The SPLC reports:

In what may not be a coincidence, a string of nighttime fires have damaged or destroyed at least six predominately black churches in four southern states in the past week.

Arsonists started at least three of the fires, while other causes are being examined in the other fires, investigators say.

The series of fires – some of them suspicious and possible hate crimes — came in the week following a murderous rampage by a white supremacist who shot and killed nine people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C.

…

The most recent fires occurred early today at the Glover Grover Baptist Church, in Warrenville, S.C., and at the Greater Miracle Apostolic Holiness Church in Tallahassee, Fla.

Federal agents have been brought in to assist local officials in determining the unknown cause of the fire at the Glover Grove Baptist church. In Tallahassee, fire officials say the fire that totally destroyed the Apostolic Holiness Church may have been caused by a tree limb falling on overhead electrical lines.

While those investigations continue, arson was determined to be the cause of three fires earlier in the week at other predominately black churches in the South.

The first arson fire occurred in the early morning hours of Monday, June 22, at the College Hills Seventh Day Adventist Church, home to a predominately black congregation, in Knoxville, Tenn.

In that one the arsonist set multiple fires all around the building.

The following day, Tuesday June 23, an arsonist was blamed for a fire in the sanctuary s at God’s Power Church of Christ in Macon, Ga.

“Right now we are investigating as if it was a set fire,” said Sgt. Ben Gleaton, an arson investigator for the Macon-Bibb County Fire Department, told the Macon Telegraph.

The third suspected arson fire occurred in the predawn hours of Wednesday, June 24, at the Briar Creek Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C.

That fire, reported at 1 a.m. EDT, caused an estimated $250,000 in damage, destroying an education wing in one of four buildings that make up the Briar Creek Road Baptist Church complex in east Charlotte, authorities said. The church’s sanctuary and gymnasium sustained heavy smoke damage.

Setting fires at night – it’s what the Klan does.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The Tim Hunt War continues. It could have been over in 24 hours, but now it’s become the site where the issue of sexism in STEM is getting a thorough airing, so I’m just going to keep on reporting on it.

Dawkins is still digging that hole deeper and deeper.

1.2 million followers on Twitter, remember. Gets his letters published in the Times. Large megaphone; conspicuous platform. Influencer.

Richard Dawkins ‏@RichardDawkins 8 hours ago
Am I naive to be disconcerted by a lack of kindness, of empathy, on Twitter? There’s so much unforgiving, merciless, even cruel condemnation

Isn’t it interesting that he’s saying that now? After responding to a tweet that called Tim Hunt “a shitty person”? Isn’t it interesting that he didn’t say that in 2011 or 2012 or 2013 or 2014? Isn’t it interesting that he’s ignored the relentless harassment and bullying of women on Twitter, much of it by his fans defending his every word, but is upset when it’s addressed to someone like him? I think it’s interesting.

Richard Dawkins ‏@RichardDawkins 8 hours ago
Yes, of course it’s easy to be cruel when you are anonymous. But why should anyone WANT to be cruel, whether anonymous or not?

Yes of course there are many kind people on Twitter. I’m not saying cruel ones are a majority. Just puzzled why anyone WANTS to be cruel.

Nothing wrong with witty satire. Well-aimed ridicule has a point: to change minds /raise consciousness. But what’s the point of cruel abuse?

It’s embarrassingly easy to tell what he’s thinking there – that he does witty satire and well-aimed ridicule, that changes minds for the better and has no harmful side effects, while people who are angry at Tim Hunt do cruel abuse, period. Sadly, his “witty satire” often isn’t.

Richard Dawkins ‏@RichardDawkins 8 hours ago
Tweet today called a Nobelist, whose work could 1 day save her life, a “shitty person” because he told a joke. So DISPROPORTIONATELY vicious

You know what else is DISPROPORTIONATELY vicious? Accusations of “witch hunts” and “lynch mobs.”

Richard Dawkins ‏@RichardDawkins 8 hours ago
If you think somebody is wrong, say so and say why. Don’t just call them a shitty fucking douchebag, it’s not a convincing argument.

See above. Don’t call them witch hunts and lynch mobs, either. It’s not a convincing argument.

Why do I care? Because our circles overlap. Because he is perhaps the most conspicuous face of atheism in the anglophone world. Because he also speaks out for secularism and humanism. Because I don’t want atheism and secularism and humanism to be bastions of entitled anti-feminist bullies, and because I don’t want feminist women to be bullied out of atheism and secularism and humanism. Because I want him to stop doing damage. I have little or no hope that he ever will, but that’s what I want.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Another one for the reading list: Chocolate and Vodka.

[W]hether or not Sir Tim was joking is ultimately irrelevant. He should never have spoken those words in the first place. As a Nobel Laureate, a professor and a Knight of the British Empire, Sir Tim definitely has power, influence and authority. He therefore has a responsibility to think very carefully about the words he uses in his public and professional lives.

People in Sir Tim’s position have an obligation to use their power to help, support and inspire others, not to denigrate a group of people — in this case, women — who are already at a disadvantage. Sir Tim failed in that obligation. He did not take his responsibilities seriously. Instead, he abused his position of power and has either refused to or been incapable of understanding the impact his words have had, or how he is supporting the institutional sexism rife in academia, and particularly in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and maths).

That’s an interesting point. It’s a strange mentality, one that is happy using power, influence and authority to express lofty contempt for a large set of people. I have a hard time imagining being happy doing that myself, if I had that kind of power, influence and authority – not because I’m so sweet, which I’m not, but because it would just feel all wrong. Wrong like bending a joint the wrong way.

I suppose that’s what I never do get about people who do this kind of thing – people like Tim Hunt and Richard Dawkins and people like the social media harassers. I never do get why it doesn’t make them intensely uncomfortable. Maybe having power, influence and authority tends to dull people’s capacity to feel…in the wrong. They’re important, so everything they decide to say must have worth, because they’re saying it.

Even when his failure was pointed out to him, instead of reflecting on what he’d said, he doubled down and, as far as I am aware, is yet to produce a full and proper apology.

And worse, we’ve now seen a raft of people, men and women alike, in positions of significant influence and power in academia and public life have come out to defend Sir Tim and in the process belittle the concerns that women, and many men, have about sexism in science.

And we’ve seen David Colquhoun doing the other thing, which helps.

And then there are the comments of Boris Johnson, Professor Brian Cox and Professor Richard Dawkins, also in support of Sir Tim, and also failing to adequately address the serious issue of sexism in science.

What really disturbs me about this is that the British academic (and political) elite appear to be closing ranks around a man who has made sexist comments and who is refusing to deal with the repercussions of those comments. Sir Tim’s words are indefensible. Describing oneself, apparently quite comfortably, as chauvinist, making demeaning comments about women, and then refusing to properly apologise for those remarks is not a slip of the tongue and it is not acceptable. It is not something that senior scientists should be supporting.

The message this sends to women is that British academe is still sexist, still does not know how to recognise sexist behaviour, has no desire to tackle sexism, and, indeed, will even support men who make sexist comments.

Well at least the message is accurate.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Originally a comment by Maureen Brian on Charles Seife is telling the same story.

garyggpelow,

You don’t sound as though you’re old enough to have been around in the ’60s and ’70s but believe me we achieved a hell of a lot then. There is no need to go back and do that work again. It is done.

Achievements included, depending upon where you are, anti-discrimination laws and the codes of practice in place in most institutions and big companies, a means of redress for discrimination, direct or systemic, access to better education, equal pay (in theory) – the list is too long but we’ve got the works in law and in policy at least on paper.

Yet by about the end of the ’90s those of us who achieved such things – in the face of the sort of mindless antagonism you display – noticed as rational beings that progress had sort of ground to a halt. So we looked for the reasons why the pay gap was still there, all aspects of computing where women were once well represented had become sterile male ghettos, women with good degrees in STEM subjects and apparently promising careers were dropping out at an astonishing rate.

And what did we find? This may amaze you but the backlash which Susan Faludi described on the basis of actual evidence in 1991 was not merely still with us, it was gaining ground. So different women worked on different aspects of this problem, gathered even more evidence and took action to both assist understanding and to make a course correction. Anita Sarkessian is just one among many – addressing a specific problem the most effective way she can.

Do you really expect us to unravel the work of more than a century in order to knit you a comfort blanket? Get real! And do stop whining, please.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

If nothing else, at least I’m finding some brilliant people to read the blogs of which, and to follow on Twitter and all that good stuff.

Like Richard P Grant at the Guardian’s Occam’s corner.

[W]hat is happening now is nothing less than the silencing of voices that should be heard. Voices of people who took issue with what was said in Korea, who highlighted the sexism, and who said that such comments were harmful and should not go unchallenged.

Again, it doesn’t matter whether you agree with those voices, or which side you are on; what matters is that respectable academics still low down on the career ladder are being silenced by those who hold positions of real power.

Yes. Those Nobel laureates, and Dawkins – they’re doing their best to silence people who are trying to fix a very flawed work environment.

These people are not slinging mud to wreck someone’s reputation in the absence of even the slightest hint of truth. They want to make reasoned comments and have an open debate about the issues. But they end up saying things like, “I’m afraid to tweet this”:

Is there not one senior academic, one Nobel Laureate, who will stand up and in unflinching language decry sexism and the support of sexism that we are currently seeing from so many leading figures? This isn’t about Sir Tim anymore. This is about an inability amongst senior scientists to understand and take seriously the responsibilities that their power has bestowed upon them.

I’m betting they don’t agree that they are responsibilities.

It’s not just that we have the usual horde of spotty teenage scuzbuckets threatening violence and rape to any woman who dares to have an opinion – such behaviour is sadly almost de rigeur. No, it’s comments from Nobel laureates, and others who might have some influence over your career, that scares academics into silence.

Nobel laureates – almost the definition of ultimate power in academic science – claim that their liberty is under threat, and that they find the response to their sexist comments to be “frightening”. They claim, in fact, that other people calling them out for stupid remarks in some way threatens their own academic freedom.

Well the whole point of academic freedom is to be able to say sexist shit when it pops into your head over lunch.

But why, as a (female, academic) friend asked earlier, are these Nobel laureates so frightened by “a bunch of girls”? Is it that the world is changing, and casual sexism is no longer acceptable? Is that so much of a threat?

Yes. Why? I guess because people who have been used to dominating for a long time find it gross and shocking that anyone would expect them to learn to share.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Bloomberg has the whole text of Obama’s eulogy. I watched it all over again on CNN last night.

Friends of his remarked this week that when Clementa Pinckney entered a room, it was like the future arrived, that even from a young age, folks knew he was special, anointed. He was the progeny of a long line of the faithful, a family of preachers who spread God’s words, a family of protesters who [worked to] expand voting rights and desegregate the South.

Clem heard their instruction, and he did not forsake their teaching. He was in the pulpit by 13, pastor by 18, public servant by 23. He did not exhibit any of the cockiness of youth nor youth’s insecurities. Instead, he set an example worthy of his position, wise beyond his years in his speech, in his conduct, in his love, faith, and purity.

As a senator, he represented a sprawling swath of lowcountry, a place that has long been one of the most neglected in America, a place still racked by poverty and inadequate schools, a place where children can still go hungry and the sick can go without treatment—a place that needed somebody like Clem.

We have a lot of places like that in this country. Shamefully many.

Reverend Pinckney embodied a politics that was neither mean nor small. He conducted himself quietly and kindly and diligently. He encouraged progress not by pushing his ideas alone but by seeking out your ideas, partnering with you to make things happen. He was full of empathy and fellow feeling, able to walk in somebody else’s shoes and see through their eyes.

No wonder one of his Senate colleagues remembered Senator Pinckney as “the most gentle of the 46 of us, the best of the 46 of us.” Clem was often asked why he chose to be a pastor and a public servant. But the person who asked probably didn’t know the history of AME Church.

That last sentence was one of the places where he heated up a little bit – expressed more emotion and energy, and got more response. It was a call to AME Church, and it got a response.

As our brothers and sisters in the AME Church, we don’t make those distinctions. “Our calling,” Clem once said, “is not just within the walls of the congregation but the life and community in which our congregation resides.”

He embodied the idea that our Christian faith demands deeds and not just words, that the sweet hour of prayer actually lasts the whole week long, that to put our faith in action is more than just individual salvation, it’s about our collective salvation, that to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and house the homeless is not just a call for isolated charity, but the imperative of a just society.

If only it didn’t include the god part…

(By which I mean – that’s a beautiful passage, but I can’t fully share it, because to me the concept of god is tyrannical.)

Preacher by 13, pastor by 18, public servant by 23. What a life Clementa Pinckney lived. What an example he set. What a model for his faith.

And then to lose him at 41, slain in his sanctuary with eight wonderful members of his flock, each at different stages in life but bound together by a common commitment to God—Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, DePayne Middleton Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel L. Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Myra Thompson.

Good people. Decent people. God-fearing people.

I hope not. I hope they didn’t fear god.

I know the phrase doesn’t literally mean that any more, not the way it’s used there – but still, the literal meaning is certainly available.

People so full of life and so full of kindness, people who ran the race, who persevered, people of great faith. To the families of the fallen, the nation shares in your grief. Our pain cuts that much deeper because it happened in a church. The church is and always has been the center of African American life … a place to call our own in a too-often hostile world, a sanctuary from so many hardships.

Over the course of centuries, black churches served as hush harbors, where slaves could worship in safety, praise houses, where their free descendants could gather and shout “Hallelujah,” rest stops for the weary along the Underground Railroad, bunkers for the foot soldiers of the civil-rights movement.

That part made me tear up big time.

They have been and continue to be community centers, where we organize for jobs and justice, places of scholarship and network, places where children are loved and fed and kept out of harm’s way and told that they are beautiful and smart and taught that they matter. That’s what happens in church. That’s what the black church means—our beating heart, the place where our dignity as a people in inviolate.

The line about children is another place where he heated up, and got a response. It was a very emotional line and got an emotional response. His “and taught that they matter” was almost shouted. Yeah.

There’s no better example of this tradition than Mother Emanuel, a church … a church built by blacks seeking liberty, burned to the ground because its founders sought to end slavery only to rise up again, a phoenix from these ashes.

Big response there.

When there were laws banning all-black church gatherers, services happened here anyway in defiance of unjust laws. When there was a righteous movement to dismantle Jim Crow, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached from its pulpit, and marches began from its steps.

A sacred place, this church, not just for blacks, not just for Christians but for every American who cares about the steady expansion of human rights and human dignity in this country, a foundation stone for liberty and justice for all.

That’s what the church meant.

More passion, more response. Moving as hell.

We do not know whether the killer of Reverend Pinckney and eight others knew all of this history, but he surely sensed the meaning of his violent act. It was an act that drew on a long history of bombs and arson and shots fired at churches, not random but as a means of control, a way to terrorize and oppress … an act that he imagined would incite fear and recrimination, violence and suspicion, an act that he presumed would deepen divisions that trace back to our nation’s original sin.

Oh, but God works in mysterious ways. God has different ideas. He didn’t know he was being used by God.

And there was the big peripeteia. That “oh, but” went with a little chuckle. It’s very churchy, evangelical stuff, but moving all the same, even to an atheist. It probably helps that I’d had a secular version of the same thought – that this has gone very badly from the point of view of the racist who did the killings. This isn’t what he had in mind. All this mourning and feeling aren’t what he was aiming for.

Blinded by hatred, the alleged killer would not see the grace surrounding Reverend Pinckney and that Bible study group, the light of love that shown as they opened the church doors and invited a stranger to join in their prayer circle. The alleged killer could have never anticipated the way the families of the fallen would respond when they saw him in court in the midst of unspeakable grief, with words of forgiveness. He couldn’t imagine that.

The alleged killer could not imagine how the city of Charleston under the good and wise leadership of Mayor Riley, how the state of South Carolina, how the United States of America would respond not merely with revulsion at his evil acts, but with (inaudible) generosity. And more importantly, with a thoughtful introspection and self-examination that we so rarely see in public life.

That. That obviously was not what the killer had in mind.

Obama talks about god’s grace, and how it’s not earned but freely given, and how we don’t deserve it but we got it anyway. And then…

But it is up to us now to make the most of it, to receive it with gratitude and to prove ourselves worthy of this gift.

For too long, we were blind to the pain that the Confederate Flag stirred into many of our citizens. It’s true a flag did not cause these murders. But as people from all walks of life, Republicans and Democrats, now acknowledge, including Governor Haley, whose recent eloquence on the subject is worthy of praise … as we all have to acknowledge, the flag has always represented more than just ancestral pride.

For many, black and white, that flag was a reminder of systemic oppression … and racial subjugation.

We see that now.

Removing the flag from this state’s capital would not be an act of political correctness. It would not an insult to the valor of Confederate soldiers. It would simply be acknowledgement that the cause for which they fought, the cause of slavery, was wrong. The imposition of Jim Crow after the Civil War, the resistance to civil rights for all people was wrong.

It would be a step, but only a step.

For too long, we’ve been blind to be way past injustices continue to shape the present. Perhaps we see that now. Perhaps this tragedy causes us to ask some tough questions about how we can permit so many of our children to languish in poverty or attend dilapidated schools or grow up without prospects for a job or for a career. Perhaps it causes us to examine what we’re doing to cause some of our children to hate. Perhaps it softens hearts towards those lost young men, tens and tens of thousands caught up in the criminal justice system and lead us to make sure that that system’s not infected with bias.

That we embrace changes in how we train and equip our police so that the bonds of trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve make us all safer and more secure.

Maybe we now realize the way a racial bias can infect us even when we don’t realize it so that we’re guarding against not just racial slurs but we’re also guarding against the subtle impulse to call Johnny back for a job interview but not Jamal. So that we search our hearts when we consider laws to make it harder for some of our fellow citizens to vote. By recognizing our common humanity, by treating every child as important, regardless of the color of their skin. Or the station into which they were born and to do what’s necessary to make opportunity real for every American. By doing that, we express God’s grace.

Lots of responses now. He starts the next bit, about guns, with “For too long” which got another big response, echoing him.

None of us can or should expect a transformation in race relations overnight. Every time something like this happens, somebody says, “We have to have a conversation about race.” We talk a lot about race. There’s no shortcut. We don’t need more talk.

None of us should believe that a handful of gun safety measures will prevent every tragedy. It will not. People of good will will continue to debate the merits of various policies as our democracy requires—the big, raucous place, America is. And there are good people on both sides of these debates.

Whatever solutions we find will necessarily be incomplete. But it would be a betrayal of everything Reverend Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we allow ourselves to slip into a comfortable silence again. Once the eulogies have been delivered, once the TV cameras move on, to go back to business as usual. That’s what we so often do to avoid uncomfortable truths about the prejudice that still infects our society.

To settle for symbolic gestures without following up with the hard work of more lasting change, that’s how we lose our way again. It would be a refutation of the forgiveness expressed by those families if we merely slipped into old habits whereby those who disagree with us are not merely wrong, but bad; where we shout instead of listen; where we barricade ourselves behind preconceived notions or well-practiced cynicism.

At the end he did a solo of Amazing Grace.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Meanwhile yesterday there was that triplet of terror-murders in Tunisia and Kuwait and France.

In a matter of hours and on three different continents, militants carried out attacks on Friday that killed scores of civilians, horrified populations and raised thorny questions about the evolving nature of international terrorism and what can be done to fight it.

On the surface, the attacks appeared to be linked only by timing.

In France, a man stormed an American-owned chemical plant, decapitated one person and apparently tried to blow up the facility. In Tunisia, a gunman drew an assault rifle from a beach umbrella and killed at least 38 people at a seaside resort. And in Kuwait, a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mosque during communal prayers, killing at least 25 Shiite worshipers.

I dispute the three continents claim. Eurasia is one continent, not two.

Earlier this week, the spokesman for the Islamic State, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, greeted the group’s followers for Ramadan, telling them that acts during the Muslim holy month earned greater rewards in heaven.

“Muslims, embark and hasten toward jihad,” Mr. Adnani said in an audio message. “O mujahedeen everywhere, rush and go to make Ramadan a month of disasters for the infidels.”

In other words go out and murder as many people as you can because it’s holy month.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Jacques Rousseau also thinks Dawkins is mistaken in his response to the Tim Hunt issue.

As with “shirtgate”, where Rosetta scientist Matt Taylor was in the news for wearing a shirt depicting naked women, the Tim Hunt case has prominently featured Richard Dawkins, telling us how to understand feminism and the issue of sexism in science.

It has, yes, and that’s unfortunate, because he’s not well informed about feminism nor is he sympathetic to it.

In his letter to The Times (paywalled, so – sorry – I’m linking to the Daily Mail‘s quotes of the letter), Dawkins says:

Along with many others, I didn’t like Sir Tim Hunt’s joke, but “disproportionate” would be a huge underestimate of the baying witch-hunt that it unleashed among our academic thought police: nothing less than a feeding frenzy of mob-rule self-righteousness.

‘A writer in the Guardian even described it as “a moment to savour”. To “savour” a moment of human misery – to “savour” the hounding of one of our most distinguished scientists – goes beyond schadenfreude and spills over into cruelty.’

One might hope that Dawkins is demonstrating “disproportionateness” via example, but he’s no doubt serious in this one-sided portrayal of events.

Well I suppose one of these days he could burst out laughing and tell us it’s all been an elaborate hoax, but it seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to for a joke.

When the speaker of the offensive remarks has felt the need to apologise, fully acknowledging that the remarks were inappropriate, seeing a senior male scientist like Dawkins describing reaction to those as a “feeding frenzy of mob-rule self-righteousness” is unlikely to reassure anyone who has concerns regarding perceived or actual sexist treatment of women in the workplace.

Indeed it is and that is why it would be so nice if Dawkins would just stop. But he won’t. He apparently likes being the darling of the anti-feminists, so that will be part of his legacy.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

From the Onion, all the way back in 2003.

OBERLIN, OH—According to a study released Monday, women—once empowered primarily via the assertion of reproductive rights or workplace equality with men—are now empowered by virtually everything the typical woman does.

San Diego women empower themselves by eating dinner unaccompanied by men.

“From what she eats for breakfast to the way she cleans her home, today’s woman lives in a state of near-constant empowerment,” said Barbara Klein, professor of women’s studies at Oberlin College and director of the study. “As recently as 15 years ago, a woman could only feel empowered by advancing in a male-dominated work world, asserting her own sexual wants and needs, or pushing for a stronger voice in politics. Today, a woman can empower herself through actions as seemingly inconsequential as driving her children to soccer practice or watching the Oxygen network.”

If a woman does it, that’s a woman having agency, and having agency is empowering, therefore it’s empowering. Game over, everybody go home!

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I was reminded of the dirty fly-blown women metaphor by Iram Ramzan’s post about Hanna Yusuf’s creepy “my hijab is a feminist statement!” video.

Hanna goes on to say that the hijab “resists commercial imperatives that support consumer culture”. It is true that in the world we live in, capitalism has made consumers of us all – including Muslim women.

In fact, Muslims comprise one of the fastest growing consumer markets in the world! The ‘halal’ industry is huge. Everywhere you go there will be an Islamic store selling you all sorts of ‘Islamic’ goods including hijabs and hijab accessories for women. Far from sticking two fingers up to Western consumerism, Muslim women are embracing it, matching their hijab with the latest trendy garments on offer in British high street stores and offering tutorials for other Muslimahs to follow.

Hanna wants us to respect her choice to wear hijab while denigrating women who don’t wear it, suggesting they’re slaves of the western fashion industry. So what does your decision to wear hijab make you, Hanna?

Someone who thought of a cool way to escape consumerism and the fashion industry all by herself, by independently inventing a way of wrapping up the head and neck in a manner that just happens to look like a familiar religious garment. What a free spirit! And the lacy dress and makeup are her own invention too.

And, correct me if I am wrong, there are no countries in the world that make the wearing of a bikini mandatory unlike the hijab, which is compulsory in Iran and Saudi Arabia. Women in those countries are flogged if they disobey the strict dress code. What happened to their choice? It is easy for Hanna, a privileged Western woman, to insist it’s her choice, but about the rights of her sisters in Muslim countries? They do not have that luxury.

If wearing the hijab is a feminist symbol of rejection of western objectification of women as sex objects then does that mean wearing the full Afghan style burqa or Saudi style niqab is a stronger feminist statement, as both garments remove all identifiers of the woman as a sexualised individual?

No. Unless Hanna Yusuf decides in the future to wear a burqa or abaya, in which case yes. (But if she does she will have invented the burqa or abaya herself. It won’t be the one that’s already been invented.)

When I was nine years old, I was taught in mosque that if I did not cover my hair, Satan would urinate on it. No wonder it looks great, I hear you say. Jokes aside, imagine hearing that as a young child. Not only was it terrifying but the concept of shame was instilled in me at a young age, something which is the case for many young girls around the world. Many Muslim women who do not wear the hijab are constantly made to feel guilty about it.

Well, you know…flies…

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

That wrapped/unwrapped candy metaphor…

How compelling can it be when it applies only to women? If women get all fly-blown and filthy because their heads are naked, why don’t men? If women with fly-blown hair are gross and disgusting, why aren’t men?

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)