AHA and John Jay have embarked on research that they hope will lead to greater understanding and ultimately prevention of honor violence in the U.S.… Read the rest
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The talk
Apr 10th, 2012 2:20 pm | By Ophelia BensonElspeth Reeve at the Atlantic Wire gives a lot of background on John Derbyshire’s…erm…views on race.
… Read the restDerbyshire doesn’t say that black people, especially women, are pathetically stupid people doomed to live on the dole (For a good example of that, check out the 1941 Looney Tunes cartoon Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs.) Instead, he says that the black women who work at the DMV are mean and stupid because they’re genetically destined to be so. From his recent essay:
The mean intelligence of blacks is much lower than for whites. The least intelligent ten percent of whites have IQs below 81; forty percent of blacks have IQs that low… There is a magnifying effect here, too, caused by
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Hey kid get a haircut
Apr 10th, 2012 1:42 pm | By Ophelia BensonThis too is from last month. You probably already know about it. I saw a headline or two, but didn’t follow it up. Dozens of Iraqi teenagers with emo haircuts were stoned to death.
Pictures below the fold.
… Read the restActivists told the Lebanon-based al-Akhbar daily that at least 90 Iraqi teenagers with “emo” appearances have been stoned to death by the Moral Police in the country in the past month. The violent crackdown against “emo” Iraqi teenagers came after the Iraqi interior ministry declared them as “devil worshippers.”
“The ‘Emo phenomenon’ or devil worshiping is being probed by the Moral Police who have the approval to eliminate it as soon as possible since it’s detrimentally affecting the society and becoming
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Ceci n’est pas une femme
Apr 10th, 2012 1:35 pm | By Ophelia BensonThis is from last month, but I missed it. Egypt’s Islamists want to do away with the category “women” and replace it with “families.”
A women’s conference organized by the dominant Islamist bloc in the Egyptian parliament has called for a council for families to replace the existing National Council for Women, a state-owned daily reported on Friday.
The conference, held Thursday on International Women’s Day, also condemned the 1978 U.N. convention against gender discrimination saying it was “incompatible with the values of Islamic sharia” law, the Al-Ahram newspaper reported.
Great. Faaaaantastic. One, forget all about women, there are no women, there are only families. Two, forget all about equal rights for women, equal rights for women are incompatible with … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Free Hamza Kashgari
Apr 9th, 2012 5:07 pm | By Ophelia BensonAnd another thing:
Sign the petition if you haven’t already.… Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Indonesia: Alex Aan indicted on three counts
Apr 9th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe prosecutor said Alexander’s atheism was against the five tenets of state ideology, especially the first tenet “Belief in one God.”… Read the rest
It’s a ploy
Apr 9th, 2012 4:31 pm | By Ophelia BensonAndrew Copson was on BBC News to say what he thought about the cardinal’s yips about religious freedome and Wearing the Cross. He said it very nicely, but the cardinal won’t like it any better for that.
Andrew’s bit starts at 2:14.
H/t Author.… Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Andrew Copson on religious symbols on BBC News
Apr 9th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt’s not about religious symbols, it’s about getting more privilege.… Read the rest
Popehat on Crystal Cox
Apr 9th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCrystal Cox supports free speech for Crystal Cox, but for her own critics, Crystal Cox is a vigorous (if mostly incoherent) advocate for broad and unprincipled censorship.… Read the rest
John Derbyshire and the National Review
Apr 9th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhat was apparently important was not how mild he was but how mild-mannered he could present himself as being.… Read the rest
And the award goes to
Apr 9th, 2012 2:26 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe Southern Poverty Law Center reports on misogyny websites and blogs. It lists twelve of them, including In Mala Fide and the subreddit Men’s Rights.
… Read the restIn Mala Fide This blog, whose name translates from the Latin as “In Bad Faith,” describes itself in its mission statement as “[a]n online magazine dedicated to publishing heretical and unpopular ideas. Ideas that polite society considers ‘racist,’ ‘misogynistic,’ ‘homophobic,’ ‘bigoted’ or other slurs used to shut down critical thinking and maintain the web of delusions that keep our world broken and dying.” The unifying idea is this: “Feminism is a hate movement designed to disenfranchise and dehumanize men.” The site carries ads for such offerings as the HardKnight “male enhancement system,” PolishLasses (“Over
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Bangalore: father of beaten infant girl arrested
Apr 9th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe mother has said three-month-old Afreen was beaten by her father because he was upset
at having a daughter instead of a son.… Read the rest
Husband considers wife liable for birth of daughter
Apr 9th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHe believed that he had to be compensated if his wife gave birth to a girl. When his wife and her parents failed to pay the Rs1 lakh he demanded, he tried to punch the baby to death.… Read the rest
Stricter sharia for Aceh?
Apr 9th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“I don’t reject criminal bylaws, because clerics have agreed to them. I want Aceh as a model of Islamic Sharia for Indonesia and Southeast Asia,” one candidate said.… Read the rest
A very different intellectual tide. Not.
Apr 9th, 2012 1:12 pm | By Ophelia BensonNicholas Kristof spots a trend.
A few years ago, God seemed caught in a devil of a fight.
Atheists were firing thunderbolts suggesting that “religion poisons everything,” as Christopher Hitchens put it in the subtitle of his book, “God Is Not Great.” Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins also wrote best sellers that were scathing about God, whom Dawkins denounced as “arguably the most unpleasant character in fiction.”
Yet lately I’ve noticed a very different intellectual tide: grudging admiration for religion as an ethical and cohesive force.
Lately? He hasn’t been paying much attention, has he. It’s not ”lately”; it’s been all along; it’s been simultaneously and before that and for the past 30 centuries or so.
I mean honestly, … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
SPLC names misogynist websites and blogs
Apr 9th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIncluding In Mala Fide and the subreddit Men’s Rights.… Read the rest
The girl’s screams
Apr 9th, 2012 11:12 am | By Ophelia Benson… Read the restThe girl’s screams were brittle and desperate. Neighbors in the suburban housing complex looked up and saw a child crying for help from an upstairs balcony. She was 13 and worked as a maid for a couple who had gone on vacation to Thailand. They had left her locked inside their apartment.
After a firefighter rescued her, the girl described a life akin to slavery, child welfare officials said. Her uncle had sold her to a job placement agency, which sold her to the couple, both doctors. The girl was paid nothing. She said the couple barely fed her and beat her if her work did not meet expectations. She said they used closed-circuit
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Burn it
Apr 9th, 2012 9:50 am | By Ophelia BensonTaslima is wasting no time. “What should women do?” she asks. “They should take off their burqas and burn them.”
That’s telling them!
So is her opening observation.
My mother used to wear a burqa with a net over her face. It reminded me of the meat safes in my grandmother’s house. Meat safe’s net was made of metal, my mother’s net was made of linen. But the objective was the same: keeping the meat safe.
Thwack.… Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Child labor in India
Apr 8th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe girl was sold to an agency by her uncle. She was paid nothing; the couple barely fed her and beat her if her work did not meet expectations.… Read the rest
Being good
Apr 8th, 2012 4:40 pm | By Ophelia BensonInteresting post of PZ’s on being “good without god” and whether that’s a goal or slogan worth having.
The implication of “good” is thorough conformity. Has challenging an authority figure ever fit the definition of being good? When abolitionists broke the law by smuggling slaves into Canada, when suffragettes picketed to demand the vote, when Stonewall erupted and Martin Luther King marched, when students protested the war in Viet Nam, were they being “good” in the general public’s understanding of the term? I don’t think so. They were being very, very naughty. Which was good. See what I mean? It’s an empty word that offers nothing but vague reassurances.
Yes I guess so. I admit I have been thinking all … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)