Unconvincing claims of exercising free speech

Nov 9th, 2011 12:43 pm | By

A week ago the Paris correspondent of Time, Bruce Crumley, wrote an article on the firebombing of Charlie Hebdo, saying…that we journalists and beneficiaries of free speech stand shoulder to shoulder with Charlie Hebdo?

No actually. Not that. Something different.

Okay, so can we finally stop with the idiotic, divisive, and destructive efforts
by “majority sections” of Western nations to bait Muslim members with petulant, futile demonstrations that “they” aren’t going to tell “us” what can and can’t be done in free societies? Because not only are such Islamophobic antics futile and childish, but they also openly beg for the very violent responses from extremists their authors claim to proudly defy in the name of common good. What common

… Read the rest

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Jesus and Mo speak up for global blasphemy law *

Nov 9th, 2011 | Filed by

Barmaid’s response is redacted.… Read the rest

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Mississippi “personhood” measure failed resoundingly *

Nov 9th, 2011 | Filed by

Personhood Florida views the fight for the rights of zygotes as a historically significant civil rights struggle on par with the fight against slavery.… Read the rest

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Monks should not run school with history of sex abuse *

Nov 9th, 2011 | Filed by

In 2009 Father David Pearce, the former head of St Benedict’s School in Ealing, was jailed for eight years for abusing five students.… Read the rest

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In France, solidarity with Charlie Hebdo *

Nov 9th, 2011 | Filed by

Politicos from every quarter of the French establishment are rushing to defend Charlie, including some who have threatened the magazine with defamation suits.… Read the rest

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It’s the victim’s fault so be quiet *

Nov 9th, 2011 | Filed by

It’s the misogynist men who make the comments in the first place. They have inflamed the situation, not the women who are fighting back.… Read the rest

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L’amour plus fort que la haine

Nov 9th, 2011 9:18 am | By

Via Maryam - Charlie Hebdo says love is stronger than hate. C’est vrai!

… Read the rest

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Guardian scolds Charlie Hebdo for “provoking” *

Nov 9th, 2011 | Filed by

And for taking “pot shots” at radical Islam.… Read the rest

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Quiverful Duggars to have child # 20 *

Nov 8th, 2011 | Filed by

Quiverful wants to raise up a cultural army to roll back modernity, and transform the US into a conservative Christian theocracy.… Read the rest

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18, 19, 20!

Nov 8th, 2011 4:33 pm | By

Oh hey, what exciting news, the Duggars are going to have child # 20 – that is, Michelle Duggar is pregnant with child # 20. Quiverfull strikes another blow for theocracy.

The Quiverfull movement places emphasis on the importance of women submitting to their husbands and fathers, and is often recognized as a backlash to the gains made in women’s rights by the feminist movement. It is an anti-feminist backlash that holds that gender equality is contrary to God’s law and that women’s highest calling is as wives and “prolific” mothers. In line with other fundamentalist Christians, they believe a woman’s place is in the home, breeding children and serving her husband.

The movement embraces misogyny as God’s law. Women

… Read the rest

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Brave contrarian Brendan O’Neill

Nov 8th, 2011 4:11 pm | By

Brendan O’Neill is happy to characterize feminists as stupidly and feebly delicate and hyper-sensitive, and to use (or to allow the Telegraph to use) a 19th century illustration of a vapid woman tipping over to underline his sneer.

Would he be equally happy to see other people characterize Irish people as stupid and otherwise contemptible and use a 19th century cartoon to illustrate the sneer? Like this one maybe?

 There are more where that came from. Does Brendan O’Neill of Spiked really want major media returning to the good old days of publishing insulting caricatures of Other racial and ethnic groups? Or is it just women, or just feminists, who are fair game for that kind of thing.

#mencallmethings… Read the rest

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Anti-misogyny campaign goes viral *

Nov 8th, 2011 | Filed by

The standard policy of ignoring trolls is now being superseded by proposals that their comments be exposed to ridicule and rejection online to raise awareness of the issue.
… Read the rest

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Brendan O’Neill wins the sneering prize

Nov 8th, 2011 12:51 pm | By

Brendan O’Neill sneers again – this time at women resisting misogynist silencing campaigns.

One of the great curiosities of modern feminism is that the more radical the feminist is, the more likely she is to suffer fits of Victorian-style vapours upon hearing men use coarse language. Andrea Dworkin dedicated her life to stamping out what she called “hate speech” aimed at women. The Slutwalks women campaigned against everything from “verbal degradation” to “come ons”. And now, in another hilarious echo of the 19th-century notion that women need protecting from vulgar and foul speech, a collective of feminist bloggers has decided to “Stamp Out Misogyny Online”. Their deceptively edgy demeanour, their use of the word “stamp”, cannot disguise the fact

… Read the rest

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Brendan O’Neill sneers at the campaign against misogyny *

Nov 8th, 2011 | Filed by

“The more radical the feminist is, the more likely she is to suffer fits of Victorian-style vapours upon hearing men use coarse language.”… Read the rest

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Not as easy as you might think

Nov 8th, 2011 11:59 am | By

You may think it’s a cinch getting rid of misogyny. Turns out it’s not. Sady at Tigerbeatdown started out thinking it was (or more like assuming it was without noticing she was assuming it – we all know how that goes), and then she realized it’s not.

In 2009, I genuinely believed people were going to change their minds about being sexist, because they read my blog.

I know, right? If only someone had come up with this plan before! All I had to do was register a WordPress domain, compose some charmingly ironic yet pointed analyses of Ye Aulde Patriarchy, cite some academics so they knew I wasn’t stupid, throw a lot of jokes and references to oral sex

… Read the rest

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What should we do about sexist abuse online? *

Nov 8th, 2011 | Filed by

Helen Lewis-Hasteley, Zoe Williams, Bella Mackie and Catherine Redfern offer suggestions.… Read the rest

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A highly gendered phenomenon

Nov 7th, 2011 4:34 pm | By

Anyway, even though I have no immediate plans to out any of the people who put a little sparkle into their drab lives by calling me and some of my friends cunts and manginas and worse than genocidal dictators, that doesn’t mean I’m not going to do anything at all. Nuh uh. I’m going to go on kvetching and nagging, like the other women bloggers who have decided no thanks, not having any more of that.

I’m going to call your attention to the AAUW report on sexual harassment in schools, for instance. I’m going to quote from it.

Girls were more likely than boys to say that they had been
negatively affected by sexual harassment—a finding that
confirms

… Read the rest

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Secularist of the Year 2005

Nov 7th, 2011 3:40 pm | By

Since Maryam has just joined FTB and Kenan is about to, I thought I would repost this item from October 2005, when Maryam was named Secularist of the Year and I rejoiced rather noisily. Pleasingly, I quoted an earlier article in the Guardian in which Kenan talked about and quoted Maram. It all joins up, you see.

October 9, 2005

Maryam won! Maryam Namazie is Secularist of the Year. Ya-hoooooo. Sorry to be so American, but I’m really really pleased. As a matter of fact, I’m also damn smug. Here I’ve been publishing her articles like mad all this time, which I haven’t noticed the Guardian or the Independent bothering to do. Well? Well??! Wouldn’t you be smug? … Read the rest

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Would Mississippi’s Prop 26 outlaw birth control? *

Nov 7th, 2011 | Filed by

Legislators, judges, and district attorneys will be empowered to implement personhood as they see fit. Nothing to worry about there.… Read the rest

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You should be ashamed of yourself, JD

Nov 7th, 2011 10:31 am | By

Chris Rodda points out a really staggering example of abuse of privilege: an Air Force Major defaming enlisted service members who can’t reply because he outranks them. You probably won’t be astonished to learn that the Major is a Christian, and a proselytizing one at that, while the soldiers he goes after are atheists.

For the past three years, an atheist Army sergeant has had to remain silent as lie after lie was told about him by an Air Force Major named Jonathan Dowty. Major Dowty, a.k.a. JD the Christian Fighter Pilot, is a Christian officer who belongs to the Officers’ Christian Fellowship (OCF), an organization that thinks the real duty of a military officer is to raise up

… Read the rest

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