Author: Ophelia Benson

  • “If they get on a haredi bus”

    “…they should get on in the back, they need to respect us,” said a woman on the 56 bus.

  • Israel: hundreds board segregated buses in protest

    Hundreds of men and women boarded gender-segregated buses in Jerusalem and Ramat Gan on Sunday, in protest of the exclusion of women from the public sphere.

  • Up the down staircase

    There’s always another step to go up the staircase of disgust –

    The latest step is the Haredi leadership putting yellow stars on children at a protest against “exclusion” (by which is meant, not being permitted to exclude women).

    Over a thousand ultra-Orthodox men assembled Saturday night in Jerusalem’s Kikar Hashabbat (Sabbath Square), in protest of what they termed the exclusion of Haredim, a response to the recent outrage over the exclusion of women in Beit Shemesh and elsewhere.

    You see what they did there? Men who define inclusion as men’s right to exclude and bully women are protesting their “exclusion” by using Holocaust imagery, as if being genocided were identical to being prevented from excluding and bullying women.

    Some of the protesters were wearing yellow badges; others were dressed in prisoner uniforms symbolizing the prosecution of Jews by the Nazi regime during World War II. The protesters were trying to express by way of analogy that they are being persecuted for their Jewish way of life by Israel’s secular majority.

    That’s a biiiiiiiiiiig step up that staircase.

     

  • Here’s what you learn

    Funny how sexism never goes out of style, isn’t it. I used to think it was out of style at least among people who occasionally use their heads for something other than putting food into, but I’ve been disabused of that starry-eyed notion lately. Certainly people who don’t go in for multi-purpose heads seem to think sexism is both funny and truthful. Like the tabloid press in the UK, Laurie Penny says.

    We are used to seeing this sort of story about women in the tabloids, the familiar narrative of vapid idealisation, followed by shame and sexual humiliation. What we are not used to is seeing a real woman in a smart suit telling us how these stories affected her life. Now a collection of liberal feminist groups has come forward to say what everyone knew already: that any investigation into media ethics would be incomplete without an acknowledgement that the British tabloid press is oozing with the very worst sort of malicious, heavy-breathing misogyny.

    Sexism is so consistent a feature of the culture of media in Britain that it has become easy to overlook, like the whine of an alarm that has sounded for so long you’ve learned to ignore it. Until a few years ago, it was the modern “problem with no name”. However much it hurt to have to see slut-shaming, rape-apologism, victim-blaming and sexual objectification in the press every day over our cornflakes, women just had to ignore it, because challenging media misogyny in any way was next to impossible. It was just “the way things were”.

    How familiar that is. (Atheists hear a lot of that, too – most people are religious, and that’s just how it is.) It may be next to impossible (or it may not), but that’s not actually a reason to submit to it.

    But back to the tabloids.

    Here’s what you learn, if you’re a woman and you grow up with British tabloid newspapers in the house: if you get raped or murdered, it’s your fault; if you are old, overweight or just having a bad hair day, you are disgusting. You must work to appear as sexually attractive and submissive as possible, at which point you will be called a slag, a disgrace and a “loose-knickered lady lout”, in the words of Quentin Letts. Women who have careers are miserable and pathetic. You were born to be a wife and mother, and succeeding at these things is the only thing that will fulfil you. Having a baby is the most valuable thing you can possibly do, unless you’re poor, or unmarried, in which case you’re society’s scum. If you complain about discrimination or sexual violence, you’re a shrill, jealous harpy.

    Familiar?

  • Laurie Penny on tabloid sexism

    The British tabloid press is oozing with the very worst sort of malicious, heavy-breathing misogyny.

  • The Catholic church costs Italy 6 billion euros a year

    But worth every penny, right? Given all the church does for child welfare, and women’s rights, and the health and well-being of people with Aids and their spouses and children, and education, and…

    Well they keep the brocade industry going, at least. Do admit.

    But the IHEU refuses to admit.

    The findings by Italy’s Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics (UAAR), a member organization of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, were published the day after Italy’s new government announced a budget filled with new taxes and drastic spending cuts.

    But the spending cuts are in this world, while the Catholic church takes care of the other world, so that it will be all clean and shiny when we get to it. No worries. Happy new year.

     

  • Sakineh is not safe

    Maryam says: Here’s information on what you can and must do about the possible imminent execution of Sakineh Mohamadi Ashtiani.

    The International Committee Against Stoning asks the noble people of the world, as well as the press, governments and human-rights organisations, to exert pressure in any way they can in pursuit of Sakineh and Houtan’s release by the Islamic Republic.

    International Committee Against Stoning

    28 December 2011

     

     

  • Choose ONE

    It’s confusing. There’s this college in Dundee, called the Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education. Its

    aim is the promotion of intelligent debate and understanding of Islam and the role of Muslims in the contemporary world. We are a place of knowledge and reflection on the issues facing a diverse and multicultural world in the twenty-first century.

    Ok. But then you look at its Multiculturalism Course.

    The programme aims to explore in depth the concept of multiculturalism, with specific reference to the development of the concept in academic studies (particularly the past 15 years). The main understanding of the term  ‘multiculturalism’ for this programme is as a means to describe contemporary contexts of cultural and religious diversity, and the processes by which such diversity are experienced (by individuals, societies and countries) and managed (by nation states).

    You begin to wonder. You keep reading.

    Optional Course 1

    Choose one course, subject to availability, from:

    • The Theoretical Framework of Bayt al-Maqdis
    • Islam & Muslims in History & Society
    • Educational Studies: An Introduction

    Islam & Muslims in Multicultural Britain

    This course examines the historical and demographic developments of the Muslim presence in the UK. It places them in the context of the emergence of a politics of multiculturalism in the past 50 years, along with the processes of settlement and integration of diverse ethnic, religious and cultural minority communities, and their relations with wider society. A major theme of the course is the diversity of British Muslim identities, and communities and the social, cultural and political contexts in which they have developed.

    Optional Course 2

    Choose one course, subject to availability, from:

    • Globalisation & Political Islam
    • Islam & Muslims & International Relations
    • Islamic Education: Theory & Practice
    • History of Bayt al-Maqdis 2: From the Late Crusades to the Contemporary Era
    • Women in Islam

    And now you feel thoroughly confused. The course as a whole is about multiculturalism, but the choices on offer are about exactly one “culture.” Why is that?

    And is “Islam” the best “culture” (or religion) to focus on if you’re trying to understand multiculturalism? I ask because Islam itself is firmly opposed to multiculturalism and pluralism; Islam makes it a crime deserving the death sentence to leave Islam for a different “culture” or religion.

    So it’s confusing.

     

  • How Tim Tebow looks from across the pond

    “Unusually for a sportsman, Tebow talks openly about his relationship with Jesus Christ in interviews.” His wot?

  • Looks more like malpractice

    This is worrying.

    Authorities say two out-of-state doctors who traveled to Maryland to perform late-term abortions have been arrested and charged with multiple counts of murder, an unusual use of a law that allows for murder charges in the death of a viable fetus.

    …

    A grand jury indicted the two doctors after a 16-month investigation, police said.

    The investigation began in August 2010 after what authorities say was a botched procedure at Brigham’s clinic in Elkton, located near the border of Maryland and Delaware. An 18-year-old woman who was 21 weeks pregnant had her uterus ruptured and her bowel injured, and rather than call 911, Brigham and Riley drove her to a nearby hospital, where both were uncooperative and Brigham refused to give his name, according to documents filed in a previous investigation by medical regulators.

    A search of the clinic after the botched abortion revealed a freezer containing 35 late-term fetuses, including one believed to have been aborted at 36 weeks, the documents show.

    Brigham, 55, is charged with five counts of first-degree murder, five counts of second-degree murder and one count of conspiracy. Riley, 46, faces one count each of first- and second-degree murder and one conspiracy count.

    Mind you, it’s also mystifying. Why was there a freezer full of fetuses? But even with all the mystification, when abortion-providing doctors are charged with first degree murder it’s time to get worried.

    The state law allows for murder or manslaughter charges to be brought against a person who intends to kill or seriously injure a fetus or who wantonly disregards the safety of a fetus. It does not apply to doctors administering lawful medical care and does not impinge on a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.

    I don’t see how those two sentences, as they stand, can both be true…No wait, yes I do – “allows for” must mean in cases where a woman is not terminating a pregnancy; assault as opposed to abortion. Is that right?

    An item to watch.

     

  • 2 abortion providers arrested for murder of fetuses

    Maryland allows murder charges to be brought against someone accused of killing a viable fetus. The 2005 law had been used only for cases of assaulting or killing pregnant women.

  • The grossly misnamed Australian Vaccination Network

    I just want to say

  • Phil Plait says: Stop antivaxxers. Now

    Why? How about Dana McCaffery, 5 February 2009-9 March 2009. Pertussis.

  • Going home

    The Committee to Protect Journalists reports more revelations of threats to Pakistani journalists.

    Najam Sethi, editor of The Friday Times and host of a popular Urdu-language political program on Geo TV, and Jugnu Mohsin, also a Friday Times editor, said they had lived under threat for years but the level of danger had become so menacing in early 2011 that they were forced to leave Pakistan. A few months later, the two went public with the threats. Then, on Thursday, Sethi told us that he and Mohsin had decided to return to Lahore on Friday.

    Pakistan is, according to the CPJ, the worst country in the world for journalists.

    A level of danger pervades the industry, and for the last two years, CPJ has ranked Pakistan as the world’s deadliest country for journalists. The courageous steps of some men and women in recent days to confront that menace head-on is admirable, but their courage alone won’t be enough to reverse the trend. The reality is that governance is weak in Pakistan, and it will require a concerted effort over a long time before Pakistani journalists–and normal citizens, for that matter–can live without fear of retribution.

    This necessarily means that Pakistanis are starved of good information. They need it more than most people.

  • In which I talk some more

    I did a podcast for the Buffalo Beast. I have the remains of a cold so there are one or two quick barks which are me coughing, but other than that I think it’s all right. It was fun.

    I should figure out where the Discovery Institute is some day…

  • Acid in the name of god

    I think people who leave Islam should leave it for atheism, not for Christianity, but I also think people who do leave Islam for Christianity should not have acid thrown in their faces. Umar Mulinde, who used to be an Islamic teacher and is now a bishop of the Gospel Life Church International, had acid thrown in his face on December 24th. It destroyed one of his eyes.

     

    From his hospital bed in Kampala, he told Compass that he was on his way back to the site for a party with the entire congregation and hundreds of new converts to Christianity when a man who claimed to be a Christian approached him. “I heard him say in a loud voice, ‘Pastor, pastor,’ and as I made a turn and looked at him, he poured the liquid onto my face as others poured more liquid on my back and then fled away shouting, ‘Allahu akbar,’” Mulinde said, still visibly traumatized two days after the assault.

    As far as I can tell, Gospel Life Church International isn’t one of the Homophobia First sects that have been infesting Uganda, but I’m not sure about that. In any case, down with pouring acid on people.

  • Uganda: acid attack on ex-Muslim Christian bishop

    Bishop Umar Mulinde, a sheikh before his conversion to Christianity, was attacked outside his Gospel Life Church International building in Namasuba.

  • Vaccination saves lives

    Advising Aboriginal parents not to vaccinate their children is a little bit like the deliberate manufacture and sale of shonky children’s play equipment.

  • More revelations of threats to Pakistani journalists

    A level of danger pervades the industry, and for the last two years, CPJ has ranked Pakistan as the world’s deadliest country for journalists.

  • More desk chair tourism

    I did a post on Google Earth tourism last March.

    Something I’ve just discovered in the last few days is that the chateaux of the Loire Valley have been very thoroughly visited by the Google van – blue lines all over everything, so you can see the gardens, the approaches, outbuildings, and the chateau from far and close and from all angles. You could spend hours just looking at one chateau. Look up Chenonceau or Chambord, if you’re interested.

    Versailles has also been thoroughly Google-photographed.

    I should check out the Taj Mahal one of these days…