Feminism is a core humanist value

Written by

Ophelia Benson

in

Greg Epstein later did another series of tweets in order to make clear his attitude to feminism and its more acrimonious opponents.

I’ll start with this one.

Greg Epstein @gregmepstein · 4 hours ago
This Sunday, the organization I direct– the @HarvardHumanist @HumanistHub will present an award to feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian.

Ms. Sarkeesian and other online feminist leaders have been the target of an extraordinary amount of harassment by anti-feminists, MRA’s etc.

I want to address those individuals, and anyone else with questions about why we chose this awardee.

Feminism is a core Humanist value. This isn’t something I decided-it’s the consensus view over ~100 years of a “good without God” movement

Mkay? Can we stop wrangling about that? Feminism is a core humanist value. A sexist humanism is an oxymoron. If it’s sexist it’s not humanist, just as it’s not humanist if it’s racist or homophobic or xenophobic.

K? Done?

I’m proud to be a feminist and a humanist. I’m proud to direct an org that promotes both, building community of/atheists, agnostics, & allies

When I say “allies”, I mean we have a lot of good religious people who participate, knowing that what we do is not theistic, but enjoying it

So, if you’re an “ally”, please know I’m speaking *today* especially to members of my own community– fellow atheists/humanists/etc.

I recently saw : A ’14 survey of the Men’s Rights subreddit found 94% of them identified as “atheist” or “religiously indifferent”

Here’s article describing these “MRA’s” & how they’ve behaved twds Ms. Sarkeesian & her peers. Not well.

It’s a huge problem. Atheists have just as much LEGAL right as anyone to not be feminists-but I’m not safe in my community if women aren’t.

If you have disagreements w/our awardee’s ideas-by all means. No artist/thinker/critic was ever right every time. Not me, not her, not you.

If you behave obnoxiously: harassing/shouting/threatening- you remove yourself from the community of reason. If we block you-you earned it.

. only now admits it sucks dealing w/misogynist abuse. Atheists have had to protect their own community.

I’m just getting into the dialogue here but many in our community have led. & Blocked. @amandamarcotte @pzmyers & so many more…Thank you.

.@mirandachale 1 man I banned’s profile: “fully licensed misogynist.” In just 2 days I’ve seen awful behavior feminist women deal w/daily.

.@UniversityWatc1 block bigots≠turning on men. It’s pro-men to be feminist. Read Iron John. Join a men’s group-I did. Good luck. Blocked

.@BackToTheBlade Our awardee tirelessly promotes humanist & feminist values in an $50B+/year industry. Don’t respect it? Ok. But– blocked.

So that’s most of how that went.

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