Here, Jewish girls as young as six, wearing skirts below the knee and shirts to the elbow, are being targeted by the Haredi, called ”pritzas” (prostitutes).… Read the rest
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It’s all the fault of the new atheists! 
Nov 19th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
“The extremely aggressive campaign against religion being waged by the New Atheists, led by Richard Dawkins” is why people hate science.… Read the rest
Othered and excluded from the scientific academy
Nov 18th, 2011 3:13 pm | By Ophelia BensonOh look, we’re back on this corner again. Some drearily unthinking guy writes a patronizing “funny” article story about women for Nature, people say how drearily unthinking it is, and everybody says “oh lighten up, ladies.” It’s just a joke, huh huh huh. Jokes never do any harm, any fule kno that.
In a pig’s eye, says Christie Wilcox at SciAm blogs.
… Read the restReinforcing negative gender stereotypes is anything but harmless.
It was Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson who, in 1995, first coined the term stereotype threat. It refers to how the knowledge of a prejudicial stereotype can lead to enough anxiety that a person actually ends up confirming the image. Since that landmark paper, more than 300
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Reinforcing negative gender stereotypes is not harmless
Nov 18th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
There are long-term career consequences to gender stereotypes.… Read the rest
Facts and belief
Nov 18th, 2011 11:50 am | By Ophelia BensonKeith Ward wrote a short piece for Comment is Free, a couple of weeks ago, saying something about religion and science and claims and facts. (I put it loosely that way because Ward oscillates between terms a lot, so it’s not easy to specify exactly what he’s claiming. The title of the piece is “Religion answers the factual questions science neglects,” which is an ok summary, but it’s not necessarily written by Ward.) Ward’s piece was in response to Julian Baggini’s piece on whether science and religion are compatible.
Jerry Coyne wrote a piece responding to Ward’s. Jim Houston wrote a piece at Talking Philosophy responding to Coyne’s, with a response directly from Ward.
All straight? … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
We’re back!
Nov 18th, 2011 11:48 am | By Ophelia BensonAnd we’ll never never never leave you again.
Not if we can help it anyway.… Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Facts and belief
Nov 18th, 2011 | By Ophelia BensonKeith Ward wrote a short piece for Comment is Free, a couple of weeks ago, saying something about religion and science and claims and facts. (I put it loosely that way because Ward oscillates between terms a lot, so it’s not easy to specify exactly what he’s claiming. The title of the piece is “Religion answers the factual questions science neglects,” which is an ok summary, but it’s not necessarily written by Ward.) Ward’s piece was in response to Julian Baggini’s piece on whether science and religion are compatible.
Jerry Coyne wrote a piece responding to Ward’s. Jim Houston wrote a piece at Talking Philosophy responding to Coyne’s, with a response directly from Ward.
All straight? … Read the rest
What is it with the internet and misogyny?
Nov 18th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
We wouldn’t tolerate this misogyny on the bus, or in a cafe, or at school or at work or in a pub, so why are we allowing it to happen online?… Read the rest
Filthy and rotten children
Nov 17th, 2011 5:31 pm | By Ophelia BensonMohammad Shafia doesn’t seem to have liked his three daughters very much. In fact he seems to have disliked them – indeed one could say he seems to have hated them.
An Afghan immigrant accused of murdering a wife and three teenage daughters in what prosecutors have called an “honour killing” told his alleged accomplices that the newly deceased women were “filthy and rotten children”, adding: “may God’s fury descend upon those girls”.
Not affectionate.
… Read the restA court in Ontario yesterday heard a series of secret police tape recordings
of 58-year-old Mohammad Shafia attempting to justify the brutal murder of his
daughters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13. He described them as
“treacherous” and said they deserved to die
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Scream it into a megaphone
Nov 17th, 2011 4:43 pm | By Ophelia BensonSometimes yipping is effective. Justin Griffith yipped about a school charity project that turned out to have a missionary element, complete with a question asking children to complete the sentence “I love Jesus because _______.” The school is fixing at least some of the problem. Justin says -
This is not the first time that I’ve put out a request for help that was massively successful because of the public and legal pressure it generated. In the last year, I’ve learned that those two things are the only forces that work when the system is broken.
I’m proud of you, internet atheists. Crowd-sourced activism is like an effective Lorax, speaking for those who can’t.
Speak up, Lorax.… Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
It’s a holy city with sensitivities
Nov 17th, 2011 10:05 am | By Ophelia BensonWhat is theocracy fundamentally (you should excuse the word) all about? Men on top. Nothing else is as central, as obsessive, as enforced, as nagged about.
Witness Jerusalem.
Posters depicting women have become rare in the streets of Israel’s capital. In some areas, women have been shunted onto separate sidewalks, and buses and health clinics have been gender-segregated. The military has considered reassigning some female combat soldiers because religious men don’t want to serve with them.
This is the new reality in parts of 21st-century Israel, where ultra-Orthodox rabbis are trying to contain the encroachment of secular values on their cloistered society through a fierce backlash against the mixing of the sexes in public.
Because that’s what “secular values” … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Judge pwns US Bank
Nov 17th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
“Maybe US Bank no longer has any of the $20 billion dollars left, and so their lack of written explanation might be attributed to some kind of ink reduction program to save money.”… Read the rest
Increasing gender segregation in Israel
Nov 17th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Ultra-Orthodox rabbis are trying to contain the encroachment of secular values through a fierce backlash against the mixing of the sexes in public.… Read the rest
India: judge sentences 28 for “honour killings” from 1991
Nov 17th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The men were found guilty of murdering a Dalit boy and a girl from a higher caste who had eloped together, and the boy’s cousin. All three were set on fire and hanged.… Read the rest
Nun embezzles $850,000 from Catholic college
Nov 17th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
To finance gambling trips to Atlantic City. But she’s really really sorry, so no jail time for her.… Read the rest
Republicans and Ayn Rand
Nov 17th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Rand’s popularity has surged in recent years as conservatives repeatedly invoked her to counter Obama’s “Socialist” agenda.… Read the rest
They’re not here to play
Nov 16th, 2011 4:19 pm | By Ophelia BensonFrank Schaeffer fills us in on the world of evangelical child discipline for the glory of god, otherwise known as child abuse.
There’s the Texas judge, there are Michael and Debi Pearl, there’s James Dobson, and there’s Bill Gothard.
… Read the restAnd it is not just individuals who are abused. Whole “Christian” organizations are involved. According to a report by Channel 13 WTHR Indianapolis (and many other media sources over the years),
“At first glance, the Bill Gothard-founded and run Indianapolis Training Center looks like an ordinary conference hotel. But some say there are dark secrets inside. “They’re not here to play,” Mark Cavanaugh, an ITC staffer tells a mother on hidden-camera video. ‘They’re here because they’ve been disobedient, they’ve been
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Frank Schaeffer on right-wing “discipline” guides
Nov 16th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Some of the most respected evangelical discipline gurus have not just made beating children “respectable” in conservative religious circles, but even turned it into a godly activity.… Read the rest
Glory in store
Nov 16th, 2011 1:09 pm | By Ophelia BensonEnough of this frivolity; back into the theocratic trenches. Back to the anti-feminist “Biblical” reactionaries. It’s time to wade into The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.
There is One Woman’s Wrestling Match with Submission, Part IV. Yes, part 4 – we want to be thorough about our wrestling matches with submission (provided, of course, we end up by submitting).
… Read the restChrist’s purpose and joy was to glorify his Father, and he did this by submitting to him, thus elevating submission and the role of a servant for all time. The Holy Spirit, for his part, was to glorify Christ. If God gives me, as a woman, a task, that is the place and position from which he wants
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
UK private colleges: religion and alt med most popular
Nov 16th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
David Colquhoun is unimpressed with the growth in “quack” courses.… Read the rest
