Weekly Roundup
May 25 - 31, 2026
LEADING ARTICLE
A Way to Challenge the Groupthink of Scholarly Journals
Wall Street Journal
Peer review has become a closed system that protects shoddy and politically motivated research.
(Nuzzo note: If you are unable to access the full-text of this article, see the author's video description of the article on X here or Substack here.)
WEEKLY VOICE
THE NUZZO LETTER IN THE NEWS
This week, I submitted a rebuttal to the Western Australia Department of Communities regarding their decision to reject my proposal for sex-neutral domestic violence helpline descriptions. I have uploaded a pdf of my rebuttal below. See my post, Domestic Violence Dogmatism, for the background on this story.
PRE-PRINT: Names of Resistance Exercises: Text Analysis of Survey Responses
SportRxiv
(Nuzzo note: This is a pre-print of a paper that is currently undergoing peer review at an academic journal. The pre-print is not the final version of the paper. The contents of the paper are likely to change after receiving reviewer feedback. I will post the final version of the paper when it is eventually published.)
Abstract: Names of resistance exercises play an important role in education and promoting exercise participation. Yet, previous research has documented that exercises are named inconsistently among exercise professionals and within exercise textbooks and journal articles. Greater standardization or the development of a taxonomy may therefore be warranted, but large-scale data on naming practices are limited. This study examined how resistance exercises are named in a large sample. A total of 1,849 individuals completed an online survey; analyses were restricted to 1,425 respondents who passed attention checks and reported English as their primary exercise-related language. Participants were predominantly male (76%), highly educated (82% held a Bachelor’s degree or higher; 42% in exercise-related fields), and experienced in resistance training (median 10 years [IQR: 5–15]). Nearly half of respondents held relevant certifications (46%) or had worked in resistance training instruction (49%). Respondents viewed images of exercises performed with free weights, traditional machines, and a connected adaptive resistance machine. Respondents indicated whether they recognised the exercise in each image and what they call the exercise. Text analyses examined word frequencies, term-frequency–inverse exercise frequency (tf-ief), and common bigrams. Most exercises were widely recognised (>90% of respondents), except those using connected adaptive machines (62.3–67.3% of respondents). Recognition influenced naming patterns: respondents who recognised exercises used more consistent, commonly shared terminology, whereas respondents who did not recognise exercises used more idiosyncratic naming. Equipment-related terms were consistently important, but other naming components (e.g., body position, body part, movement direction, unilateral/bilateral execution) varied substantially in importance. Bigrams showed that recognised exercises were typically labelled using “textbook” word pairings, while unrecognised exercises produced more variable combinations. Participants generally agreed that exercise names are important (74%), inconsistently used (63%), and influence learning (69%). Many respondents reported using multiple names for the same exercise (73%), and most respondents supported standardization of exercise names (69%). Overall, the findings suggest that exercise naming follows broad linguistic principles (e.g., Zipf’s law) but also highlight elements of a shared “folk taxonomy”. Despite this, there was substantial inconsistency in resistance exercise naming practices. However, whilst such a folk taxonomy might enable clear communication within public and applied settings, the development of standardized terminology or a formal scientific taxonomy might ensure that cross-communication and understanding across domains is more easily achieved. Alternatively, a hierarchical taxonomy and system of translation across synonyms in use already may be a valuable pursuit.
ARTICLES AND ESSAYS
Sex/Gender
Men and boys have been supported by Federal Council of the Liberal Party
Celebrating Masculinity
The pieces are falling into place for policy improvements and for tangible advances.
How Feminism Changed Women’s Psychological Makeup
Psychobabble
Kouri Richins Murdered Her Husband For Money
The Fiamengo File
And domestic violence activists have nothing to say.
No Court Can Make a Man a Woman
Reality’s Last Stand
The court did not create Australia’s absurd gender identity law, but it showed exactly why it must be changed.
‘His Side’: New book debunks male privilege, gives platform to men in a women’s world
The College Fix
From Watchdogs to Ideologues: How Politicized UN Rapporteurs Are Subverting Human Rights
UN Watch
(Nuzzo note: See page 88 of the report for the investigation into Reem Alsalem - the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women.)
Prager U
Episode description: Empathy — the ability to understand and share the feelings of another — is a noble virtue. But empathy can also lead us astray. In fact, it can be fatal. Gad Saad, a scholar at the Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom at the University of Mississippi, warns how misdirected empathy endangers not just well-intentioned individuals but Western Civilization itself.
Education
A Plea to Reform Academic Journals
American Enterprise Institute
The Scientific Mind: An Update of the 1988 Survey ‘Sketches of the American Scientist’
Martin Center for Academic Renewal
(My brief comments on the sex differences found in this study are available on X here.)
Does the University of Illinois College of Medicine Support ‘Equitable’ Grading?
Do No Harm
Oregon’s School of Public Health Is Making the Obesity Epidemic Worse
Do No Harm
Glaciers are ‘more than human beings,’ have ‘agency,’ science journal says
The College Fix
Martin Center for Academic Renewal
Episode description: Martin Center’s, Jenna Robinson, talks with astronomer, Jim Condon on his retaliation case after opposing DEI at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO).
Health Science
Prevalence and Context of Sunburn Among U.S. Adults — United States, 2024
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
Abstract: Sunburn is an important risk factor for skin cancer. Understanding sunburn prevalence and the contexts in which sunburn commonly occurs might help guide the development and implementation of sun safety interventions. Data from the 2024 National Health Interview Survey sample adult questionnaire were analyzed to describe the prevalence of one or more and four or more sunburns among U.S. adults during the previous 12 months and the percentages of U.S. adults who experienced their most recent sunburn while they were working at their job; intentionally tanning; exercising; spending time in, on, or near water; using sunscreen; or drinking alcohol. Overall, an estimated 88.1 million (35.1%) U.S. adults had at least one sunburn during the previous 12 months, and 18.8 million (7.5%) had four or more sunburns. Among adults who experienced sunburn during the previous year, spending time in, on, or near the water was the most frequently reported context of their most recent sunburn (60.6%); followed by exercising (24.7%); drinking alcohol (17.6%); intentionally tanning (15.9%); and working at their job (12.9%). Approximately one half (55.1%) of respondents reported that their most recent sunburn occurred despite using sunscreen. These findings can help guide research and activities to adapt, tailor, and expand evidence-based interventions to improve use of sun protection, prevent sunburn, and reduce skin cancer risk.
(See my post on X, which shows a graph of sex differences in the context of sunburns. For example, men were more likely than women to have gotten their last sunburn while working.)
Dr Joe Unplugged
Episode description: Ramping up fear disproportionate to the actual risk gets headlines but distracts us from the real issues we face in health. Is there another agenda?
RUBBISH BIN
Australian Federal Budget 2026-27 - Women’s Budget Statement
Australian Federal Government
(This is in the Rubbish Bin because no complimentary Men’s Budget Statement exists.)
‘Hello ladies and sons of ladies’: women are using ‘microfeminisms’ to flip the gender script
The Guardian
Annals of Internal Medicine
(See Colin Wright’s video review of this poem on X here.)
Endangered masculinity: intensified crisis of masculinity discourse in Danish men’s rights activism
NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies
Abstract: This paper explores the discourse in contemporary men’s rights activism that masculinity itself is endangered and thus understood as contingent with Denmark as a case study. Building on both interviews and a content analysis of online posts, I demonstrate how prominent Danish men’s rights activists share the sentiment that masculinity is existentially threatened in today’s ‘feminized’ society. Furthermore, I argue that this crisis of masculinity discourse functions to support a distinct form of hegemonic masculinity and a postfeminist narrative in a Danish context. This mode of hegemonic masculinity differs from approaches that treat and uphold historical masculinity norms – such as assertiveness, aggression, risk-taking, and competitiveness – as naturally dominant. Instead, the starting point for such a contingency-aware form of hegemonic masculinity is that a certain masculine culture is under attack and must be defended. However, I also point to some degree of performative contradiction between the defense of particularly individualist assertiveness and the collective organizational practices in influential men’s rights activist groups, such as The Danish Men’s Council.
Equity in Education & Society
Abstract: Racialised minorities continue to experience systemic disadvantages, much of which stem from the enduring legacy of colonisation. Efforts to decolonise Eurocentric systems have largely fallen short as social inequalities and injustice persist. This scoping review explored Black racialised minority perspectives on decolonising psychology, identifying systemic barriers, and proposing strategies for more equitable academic environments. A scoping review was conducted including 18 articles. The sources examine racialised minority experiences within psychological disciplines. To preserve the nuance and complexity of the data, this review employed a reflexive thematic analysis approach. The review found systematic issues such as exclusion, underrepresentation, stereotyping, and deprivation. These issues resulted in Black racialised minority students adjusting their personhood to belong, creating a ‘stifled self’. Four themes were identified: (1) Curriculum as a Site of Power; (2) Barriers to Decolonial Practice in Psychology; (3) Recognising Racism as Shaping Racialised Experiences of Failure and Belonging; and (4) Proposed Decolonial Strategies. The study suggests that decolonisation efforts in the field have gained momentum but remain largely superficial and resistant to deeper change. For decolonisation to be effective, institutions must enact structural changes, embrace diversity, and create inclusive frameworks that centre racialised minorities as key contributors.
Sexual awakening: An autoethnography through tales of sexuality beyond binaries
Feminist Theory
Abstract: This autoethnography, structured as a short story, traces my journey from childhood to my current role as a female researcher exploring the subversive possibilities of bisexuality in an urban Indian context as part of my doctoral research. My early beliefs were shaped by the social norms of my convent education, a Catholic upbringing and community, each reinforcing a rigid understanding of morality, relationships and sexuality. Through ethnography, I navigate between personal experiences and academic inquiry, encountering unresolved questions and contradictions that challenged these foundational beliefs. This short story highlights the complexities of living within structures that impose normative ideals, social expectations and moral standards, as well as the realities of everyday deviations. It further interrogates the essence of morality while positioning myself as a woman in society and reflecting on how my socialisation and lived experiences influenced my moral reasoning. By situating my personal journey within broader sociocultural contexts, this narrative ultimately questions the hegemonic patriarchal heteronormative and homonormative structures based on monogamy and monosexuality, offering a critical lens on how sexuality is constructed and negotiated in contemporary society.
Beyond the binary: Exploring my relationship to vulnerability with Tatyana
Feminist Theory
Abstract: This article engages with the complex relationship between vulnerability, relationality and hierarchy through the creation of Tatyana: Reflected in Your Gaze, a portrait of my friend, Tatyana, painted during our time in Oxford. By expanding the conventional understanding of vulnerability, drawing on Judith Butler and bell hooks, the author reframes it as a relational space and an empowering, co-creative process rather than a mere point of precariousness. Through the act of painting, I subvert traditional artist–subject hierarchies and instead foster a collaborative, mutual dialogue that allows for shared agency in the portrayal of the subject. In reflecting on the painting’s creation, I navigate the tension between personal identity, social context and academic constraints at Oxford, a space often resistant to vulnerability. The painting Tatyana becomes a dynamic site of negotiation, where multiple identities, histories and truths coexist, reminding us that meaning and power are never fixed but always shifting. This work, while exploring the limits of representation, invites ongoing dialogue and engagement with the vulnerabilities it seeks to represent, positioning the painting as a site for continuous transformation and collective understanding.
Intersectionality Meets Infrastructure: Recruitment Matrices and Identity Overflow in Just Research
Qualitative Inquiry
Abstract: This paper traces intersectionality’s theoretical-methodological “twists and turns” to reconsider its explanatory power in elucidating relations between selves and socialites and its application in research. Questions of how researchers take up the heuristic have become charged given intersectionality’s uptake by democratic institutions as a marker of excellence alongside critiques of its appropriation by systems advancing it. Adopting a processual-relational framing, we argue that difference represents a site of possibility—affirming life’s heterogeneity—and danger, exposing the unboundedness of monolithic identities upon which intersectional theorizing relies through misfitting/fracturing. This reveals intersectionality’s potential as infrastructure. Using an “infrastructural inversion” that makes the hidden work of intersectionality-as-infrastructure perceptible, we demonstrate how an infrastructural critique uncovers the socio-material implications of classification systems underpinning intersectionality. We approach research matrices as “wild containers” illuminating nondominant differences, suggesting this enables a decolonized understanding of intersectionality as inter-/intra-sectional becomings moving beyond hierarchical categorizations imposed by white supremacist thought.
A collaborative dialogue about nurturing with/in queerness
Feminist Theory
Abstract: We are a group of four persons, assigned female at birth, identifying as queer and non-binary, residing in India. We ruminate about the need and politics of queer nurturing. Drawing from our own and our friends’ fragmented life histories, we wonder about the elements of nurturing, such as intergenerational allyship, friendship and kinship, that shape our present. Our rumination and writing are collaborative. We have received formal academic training methods and methodologies in our disciplinary backgrounds and identify as academic activists. Because of this combination, our writing evades formalism, with the intention of being accessible to both non-academics and our students. In a larger global dialogical space, this will be categorised as ‘knowledge production from the Global South’, a somewhat overused phrase perhaps that hides more than it clarifies. Other than our geographical location, the phrase fails to highlight that we are also bearers of caste-class privileges. So, instead of conceptually positioning ourselves as (uninterrogated) figures from the Global South, we reframe ourselves as dialogists to exchange thoughts about queer nurturing. We hope that this will help sustain transnational dialogues when conversations fail and authoritarian regimes flourish. We met via Google Meet video chats, discussed and then went back to writing. Nurturing is central to our lives and movements, which is absent from a popular dictionary definition. We are queer folks embroiled in turbulent political moments that translate to violent casteist and classist affronts on the ground. Therefore, we look to the promise of nurturing as we almost break when we break each other’s fall. This promise is manifested in our connections to each other, i.e. the authors. Nurturing is all we have against violent encounters, institutional backlashes and dying elders. Nurturing, while interactional and requiring individual attention, will be viable if it is informed by radical compassion and bound by the constitutional imagination of the social. It is urgent to recapitulate feminist and queer histories of nurturing and situate our political position today. It is perhaps the experiential and epistemological basis of feminist and queer politics, where nurturance finds political meaning.
Physiotherapy Canada
Abstract: Purpose: The aims of this study were to describe cultural diversity among physiotherapists, to understand the challenges to the delivery of physiotherapy to equity-seeking communities, and to measure and assess factors associated with cultural competency. Method: We conducted a cross-sectional survey (57-items) of Canadian physiotherapists that assessed demographics, cultural competency, and challenges in delivery of rehabilitation. We used backwards elimination method to develop our regression models, and cross-validated by estimating shrinkage. Results: Our sample included 808 physiotherapists (female: 77.8%). Most practitioners identified as White/Caucasian, with Indigenous populations significantly under-represented. Physiotherapists exhibited high scores in cultural awareness and sensitivity (mean 6.0/7 [95% CI: 6.0, 6.1]), with lower scores for cultural competency behaviours (mean 4.5/7 [95% CI: 4.4, 4.5]). There was a weak association between gender (men), uncertainty regarding the presence of cultural health disparities, race (White/Caucasian), prior diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training, and DEI attitudes (R2 = 0.17, p < 0.0001) with cultural awareness and sensitivity. There was also weak association between engagement in prior DEI training, cultural awareness and sensitivity scores, increased years of clinical experience and race (White/Caucasian) with culturally competent behavioural scores (R2 = 0.13, p < 0.0001). Conclusions: The findings suggest the need to improve current educational structures in DEI and promote recruitment of diverse physiotherapists. This work may help policy makers and educational institutions in developing initiatives for cultural competence.
Rediscovery of animality in the concept of sport: a posthuman perspective
Frontiers in Sports and Active Living
Abstract: The concept of sport functions as an implicit premise in almost all sport-related research and practice, yet its definition itself is seldom subjected to critical scrutiny. Traditionally, sport has been characterized by elements such as playfulness, competitiveness, physicality, and organization. However, the concept is not universal; rather, it undergoes continual transformation in response to historical and social conditions, and many studies and practices have tended to overlook this aspect. This study, therefore, seeks to critically reassess the traditional concept of sport through the lens of posthumanism, a framework emblematic of contemporary digital technological society, and to propose a new perspective for redefining sport in the present era. Examining the contemporary phenomenon of esports from a posthuman standpoint reveals that various forms of physical violence and direct discrimination are preemptively mitigated by the digital mediation that characterizes these activities. In this sense, esports may be understood as a moral and distinctly more human form of sport. Such an understanding simultaneously exposes the extent to which conventional sport inherently contains inhuman dimensions, namely an element of “animality”, as an indispensable component. This insight aligns with arguments in sport ethics suggesting that existing sports have historically demanded forms of in/trans-human performance from athletes. According to Derrida, this dimension of animality has long been marginalized within anthropocentric modernity. From this vantage point, the present study’s introduction of animality into the conceptualization of sport can be seen as a deconstructive gesture that challenges the modern, implicitly presupposed image of the human, typically Western, white, and male, and opens possibilities for reimagining sport as a genuinely inclusive and ecological cultural practice. At the same time, this perspective offers a novel vantage point for reconsidering various pressing issues in contemporary sport, such as genetic doping and binary gender eligibility regulations. In other words, situating animality at the core of sport’s conceptual redefinition provides a critical foundation for rethinking the nature of sport in an increasingly digitalized society.
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What passes muster for publish in a journal (no matter how niche) is incredible