Sexual Epistemic Injustice

Can predictable impairments of epistemic performance constitute injustice in the absence of harassment, manipulation, or prejudicial credibility deflation? I explore this question through a case drawn from ordinary intellectual exchange: in mixed-sex settings, some male speakers may be distracted by the perceived attractiveness of a female interlocutor, with consequences for how their arguments are received. The case is used to investigate the conditions under which an epistemic harm merits the label “injustice”. I argue that injustice ascriptions require epistemic harm, wrong-making features, and accountability. The resulting framework distinguishes epistemic misfortune and thin unfairness from genuine epistemic injustice, and helps assess contemporary disputes about the scope of the concept.