Author: Ophelia Benson

  • No defence

    Jacques Rousseau has a good post on The Bumblebee Affair and assigning blame and when bullying is what’s called for. (Spoiler: never.)

    The takeaway:

    No matter how you assign blame for past actions, or what your character judgements are in relation to all the players in this soap opera, we should all remember to include ourselves in those character judgements also, and try to be objective when thinking of our roles in causing or facilitating harm to others. In this instance, Ms Bumblebee has no defence – in the knowledge that Jen McCreight has been jeered off the stage, and had a long-standing depression triggered, she doesn’t take the option of silence (never mind sympathy). Instead, she broadens the net of victims to members of Jen’s family (and of course carries on with ridiculing Jen while doing so). That’s all “on her”, as the Americans like to say, no matter what sins you think Jen might have committed in the past.

    Might be a handy insight for a workshop on bullying.

  • In which I eat crow

    A bit of housekeeping. I asked Chris Stedman about that whole business of my doing something not 100% unlike what Booly Wumblebee did the other day in the matter of Jen and her father. He replied honestly that he thought my self-repudiation should have been more public than comments. Fair enough!

    It was June last year. The title was Helicopter parents. It was not my finest hour. I hadn’t even remembered it when I wrote the post about Kristina Hansen’s version. That’s one time when the obsessed haters who monitor my every word actually did get something right, and taught me something.

    There are a lot of comments on the Helicopter parents post, but never mind that; they wouldn’t be there if I hadn’t written the post, and the blame is all mine.

    Sorry, this all looks a bit self-obsessed and vain – you know, making a display of one’s scruples and so on. Ew. I hate that kind of thing. That’s not it – it’s because of what Chris very fairly and honestly said when I asked him.

    I apologized to Toni Stedman at the time, and it didn’t occur to me that I should make that public. Now it’s public.

    Now…if the pope starts getting family members to stick up for him when I go after him, I’ll be super-critical of them and I won’t apologize. But he’s the pope. I think that’s fair. Strict, but fair.

  • The Virginia Taliban

    Parents in Virginia can prevent their children from getting any education at all if they want to, provided their reasons are religious. What a great arrangement.

    Nearly 7,000 Virginia children whose families have opted to keep them out of public school for religious reasons are not required to get an education, the only children in the country who do not have to prove they are being home-schooled or otherwise educated, according to a study.

    Virginia is the only state that allows families to avoid government intrusion once they are given permission to opt out of public school, according to a report from the University of Virginia’s School of Law. It’s a law that is defended for promoting religious freedom and criticized for leaving open the possibility that some children will not be educated.

     

    The possibility? The near-certainty. The regulation of home schooling is appallingly lax in most states, and the result is children whose education consists of watching tv.

    Home-school advocates say the law is essential to preserving the rights of families who believe that any state control of their children’s education would violate the tenets of their faith. It takes on particular importance in the state where Thomas Jefferson helped define religious freedom as a bedrock principle for the country.

    “They feel that their deity has given them that responsibility,” said Amy Wilson of the Organization of Virginia Homeschoolers. For such families, she said, to have to file paperwork and evidence of progress would put them in a crisis of conscience.

    So they get to stunt their children’s lives. Fabulous.

    Block became interested in the statute years ago, when a teenager asked for help because her parents had requested a religious exemption from compulsory attendance when she was a little girl, and she later wanted to go to school. It wasn’t until Block and a research assistant began looking into the 1976 law that he realized it was unique.

    Once parents in Virginia are granted a religious exemption, they’re no longer legally obligated to educate their children.

    The statute does not allow exemptions for political or philosophical beliefs “or a merely personal moral code,” but the beliefs do not have to be part of a mainstream religion.

    “We were surprised at how regularly the exemption is granted,” Block said. “School systems almost never deny it.” And, according to a survey of superintendents in the commonwealth, school leaders rarely have further contact with the families after granting an exemption.

    Sorry, kids. It’s the free exercise clause. Have a nice life; bye!

  • HRW tells Tunisia: fix flaws in draft constitution

    Those that would abridge freedom of expression, women’s rights, the principle of non-discrimination, and freedom of thought and conscience.

  • Another neighbor reports on Amish life

    A comment by Socio-gen, something something…

    I grew up in northeastern PA in an area that had a small Amish population (about 80 families — or 18-ish depending on whether one counted households or kin relationships). My experience was pretty similar to yours [isavaldyr’s].

    Most of the families were dairy farmers, with the poorer men working “outside” jobs in construction. The wives and daughters often ran roadside vegetable and baked good stands, in addition to all the housekeeping and child-rearing — all made more difficult and labor-intensive by their refusal to use modern technology. Few Amish women had any schooling past the 6th grade.

    The amount of abuse that Amish women and girls experienced (then and now), and the degree to which it’s simply accepted by everyone in the Amish community as an expected, normal, day-to-day experience is sickening.

    Trigger Warning for a description of abuse: I still remember seeing the girl who sold baked goods on the corner being whipped by her father (with a buggy whip) for failing to sell as much as he’d expected. I was crying and begging my grandmother to stop the car and help. . . I was only 7 or 8 and didn’t understand any of her explanation of why we couldn’t interfere. Someone is being hurt, what do you mean we can’t do anything?! I’m still brought to tears by that memory and the sick sense of horror and utter helplessness. And I remember how disillusioned I was, realizing that adults could not be counted on to act to protect someone in danger.

    From that day on, my grandmother would go to the stand on Saturday evenings and buy whatever was left so that Dora would not be hurt. It was the only form of protection she could offer (and which Dora would accept).

  • J Figdor speaks out against hate directed at women

    Talk of “white knighting” and “infantilization” is a silencing tactic.

  • Can’t drive, can’t throw, can’t shred

    And while I’m rummaging around on the BBC’s site – there’s also a piece on the Stasi.

    “The Stasi was an organisation that loved to keep paper,” says Joachim Haussler, who works for the Stasi archives authority today.

    It therefore owned few shredders – and those it did have were of poor East German quality and rapidly broke down. So thousands of documents were hastily torn by hand and stuffed into sacks. The plan was to burn or chemically destroy the contents later.

    But events overtook the plan, the Stasi was dissolved as angry demonstrators massed outside and invaded its offices, and the new federal authority for Stasi archives inherited all the torn paper.

    Typical feminists, eh? Can’t even tear up the records properly.

    Ha!

  • He will be sentenced later

    No no no; doing it wrong. A Yorkshire teenager has been found guilty of “posting an offensive Facebook message.” Posting an offensive Facebook message is a crime?

    Azhar Ahmed, 19, of Ravensthorpe, West Yorkshire, was charged with sending a grossly offensive communication.

    Waaaaait a second – posting a message on Facebook isn’t “sending” it. It’s more like publishing it. And does adding “grossly” to “offensive” make it a crime?

    Apparently it was considered so because it was posted two days after six British soldiers were killed in Afghanistan.

    The offensive message, which said “all soldiers should die and go to hell”, was posted by Ahmed just two days later on 8 March.

    ……….And?

    Facebook has a reporting system. Perhaps the message could have been taken down. Perhaps it should have been – I don’t know enough to have an opinion. But prosecution and conviction? For posting a message on Facebook?

    District Judge Jane Goodwin said Ahmed’s Facebook remarks were “derogatory, disrespectful and inflammatory”.

    He will be sentenced later.

    Oy. Doing it wrong.

     

  • Virginia students allowed to skip education

    Virginia is the only state that allows families to avoid government intrusion once they are given permission to opt out of public school.

  • What happens within the movement

    Stephanie has a good collection of items in her post Within the Movement – items that are more than just “trolls on the internet.”

      • If announcing a conference about the role of women in secularism on your organization’s site is met with charges of misandry or comments on a report of the conference have to be shut down, with the problems coming from registered users, that happens within the movement.
      • If a speaker and writer hosts a discussion for about a year that is devoted to tearing down those who call harassment an issue, posting personal information and lies, tracking everything said or tweeted in obsessive detail, that happens within the movement.
      • If an atheist organization’s leader declares publicly that what you received couldn’t have been a real threat and uses that organization’s podcast to grossly misrepresent what you did receive, that happens within the movement.

    And that’s only some of it.

  • What Amish life is really like, by an eyewitness

    A comment by isavaldyr on Big Amish Brother. Life among the Amish.

    I grew up in a very rural part of Ohio less than a mile from some Amish families. My parents, who were (and are) avid gardeners, had dealings with them related to seeds, produce and simple woodcraft–stakes for tomato plants, things like that. It’s not uncommon for the Amish to have small businesses. Sawmills (only gas-powered machines of course–being connected to an electrical grid is too worldly) and things like that. Less entrepreneurial Amish men often fall into the same niche that Mexican illegal immigrants do in many other places, providing cheap labor for things like home renovations, since Amish will work for less than an “English” roofer or sider and won’t sue you if they get hurt on the job.

    Some Amish are fairly well-to-do and have pretty luxurious lives (by Amish standards–meaning they can afford battery-powered headlights and a plastic windscreen for their horse-drawn buggy), but the ones I grew up around lived in grinding poverty. Think subsistence agriculture. The father worked part-time picking fruit at an orchard, but no one else in the family had an income. And it was a BIG family. At least 12 kids–I wish I was exaggerating. Male children (often at really horrifyingly young ages) were expected to do the farm work, while female children did everything else. The family bathed once a week, all using the same tub of water and homemade soap made from animal tallow. The father and some of the older male children had shoes, but most of the family didn’t. A few years back, the mother died from cancer; she was younger than 50. A lot of Amish will go to chiropractors or veterinarians instead of medical doctors when they have health problems, or rely on folk remedies. I remember hearing about a man from another local Amish family who was badly burned in a workshop accident and rushed to the hospital by his English coworkers. He was bandaged and given instructions to come back for a follow-up appointment, but as soon as he got home he took his wound dressing off and went into the woods to gather herbs for a poultice. I wouldn’t believe that this kind of thing still went on in 21st century America if I hadn’t seen it myself.

    Amish children go to special Amish schools whose curricula have little or no science and only go up to about 8th grade. They have inadequate nutrition, inadequate healthcare, and live in homes without running water or electricity, meaning no cooling in the summer and no heat in the winter that can’t be provided by a wood-burning stove. It’s hard for me to imagine what it’s like for the women, especially, who have to work outdoors in the brutal heat and humidity of the Ohio summer wearing heavy, black or dark blue-colored dresses and tight-fitting bonnets. They can’t even count on having a glass of ice water to cool down when they’re done–no freezer. (We’ve let this family use our freezer to store their meats more than once.) It’s just an awful, awful life of deprivation that “English” people, even poor ones, can scarcely imagine. It’s also worth noting that Amish parents very much believe in corporal punishment.

    The thing that pisses me off is that the way Amish people live would be considered abusive to their children if “English” people did it. But because they believe it’s mandated by their religion, they get a free pass. People I know don’t understand why I get so worked up about the Amish, but I’ve lived around them, talked to them, seen where they live, and it’s awful. One thing I will always remember: when I was younger, we used to have a trampoline in our front yard, and whenever the Amish kids would come down to ask a favor of my parents or barter on behalf of their father, they got to jump on it, and they were more thrilled with it than I’ve ever seen anyone be about anything. They’d also stand outside and look in our livingroom window at the TV, standing utterly still and transfixed in complete wonder. It makes me sick to think of how many other amazing things they’ll never get to experience simply because they had the misfortune of being born into a religion that rejects the whole world.

     

  • Big Amish Brother

    Have you seen “Breaking Amish”? It’s pretty fascinating – in how horrible the Amish life is.

    It’s not just in all the deprivation (no school past 8th grade for you!) and rules (as one rebel says, “you can wear this but not that…”) – it’s the revolting coldness of “shunning.” If you step out, you’re done. You can never go home, you can never see your family again. Period.

    And then there’s the surveillance – there’s the dreaded bishop’s wife, always watching and reporting. There’s the dreaded bishop, who can throw you out for any infraction.

    People like it because it seems quaint and pretty, but in reality it’s impoverished, and laborious (“do everything the hard way”) and tyrannical – and ultimately cold-hearted. Affection is contingent on rigid obedience to stupid rules.

  • One of our own killed in Libya attack

    Chris Rodda tells us the horrible news that one of the victims of the attack on the US consulate in Libya was a member of the MRFF Advisory Board, former Navy SEAL Glen Doherty.

    The Huffington Post has more.

    Doherty himself had a history of opposing religious intolerance.

    Doherty was an “extremely active” member of the advisory board of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), an advocacy group that fights inappropriate religious proselytizing inside the armed forces, said founder Mikey Weinstein, a retired Air Force lawyer.

    “He confirmed for me how deeply entrenched fundamentalist Christianity is in the DoD Spec Ops [Department of Defense Special Operations] world of the SEALs, Green Berets, Delta Force, Army Rangers USAF … and DoD security contractors like the former Blackwater,” Weinstein said in an email to The Huffington Post. Doherty “helped me on many MRFF client cases behind the scenes to facilitate assistance to armed forces members abused horribly by fundamentalist Christian proselytizing.”

    So he gets killed by Islamists.

    Dammit.

     

  • What trinioler said

    A powerful (and depressing) comment by trinioler on PZ’s excellent response to Ron Lindsay’s post:

    Okay, so, people believe that the slyme pitters are just trolls on “the internet”. Well, disabuse yourselves of that notion.

    So, we have a local CFI branch. It started out as fairly libertarian, focused on laughing at creationists, etc.

    So, some of the original organizers were the branch of libertarian skeptics/atheists we are having so much trouble with now.

    Now, given that, what impact does this have now? Well, its had a pretty severe impact, as several of the younger organizers (nearly all women) have left CFI or stopped participating.

    The Facebook page for the branch is filled with assholes who mislead, lie, make comments about breasts, lie, use slurs willy-nilly, etc, and no one stops them anymore.

    Everyone who had fought them, while getting in trouble for “causing trouble” has left.

    Essentially by NOT throwing out the racists, the sexists, the ones who lie and mislead and are not skeptical at all, they’ve lost most of the next generation of skeptical organizers. They’ve lost volunteers and dues-paying members.

    In effect, they’ve doomed the local CFI branch, which could have been and was starting to do good things.

    THIS is the cost. THIS is the divisiveness. You lose willing and hard-working young volunteers, who want and expect better from the leaders. You turn them apathetic and cynical. They burn out from the fighting, without a lack of support.

    So to whoever says this divisiveness is bad? It really is, for your organizations, not ours. It will cost you volunteers and members and energy, because you won’t do what’s necessary.

     

  • Outraged in the Hebrides

    The Highlands Presbyterians are outraged because Dawkins is invited to the Faclan Hebridean Book Festival on the Isle of Lewis.

    The festival does not take place until November but as soon as Prof Dawkins’ name appeared on the schedule it was enough to rouse the ire of many in this stronghold of Presbyterianism.

    Pastor Donnie Stewart of the New Wine Church in Stornoway said: “It is disappointing he has been invited, given the Christian heritage and local sensitivities here.”

    Is it? So the Christian heritage there means atheists should Keep Out? Only one opinion allowed, in the whole region? Really, Mr Stewart – that’s an awfully theocratic claim.

    …the Free Church (known locally as the Wee Frees) got involved, challenging Prof Dawkins to a debate.

    His response – a deliberately antagonistic jibe on Twitter – did not go down well.

    “As a great president of the Royal Society said, ‘That would look great on your CV, not so good on mine,’” he tweeted.

    Oh those deliberately antagonistic jibes on Twitter! Hahahahaha

    As of last night, Prof Dawkins insisted he will attend the festival but still refuses to debate.

    The main winners at this stage, it seems, are the organisers of the Faclan Book Festival who have generated the sort of publicity they could only ever have dreamed of before they decided to put Prof Dawkins on the schedule.

    Oooh – deliberately stirring up controversy to get blog hits ticket sales. Naughty!

  • Highlands Presbyterians furious at Dawkins invitation

    The Wee Frees challenged him to a debate; he replied with the usual quip: ‘That would look great on your CV, not so good on mine.’

  • Meeting Libya’s Ansar al-Sharia

    The group made it clear they would not speak to female members of our team.

  • Religion versus Atheism in Nigeria

    According to a recent worldwide poll called The Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism, Africa is the world’s most devout region. Even with a global decline in religiosity, the black continent has the smallest number of self-proclaimed atheists in the world. I think this poll clearly mirrors the state of religion and atheism in the region. Nigeria trails behind Ghana in terms of religiosity with 93 percent of the respondents saying they were religious. I guess fewer Nigerians would identify themselves as religious if there were assurances of safety and no victimization if they proclaimed and declared themselves atheists. In Nigeria, people who do not profess any religion or belief in god find themselves in a perilous predicament. They are ostracized, maltreated and discriminated against. But the situation of atheists is not the same across the country. How one is treated as an atheist depends on so many factors, such as the part of the country where one is living – is it in the Christian dominated South or in the muslim dominated North? Is it in the rural or urban areas? It also depends on one’s family background, gender, level of education, employment and income. Male atheists who are highly educated and are financially independent face less risk than their female counterparts.

    In Nigeria, atheism is a taboo. It is abominable for anyone to proclaim openly that god does not exist. It is not safe and normal for persons to admit being atheist. The reactions include sardonic incredulity, shock, anger, and hatred. Atheism goes with huge costs – social and political consequences – which many people cannot afford. Generally atheists are not accorded respect. They are not treated as human beings with equal rights and dignity. In fact in Nigeria it is better and more socially acceptable to profess a belief in any god or any religion than to profess no religion and lack of belief in god. Many people will not welcome an atheist to their homes. The general misconception is that atheists are horrible human beings, the agents of the devil who lack common moral decencies. Many people are made to believe that atheists can corrupt their minds or ‘souls’, cause them to derail from the path of truth and righteousness, and lead them to hell fire and eternal damnation. In fact the whole idea of atheism is scary to many Nigerians. Most people would want not to be associated with that label or perspective. Most Nigerians believe all initiatives should be founded on god, no matter how absurd or vaguely conceived such an idea is.

    Again, most Nigerians socialize and marry along religious and theistic lines. The issue of the religion or belief in god plays prominent role when marriages are contracted. So atheists – self proclaimed atheists – may find it difficult to get partners unless they are ready to convert or to renounce atheism or to conceal their atheism. Unfortunately the dream of most young Nigerians is to marry in churches or mosques or to have their marriages blessed by a clergy even when such marriages are contracted in a court or registry. There are no indications that ‘blessed marriages’ succeed better than those contracted without such theistic theatrics.

    In Nigeria, anyone who goes open and public with his or her atheism risks losing family support, care and solidarity. In 2003, a Muslim woman from the North who is acclaimed nationwide as liberal and progressive in her views visited our humanist stand during an event in Abuja. After a short brief on what humanism was all about, she said she would have nothing to do with any of her children who renounced Islam. Many children are not ready to go against what is often perceived as the divine will of their parents particularly when it comes to religious or theistic matters. They prefer to pretend and to present themselves as religious and theistic. In Nigeria, family and community links are very strong and important. The Nigerian state is not as developed as states in the western world, and many people rely on their families and community members for care and support. So, families often tyrannize over the lives and choices of members. For example , most people who are born in Christian families are brought up in a christian way, attend christian schools and marry christian partners. Parents regard it as a duty to bring their children up in a  religious and theistic way. For a child to profess atheism is generally seen as a mark of parental, family and societal failure. Atheism goes with a stigma which most families abhor and do not want to associate with.

    Furthermore, there is massive unemployment in the country and atheists find it difficult getting jobs. Very often, employers demand to know people’s religious affiliation during the recruitment process. Many people are forced to profess theism or a certain religion in order to secure a job. Many atheists prefer not go open with their atheistic identity due to fear of being victimized. They do not want to jeopardize their chances of getting a job (earning a living) or keeping the jobs they have already secured. Indeed atheists who go open with their godless outlook risk remaining unemployed, or being sacked or demoted. Most businesses including state functions open with prayers which everybody is expected to say at least as a demonstration of goodwill. As an atheist, refusing to pray could easily be interpreted as a mark of ill will.

    Even in the area of education atheists face so many challenges.  Schools in Nigeria were originally started and are still managed mainly by religious – Christian and Islamic – bodies. Religious indoctrination is quite dominant in the school system. There is a mixture of the schooling and faith traditions. Teaching and preaching, instruction and brainwashing go together. In fact the classrooms and lecture halls are extensions of churches and mosques. Atheists in Nigeria have no choice but to receive faith-based ‘godly’education or no education at all.

    In the area of politics, atheism could be a hindering factor. Some years ago, a former Nigerian president said that nobody who opposed Islam could succeed politically in Northern Nigeria. And in the same vein, I submit that no self-proclaimed atheist can succeed politically in contemporary Nigeria. Atheists stand little or no chance of being elected to an office. Nigerians vote and ‘politik’ along religious lines. Nigeria has never had an atheist president or governor and may not have in the foreseeable future. Political Islam is very strong in the North while political Christianity is strong in most parts of the south. Religious affiliations play a key role in the choice, election and appointment of political candidates. Going open and public with one’s atheism is like making oneself politically unelectable. In fact it is like committing political suicide.

    But I must state that the situation is worse in Muslim-dominated communities in Northern Nigeria. Muslim majority states in this part of the country are implementing sharia law. And under sharia law, apostasy is a crime punishable by death. To be an atheist is more or less to be an apostate – or an infidel or a criminal. There is really no space for atheists to be and to operate. Being an atheist is a matter of life and death. In fact in Muslim sharia-implementing communities in Nigeria, there are two places an atheist can be – in the closet or in the grave. Proclaiming oneself an atheist is like passing a death sentence on oneself. Being an atheist is like handing oneself over to be executed.

    In addition, atheistic expressions are often regarded as blasphemy, and blasphemy is another offence punishable by death or long prison sentences. Any expressive atheist could be branded a blasphemer. Such a person risks being imprisoned or murdered in cold blood by Allah’s self proclaimed foot soldiers. In 2007, a Christian teacher in Gombe state was murdered by a Muslim mob for defiling the Koran. In a region charged with Islamic fanaticism and bigotry, atheists are an endangered species and cannot survive in the open and public space. So in Muslim communities, atheists live in constant fear of their lives. They are socially and politically invisible. Atheists are treated as third class citizens who should be neither seen nor heard.

    But I still maintain that there are some positive signs out there that the situation of atheists in Nigeria is improving, though slowly. For instance, the poll on religiosity and atheism recorded a reduction in the number of Nigerians who identified themselves as religious. That means more people identified themselves as atheists or as non-religious than in an earlier poll. And this development could be attributed to three factors: 1) The advent of the internet which has provided an alternative ‘safe’ space for atheists to ‘come out’, to meet, organize and express themselves in a way that has never been the case. 2) The destructive wave of religious extremism ravaging the country has caused many Nigerians to begin questioning religious and theistic claims and pretensions.3) The growing visibility of the new atheist movement driven by the bestselling publications of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens has emboldened many atheists to leave the closet.

    Still atheists in Nigeria have a long way to go before they can be treated with full dignity and respect. Atheism is the most commonsensical of all commonsense notions. But like any progressive development against the backdrop of religious opposition, improving the situation of atheists will not be an easy feat to achieve. It requires – and will require – a lot of courage, sacrifice and struggle.

  • Has it already been repudiated?

    Ron Lindsay has a post on divisiveness in the secular community, which is attracting a hailstorm of comments.

    I don’t altogether agree with it. I agree with the normative part but not entirely with the descriptive part. For instance…

    …if hate-filled comments and threats to women have not been expressly called divisive, it’s because such conduct does not threaten to divide the movement. It has already been repudiated, both implicitly and explicitly, by many, if not most, of the organizations in the movement.

    But that doesn’t do it. It has not already been repudiated, even implicitly, by some prominent individuals in the movement. To put it another way, there are some prominent individuals in the movement who promote it or even engage in it themselves. Not many, I think, but some. Yes that makes a difference. Imagine if there were several prominent individuals in the movement who were promoting or even engaging in openly racist discourse. That would be divisive, pretty clearly. For most of us, it works the same way when the discourse is about women (or feminists).

    …the haters are not threatening to divide the movement.  No matter how frequently the haters pollute our blogs, they are outside the movement already.  No one in a position of responsibility wants them in the movement.  Whatever differences may exist among the various movement organizations, we are united on this issue.

    I wish, but no. Not all of the haters are really outside the movement.

    There’s Paula Kirby for example. She’s not exactly in a position of responsibility, but she seems to be because of her connection to the RDF, so what she says has some influence. She called me and Skepchicks and “FTB” generally Feminazis and Femistasi, and she circulated that caricature. That’s hater stuff.

    (A lot of people think she is the Executive Director of RDF UK. I thought so myself, and referred to her as such more than once. She’s not. Look on the RDF website or where you will, you can’t find her listed as ED or any other kind of officer. It’s not fair to blame Dawkins for things that Kirby has said.)

    Ron doesn’t mention Paula, but he does mention Russell Blackford.

    …the label “misogynist”  is sometimes thrown about carelessly. For example, Russell Blackford, the Australian philosopher (and Free Inquiry columnist) has been called a misogynist shitbag. Yet, as far as I know, Blackford has never made any hateful comments or threats to women; indeed, he has condemned them. He has expressed doubts about the wisdom of harassment policies adopted by some organizations and, if I recall correctly, he has taken exception to some of the criticism directed against TAM (the JREF’s annual meeting). But although Blackford’s views on these issues may be misguided, that hardly qualifies him as a misogynist.

    I don’t think Russell is a misogynist. I’m not sure if I’ve called him one or not, but since I don’t think he is one, I’ll guess that I haven’t. But I disagree that he has, as Ron says, condemned them (“them” being hateful comments to women). He hasn’t. That’s the issue I’ve had with him all along, ever since the summer last year: he hasn’t. He hasn’t condemned them and he has at times joined in with them. He regularly praises Abbie Smith, who is a hater-enabler as well as a hater herself. (Remember “smelly skepchick snatch”?) For many weeks he has been ranting about “FTB” many times every day on Twitter, and he’s never that I’ve seen said a word to condemn the haters. He has been all but climbing into Paula’s lap; he retweeted her deeply unpleasant “Sisterhood of the Oppressed” article more than once; he said not a word to condemn that nasty crucifixion caricature. All that does qualify him as at least a fan of misogynists.

    So…I think Ron is being a little over-generous to that faction.

    …the movement is divided, but it’s not divided for any good reason. It’s divided because too many in the movement are not willing to recognize that their fellow secularists can be mistaken without thereby being bigots; that their fellow secularists can have different understandings of the implications of feminism without being misogynists or “sister-punishers”; and that their fellow secularists can have can have different perceptions of the problem of harassment without being feminazis.

    Yes but. Yes but sometimes it really isn’t just different perceptions of the problem of harassment, it’s labels like “Approved Male Chorus” and “Femistasi” and “FTBullies” and “smelly skepchick snatch.”

    I agree with Ron’s overall point though. And I’m not without hope that things will improve.

  • Rioters in Libya and Egypt rage at anti-Islam movie

    The US ambassador to Libya is killed in the rioting.