Author: Ophelia Benson

Bjarte Foshaug did a toon. It made me laugh.

Another Very Young Girl spots the unfairness in gender stereotyping in the toy department.

A six-year-old girl wrote Hasbro to let them know they only have bros (HIGH FIVE!) in their game, Guess Who. You know, the game that’s like memory but all the characters have googly eyes, dodgy mustaches, and bad toupees? Well, guess who’s not in the game? Women. Actually, no, that’s not fair, there are five girls and nineteen boys. Five girls and nineteen boys.

What is it with that? I swear, I think there are actually people who think women are a small fraction of the population.

Her letter is short and to the point.

Dear Hasbro,

My name is R______. I am six years old. I think it’s not fair to only have 5 girls in Guess Who and 19 boys. It is not only boys who are important, girls are important too. If grown ups get into thinking that girls are not important they won’t give little girls much care.

Also if girls want to be a girl in Guess Who they’ll always lose against a boy, and it will be harder for them to win. I am cross about that and if you don’t fix it soon, my mum could throw Guess Who out.

My mum typed this message but I told her what to say.

Check out what Hasbro replied.

Dear R___,

Thank you for your email. Please find below an explanation which I hope your mummy will be able to explain to you.

Guess Who? is a guessing game based on a numerical equation. If you take a look at the characters in the game, you will notice that there are five of any given characteristics. The idea of the game is, that by process of elimination, you narrow down who it isn’t, thus determining who it is. The game is not weighted in favour of any particular character, male or female. Another aspect of the game is to draw attention away from using gender or ethnicity as the focal point, and to concentrate on those things that we all have in common, rather than focus on our differences.

Omigod did Chris Stedman get a job with Hasbro?!?!

Seriously. That is so fucking weaselly. The idea is to draw attention away from gender so that little pests like you won’t notice that we think there should be five times as many boys as there are girls in our game.

Yes, and another aspect of the game is to draw attention away from using money or power or class or status as the focal point, because some of us have a lot more of those than others, because we have rigged things that way, so kindly concentrate on those things that we all have in common, rather than focus on our differences, before we call Homeland Security.

This is from two years ago, but so what – it’s still on point.

One wonders why the video that has a FEATURED label at the top of the right hand column is the one titled Anti Feminist, which features someone who 1. calls herself Trish 2. appears to be imitating a Barbie doll 3. says “like” every third word. It’s funny the way people who aren’t good at talking think it’s a good idea to make vlogs.

Anyway. Anita Sarkeesian, before all the Iago syndrome.

Update: before all the Iago syndrome that prompted misogynists to do everything they could to degrade and silence her, was what I meant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZn_lJoN6PI

The news from Egypt is appalling. The Islamist Morsi has granted himself the power to do anything he wants to do without any hindrance from courts.

President Mohamed Morsi issued a decree on Thursday granting himself broad powers above any court as the guardian of Egypt’s revolution, and used his new authority to order the retrial of Hosni Mubarak.

Mr. Morsi, an Islamist and Egypt’s first elected president, portrayed his decree as an attempt to fulfill popular demands for justice and protect the transition to a constitutional democracy. But the unexpected breadth of the powers he seized raised immediate fears that he might become a new strongman.

Ya think?

“An absolute presidential tyranny,” Amr Hamzawy, a liberal member of the dissolved Parliament and prominent political scientist, wrote in an online commentary. “Egypt is facing a horrifying coup against legitimacy and the rule of law and a complete assassination of the democratic transition.”

It’s so…basic. It trashes the whole point of being “Egypt’s first elected president” and talk of “a constitutional democracy.” This fancy idea of “electing” people? It’s supposed to entail accountability, and limits on power, and stuff like that.

Nathan J. Brown, a scholar of the Egyptian legal system at George Washington University, summed up the overall message: “I, Morsi, am all powerful. And in my first act as being all powerful, I declare myself more powerful still. But don’t worry — it’s just for a little while.”

The BBC reports that Morsi is saying there there there it will be fine.

President Mohammed Mursi has appeared before supporters in Cairo to defend a new decree that grants him sweeping powers.

He told them he was leading Egypt on a path to “freedom and democracy” and was the guardian of stability.

He was speaking as thousands of opponents gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and offices of the president’s party were attacked in several cities.

The decree says presidential decisions cannot be revoked by any authority.

What could possibly go wrong?

From the C of E we drift over to the Houses of Parliament in all their Victorian Gothic splendor. What’s going on there? An influential committee is taking advice on women from Steve Moxon. Victoria would be proud – she hated feminists.

Women are biologically unfit to rise to the top in business, according a self-described academic speaking before an influential parliamentary committee.

Steve Moxon, author of ‘The Woman Racket’, appeared at the business select committee on Wednesday as part of an inquiry into “women in the workplace”.

A  self-described academic? What’s that? Self-description isn’t what determines who is an academic. It’s more external and objective than that.

Moxon, ranked one of the ten most powerful people in ‘men’s rights’ by website ‘theantifeminist’, was dropped as a UKIP candidate in local elections for expressing sympathy with Norwegian mass-killer Anders Breivik on his blog earlier this year, and has also described claims against Jimmy Savile as “hysteria”.

Just the right sort of person to tell an influential parliamentary committee what’s what when it comes to women in the workplace. Or to put it another way, huh? What were they listening to him for?

Giving evidence to the committee he said males were in a “dominant hierarchy” from toddlerhood.

“You can pretend that the sexes are all the same but if you go looking … females form what is generally dubbed a personal network,” he said.

“There’s no surprise that women have difficulty in the work place, not only do they have difficulty but they don’t want to be there in the first place!” he said.

He then claimed that the gender pay gap should be bigger, telling MPs “there must be referencing for it to be as small as it is.”

It’s an outrage.

In his written submission to the inquiry, Moxon suggests women may not even want “to climb the workplace hierarchy”, adding that the push toward gender equality risked producing discrimination “against men.”

Ah yes, I’ve been seeing people claim that lately – that feminism doesn’t want equality, it wants discrimination against men. I think that comes from men who think it’s discriminatory to expect men to do an equal share of housework.

Jesus and Mo are also discussing the C of E vote to say no women bishops. Jesus is quite frank about it.

The new book makes a great Xmas present. It gots a foreword by Dawkins.

Teresa MacBain tells us about a disturbing law in Kentucky.

On August 17, 2012, the Kentucky Supreme Court refused to hear a motion for discretionary review, brought by American Atheists and local plaintiffs, to a state law that makes it mandatory that the Commonwealth and its citizens give credit to Almighty God for its safety and security.  This request was denied in a single line that said that the “…Petition for Discretionary Review is denied.”  Signed, Chief Justice, Kentucky Supreme Court. The law states, “The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God as set forth in the public speeches and proclamations of American Presidents, including AbrahamLincoln’s historic March 30, 1863, presidential proclamation urging Americans to pray and fast during one of the most dangerous hours in American history, and the text of President John F. Kennedy’s November 22, 1963, national security speech which concluded: “For as was written long ago: ‘Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’”

How farking crazy is that? “As set forth in the public speeches and proclamations of American Presidents” – what, because US presidents have the magical ability to create reality with their public speeches and proclamations? What they say becomes True as soon as they say it, because they say it?

I hope American Atheists and local plaintiffs win.