I'll readily admit that English is not my first language, so there might undertones in that quote I'm unaware of. I also agree that the use of "feminist academics" was unnecessary, but mostly for not making a greater effort at "avoiding unrelated controversies" as per guidelines [1].

I might glossed over some detail there, and instead gave the original poster the benefit of the doubt, and assumed that the meaning was as following:

- Unknown female geniuses lost to history due to gender inequality are many - The article itself does not make a good argument of why Ranelagh in particular might be a good example. The bar should be higher. - Maybe the book gives a better argument

As mentioned, I might have gotten the first one wrong, though I did not, as you put it, defend it. Disagreements are appreciated. Instead, I believed you created an argument, which was based on a lot of assumptions (gender, motive, misogyny, etc, hence "straw man") and went much, much further in the opposite of "avoiding unrelated controversies".

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https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You are mistaken that I am devaluing the article by labeling the author as feminist. I'm fine with the author being a feminist. I'm just pointing out that feminists are more likely than other academics to write books like this. That's a statement of the obvious.

I agree that that is an interpretation worth considering if Parent Commenter has provided corroborating evidence. A charitable interpretation would suggest that this man has seen many arguments about the ostensible brilliance of some otherwise unknown or lesser-known person and that such people make for good propaganda (I use the word propaganda without trying to imply that this piece is propaganda, just to be very clear). A charitable interpretation would also admit there is no necessary malice in saying describing someone as a feminist academic. Feminist academics are, approximately, a class of academic and they do have idiosyncrasies, views, and methods unique to them. It is not an insult to say something is from feminist academia and feminist academia itself would like to admit that that is the standpoint from which it is arguing.

There are many women who have failed to get the recognition they deserve. In fact, there are many people who have, full stop. There is also a market for upselling historical figures.

Saying someone or something is underrated and then making a compelling case for it is incredibly difficult, man, woman, art, or whatever.