{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "You know, I just realized that pretty much all of the crackpots I hear about are male, for a particular definition...", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/127772501083/", "html": "

severnayazemlya:

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nonternary:

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wirehead-wannabe:

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nonternary:

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wirehead-wannabe:

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You know, I just realized that pretty much all of the crackpots I hear about are male, for a particular definition of\u00a0\u201ccrackpot.\u201d

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Mainstream anti-science stuff seems roughly even across gender; anti-vaxx, young earth creationism, climate change denial. But only men seem to get into truly weird stuff like thinking they\u2019ve solved physics, or believing the government is hiding aliens, etc etc. Anything\u00a0\u201cfringe\u201d i.e. stuff that a politician wouldn\u2019t openly admit to believing, seems to be male-dominated.

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Am I imagining this?

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No, that\u2019s definitely a Thing.

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(they also seem to be disproportionately white, middle-aged, and electrical engineers, but I digress)

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Maybe it\u2019s actually engineering/physics/math/comp sci majors that are overrepresented, rather than men per se? I know I\u2019ve heard people say that that cluster has a tendency towards crackpottery for one reason or another.

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STEM fields are overrepresented, particularly engineering.

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But I\u2019ve never once heard of a female crackpot.

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Could be small-sample-size bad luck, of course.

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(I\u2019ve had women aggressively push their uncle\u2019s/husband\u2019s/brother\u2019s theory on me, though.)

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Most of the crackpots I hear about are male, but most of the crackpots I run across are female. The gender ratio is probably different for aliens and physics vs. astrology, chemtrails, antivax shit, crystals, and odd diets \u2013 and men are probably more inclined toward self-promotion, at least in mostly-male circles.

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But \u2013 you\u2019ve never once heard of a female crackpot? What about Jenny McCarthy, Jasmuheen, Banana Girl, Savitri Devi, or, you know, Tumblr?

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Mary Baker Eddy? Actually there were a lot of\u00a0 a lot of prominent women in 19th century American Spiritualism, does that count?

That kind of fits into the \u201cmen do crackpot science, women do crackpot mysticism\u201d thing. On the other hand it\u2019s a little presentist to project the science/mysticism divide back onto Spiritualism, at the time a lot of people would have taken it as a science on par with electricity or magnetism.

“Here are some mysterious immaterial forces we don\u2019t entirely understand and can\u2019t quite explain but will attempt to harness anyway\u201d was kind of the theme of the age.

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