As the discussion here developed I promised Catarina and Mohan I would write a post on snark, as my practice of it there has been the object of mild to severe disagreement.
So, in defense of snark, or at least in defense of my use of it on the latest Synthese thread, I would say that a blog discussion of professional misconduct is not a seminar room discussion in representations of gender, how to thematize power imbalances, the compatibility of sexual attraction and performance of intelligence, or anything else. It's a political exercise designed to change professional mores. So different conventions apply and it's legitimate there to use snark that would be out of place in a seminar room.
There might be something to be said about Catarina's methodology reflections here -- why is it everything becomes fodder for generating even the most far-fetched attempts at counter-examples? It must have something to do with the idea that philosophy is about establishing necessary and sufficient conditions for X, and if X in this case is the charge that VH's photos are professionally unacceptable, well, then what about this and this and this possibility, wouldn't they defeat the charge? But is that really the right method for discussions of professional misconduct? Isn't that a sort of unconscious adoption of a universal method for the universal seminar room?
Finally, with regard to the content of the discussion, I'd say, sure, in the seminar room we can discuss the interchange of sexual attraction and intelligence, the Spinal Tappian distinction of "sexy" and "sexist," and so on, but what we need to notice is that on blogs discussing charges of sexism 1) these distinctions always seem to show up with fascinating regularity; and that 2) the practical effect of such calls to "rational discussion" is distraction from the practical concerns of changing mores.
With that being said, and given the work asymmetry involved with having to endlessly explain Feminism 101, I think it's defensible to use snark instead to convey that the supposedly original and thoughtful call to rational discussion is in fact a farrago of tired clichés well predicted on any number of "anti-feminist bingo cards." And if pointing this out bruises some feelings, well, my sainted Irish grandmother used to say "if that's the worst thing that happens to you in this life, you will have passed this vale* of tears very easily."
* Embarrassing phonetic misspelling of "veil" corrected!
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