Introduction

In January 2016, the field of early medieval English studies was rocked by the revelation that one of its most prominent emeritus scholars had released a men’s rights manifesto on his website, arguing that feminism had completely dominated academic discourse at the expense of men. In the ensuing weeks, further allegations of misogyny and sexual harassment among early medievalists multiplied, dovetailing with the cultural energy of the #MeToo movement to launch an ongoing conversation about women’s place in the field, both as scholars and as subjects of study. For many, these developments seemed retrogressive after consistent progress throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. More women were earning PhDs and publishing scholarship in the field, building formidable international reputations and occupying prestigious positions in the highest reaches of academia. Even feminist criticism seemed more or less mainstream; it was no longer radical to suggest that a research project could incorporate or even focus exclusively on early medieval women, and many books and articles were informed by a feminist perspective, even if they weren’t explicitly feminist in nature. Perhaps this is why the collective conversation caused such upheaval; it seemed to reveal an undercurrent of misogyny within our field that should have been impossible in the twenty-first century. How could a field in which women scholars are so visible, and where a great deal of feminist work has won critical acclaim, simultaneously harbor such retrograde thinking about feminism and the academy?