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    The McMaster Department of Philosophy has now put together the following notice commemorating Barry: Barry Allen: A Philosophical Life Barry…

Saul on sexual harassment and some late thoughts about McGinn (Rebecca Kukla)

Rkukla

UPDATE: Upon consultation and reflection, and with trepidation, I am opening up comments on this thread.  I will be moderating them *heavily*.

FURTHER UPDATE: I will not publish any pseudonymous/anonymous comments unless there is an obvious and compelling reason to do so.

UPDATE TO THE FURTHER UPDATE: Opening up comments has turned out to be all-in a mistake for what were probably predictable reasons if I had half a brain.  Some productive comments have made it through and I am now closing comments back down again. 

 

Jennifer Saul has recently discussed sexual harassment in the profession on Salon and with Slate. Although Colin McGinn and his hand-themed brand of humor have been the catalyst for the recent round of attention to this issue, Saul rightly focuses on the broader systematic culture problem that the discipline of philosophy seems to have. 

In one sense, it is gratifying to see this issue get attention in the wake of McGinn's resignation. At the same time, I have found it frustrating watching people gleefully vilify and demonize him. Not because he wasn't creepy and way out of bounds, but because the kind of remarkably inappropriate 'banter' he engaged in and his complete tone-deafness to the power dynamics that structure the performative force of that banter happen ALL THE TIME in philosophy, as far as I can tell. Through his pompous and narcissistic attempts at self-defense, McGinn made himself an easy target for ridicule. I worry that this has allowed us to write him off as a moral monster, rather than reflecting on just how pervasive this kind of behavior is. In fact, I think that McGinn's clear belief that his inappropriate sexualized communication made him somehow a bold, hip, unconventional intellectual is implicitly shared by many men in the profession. 

That this kind of 'banter' is common doesn't make it harmless, by any means. It's easy to be insouciant about boundary-busting when you do so from a position of power. But in fact, this idea that we philosophers are somehow above such trivialities as social boundaries comes at the cost of the discipline's most vulnerable members (and potential members). 

Here is one articulate and moving first-person account of the impact of sexual harassment on a graduate student that has been making the rounds. 

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6 responses to “Saul on sexual harassment and some late thoughts about McGinn (Rebecca Kukla)”

  1. Kathryn Norlock

    I've been thinking about the pervasiveness and commonality of inappropriate statements and behavior, ever since reading a comment thread on another site in which someone hazarded the guess that harassment is a problem for every workplace, that the risk "distributes evenly," so things are tough all over and what can one do? I understand the allure of that view, because it is such a short, relaxing step from "happens everywhere" to the thought that one needn't do much about it in one's own area of influence. Sit back, put your feet up, because after all, we're not *especially* bad if it's ubiquitous.

    Jenny Saul and I were recently discussing our different reactions to this view, and mildly disagreeing on our responses to it. It's Saul's position that when something morally bad is happening, one should try to reduce or prevent it, regardless of how one's own profession compares to others; instead of wondering how something bad in one's workplace compares to other places, let's instead prioritize stopping what's bad! She's quite right, but my reaction differs, and I'm influenced by evidence that suggests harassment does not actually distribute evenly across workplaces. If some places are better to work than others, then let's emulate the good ones. Harassment is not inevitable, it is preventable, and bystanders can do a lot about making a workplace better.

    Reply
  2. JBR

    Rebecca,

    "I worry that this has allowed us to write him off as a moral monster, rather than reflecting on just how pervasive this kind of behavior is."

    I agree with you. Vilifying McGinn also serves a nice, self-affirming purpose–especially for male students and faculty. If he is a "Moral Monster" then this helps to justify and explain the steps that the phil faculty, and U of Miami more generally, took to deal with the situation. One's own inaction is appropriate, because by comparison nothing is wrong. If one accepts the banality of his evilness, so to speak, then that requires facing the fact that many, many departments, perhaps even one's own, have members who are equally inappropriate in their behavior, but not so colorful in their personality.

    Reply
  3. Matt Drabek

    I certainly agree with Rebecca and JBR that McGinn's bizarre online tirades have licensed people to consider him a "moral monster" or something way outside the norm of the profession.

    That said, I still think the collective anger over McGinn might serve a positive purpose. I've had conversations about sexual harassment – over the McGinn case – with people who I simply think wouldn't have been interested in the issue otherwise. I think the McGinn case may have prompted some men to re-examine their own behavior. And McGinn's tirades served to keep the case in the news, and thereby to bring awareness of the case to larger and larger audiences. I doubt I would have heard some of those folks talking about sexual harassment if McGinn hadn't continued to post and post and post (…and post, and post, and post…).

    Reply
  4. Z R Perry

    I hope it's not uncouth to quote the tirade McGinn posted in response to this post. He says something that I think is really illustrative:

    When McGinn writes "There was no “tone-deafness to the power dynamics”—I am not that stupid—but rather a wry acknowledgment of the difficulty of the situation in which we both found ourselves." there is a temptation to take this as just more evidence of his monstrousness (I'll hasten a guess that if there was any "wry acknowledgment" at all it was, like, a text or email from McGinn to his student saying something like "Isn't it hilarious that we're in this imbalanced power dynamic? Good thing nothing bad can come of it!").

    However, it also illustrates the sort of arrogance that many men in the profession have about their ability to "out think" interpersonal difficulties. I've talked to numerous straight white men in the field who genuinely think that they're just so rigorous and rational that they could never be influenced by implicit bias (or that they already have but simply tweaked their decision procedures to eliminate it).

    The same sort of arrogance is all too often harbored by men in positions of power. "Maybe *in general* there's a problem with relationships like this when there's such a strong power imbalance, but I'm so brilliant/impartial/etc. that there's no need to worry about that sort of thing!". Though I'm sure many of these men would, publicly, scoff and mock McGinn as he absurdly claims that "wry acknowledgment" of a power imbalance somehow nullifies it, I'm also quite confident that many of those men harbor the same fantasy that, somehow, *they* are immune to all this institutionalized oppression junk.

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  5. Michael Swanson

    Let us not forget the point of the first person account: that winning is impossible because professors and university officials, policy, and attitudes throughout the academy enable the abusive culture. Some academic cultures are corrupt from bottom to top (think Penn State). Yes, a shift in thinking at the department level is a good start, but there are a great many patterns of thought and behavior embedded at all levels of the academy that enable sexual harassment (as well as other abuses of power).

    Reply
  6. Dana Nelkin

    I wanted to share a few thoughts in a constructive spirit. I think we share at least some of the same hopes for the profession, including that there be more women philosophers, and I worry that some of your words might be misconstrued by the very undergraduates who might be reading this blog for information as they think about applying to graduate school. In the post, you say, "At the same time, I have found it frustrating watching people gleefully vilify and demonize him. Not because he wasn't creepy and way out of bounds, but because the kind of remarkably inappropriate 'banter' he engaged in and his complete tone-deafness to the power dynamics that structure the performative force of that banter happen ALL THE TIME in philosophy, as far as I can tell." "ALL THE TIME" might be read in different ways, but at least one natural reading is that there is a pervasive culture throughout philosophy departments that is accepting of inappropriate banter and is tone-deaf to power dynamics, and that most? a vast majority of? men in the profession engage in this kind of behavior. As a woman in philosophy, this reading of the words does not match my experience. I believe that there are instances of absolutely unacceptable behavior and that it is an issue that should be addressed at a variety of levels, but I also believe that there are many departments that do not have such a general culture, and a great many of our colleagues don’t engage in this sort of behavior. So while I consider the issue very important, this is consistent with my being comfortable advising my own female undergraduate students to apply to a number of departments for graduate study. Given what I assume is a shared hope of there being more women in the profession, it would be too bad if this way of putting a point were easily misunderstood in a way that had more of a deterrent effect than is actually warranted by the facts.

    RK COMMENT: I think this is totally fair and sensible. I am somewhat prone to hyperbole.

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