Women in Academia Create New Term: ‘Scholarly Harassment’
“it rests almost entirely on subjective emotional states”
This term was apparently designed to shield women in higher education from criticism.
🚨NEW: Academics have proposed a new concept—"scholarly harassment"—designed to shield female academics from criticism.
Exercise scientist @JamesLNuzzo explains why this idea is so absurd: it treats ordinary academic criticism as a form of emotional harm, relies on subjective… pic.twitter.com/FGEHXI0x7Y
— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) January 27, 2026
From Reality’s Last Stand:
“Scholarly Harassment” and the Sisterhood of Academia
In 2023, June Gruber and four other female academics in the United States introduced a new concept into the academic lexicon: scholarly harassment. They defined it as “repeated mistreatment relating to one’s scholarly work, conduct or capabilities that is threatening, humiliating or intimidating,” and suggested that it applies almost exclusively to women (“female-identifying scholars”).
To my knowledge, this concept—despite its potential to reshape academic life— has attracted little critical commentary. Thus, to address this void in academic discourse, I outline several problems with the concept of scholarly harassment, including the predictable damage it would inflict on university scholarship if institutionalized.
What Constitutes “Scholarly Harassment”?
The most immediate problem with Gruber and colleagues’ scholarly harassment concept—beyond its built-in sex bias—is that it rests almost entirely on subjective emotional states: humiliation, intimidation, and threat. This renders it unworkable as a policy framework. The fact that a female academic feels humiliated by criticism of her work tells us nothing about whether the criticism is fair, accurate, or necessary.
Different scholars inevitably respond differently to critique. One woman may interpret a criticism as harassment; another may regard the same comment as standard scholarly disagreement. A concept so dependent on individual emotional reactions has no objective footing on which policy can stand.
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Comments
This kind of pseudo-feminist crap is why more and more men are avoiding interacting with women under any circumstances whatever.
More and more, I wonder if the muslims have the right idea about the place of women in society. I can’t quite bring myself to supporting it as I have known too many squared-away women in my 7-plus decades. But, my patience is being tried.
Another red flag.
this is not new
the law against “looking too long” was another ( few decades back) feminazi law that I think was enacted in mn
woman want equality but only if they have the advantage
man asks women out..she plays hard to get but wants him>>>good
man asks women out and she isnt interested and wants people to know she is soooo desirable/being stalked etc>>>trouble for the male
women are treated like children and love that when those laws are in their favor but anywheres else>>>metoo metoo
time to end the sexism against men
if we are allowed to define what a man is
When I read the headline in my RSS reader, I immediately assumed the content was going to be, “They need to stop complaining about our plagiarism.” Well, I guess that’s only a subset of what they are actually complaining about.
Helen Reddy, call your office.
If you sit down and do nothing about this there will be a required oath for all engineers, doctors, biologists etc to sign a pledge about “Scholarly harassment”.
If you write to the local state house rep, or state senator etc about this issue either email or written form you will make a difference.
These are people who despite elected title get maybe 5 emails/letters from constituents a month it will be read, and he/she/it will know about the issue.
If you are in a Democrat district write to a state senator. If you are in a Democrat senate district write to the house speaker.
If you are doing nothing you are part of the problem. An email takes how long 1 minute?
We have power of the purse. If we do not use it we will lose.
if the gop stopped comprising they wouldnt need any extra thoughts etc
they know they are the only game in town even if they are rinos b/c its still better than outright communistnazis in and of the dems
dont get me wrong totally agreement to let your rep know
but they dont care or we wouldnt be 1/100 in the mess we are in
lefty gets the people hooked on subsides and then what gop is going to take them away??
This isn’t about compromise it is about helping the local state house rep know there is an issue.
Very few people keep up with what happens on campus and frankly we need the next generation of doctors.
A state house rep is a lot less well informed than you think.
Like blacks, women aren’t looking for equality. They’re looking for revenge.
It was logical for them to say female identifying. They already say it is harassment to criticize gender theory.