Wow, this rings so true. I’ve noticed this about academia too. There is definitely a ‘type’ - 30s, white, middle class, usually without any real work experience outside academia. Hums or SocSci generally and fairly junior in career. Often talk about how out of touch 1/ https://twitter.com/pastasnack_e/status/1357255480238866438

the ‘older generation’ is, failing to see that they themselves could now be the parents of the 18 yos they teach. Eg Charlotte L Riley calling white middle aged women Karen and telling them to ‘shut up’, oblivious to fact that she almost qualifies for that description herself 2/

Or Jo Grady posing for selfies with the NUS president, ignoring that her own union UCU’s interests do not align as neatly with those of NUS as she likes to think. They often talk about how prevalent sexual assault on campus is & how badly unis handle it but can’t 3/

see that their simultaneous promotion of sex work as work and pro-porn might have something to do with how men view and treat women. There’s lots of performative misandry and empty slogans. ‘Can all white men please be quiet’ and ‘let’s smash the patriarchy while 4/

rocking a strong red lip’. But no actual smashing goes on because their ideology centres males in every way. From the sex-positivity to the ‘if you’re feminism isn’t trans inclusive, it’s bullshit’. (Think about it - if your feminism doesn’t include men, it’s bullshit?) 5/

A candidate for women’s officer in the recent UCU elections spent her whole manifesto talking about how she was going to centre trans rights if elected (she was). Nothing about women in there. Lots of ‘RT if you’re a cis woman who isn’t threatened by trans women’ 6/

Well, no, because the chances of you ever ending up in a prison or shelter are pretty low because that’s not what happens to middle class girls. So maybe your views are pretty irrelevant when it comes to deciding about locking up rapists with domestic abuse survivors 7/

There’s a lot of joking about how cancel culture is non-existent and how ‘I’d rather share spaces with a trans woman than a TERF’. Also lots of word-jumble blogs about how ‘TERFs can’t claim to be feminist because bla bla bla Simone de Beauvoir’. 8/

Not to mention aggressive thought-policing. ‘PSA that I will unfollow any of you who follow Selina Todd’ and ‘X academic is transphobic TERF trash/scum and you need to unfollow’ and ‘if you think trans rights are up for debate, I want you out of academia’ 9/

And they all stick together, like the bitchy gang at school. Sadly, they are the future in academia. Those of us who are their contemporaries who still believe in reality will probably have been driven out or have resigned by then. 10/10