Colloquium: "Gender and Intellectual Grandstanding"

Abstract: Intellectual grandstanding is the abuse of intellectual talk to promote one’s status. Intellectual grandstanders redirect attention to themselves by reducing the credibility of those around them. In this paper, I examine how the Western tradition’s association of masculinity and reason, and femininity and emotion, bears on intellectual grandstanding. I argue that, although grandstanding is not an inherently gendered concept, it presents a practical level of difficulty for women and feminist thinkers on at least two fronts. First, men often get a pass for grandstanding, while women do not. Second, women are more often the target of grandstanders. Insofar as grandstanding is about drawing cognitive asymmetries, and women are seen as less rational than men from the get-go, they are easier foils to use to build one’s own intellectual status. And, when women have unwelcome things to say, accusing them of being overly emotional is a quick way to silence them.