accounts concerning Arday’s academic record and appointment, the University’s response to concerns about his scholarship and its treatment of those who raised them, and the operation of institutional policies relating to recruitment, promotion, academic misconduct, research integrity and EDI.
Anyone wishing to contribute can contact the Investigator directly at:
[email protected]
The investigation website provides further guidance on submitting information, including arrangements for particularly sensitive material:
ardayinvestigation.net/
from the headline you might think this is a foreign power stealing military secrets. not until the fourth paragraph does the article explain that this is defence force men spycamming the women's showers. strange how sexism has finished but this stuff is still happening...
post-CASC @spinifexpress haul! particularly looking forward to reading @angijones's chapter on the australian contingent. congratulations to all who contributed to either! ⭐
