Fairer Disputations' Year in Review

And looking forward to a bright 2025

Dec 27, 2024

Happy Holidays to all of our readers! As the new year approaches, we’re looking back on all we’ve accomplished together in the last 12 months.

2024 has been a year of growth and transition for Fairer Disputations, and we’re grateful for your steady support and readership. Although we’re going through some significant changes, we’re staying true to our mission: to advance a new school of feminist thought, one that is grounded in the basic fact that sex is real.

Previously, Fairer Disputations was housed within the Abigail Adams Institute, an independent non-profit organization in Cambridge, MA. Now, we’ve moved into the belly of the sex-surrealist beast: academia.

In short: we’re proud to announce that Fairer Disputations is now part of The Mercy Otis Warren Initiative, a brand new program for women in civic life, which is part of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership (SCETL) at Arizona State University. Given SCETL's prestige as the first new civic institute in an increasingly influential effort to save academia from within, this new partnership puts FD in an excellent position to continue to influence both the university proper and the broader world of public discourse.

We have exciting plans for 2025, starting with a reading group on Substack and a new slate of Featured Authors. As funding allows, SCETL hopes to significantly expand the Mercy Otis Warren Initiative in the coming years, with the goal of providing not only high quality scholarship on the work of women whose ideas and actions have helped shaped our society, but also in-person formation, networking, and mentorship for young women.

If you’d like to help make this vision a reality, please consider making a gift to Fairer Disputations today. We welcome one-time gifts or recurring gifts through Substack subscriptions (which also give you access to the an audio version of the full text of our articles through the Substack app). Even if you can’t make a financial gift today, you can still help us grow by sharing our work with your friends. We can’t do it without you.

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Please enjoy this roundup of Fairer Disputations' best of 2024!

This Year’s Most Read Piece

The Phantasmagoric World of Judith Butler

Alex Byrne

In Butler’s phantasmagoric world, the oceans are boiling, bisexuals lie dying in the streets, and the empty shelves of school libraries gather dust. On a hillside, J. K. Rowling stands between Vladimir Putin and the Pope, the papal cassock flapping in the breeze. The trio gaze with grim satisfaction at the devastation below, under a glowering sky.

At Fairer Disputations, we’re proud to provide a space where discussion and debate lead to fuller understanding. This year, we published one symposium and several dialogues:

Did Feminism Create Transgender Ideology? A Symposium, with Louise Perry, Holly Lawford-Smith, and Abigail Favale

Catholicism & Radical Feminism: A Dialogue, Rachel M. Coleman and Kate Phelan

Why ‘Reactionary Feminism’ Is Destined to Fail, Kate Phelan, and Reactionary Feminism Rejects the Premises of the Social (and Sexual) Contract, Mary Harrington

The Journey of Gender: There and Back Again, Alex Byrne, and Does the Sex/Gender Distinction Do More Harm Than Good?, Abigail Favale