Author: Ophelia Benson

Good about Anderson Cooper, huh?

I’ve also been reminded recently that while as a society we are moving toward greater inclusion and equality for all people, the tide of history only advances when people make themselves fully visible.  There continue to be far too many incidences of bullying of young people, as well as discrimination and violence against people of all ages, based on their sexual orientation, and I believe there is value in making clear where I stand.

Yep, and the same applies to atheists. Boy do young atheists get bullied in this country. Any hidden Name atheists out there? Speak up!

Anderson himself (he doesn’t mind if I call him Anderson, does he? I’ve considered him a close personal friend ever since he interviewed my friend Josh, so he can’t mind) ends with some ooky god-talk, which is unfortunate, but still – good about what Anderson said to Andrew.

Ok so what about Paula’s Google doc?

Sigh. Do I really care?

Oh well. Maybe a point or two.

First, since I gather this has touched a nerve in some quarters, I shall deal with the terms “feminazi” and “femistasi”. As a general principle, I oppose the use of any kind of name-calling.

Well don’t we all, provided we get to resort to it when we really want to.

For the record, I am categorically NOT suggesting that the people I have applied these terms to are, in fact, Nazis or Stasi members, or would ever have sympathized with either of them. There are many of us who are proud to be called Grammarnazis and who know perfectly well that no aspersions are being cast on our intentions towards either Jews or Poland. It might be considered distasteful that the suffix -nazi has come to be used simply to mean “extremist” or “obsessive”, but nevertheless, it has come to be so used, and The Sisterhood of the Oppressed cannot legitimately chalk it up as yet another example of their alleged victimization.

She says, carefully avoiding name-calling as a general principle. But notice that the suffix -stasi has not come to be used simply to mean “extremist” or “obsessive.” Notice that an epithet one can be proud to be called, like Grammarnazi, is not the same thing as an epithet applied out of hostility, like Femistasi. Remember that Paula included the fact that she had spent two years in East Germany to back up her claim that FTB shows “strains of totalitarian thought.” In short, what she said was not similar to saying someone is a grammarnazi. It was an accusation that a few feminists and Freethought blogs are like Nazis and the Stasi.

In the case of the -stasi suffix, it draws attentions to behaviours associated with the thought police, for whom anyone who dares to hold non-approved attitudes is automatically persona non grata and to be treated as an enemy of the people. I am referring, of course, to the unfailing response on certain blogs whenever someone has had the temerity to challenge the claims that have been made there.

Yes, but that’s just it. The comparison is over the top. (That’s an example of understatement, pupils. Make a note of it.) The thought police don’t stop with comments on blogs. The Stasi – as Paula knows far better than I do – didn’t stop with comments on blogs. (Blogs didn’t even exist then! Can you imagine it?)

Sure, comments on blogs can be annoying, or even worse than annoying. When they get very personal and very malicious and go on for months or even a year, they can be a lot worse than annoying. But they’re still not the Stasi! They’re still different from the Stasi in many salient ways. I get a lot more shit in blog comments than Paula does (and who knows, maybe I deserve every bit of it, for being so evil), but I still notice the advantages I get from not being a victim of the Stasi. They are many and various, and I enjoy them a lot. I think Paula should be more alert to this difference – alert enough not to try to defend the idea that comments on blogs are in any way like the Stasi.

Now Paula gets personal.

Good heavens, we have even seen Ophelia Benson describe DJ Grothe’s call for more balance in the discussions as “sticking a metaphorical target” on her!

No, we have not seen that. Bad work, Paula. Be fair. This is what I said:

A few people think I’ve been unfair to DJ Grothe. I don’t. I think it’s the other way around.

I’ll explain why, as succinctly as I explained it to DJ (and Carrie) the day after threat-day.

I think he stuck a metaphorical target on me. He didn’t do anything to take it off. He didn’t do anything to assure me that he still welcomed me to TAM. He triggered a shit-storm, and then let it get worse and worse and worse.

That’s it.

He stuck a metaphorical target on me (in my view) when he blamed the fall in women’s attendance at TAM on

irresponsible messaging coming from a small number of prominent and well-meaning women skeptics who, in trying to help correct real problems of sexism in skepticism, actually and rather clumsily themselves help create a climate where women — who otherwise wouldn’t — end up feeling unwelcome and unsafe.

You see where she went wrong? I quoted exactly the part I meant when I said DJ stuck a metaphorical target on me, and in that passage he doesn’t “call for more balance in the discussions”; he blames a small number of women skeptics who probably include me. There’s not a word about balance in that passage.

Really, Paula. Is that “skepticism”? Not in my book.

That’s the first item. (Yes that was all one item. Don’t be such an itemnazi.) Second item later.

Oh, jesus christ.

We did another Freethought blogs conversation video. We talked about social justice and facts v values and equality / happiness.

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

There’s another thing Paula said, that’s much much more trivial, so I didn’t want to combine with the Nazi&Stasi totalitarian accusation – but it’s one that I keep getting and it’s really…a bad thing to do, so I want to address it too. Actually it’s not all that minor, as a thing to do – but it was about me, so it’s minor in that sense.

It started where I left off, with

I disagree. I see real strains of totalitarian thought over there. And I lived in a totalitarian state for 2 years.

The other said

Incidentally, I do hope you are as strident in your condemnation of threats against eg Ophelia Benson. That’s serious.

Paula said

What threats? There was no threat. Only ridiculous, OTT ‘concern’, which just goes to show how silly these overreactions are.

That.

The reason it’s a bad thing to do, as I said a week ago, in response to Russell Blackford’s claiming to know more than he knew about what I was reacting to, is that you can’t judge what it’s like to get a threat (or threat-like message) if you’re not the one who gets it. You can’t judge, and you should be able to figure that out. Within reason. I don’t mean that if one gets a pretty postcard that says “Having a lovely time!” it’s reasonable to think that’s a threat. But within reason – you should be able to figure out that something that can be read as a threat might well be scarier to receive than it is to read about someone else receiving. See what I mean? It’s not real to them because they don’t have to do anything about it. I did. I had to decide whether what looked threat-like actually was a threat. Fortunately Tim Farley helped enormously with that, by doing all the hard work involved. But I didn’t know that was what was going to happen when I had to decide what to do.

So. It wasn’t “ridiculous.” It wasn’t OTT. It wasn’t “concern.” It wasn’t silly. It wasn’t an overreaction. It’s easy for Paula to think it was, but she didn’t receive it.

I’ll just remind Paula – clearly she’s reading me, in the same benevolent spirit as Abbie’s friends – that I didn’t squall and tear my hair the instant I read the first message. I puzzled over it and then sent a reply saying oh come on, it’s not going to be that bad, just maybe awkward at times. That’s not ridiculous, or OTT, or silly, or an overreaction, is it.

It was the last part of the second message that did sound threat-like.

I’m happy that PZ was not shot (gun or uppants camera) at GAC, but that gives me scant reassurance that you will *not* be shot either way in Las Vegas.

Please do not respond to this message. If you adopt safety measures, whether I’ve suggested them or not. DO NOT TELL ANYONE, including me.

Don’t you dare tell me that doesn’t look anything like a threat. Don’t you dare tell me I was silly to think it might be meant as one.

And don’t tell other people things like that, either. Have some sense. You don’t know. Leave it to the cops, or to people who are involved. Don’t sneer at people who think a threat-like warning looks like a threat. Have some sense, some epistemic humility, some decency.

I usually avoid the word “privilege,” because it’s a red rag to a bull and I’m nothing if not accommodating, but sometimes…

Like now, at Thunderfoot’s Palais de Contempt.

…what I have been trying to tell deaf ears on freethoughtblogs for the past week, that their views are poorly positioned to achieve their stated objectives and are widely unrepresentative of the wider rationalist community in:

1)      The disproportionate amount of attention it gives to sexism compared to other issues.

2)      The way that those who disagree on the matter of sexism are attacked with a disproportionate amount of strawmen, invective and branding (misogynist, MRA, etc etc).  This is a behavior more in line with bullying than free thought.

We give a disproportionate amount of attention to sexism – because obviously sexism is a very minor thing, because hardly any people are women.

That’s privilege. He’s clueless about sexism because he has the privilege of not being the object of it. Hey, it’s trivial, because it doesn’t happen to him! Case closed.

And it’s bullying to talk about misogyny merely because there are guys around who are talking about kicking us – that is, me – in the cunt. I’m bullying, by saying it’s misogyny; the guy who’s talking about kicking me in the cunt is a victim of my bullying. Derp!

Justicar says:

June 27, 2012 at 5:13 pm

If that’s true, it’s because I’ve been reading a lot of baboon writings. That’ll fuck up anyone’s critical faculties.

Consent need not be explicitly granted. Indeed, of all the times I’ve been raped, err, had sex with people after ingesting a date rape drug, I mean, having a glass of wine over dinner, I can’t recall a single conversation that entailed extracting consent from my rapist, err, sexual partner.

And if anyone ever asked me “If I can have your permission, may we now engage in a little sexual intercourse?” or anything like that, I’d have Hoggle have a sex change back to a man after his having had a sex change to kick Ophelia in the cunt to in turn kick my lousy date in the dick.

Is Thunderfoot right that our views are “widely unrepresentative of the wider rationalist community”? Are Thunderfoot and Justicar more representative of “the wider rationalist community” than we are? I don’t think so, but I don’t know. At any rate, I do know I want to stay away from their segment of it. I can’t, entirely, because some of the members of that “community” help themselves to my name and then talk about kicking me in the cunt…but I sure as hell want to.

Don’t read this unless you’re prepared to be upset and enraged. It’s Natasha Smith’s account of being grabbed, stripped and assaulted by a swarm of men in Cairo a couple of days ago. It’s horrible.

Don’t read even this brief excerpt unless you’re prepared. Trigger warning, in short, though I don’t usually like the term.

Men began to rip off my clothes. I was stripped naked. Their insatiable appetite to hurt me heightened. These men, hundreds of them, had turned from humans to animals.

Hundreds of men pulled my limbs apart and threw me around. They were scratching and clenching my breasts and forcing their fingers inside me in every possible way. So many men. All I could see was leering faces, more and more faces sneering and jeering as I was tossed around like fresh meat among starving lions.

Meanwhile “Thunderfoot” says we people at FTB talk way too much about sexism.