One of the most delightful essays I ever read is "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists." It appeared anonymously in the Westminster Review in 1856 and is now available online:

http://library.marist.edu/faculty-web-pages/morreale/sillynovelists.htm

The author was George Eliot, herself a lady novelist whose works are definitely not silly. I urge everyone here to read it. It is a fabulous example of 19th Century essay writing.

The modern incarnation of "Silly Novels" is the propagation of silly philosophies by silly lady philosophers. Here is how it happens.

It starts with silly male philosophers*, usually French. Lacan, Derrida and Deleuze are the modern archetypes. All of them had this in common. They lacked anything resembling intellectual rigour and were surrounded by a bevy of adoring female acolytes. A certain type of female seems to find handsome older men who sprout incomprehensible garbage sexually attractive.

It is these acolytes who spread the word of the "master" and thus is born a new school of "philosophy."

Perhaps the most entertaining recent example of a silly lady philosopher is Luce Irigaray, a protégé of Lacan. Here is what she has to say about E = mc2.

"Is e=mc2 a sexed equation?...Perhaps it is. Let us make the hypothesis that it is insofar as it privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us. What seems to me to indicate the possible sexed nature of the equation is not directly its uses by nuclear weapons, rather it is having privileged what goes the fastest..."

George Eliot would have LOVED it!

Sandra Harding, another silly lady philosopher, calls Newton's principia mathematica a "rape manual."

Do any OLO readers have entertaining examples of Australian silly lady philosophers in action?

*I use the word loosely.

Steve....this one didn't have legs mate :)

Little pee pee syndrome.
What a waste of a brilliant graham life.
so sorry.