From Gnu Atheism on Facebook, again.

 … Read the rest

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Trudeau did a series on sexual harassment in the military this past week. The one for August 22 is especially…cogent.

In fact, if you report rape, your career is almost certainly over.

People keep saying – keep shouting, roaring, bellowing – that if there is rape or harassment victims must report it and if they have failed to report it or reported it too late or reported it to the wrong person or institution (too late or wrong in the view of the shouter, of course) then they are doing a terrible, criminal thing. But the reality is that reporting rape or harassment can fuck up the victim’s life even more than it already was. It’s not the case that … Read the rest

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Hey I’ve got a great idea for a sitcom. A guy rapes a girl of 14, see, and makes her pregnant, and she has the baby and her mother has to quit her job to take care of the baby. Good so far, right? Then – this is where it gets really funny – a judge decides to give jurisdiction to family court, so the girl is stuck with him for the next sixteen years! Hilarious or what?

The rape victim doesn’t think so.

“The plaintiff, a rape victim in a state criminal matter, became pregnant in 2009 at age 14 as a result of the crime and gave birth to her attacker’s child,” the lawsuit states.

“The defendant in

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Who else? Well there’s Anna Gunn, who plays the character Skyler White on Breaking Bad (which I’ve never seen, I should add in case I’m expected to be knowledgeable about the show). She gets hatred and threats, because…well because she plays this one tv character that people don’t like, because her character is a woman, married to a man, and even though the man does some bad things, well…

My character, to judge from the popularity of Web sites and Facebook pages devoted to hating her, has become a flash point for many people’s feelings about strong, nonsubmissive, ill-treated women. As the hatred of Skyler blurred into loathing for me as a person, I saw glimpses of an anger

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It was Merlyn’s 3d birthday yesterday. Dave Richards’s Merlyn. He has a birthday portrait.

… Read the rest

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Google says said happy 126th birthday to Erwin Schrödinger.

… Read the rest

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From Gnu Atheism on Facebook:

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A funny little thing about memory a couple of hours ago – a madeleine-equivalent but not to do with taste or smell. I happened on a mammoth yard sale which turned out to be loaded with interesting stuff. An old-fashioned wicker dolls’ carriage was the first thing I spotted, with old-fashioned doll dresses in it, plus a stack of handmade doll bedding in a pretty fabric. A couple of slipper chairs with purple velvet seats, an oddly-shaped floor lamp – and table after table after table full of dishes, costume jewelry, tchotchkes, toys – all sorts, and much nicer than the usual yard sale dreck. Hoarder-like in quantity but not in quality. I settled down to take my time and … Read the rest

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The “Gender Equality in the Secular Movement” Panel from Women in Secularism 2 is online.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzb_VFkB6ew

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But she smiled at me. But she didn’t object when I sat next to her. But she flirted back. But she let me kiss her. But she laughed at my joke. But she didn’t say no when I refilled her glass. But she drank the wine. But she let me in when I rang her doorbell.

MIKE “Handy” Hancock MP has a curious attitude to the treatment of women, judging by his lawyers’ efforts to defend him. If a woman lets a man into her home, she consents to his advances, the lawyers are arguing as they try to derail an investigation into the Portsmouth MP’s alleged harassment of a mentally ill constituent.

“In order for Hancock to have access

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Laurie Penny is tired of “Not all men!!” and similar petulant irrelevancies. True, it’s not all men, but that’s not the same thing as not a problem.

You can be the gentlest, sweetest man in the world yet still benefit from sexism. That’s how oppression works. Thousands of otherwise decent people are persuaded to go along with an unfair system because it’s less hassle that way. The appropriate response when somebody demands a change in that unfair system is to listen, rather than turning away or yelling, as a child might, that it’s not your fault. And it isn’t your fault. I’m sure you’re lovely. That doesn’t mean you don’t have a responsibility to do something about it.

Dealing … Read the rest

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Guest post by Dan Bye, originally a comment on Not prepared for what happened.

Everyone agrees there is “a” problem, and nobody is claiming that philosophy’s problem is the worst of all academic fields. So what’s left is whether philosophy has a *bad* problem.

Massimo points out that there is no evidence that philosophy has a particularly bad problem, and leaves it at that. And it’s also true that the existence of male majorities can be the result of societal pressures (i.e. sexist attitudes in the world at large) rather than sexist hiring practice, which Massimo also leaves there.

What we’ve got here is a lecture about the nature of evidence. Thanks very much. The implication, of course, is … Read the rest

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The hell with Strong Female Characters.

What what what? What should we want, weak female characters?

No; characters with more than one adjective.

Sophia McDougall explains in the New Statesman.

…the phrase “Strong Female Character” has always set my teeth on edge, and so have many of the characters who have so plainly been written to fit the bill.

I remember watching Shrek with my mother.

“The Princess knew kung-fu! That was nice,” I said. And yet I had a vague sense of unease, a sense that I was saying it because it was what I was supposed to say.

She rolled her eyes. “All the princesses know kung-fu now.”

No one ever asks if a male character is

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That’s how to make girls eager to go to school – force them to undergo “virginity” tests. Way to go, Indonesia.

From the Guardian:

A plan to make female high school students undergo mandatory virginity tests has been met with outrage from activists, who argue that it discriminates against women and violates their human rights.

Education chief Muhammad Rasyid, of Prabumulih district in south Sumatra put forward the idea, describing it as “an accurate way to protect children from prostitution and free sex”. He said he would use the city budget to begin tests early next year if MPs approved the proposal.

“This is for their own good,” Rasyid said. “Every woman has the right to virginity … we expect

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Education is important, right? It’s important to do the early stages of it well, not just the last stages, right?

Teaching is hard work. Teaching in a middle school is crazy hard work. A Facebook friend who just started teaching in a middle school posted an account of his third day, and gave me permission to quote it. It is, frankly, horrifying.

Oh oh. Day3 was worse than Day1. My 3-day experience of teaching has been pretty horrific overall. I estimate my half-life as a teacher, before I have to bail to live, is just a few more days. Jail would be better. (I could read and sleep more.) The amount of work involved is insane – and I’ll have

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Emery Emery, the “Great Penis Debate” guy, the Ardent Atheist, the guy who wrote that stupid piece about how we all just hate sex – Emery Emery has a new wheeze. His new wheeze is a fundraiser to donate to Michael Shermer’s legal fund.

I’M JUST A MEMBER OF THE COMMUNITY

• My name is Emery Emery and I am launching this fund raising effort for two reasons.

1. As a show of public support for Michael Shermer.

2. To help alleviate the expenses associated with Michael’s effort to defend his name.

• I do not know Michael Shermer personally and he has no idea I am setting up this fund raiser. I will be making sure that all money donated

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Via Sanal Edamaruku, NDTV on the passage of that law in Maharashtra.

The state government today cleared an Anti-Superstition and Black Magic Ordinance to replace a Bill that had been approved by the cabinet but had lapsed before it could be taken up in the assembly. The Bill has been pending for eight years.

Among other things, the law seeks to make it punishable for self-styled godmen to prey on people by offering rituals, charms, magical cures and propagating black magic.

Dr Dabholkar had relentlessly campaigned for a law against superstition and black magic in the face of criticism from right-wing groups who had called him “anti-Hindu”.

Sanal also linked to a separate story about a “godman” – one … Read the rest

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The IHEU has compiled reactions to the murder of Narendra Dabholkar.

The Humanist and rationalist community in India has reacted with dignified anger and sadness, remembering an effective and stalwart campaigner, dedicated to the people of Maharashtra but always ready to cooperate across organizational boundaries. He was one of India’s foremost rationalists, working for social justice, against  caste discrimination, and exposing the so-called miracles of exploititive ‘godmen’. His work was well-known, and some aspect of it is widely believed to have motivated his killers.

The law against fraud via superstion was passed.

Dabholkar also lead the campaign for an anti-superstition Bill in Maharashtra state, and in the space of two days since his assassination, the state government has —

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