If progress is real but uneven, what metrics actually matter—outcomes, perceptions, or lived vulnerability? When we say “things are better,” who is included in that claim and who is quietly excluded? How do entrenched family structures continue to shape expectations about labor, care, and authority even when people consciously reject them? What does it mean to say a system persists not as law but as default assumptions about who owes what to whom? If patriarchy is no longer absolute but still influential, how should we diagnose its presence without overstating or minimizing it? When biological explanations are introduced, are they clarifying reality or subtly justifying it? How do we rigorously separate descriptive claims about human tendencies from normative claims about how people should behave? What evidence would genuinely change our beliefs about gender differences, and are we even asking falsifiable questions? If most differences are small but outcomes at the extremes are large, how should policy and culture respond to tails rather than averages? And when injustice affects both men and women differently, what framework avoids turning that into a zero-sum argument?

Links:

Kate's Research
Kate's Latest Book Unshrinking: How To Face Fatphobia

Kate is a Professor of Philosophy at the Sage School at Cornell University who specializes in moral, social, and feminist philosophy, and has written three award-winning books decisively exploring topics such as misogyny, male privelege, and fatphobia. In 2024, she was awarded the APA's Lebowitz Prize for Philosophical Achievement and Contribution for her work on the reasons to be skeptical about dehumanization as an explanation for misogynistic violence and other forms of human cruelty.

Staff

Spencer Greenberg — Host + Director
Ryan Kessler — Producer + Technical Lead
WeAmplify — Transcriptionists
Igor Scaldini — Marketing Consultant

Music

Affiliates

[Read more]