Philosopher to Discuss the Underpinnings of Misogyny on Sept. 26

Event Information

Time: 11 a.m.
Date: Thursday, Sept. 26, 2019
Place: Room 101, Joe Rosenfield ’25 Center, Room 101, 1115 Eighth Ave., Grinnell

Kate A. Manne, associate professor of philosophy at Cornell University, will give a Scholars’ Convocation Lecture titled “Unassuming: On Epistemic Entitlement, Mansplaining, and Gaslighting.” Her lecture is free and open to the public.

In her lecture, Manne will focus on the underlying assumptions of misogyny – the hatred of, contempt for or prejudice against women or girls. She also will explore what she calls a sense of moral entitlement to women’s sexual, emotional, reproductive, and material labor.

Manne also will introduce another form of entitlement that can be thought of as epistemic: a sense of entitlement to be the designated knower or informant, in either interpersonal or public contexts. She will then connect this notion of epistemic entitlement with a variety of behaviors including mansplaining, gaslighting, “hegreement” – pretending women disagree less than they do – and failing to attend to women’s expert testimony.

Event Sponsor

Scholars’ Convocation Lecture Series

Speaker Bio

Author Kate A. Manne is associate professor of philosophy at Cornell University, where she’s been teaching since 2013. Her academic research is in moral philosophy, feminist philosophy, and social philosophy.

Manne regularly writes opinion pieces, essays, and reviews on moral and political topics for nonacademic audiences. These works have been published in venues including The New York Times, The Boston Review, The Huffington Post, The Times Literary Supplement, The Cut/NY Magazine, and Politico.

Manne’s first book, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, won the 2019 PROSE award for best book in philosophy and in the humanities. The book “is excruciatingly well-timed,” according to a review by Carlos Lozada, “providing a theoretical framework for a phenomenon baring itself before us, perverse, and pervasive … Down Girl reminds us that while revealing individual misogynists is hard, uprooting misogyny is much harder.”

Manne is working on her second book: Entitled: Male Privilege and the Inner Workings of Misogyny, which Crown/Penguin is scheduled to publish in 2020.