Author: Ophelia Benson

The BBC:

A prominent female Afghan politician has been killed in a bomb attack in eastern Afghanistan, officials say.

Hanifa Safi died after a bomb attached to her car exploded as she left her home in Laghman province. Her husband and daughter were injured.

As the provincial head of the Afghan ministry of women’s affairs, Safi had for years been a leading advocate of fair treatment for women.

She had been known locally for going out without her head covered.

Dammit.

Another repetition of the hissy finger-pointy meme that (deep breath and then say along with me) FTbloggersareevilbullies.

I should have written this post a few months ago…I am ashamed that I didn’t write about this months ago. It is with more than a little apprehension that I say the following: I think there might be some truth to the seemingly outrageous claim that a few of the bloggers at FtB are acting like bullies.

To be clear, the majority of those writing for FtB have not been doing any detectible bullying. In fact, I am referring to a relatively small group of about 4 or 5 at most. Based on the comments I’ve seen here and on other atheist blogs, as well as the email I’ve received, I am fairly confident you know who they are. So while I am of the opinion that FtB and any other blog conglomerate is generally a bad idea, this is not an indictment of the entire FtB team.

No no, not at all…But then why say FtB at all? Why not just talk about the specific blogs instead? “FtB” doesn’t blog anything; specific blogs do. Talk to them, don’t talk to the umbrella.

Then there’s the lack of specifics. There are three links to posts – one each of PZ’s, mine, and Jason’s – but there are no quoted passages. There’s a lot of very stale, recycled-looking generalization, with no particulars at all. The generalization is so recycled that it’s even labeled as such in places –

From what I have seen for myself and heard from others, they quickly dismiss ideas different from their own…Phrases like “groupthink,” “hive mind,” and “echo chamber” have been used when describing these few FtB bloggers. There was talk of this well before Kirby…I have heard from many people who are questioning whether they can continue to support FtB as long as they promote the few bloggers to which I am referring.

People say, therefore it must be true, so I will say too, without troubling myself to give any particulars at all, even to illustrate what the hell I’m talking about, let alone actually demonstrating it. Buzz buzz buzz, whisper whisper whisper, ooooooh doncha just hate that FTB.

There is also the fact that at least some of that buzzbuzz is coming from a very small but very dedicated and very obsessed group who hate the mythic beast FTB out of all proportion to its actual evil or importance. They are having some success in creating an impression that Everybody Thinks FTB is terrible – so people like this Atheist Revolution feel “ashamed” that they didn’t get out ahead of the curve and talk smack about FTB “months ago” – as if it were some urgent duty left undone as opposed to a stupid spiteful campaign of cyberstalking.

There’s one item I want to dispute directly.

Kirby deserved flak for the “feminzai” slur. Isn’t that one of Rush Limbaugh’s words? She should have known that this would color everything else she wrote, even though some of her points were valid. But I do think it should have been okay for her to raise the issue of bullying without being ripped to shreds over it. Based on the prolonged reaction to her letter, I’m not sure this was the case.

That’s stupid. She didn’t just “raise the issue of bullying” (and it’s debatable whether there really is an issue separate from the campaign to make it an issue); she called people a lot of very rude names including Nazi and Stasi in the process of claiming that they’re bullies. That’s why she got harsh responses. Since there is no rude-names-free version of Kirby’s discussion of “the issue of bullying,” it’s not possible to know how that version would have been received, and it certainly makes no sense to scold us for not addressing a version that doesn’t exist. The sneering epithets are interwoven into the “Oppressed Sisterhood” article, and that’s the article I and others criticized.

I could always just get a T shirt made up…

Women held a rally in Kabul on July 11 to protest violence against women. Radio Free Europe words it strangely though.

Dozens of women have rallied in Kabul to condemn violence against women.

The protest on July 11 follows the public execution of a young married Afghan woman in Parwan Province who was accused of adultery.

That was no execution. That was a murder. There was no trial, no judge, no jury, no defense, no due process of any kind. There was just an accusation, followed by a public murder. Yet RFE calls it an execution twice more, before finally calling it a killing at the end.

It was a murder.

Religion News is interested in our little spats. (Well it would be, wouldn’t it – except that JREF and TAM actually aren’t atheist, and are a bit hostile to atheism, at least at TAM.)

Officials for The Amazing Meeting, or TAM, said Wednesday (July 11) that women would make up 31 percent of the 1,200 conference attendees, down from 40 percent the year before. A month before the conference, pre-registration was only 18 percent women, organizers said.

The explanations are many — the bad economy, that women, as caregivers, are less able to get away, and that more men than women identify as skeptics, whose worldview rejects the supernatural and focuses on science and rationality.

But in the weeks preceding TAM, another possible explanation has roiled the nontheist community. Online forums have crackled with charges of sexism in TAM’s leadership and calls for the ouster of D.J. Grothe, the male president of the James Randi Educational Foundation, TAM’s organizer. In June, Rebecca Watson, a skeptic blogger and speaker, canceled her TAM appearance because, she said on her blog, she does “not feel welcome or safe.”

Other nontheists — both male and female — have shared stories of unwanted sexual attention at nontheist gatherings, including propositions for sex and unwelcome touching. Chatter has ranged from calls for more women to attend nontheist events to personal attacks on prominent female skeptics for discussing harassment. Meanwhile, two more skeptic/feminist bloggers announced they will not attend TAM.

Two? Who’s the other one?

The current hullabaloo can be traced to May’s Women in Secularism Conference, a first-of-its-kind gathering for nontheist women. On a panel examining feminism and nontheism, Jennifer McCreight, an atheist blogger, said women speakers at nontheist events warn each other privately about male speakers who make unwanted sexual advances.

“They brought up a concern about harassment at conferences and I was not aware of that problem,” said Ron Lindsay, president of the Center for Inquiry, a humanist-skeptic group that organized the women’s conference. “Maybe I should have been. But once I became aware of that concern it wasn’t that difficult to come to a decision that we should have a policy in place to deal with that.”

So they did, and so did other organizations. But…

As these groups and others unveiled their policies, members of the skeptic community asked whether TAM had one in place.

And that’s where things got ugly. In an appeal to assure women that TAM is welcoming and safe, Grothe made comments that upset some in the community. They accused him of underplaying, and even ignoring, reported harassment at past meetings, and of “blaming the victims” of the alleged incidents. Grothe apologized to Watson on her blog, Skepchick.

“I believe strongly that women’s voices need to be taken seriously in the atheist and skeptics movements, that any reports of harassment or assault at atheist and skeptics events need to be taken seriously and recorded, and acted on effectively, and that those who make reports of such harassment shouldn’t ever be blamed for such,” Grothe wrote.

Asked to comment for this story, Grothe said he stood by his online remarks.

Too bad the article quotes only the later remarks, not the ones that “upset some in the community.” And pathetic that DJ said he stood by his remarks.

Many skeptic women say they have no plans to abandon the conference or the broader nontheist community.

“We may not be able to ever completely solve misogyny online but we can absolutely do a better job ensuring that our physical events are welcoming and safe spaces for women and minorities than we have been,” said Amy Davis Roth, a longtime skeptic who has helped raise almost $8,000 for grants to send 22 women to this year’s TAM.

“Anti-harassment polices are a good start because it sends the message that event organizers want everyone to feel safe and that harassment will not be tolerated by our community,” she said.

Which is why it’s a pity that TAM still doesn’t have one. It has sarcastic T shirts, instead.

Jessica Valenti explains (more patiently than I could) why most rape jokes are not funny (and what kind are).

But here’s the thing: threatening women with rape, making light of rape, and suggesting that women who speak up be raped is not edgy or controversial. It’s the norm. This is what women deal with every day. Maintaining the status quo around violence against women isn’t exactly revolutionary.

The woman who was the target of Daniel Tosh’s “jokes” tells what that was like. Tosh told some rape jokes (not the funny kind), and she disrupted his routine by yelling, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!”

After I called out to him, Tosh paused for a moment. Then, he says, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…” and I, completely stunned and finding it hard to process what was happening but knowing I needed to get out of there, immediately nudged my friend, who was also completely stunned, and we high-tailed it out of there. It was humiliating, of course, especially as the audience guffawed in response to Tosh, their eyes following us as we made our way out of there. I didn’t hear the rest of what he said about me.

It’s reminiscent of Michael Richards’s racist “jokes” yelled at another heckler a few years ago. That was a career-ender. Will the same apply to Tosh? I don’t know, but I doubt it.

Want to see why? This is why.

Picture credit “Karl Withakay”

How poignant. A Catholic priest in Poland put up that giant statue of Jesus but it didn’t do any good. People in Poland are still wandering away from the church.

Just past the Polish border, passengers traveling by train from Berlin to Warsaw can see Jesus. He is 36-meters (118 feet) tall, made of concrete, and towers over the surrounding fields near the town of Swiebodzin, a gilded crown perched nobly on his head. His gaze is directed over the Recaro plant, which makes car seats…

Well that could be your problem right there. Maybe his gaze should be directed over a plant which makes bicycle seats, or zippers, or napkin rings.

The plaque at the base of the giant religious statue says that Jesus Christ is the true king of Poland and will rule for eternity. It is not for nothing that the country is, in the eyes of the church at least, Europe’s most Catholic nation.

Yet despite the monumental redeemer, Swiebodzin has not become a pilgrimage site. “The statue has not triggered a tourism boom yet,” confirms Waldemar Roszczuk, editor-in-chief of the city’s newspaper and publisher of a regional Internet publication.

I’m telling you, it’s that car seat plant. Thinking more broadly here, maybe Jesus’s gaze should be directed over something that’s not a plant at all, but something more attractive to tourists – an insurance office, a shopping mall, a meadow full of wild flowers.

After joining the European Union, Poland turned to the West and embraced the Western lifestyle more than almost any other country. Nowadays, Polish women dream of careers, self-fulfillment and children. Hundreds of thousands of young Poles live together without being married. In booming cities like Warsaw and Poznan, gays and lesbians live their lives as openly as in Berlin or Madrid.

“More and more taboos are falling by the wayside. But the church reacts by hardening its positions even further,” says Barto.

And putting its giant statues of Jesus next to plants that make car seats.

Brilliant. The Washington Monthly does a big ol’ serious thinky article on Y No Wimmin at policy events, forums, and conferences around DC, and before people can even get to the serious thinky words they get an eyefull of a pouty babe with big tits in a tank top.

The comments below the article are mostly pretty annoyed.

H/t Katha Pollitt

How miserably sad and depressing. Farida Afridi, an activist for tribal women in Pakistan, was murdered today. (You know how. You don’t even need to look. Leaving home for work. Guys on motorcycles. Guns. Died on the way to the hospital.)

Along with her sister Noor Zia, Farida was committed to social change and economic emancipation for women from the platform of a welfare organisation called the Society for Appraisal and Women Empowerment in Rural Areas (SAWERA). Both women were among the founding members of the NGO and had a Masters degree in Gender Studies.

Due to tribal customs and traditions, women in the area remain mostly restricted and unable to achieve their true potential, but Farida broke all barriers and relentlessly worked for women’s development. “We have lost a great member of our team,” said Lal Jan, the technical advisor of the organisation.

…

The sisters faced tough resistance when they told their family about the path they had chosen for themselves. “We told our parents that we would work in accordance with our religious and cultural traditions, assuring them that we would never let the family honour suffer because of our line of work. Finally, they agreed,” Noor had said.

Syed Afzal Shinwari, project coordinator in Community Appraisal and Motivation Program (CAMP), said that SAWERA started small but is now an influential organisation. “Because of this brutal act, women in Fata will be discouraged to work and development will come to a halt,” he said.

You can go back and read an optimistic article about them from last September.

If it weren’t for the support of their father and the persistence of their mother, Farida Afridi and Noor Zia Afridi would not be able to read a single word of this article. But today, the two are not only final year students of MSc in Gender studies and holders of MBA degrees, but are also determined champions of women’s education and empowerment.

Farida and Noor’s long struggle against discriminatory tribal customs started when they were school children. “After we completed our primary education, our male family members wanted us to stop going to school,” says Farida. But the girls’ parents were adamant that they would continue their education.

Since then, equal status for women and children’s rights have been issues close to their hearts. It was to win these rights that the two established the Society for Appraisal and Women Empowerment in Rural Areas (SAWERA) in the Jamrud subdivision of Khyber Agency in December 2008.

And this is their reward.

I’ve been wondering what Richard Dawkins thinks of Paula Kirby’s salvo against the Sisterhood of the Oppressed and the Approved Male Chorus. I expect a lot of people have, seeing as how she’s the executive director of RDF-UK. I’m sure we’ll never know, in the sense of being told in so many words. But possibly there are hints…he did a tweet today quoting and endorsing praise of Paula’s Washington Post blog post from last year, Religion lies about women. I RTd it with a “Ditto.” I liked (and posted about, and wished I’d written) that article last year, and I still do.

But I don’t see any RTs of the salvo against the Sisterhood of the Oppressed. That’s possibly a hint. Or it’s possibly just discretion and a disinclination to spit in the faces of friends and allies, such as the people who run CFI and the people who were speakers at the conference and attended the conference. But then…if it’s that, it is in fact a tacit opinion of Paula’s salvo, because Paula’s salvo conspicuously spits in the faces of all those friends and allies. Consider some of them – Margaret Downey, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Wafa Sultan, Susan Jacoby, Jennifer Michael Hecht…You can see how Richard wouldn’t want to insult them by calling them the Sisterhood of the Oppressed, or his many friends and allies at CFI who organized and hosted the conference by jeering at the whole idea.

Anyway, that article. Take a passage from the article –

In the eyes of the Abrahamic religions, the archetypal woman is Eve: disobedient, unreliable, easily led astray, and a seductive temptress of man – man being more noble, yet easy prey to the wiles and seductions of his weaker mate. Woman is the source of danger, the one who corrupts him, the conduit for all that is evil in the world. She is dangerous … yet irresistible; and this very irresistibility makes her more dangerous still. But you will notice that the dangers of sexual temptation are not to be faced equally by men and women: no, religion demands that it is the woman who bears the burden. Solomon, we are told, had 700 wives and 300 concubines, and David had a more modest yet still energy-sapping five wives and 10 concubines, yet neither of these has become a by-word for male insatiability. Jezebel, on the other hand, has become synonymous with sexual excess, despite this not being among the vices attributed to her in the bible story.

Indeed. And? What about it? Why criticize it? Aren’t we supposed to ignore all that and just focus on being strong and determined ourselves? From the salvo:

I did a sociology module as part of my degree many years ago: I know the arguments about socialization and normative values, and structural discrimination and all that malarkey. All I can say in response is that, while all these things may be true to a greater or lesser extent, banging on about them does not even begin to help women achieve their goals. If we, as women, externalize the reasons why we are not being heard as much as we say we’d like to be, and seek to put the blame on other people, nothing is going to change or, at the very best, it is only going to change painfully slowly. It is a simple fact of life that it is always easier to change our own behaviour than to persuade other people to change theirs.

So why bang on about religion? Why bang on about the Abrahamic religions and their view of the archetypal woman? If it does not even begin to help women achieve their goals, as Paula claims, then why did she trouble to write that article?

So there is an alternative, and it is this alternative that I would urge women to seize with both hands – whether we’re talking about how we interact in our jobs, in our social lives or in the atheist movement. And that alternative is to take responsibility for ourselves and our own success. To view ourselves as mature, capable adults who can take things in our stride, and can speak up appropriately. To really start believing that we can do whatever men can do. To stop seizing on excuses for staying quiet and submissive, stop blaming it on men or hierarchies or misogyny or, silliest of all, “privilege”, and start simply practising being more assertive.

You could re-write that last sentence to say “To stop seizing on excuses for staying quiet and submissive, stop blaming it on men or hierarchies or misogyny or Abrahamic religions or, silliest of all, “privilege”, and start simply practising being more assertive.” Why would the added item to stop blaming it on be out of place? It seems to me to fit perfectly well. If Paula thought then that it was worth saying how religion described women and what it told them to do, why does she now think it’s a big mistake to say that? I would seriously like to know.

In truth I have a very hard time even understanding the thinking in that passage. The idea that social and cultural factors just don’t matter, or that even if they matter it’s much better to ignore them and simply push harder – I can’t think my way into it. It seems like thinking breathing doesn’t matter. We live in the world, we’re embedded in the world, everything we have and do and think about is part of the world. We can’t just detach from it and do everything in glorious isolation.

I’m practicing being more assertive when I say that.