The petition claims that Pakistan’s ambassador to the US committed a blasphemous act two years ago when she criticized Pakistan’s blasphemy laws in a TV interview.… Read the rest
The battle against sexist sci-fi and fantasy book covers 
Jan 18th, 2013 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Many science fiction and fantasy readers are disappointed to encounter everyday sexism in a medium that is supposed to offer an escape.… Read the rest
From hacking to acid-throwing
Jan 18th, 2013 10:10 am | By Ophelia BensonUpdate for you creeps from the mildew pit -
No it’s not that I think I’m that important, you assholes. It’s that you do. You’re the ones who act as if I’m pretty much the most important person in the world! Along with eight or ten others. You’re the ones who monitor my every move every hour and every day. You’re the ones who focus a creepy amount of attention on me. I don’t think I’m that important at all! I don’t think I’m worth that kind of attention – not from people who like me and not from people who hate me. No, I don’t think maybe someone will eventually attack me because I’m so important – I think … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Acid attack on Bolshoi artistic director
Jan 18th, 2013 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Sergei Filin had already received numerous phone threats, and his email and Facebook accounts had been hacked.… Read the rest
Waiting for the magic
Jan 17th, 2013 12:37 pm | By Ophelia BensonEd has a good post on Michael Shermer’s exaggerated outrage at my criticism of him.
His comment on the bit where Shermer says I turned the inquisition on him and that we inquisitors are trying to force him to defend himself -
… Read the restWhat does innocence until proven guilty have to do with any of this? That is a legal concept and you are not on trial, no matter how much you imagine yourself to be. You said something dumb and sexist in a public forum and someone else pointed out that it was dumb and sexist in a public forum. And the truth is that you are defending yourself, primarily by going on the offensive and accusing your critics of
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Uglies v pretties
Jan 17th, 2013 11:15 am | By Ophelia BensonSeen the 9 Ugliest Feminists In America thing?
It ends with a bizarre non sequitur.
Feminists want to be valued for their brainpower and ideas above all else, but they still engage in professional photoshoots to push the prettiest picture of themselves on their web sites and book jackets. I guess even feminism can’t completely demolish a girl’s desire to be pretty.
Well one reason for that might possibly be the way people like this “Roosh” fella like to shame feminist women for being ugly.
I’m fortunate to be too obscure to be on the list, but I certainly get plenty of shaming-for-being-ugly elsewhere, especially of course on the mildew pit (let’s give it a new moniker for a change). … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Another gang rape on a bus in India
Jan 17th, 2013 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The bus driver and his helper took the woman to an undisclosed address where five others joined the two men and raped her throughout the night, police said.… Read the rest
Distinctions
Jan 17th, 2013 10:21 am | By Ophelia BensonSome things are even worse than colonialism – at least the people of northern Mali feel that way after months of being oppressed and tormented by Islamists. They wave Frech flags, they smile, they want the French to stay.
… Read the restMali was one of the most successful democracies in Africa until insurgents began trying to take it over.
Besides taking many lives, the insurgents have destroyed historic shrines in Timbuktu that date to the 15th century. The attackers say the shrines offend Sharia law.
Such allegations have spurred the International Criminal Court to launch a war-crimes investigation, its chief prosecutor announced Wednesday. Fatou Bensouda said Mali’s government asked the U.N. tribunal to investigate in July, after Islamists had taken control of
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Both barrels
Jan 17th, 2013 9:47 am | By Ophelia BensonOne good thing – although really it’s only the undoing of a bad thing. Obama’s new moves on gun control included 23 unilateral orders, which included an end to a ban on gun-violence research by the CDC. A what? An end to a ban on what? Yes: a ban on gun-violence research by the Centers for Disease Control. The NRA has way too much power.
… Read the restObama issued a presidential memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other scientific agencies to research the causes and prevention of gun violence — and he called on Congress to provide $10 million to pay for it.
“We don’t benefit from ignorance. We don’t benefit
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Obama unveils gun control proposals
Jan 17th, 2013 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
He signed 23 unilateral orders, including an end to a ban on gun-violence research by the CDC.… Read the rest
Islamists flee Timbuktu
Jan 17th, 2013 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The people of Timbuktu are overjoyed. “Today everyone can do as they please. We would like the French to come to Timbuktu.”… Read the rest
The heroic standard is too high
Jan 16th, 2013 11:07 am | By Ophelia BensonI’m thinking about the Romantic cult of the hero, and what a bad insidious idea it can be.
Yesterday Sara Mayhew made a rather pointed remark on Twitter.
If a retired US AirForce Col. who pioneered as one of the 1st female pilot and flight surgeons voices critique about your feminism, listen.
Here again is what I quoted Harriet Hall saying in Shermer’s hit piece on me [update: with Shermer's prefatory phrase added]
… Read the restAs for why the sex ratio [among atheists and skeptics] isn’t perfectly fifty-fifty, Hall noted: “I think it is unreasonable to expect that equal numbers of men and women will be attracted to every sphere of human endeavor. Science has shown that real differences exist. We should
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Paging Orac
Jan 15th, 2013 3:49 pm | By Ophelia BensonOh yes I forgot one of my favorite things from earlier today.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
In which I get closer to Shermer’s word count
Jan 15th, 2013 2:53 pm | By Ophelia BensonOk so now Shermer’s “response” is online, so I can look at a couple of other details I omitted because I didn’t want to retype the whole damn thing.
By the way I get to respond in the next issue. I’m going to do that. I’ll be briefer, and more polite, and I won’t pretend to think anyone is going to “come for me.”
… Read the restWhen self-proclaimed secular feminists attacked Richard Dawkins for a seemingly innocent response to an equally innocent admonishment to guys by Rebecca Watson (the founder of Skepchicks) that it isn’t cool to hit on women in elevators, this erupted into what came to be known as “Elevatorgate.” I didn’t speak out because I figured that an
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Shermer responds. Again.
Jan 15th, 2013 11:21 am | By Ophelia BensonSo, that was interesting. I collected the big bag of held mail yesterday, and sorted it, and found the latest Freethinker with my column in it, and the latest Free Inquiry with my column in it. Late in the evening I flung myself down to read the Free Inquiry – and was brought up short on the contents page. “Oh? Eh? Wha? Really? Er…uh oh.” Because why? Because
53 Response
A Guy Thing? Secularism, Feminism, and a Response to Ophelia Benson
Michael Shermer
Huh, I thought. Huh. But he already did respond. At some length. With considerable heat. With, in fact, quite a large helping of righteous indignation. With an air of “who is this woman to criticize something I … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Last geography lesson for now
Jan 14th, 2013 5:40 pm | By Ophelia BensonTaking off yesterday from San Jose, we flew straight south at first. I know, it’s to do with the prevailing winds, but I kept wanting to shout “Hey! North! Seattle is north!”
But then we did the big turn to go the other way, and I had a window seat on the left side so I got a terrific view of Monterey Bay – the same view I’d had all morning from Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz, but from 30 miles away and higher up. I could see Point Pinos, where the Monterey peninsula turns the corner to Asilomar, right next to where I’d been staying. I could also see…the Santa Cruz wharf. That was a funny experience. It was … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Synecdoche
Jan 14th, 2013 3:16 pm | By Ophelia BensonA tech writer writes about a sexist piece of advertising.
What does that advertise? A voice-control company. So it’s not what you think! That picture is all about her voice! That finger in her mouth is just a finger! And it’s pointing at her voice. And she does have eyes and a top to her head, but that would be completely irrelevant to the message of the ad, which is about voice-control.
… Read the restSex sells, right? And disembodied female body parts coupled with Beavis and Butt-head-level puns are super-sexy, right?
Guys, this is why we don’t have more women in tech: It’s a cesspool. As long as we’re passing offensive schlock like this off as marketing for a major technology
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
See, this is what I’m saying
Jan 14th, 2013 11:41 am | By Ophelia BensonVia the genius at Gnu Atheism on Facebook.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Going the long way around
Jan 14th, 2013 11:20 am | By Ophelia BensonA cleric does the “god is complicated” dance, with a large helping of “I’m more sophisticated than they are” thrown in. A doorstep fella asked him if he’d found God yet. Oh how vulgar.
It was the formulation of his question that raised my hackles. It implied that God was a comprehensible being awaiting discovery. Scratch the surface of existence persistently enough and he will be revealed.
Well yes. That would be because people like you are always talking about god – talking about god is your profession! – so it’s really not all that strange that people think you mean something by it. You treat it as a name, so people hear it as a name.
If god … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The romance novelist and the guy with a truck
Jan 14th, 2013 9:42 am | By Ophelia BensonI don’t think I was aware of Alisa Valdes before. She wrote a memoir, The Feminist and the Cowboy: an Unlikely Romance. Sounds potentially good, in a way – she teaches him to understand that women aren’t lesser beings, he teaches her to appreciate horses and bad coffee. Culture clash made fun; meeting cute; oddly-matched couple models the potential for mutual broadening of horizons.
Yes but that’s not the plot. The plot is that she
falls in love with a cowboy who teaches her to reconnect with her “femininity” — and to never talk back, open her own car door or walk on the street side of the sidewalk.
Erm. That’s not a good plot. I dislike that … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
