Kate Manne

Kate Manne is an Australian philosopher who is an associate professor of philosophy at Cornell University. Her work is primarily in feminist philosophy, moral philosophy and social philosophy.

Education and career

As an undergraduate, Manne studied philosophy, logic, and computer science, at the University of Melbourne (2001–2005), earning a BA (Honours) in philosophy. She received her PhD in philosophy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2006–2011). From 2011 to 2013, Manne was a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Since 2013, she has been an assistant professor at the Sage School of Philosophy, Cornell University, until getting tenure in 2019.

Prospect Magazine named Manne one of the world's top 50 thinkers of 2019.

Philosophical work

Manne is the author of many articles in moral philosophy and metaethics, as well as the feminist book Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny.

Down Girl argues that there is an important distinction between sexism and misogyny. Manne argues that, "sexism is an ideology that supports patriarchal social relations". Sexism, then, accepts gender roles, and helps to reinforce them, by making them seem as if they were natural or given arrangements. In essence, sexism is a belief system. While misogyny can be understood as an effort to control and punish women "who challenge male dominance". In this definition, misogyny is not necessarily about male hostility or hatred toward women, instead, it's more of "the law enforcement branch of the patriarchy". According to Manne, "Misogyny is a way women are kept in (patriarchal) order, by imposing social costs for those breaking role or rank, and warning others not to."

In her book, Manne coins the term "himpathy", which she defines as "the inappropriate and disproportionate sympathy powerful men often enjoy in cases of sexual assault, intimate partner violence, homicide and other misogynistic behavior".

Manne's second book, Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women, is to be published in August 2020. The book is an exploration of male privilege, including male entitlement to sex, power, and knowledge, and how this entitlement causes grave and deadly consequences for society at large, and women more specifically.

Selected publications

Books

• Manne, Kate (2017). Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0190604981.
• Manne, Kate (2020). Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women. Penguin Random House. ISBN 9781984826558.

Articles

• “Melancholy Whiteness: Or, Shame-Faced in Shadows,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, January 2018, Volume 96(1): 233–242.
• “Locating Morality: Moral Imperatives as Bodily Imperatives,” Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Vol. 12, 2017, ed. Russ Shafer-Landau, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• “Humanism: A Critique,” Social Theory and Practice, April 2016, Volume 42(2): 389–415.
• “Democratizing Humeanism,” in Weighing Reasons, eds. Barry Maguire and Errol Lord, New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
• “Tempered Internalism and the Participatory Stance,” in Motivational Internalism, eds. Gunnar Björnsson, Caj Strandberg, Ragnar Francén Olinder, John Eriksson, and Fredrik Björklund, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
• “Disagreeing about How to Disagree,” with David Sobel, Philosophical Studies, April 2014, Volume 168(3): 823–834.
• “Internalism about Reasons: Sad but True?” Philosophical Studies, January 2014, Volume 167(1): 89–117.
• “Non-Machiavellian Manipulation and the Opacity of Motive,” in Manipulation: Theory and Practice, eds. Michael Weber and Christian Coons, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
• “On Being Social in Metaethics,” Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Vol. 8, 2013, ed. Russ Shafer-Landau, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

External links

• Kate Manne website
• Google Scholar list of Kate Manne's publications and citations to those publications