Via Veronica (via AtheismTV) – a montage from Eschaton 2012.
Blog posts on Eschaton are collected at Eschaton.
And a video of the protest outside the Uganda High Commission last Monday.
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Don’t miss Katha Pollitt on Ross Douthat.
Ross Douthat, TheNew York Times’s Catholic-conservative columnist, is so obsessed with women’s fertility it’s really too bad he can’t get pregnant himself and see firsthand what it’s all about.
Yes but that would take all the fun out of it. The whole point of being a Catholic-conservative columnist dude is so that you can try to browbeat women into getting pregnant moar.
… Read the restI’m not so sure why we want more people on our crowded, overheated planet, where world population is projected to increase by 2 billion before finally beginning to fall. But if Douthat really thought through what it means to have and raise a child these days, I’m sure
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According to UNICEF, in France the child poverty rate is 8.8 percent; in Sweden it’s 7.3 percent. In the United States, by contrast, it’s a staggering 23.1 percent.… Read the rest
David Futrelle points out A Voice for Men campaigning to terrorize a young woman they dislike. These guys are scary. Seriously scary:
… Read the restAVfM is conducting outreach and investigation into the identities of the persons involved in the violent protest against the rights of men and boys orchestrated and conducted by the University of Toronto Student Union and other antisocial elements within that institution.
To that end, one individual has already been identified, and you will be seeing a story on her here in the near future. Our search for the woman highlighted in the video of the protest continues, with some leads. …
Gender ideologues absolutely hate the light of day. They hate it shining on their ideas and on
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a consortium of billionaires today warned that if their taxes are raised they will no longer have enough money to buy politicians.
The group, led by casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, commissioned a new study showing that the cost of an average politician has soared exponentially over the past decade.
While the American family has seen increases in the cost of food, health care and education, Mr. Adelson says, “those costs don’t compare with the cost of buying a politician, which has gone through the roof.”
That is very worrying. Food, health care, education and housing are all luxuries, of course, but the ability for billionaires to afford to buy politicians is non-optional.
Plus think of all … Read the rest
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Via Mona Eltahawy on Twitter - Pakistan has its “Twitterati” – “the artists, the journalists, the designers, the political analysts, the bloggers, the activists.” I follow quite a few of them myself.
But guess what – there’s a penalty. Of course there is.
… Read the restBut with fame comes the inevitable trolling. And unfortunately, if you’re in Pakistan, and you committed the gross crime against humanity of being born a woman, you’re a prime target. Any female professional in Pakistan who is active on Twitter will find herself vilified and harassed online simply because she is a woman who works, and (as is the case with many professionals) supports women’s rights and is a feminist. What’s alarming is that this trolling is
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Any female professional in Pakistan who is active on Twitter will find herself vilified and harassed online simply because she is a woman who works.… Read the rest
Despite new laws, few women will ever report a rape because of the prevailing social norms that blame victims for their own assault.… Read the rest
The US now has the highest percentage of low-wage workers—those who earn less than two-thirds of the median wage—of any developed nation.… Read the rest
So there’s Anita Sarkeesian’s TEDxWomen talk on online harassment and cybermobs.
Gee I don’t know why I would be interested in that…
Now, I’m a pop culture critic, I’m a feminist and I’m a woman. And I’m all of these things, openly, on the internet so I’m no stranger to some level of sexist backlash. I’ve sadly gotten used to sexist slurs, and sexist insults, usually involving kitchens and sandwiches…
But what happened this time was a little bit different. I found myself the target of a massive online hate campaign.
Gee I wonder what that’s like…
… Read the restWhat’s even more disturbing, if that’s even possible, than this overt display of misogyny on a grand scale, is that the perpetrators openly
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Martin Robbins has some blunt things to say about genital mutilation.
Infant circumcision involves performing surgery without consent to permanently alter an individual’s genitals. In many cases this is done without good medical justification, for example to force the infant to conform to the expectations of a particular religion. Just as we call sex without consent ‘rape’, circumcision without consent or reasonable justification should be called ‘mutilation’.
Yes but religion. Respect. Tradition.
… Read the restPhysical merits and demerits aside, infant circumcision has had a profound psychological impact on many men. “I can’t get it out of my mind how I have been mutilated against my will,” reads one testimony on the website of the charity Norm UK
I spoke to several circumcised
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In the first honour killing in Kolkata in decades, a 29-year-old youth dragged his sister out on the street and cut off her head with one stroke of the sword in Ayubnagar locality of Nadial, barely 13km from the city centre, on Friday.
Scores of residents looked on in horror as Mehtab Alam walked to a police station with the head in his left hand and the sword in his right, dripping blood all along the way.
We know the rest without looking. She had sex with someone, or her brother thought she had sex with someone, or the brother thought the neighbors might think she had sex with someone, or the brother thought … Read the rest
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Mehzar Zehra was being driven by her father, a government servant, to her school a few miles away, when gunmen fired at them, killing her father and wounding her.… Read the rest
Just as we call sex without consent ‘rape’, circumcision without consent or reasonable justification should be called ‘mutilation’.… Read the rest
He told police he had killed his sister for “running off with a lover and dishonouring the family”, say sources.… Read the rest
It’s not just Ireland, it’s not just Saudi Arabia, it’s not just Pakistan. It’s New York City, too. The New York Times sets the scene.
… Read the restThe abuse began when the girl was 12 years old, prosecutors in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn said on Monday. She was sent to a prominent man in her ultra-Orthodox Jewish community for counseling, and prosecutors said the man sexually molested her over the next three years.
But lawyers defending the man, Nechemya Weberman, 54, of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, told a far different story during the opening arguments of his trial. The girl, a defense lawyer told the jury, had hatched the sordid tale of abuse as an act of revenge against Mr. Weberman
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“She wants to work with [the doctors] but the medical profession want to do it all their way,” says her mother.… Read the rest
Is cyberstalking a thing? Yes, cyberstalking is a thing. Even in Polk County, Florida, it’s a thing.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd does not take internet bullying of its residents lightly, even if it involves EllenBeth Wachs, the former Vice-President and Legal Affairs Coordinator for Atheists of Florida and current President of Humanists of Florida Association, who recently asked the sheriff to investigate a relentless case of cyberstalking aimed against her.
Judd assigned a Special Investigations detective to investigate a North Carolina man who has, for almost two years, employed an arsenal of social media such as Facebook, Youtube, Google+ and Twitter, to conduct a relentless campaign to harass and abuse Wachs.
But you’re allowed to do that, aren’t … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Lakeland, Fla. – Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd does not take internet bullying of its residents lightly, even if it involves EllenBeth Wachs, the former Vice-President and Legal Affairs Coordinator for Atheists of Florida and current President of Humanists of Florida Association, who recently asked the sheriff to investigate a relentless case of cyberstalking aimed against her.
Judd assigned a Special Investigations detective to investigate a North Carolina man who has, for almost two years, employed an arsenal of social media such as Facebook, Youtube, Google+ and Twitter, to conduct a relentless campaign to harass and abuse Wachs.
According to Florida statutes the term “cyberstalk” means “to engage in a course of conduct to communicate, or to cause to be … Read the rest
Martin comments on Chris Clarke’s post:
… Read the restThese last two threads have put me in mind of Tim Minchin’s lovely “Pope Song,” which includes the lyrics…
If you cover for another motherfucker who’s a kiddie fucker Fuck you you’re no better then the mother fucking rapist
…and then I wonder how many of these dudes showing up here to complain that it’s so unfair to draw moral equivalency between everyday, blogging, comment-trolling, rape-threat-making-on-Reddit misogynists and mass-murdering-IRL misogynists are huge fans of that song.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
