Overview
Kate Manne has been teaching at the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University since 2013. Before that, she was a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows (2011–2013), did her graduate work at MIT (2006–2011), and was an undergraduate at the University of Melbourne (2001–2005), where she studied philosophy, logic, and computer science.
Nowadays, her research is primarily in moral, feminist, and social philosophy. Her first book Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny (New York: Oxford University Press) came out late in 2017 (copyright 2018). It constitutes a systemic exploration of the nature, function, and social dynamics of misogyny, even in allegedly post-patriarchal contexts such as the US, the UK, and Australia. Review essays and commentary about the book have appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, the Times Literary Supplement, Guernica, Jezebel, Bitch Magazine, Vox, Slate, and the LA Review of Books, among other venues. Down Girl was selected as a Book of the Year by Carrie Tirado Bramen for Times Higher Education, Cordelia Fine for The Big Issue, Skye Cleary for The Reading Lists, Chuck Mertz for This is Hell, and was included among the Dozen Most Memorable Books of 2017 by Carlos Lozada for The Washington Post, the "Five Best Books on Cruelty and Evil" by Paul Bloom for Five Books, and "Big Summer Reads for 2018" by Kerri Miller (MPR News).
Her latest book Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women (Allen Lane/Random House) was released in August 2020.
Manne has also published a number of scholarly papers about the foundations of morality, which posit a novel source of some of the most fundamental moral claims on us as agents: the bodily imperatives of other people and creatures—e.g., a subject’s “make it stop!” state of pain, fear, hunger, or social humiliation—together with social norms that help to enable their fulfillment, and prevent their violation. She has defended Bernard Williams-style reasons internalism, arguing that a moral claim does not count as a reason for an agent unless she can be rationally persuaded to recognize it as a reason for her. And many agents appear quite recalcitrant.
For a Sisyphean twist, Manne regularly writes opinion pieces, essays, and reviews on moral and political topics—in venues including The New York Times, The Boston Review, the Huffington Post, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the Times Literary Supplement.
In the news
- ‘Violent indifference to women’ and gender stereotypes affect top ticket
- Cornell experts analyze rhetoric used by both campaigns in final stretch
- What a Harris candidacy means: Cornell experts weigh in.
- Manne awarded Lebowitz Prize, symposium appearance
- Eighteen receive awards recognizing inclusive excellence
- Community event will showcase trans philosophy and scholarship
- A moral philosopher contemplates the evils of 'fatphobia'
- ‘Fatphobia’ a form of oppression, says philosopher Kate Manne
- What if ‘food noise’ is just…hunger?
- NY Times op-ed by philosopher Kate Manne wins award
- Leaked SCOTUS opinion represents ‘new level of misogyny’
- Diet Culture Is Unhealthy. It’s Also Immoral.
- What Sarah Everard’s Murder Illuminates—And Might Obscure
- Female victims are people in their own right – not just some man's wife, mother, sister or daughter
- Manne to give Society for the Humanities talk on male entitlement
- Trump obsesses over ‘dominating’ covid-19 because he wants to look manly
- Should I Feel Guilty About Judging Kamala Harris?
- Male entitlement hurts women, Manne writes in new book
- There’s nothing radical about a female vice president
- Warren succeeded because voters saw her as caring. That’s also why she failed.
- Philosophy professor Manne wins book prize for ‘Down Girl’
- It’s the sexism, stupid
- Kate Manne recognized with Association of American Publishers Award
- Brett Kavanaugh and America’s ‘Himpathy’ Reckoning
- Eric Schneiderman and the meaning of strangulation
- Kate Manne on how attitudes to sexual harassment must change
- In the era of #MeToo, philosopher’s new book explains misogyny
- Salma Hayek was destroyed by the same shame that protected Harvey Weinstein
- Sympathy for the Rapist: What the Stanford Case Teaches
- Manne on Williams' "Moral Luck"
