Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Jared Diamond on Romney’s misunderstanding of his book

    Will Romney continue to espouse one-factor explanations for multicausal problems, and fail to understand history and the modern world? Probably.

  • Pakistan: girl, 13, tortured to death in “exorcism”

    Her parents had taken the girl to the pir ‘to evict djinns who had possessed her’.  Her skin was burnt with a hot iron rod and she was suffocated.

  • Jim Underdown on hatred, threats, harassment directed at women

    “Maybe we can save the witty jabs for our real enemies like Sylvia Browne, homeopathy, and Power Balance Bracelets.”

  • NY Times on sexual harassment in online gaming

    “We are a real mass medium, and we have a real effect on the culture. We have to take a step beyond this idea that nothing we could possibly do could hurt people.”

  • A vocal contingent of extremely hateful people

    Part 7 in Amy’s series: Matt Dillahunty.

    Matt’s piece has the considerable virtue of being specific – of actually saying what the problem is.

    He notes that a lot of people are just confused or uninformed about these issues.

    Unfortunately, there’s also a vocal contingent of extremely hateful people who aren’t willing to honestly engage in the discussion and they’ve been venting – if not simply trolling. When there’s an expressed concern, or a proposed solution to a concern, they frequently respond with cartoonish arguments loaded with fallacies but the more disturbing responses simply include hateful threats of rape and violence.

    These individuals are beneath contempt. They’re not just misinformed or mistaken, they’re malicious little thugs who are lashing out in response to the fear that someone might actually expect them to treat another human being with respect. They aren’t decent people disagreeing, they’re part of the problem. We don’t have to exclude them from these conversations; they’ve excluded themselves.

    Yes them! Those are the ones we mean.

    Read the whole thing.

     

  • Olympic weightlifter to sexist trolls: what makes you think we care?

    British Olympic weightlifter Zoe Smith, that is. Sexist trolls expressed indignation and shock that she’s not dainty enough for their taste. She pointed out on her blog that their taste isn’t high on her list of concerns.

    This may be shocking to you, but we actually would rather be attractive to people who aren’t closed-minded and ignorant. Crazy, eh?! We, as any women with an ounce of self-confidence would, prefer our men to be confident enough in themselves to not feel emasculated by the fact that we aren’t weak and feeble.

    Which is much like what Ernest Adams said last week: good men are not threatened by strength and intelligence in women. What kind of men are threatened by women like that? I leave it to your wisdom to determine.

  • You may well call it a windfall

    The economy is in the ditch, but the Templeton Foundation keeps handing out money in units of a million to finance “research” into various wings of religion.

    Millions of people fervently believe in an afterlife. John Martin Fischer, a philosopher at the University of California at Riverside, is not one of them.

    But Mr. Fischer does see the subject as ripe for academic research, and on Tuesday the John Templeton Foundation awarded him a windfall to make that happen—$5-million for a multidisciplinary investigation of human immortality.

    It’s a great pity that atheism has no Templeton Foundation. I wouldn’t mind being handed 5 million bucks to investigate secular ethics or the roots of sexism or where to find the best gelato.

    The Immortality Project will invite research proposals from philosophers, theologians, and scientists. Stressing interdisciplinary projects, it will award grants ranging from $100,000 to $250,000. There will also be two conferences and a Web site.

    Research  proposals from philosophers, theologians, and scientists. Why theologians? Since when do theologians do research? I understand how historians of religion and biblical scholars can do research, but how can theologians? How do you do research into something that is spiritual, metaphysical, not there to be investigated?

    Can I have a grant to look into it?

  • Reason for pause

    I’m late with # 6 in Surly Amy’s series. It’s David Niose, the president of the American Humanist Association, this time.

    Extract:

    The blogosphere has rarely been known for its high sense of decorum, but the vile comments recently directed toward women in the atheist-humanist-skeptic communities give us reason for pause. Occasional disagreements within our communities on various issues are to be expected, as are the fiery tempers that sometimes accompany such disagreements. Given our strong opinions and our willingness to stand up for what we believe, it would be more surprising if we went a lengthy time period without some kind of high-profile clash occurring. But still, the inevitability of conflict in no way justifies any kind of conduct, whether by written communication or otherwise, that utilizes violent intimidation. As atheists-humanists-skeptics, and as decent human beings, we need to do what we can to create an environment that reflects an understanding of the difference between healthy debate and threatening conduct, between mature discourse and hateful bullying.

     

  • Gore Vidal

    I wasn’t as keen on him lately as I once was, because of the conspiracy-thought and the sympathetic view of Timothy McVeigh and the like…but still, he was a hell of an essayist.

    Not a very good novelist, I always thought, but a brilliant essayist. Orwell was the same. Some people just shouldn’t write fiction; it’s odd when they don’t realize it.

    The Times obit says I’m not the only one who thinks so.

    In the opinion of many critics, though, Mr. Vidal’s ultimate reputation is apt to rest less on his novels than on his essays, many of them written for The New York Review of Books. His collection “The Second American Revolution” won the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism in 1982. About a later collection, “United States: Essays 1952-1992,” R. W. B. Lewis wrote in The New York Times Book Review that Vidal the essayist was “so good that we cannot do without him,” adding, “He is a treasure of state.”

    Mr. Vidal’s essays were literary, resurrecting the works of forgotten writers like Dawn Powell and William Dean Howells, and also political, taking on issues like sexuality and cultural mores. The form suited him ideally: he could be learned, funny, stylish, show-offy and incisive all at once. Even Jason Epstein, Mr. Vidal’s longtime editor at Random House, once admitted that he preferred the essays to the novels, calling Mr. Vidal “an American version of Montaigne.”

    “I always thought about Gore that he was not really a novelist,” Mr. Epstein wrote, “that he had too much ego to be a writer of fiction because he couldn’t subordinate himself to other people the way you have to as a novelist.”

    Learned, funny, stylish, show-offy and incisive all at once – much like Hitchens, which is no doubt why Vidal named Hitch his “heir” about fifteen years ago. Hitchens used that as a blurb afterwards; he was very proud of it.

     

     

  • Gore Vidal 1925-2012

    He could always be counted on for a spur-of-the-moment aphorism, putdown or sharply worded critique of American foreign policy.

  • Won’t somebody please think of the baybeez?

    More dreck from LifeSiteNews. (This may become an absorbing new hobby. LifeSiteNews is a real swamp of nasty.)

    Shock-horror: Obama wants (and says he wants) his daughters to have reproductive rights. Imagine that! He wants them not to be trapped by unwanted pregnancies if they don’t choose to be. (That’s not a tautology. Some women choose to continue pregnancies that they don’t want.) LSN wants to lose its lunch at the thought.

    Mr. Romney wants to get rid of funding for Planned Parenthood. I think that’s a bad idea. I’ve got two daughters. I want them to control their own health care choices. We’re not going backwards, we’re going forwards.

    We all know the word “choice” is a euphemism for “abortion.” And the fight to defund Planned Parenthood is all about abortion. So clear as mud, Obama was advocating the freedom for his daughters to abort his own grandchildren.

    Yes – because his daughters’ bodies belong to them, not to him.

    Rejoice rejoice: bigots are rushing to support Chick-fil-A from the evil creeping homoseckshuals.

    Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day invites pro-traditional-marriage fans to support the fast food chain by “simply showing up and eating at Chick-fil-A on Wednesday, August 1.”

    “No one is being asked to make signs, speeches, or openly demonstrate. The goal is simple: Let’s affirm a business that operates on Christian principles and whose executives are willing to take a stand for the Godly values we espouse.”

    The sign-up has already surpassed 209,000 people, with 23,000 “maybes” and another 1.6 million invited.

    Only 1.6 million invited? Slackers.

  • His stand for Christian principles

    And now a word from the bigots. The creepy LifeSiteNews reports gloatingly that a bakery in Colorado has seen a surge in business after the owner refused to provide a cake for a gay wedding. Isn’t that heart-warming? A little piece of spiteful meanness is popular in Lakewood Colorado.

    Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, told local media that this wasn’t the first time he had turned away homosexuals seeking wedding cakes, but it is the first time his stand for Christian principles has resulted in so much media attention and some death threats.

    What stand for Christian principles? Where did baby Jesus say don’t provide wedding cakes to gay people who want to get married? Where did Paul say that? Who says that’s Christian principles?

    The situation developed on July 19 when two homosexuals entered the shop and announced they were getting “married” in Massachusetts and wanted to order a wedding reception cake for their reception in Colorado.

    Jeezis – who runs this site, Francisco Franco? These are some seriously nasty people we’re looking at.

    From the About page:

    3. LifeSiteNews.com’s writers and its founders, have come to understand that respect for life and family are endangered by an international conflict. That conflict is between radically opposed views of the worth and dignity of every human life and of family life and community. It has been caused by secularists attempting to eliminate Christian morality and natural law principles which are seen as the primary obstacles to implementing their new world order.

    4. LifeSiteNews.com understands that abortion, euthanasia, cloning, homosexuality and all other moral, life and family issues are all interconnected in an international conflict affecting all nations, even at the most local levels. LifeSiteNews attempts to provide its readers with the big picture and the most useful and up-to-date information on this conflict.

    Mm. Vicious and paranoiac. Fabulous.

  • Bowling in northern Mali

    The Islamists who grabbed power in northern Mali have settled in and gotten comfortable. On Sunday they stuck a woman and a man in two vertical holes in the ground, leaving just their heads exposed, and threw stones at them until they were dead. They did this in front of 200 people.

    Mali’s government has expressed disgust.

    “The government learned with indignation and astonishment of the stoning to death of a couple in Aguelhok by the extremists occupying northern Mali,” read a statement from the communication ministry.

    “At the same time as it expresses its sympathy to the families of the victims, the government severely condemns this dark-age practice and assures that this act will not go unpunished.”

    Compassion is at the heart of every great religion.

  • Mali government denounces stoning as ‘dark-age practice’

    The hardline Islamists on Sunday placed an unmarried couple in holes in the ground and stoned them to death in front of about 200 people.

  • “Adulterous” couple stoned to death in northern Mali

    Witnesses said the couple were buried up to their necks, then pelted with stones until they died.

  • Turkish women march for abortion rights

    Renewed debate over abortion rights in Turkey has women wondering whether gender equality is being left behind.

  • Saudi Arabia pitches hijab fit at Olympics

    The International Judo Federation said Wojdan Shaherkani must fight without the hijab for safety reasons, so the Saudis threatened to withdraw her.

  • Batman doesn’t need to seek help

    Laurie Penny and Martin Robbins were chatting about feminism one evening on Twitter. [interjection: I’ve been there! I’ve done a good deal of chatting about feminism on Twitter. Some of it with Laurie Penny and Martin Robbins, though not at the same time as far as I recall.] They decided to make it a non-Twitter conversation, with more room to swing the arms. They chose the spacious airy riverview Independent. It’s a very good conversation.

    Martin starts by saying that “Feminists are fighting a centuries-old system of power that benefits nobody but the elite.”

    Laurie: What you’re talking about is structural violence, and the difficulty people have in understanding that there’s more to sexism than individual men doing individually nasty things to individual woman. In a world where we’re encouraged to see ourselves purely as atomised individuals with no relationship to any sort of broader social context, that’s a tough distinction to make.

    So we get people – many many people – telling us to shut up, stop “playing victim,” toughen up, just Be Strong and get on with it – as if it were possible to overcome systemic obstacles by pure will.

    They talk about the way “patriarchy” (for want of a better word) is bad for women and men.

    Martin: This is where I think ‘male privilege’, while accurate, can be a distraction – because the privilege really in modern society is that men are held back maybe 10% while women are held back more. Nobody is ‘winning’ any contest aside from a shrinking elite at the top of the pyramid who have an uncanny knack of getting the proles to fight among themselves.

    They talk about sexist men and lonely men and male roles in popular culture.

    Martin: And I think that’s a function of how we’re raised. Look at male role models in popular culture – they tend to be lone wolves or alpha males in a group. Loneliness can be hard to define. You can be surrounded by people and be alone. The NHS have some good research on men my age, one of the biggest problems is not being able to discuss their feelings, and an inability to seek help.

    Laurie: Yes, although it wasn’t always like that. Again, the model of masculinity changes according to what success and power is supposed to look like. Sixty years ago it was being the head of a household, an important role in your organisation or company or union, a pillar of your community. Now success for men is far more likely to mean lonely entrepreneurism. Seeking help is seen as weak.

    Martin: Batman wouldn’t seek help.

    Laurie: Batman doesn’t need to seek help, he has a butler.

    Martin: And a billion dollars.

    Laurie: And an enormous tower with his name on it.

    Martin: Yes. No issues there at all.

    They talk about sex and power and sex-as-power.

    Laurie: I’ve had men tell me that actually it’s women who have all the power, because they have the power of sexual refusal. Women are also informed that this is the only power we have or are expected to want – and ironically, of course, when we do say ‘no’ we’re rarely believed. Sexual refusal is the battleground, and if that’s women’s main power, it’s a shit power to have – particularly as it mainly works for young, hot women. For a lot of men, though, it seems like ‘women who I want to have sex with’ are the only ones admitted into the category ‘woman’ in the first place. Sexual refusal as a limited, contingent form of control is double bullshit for women and girls, because it means that if we actually happen to like sex and seek it out, as most of us would were we free to do so, we’re judged harshly for it. We like to think we live in a hugely sexually free culture, but we don’t. We don’t.

    Martin: Well, that’s another point I wanted to hit. With men’s magazines, say, we’ve developed this weird lad culture that’s almost grown up in opposite to feminism – except it’s counter-productive and infantilising. And in a weird way a lot of examples of ‘rape culture’ – Brendan O’Neil’s “how can I help wolf-whistling at women” for example – are immensely infantilising. It’s like being told you’re a dribbling animal, so weak-willed that you’re guided by your penis. This weird clique of writers at magazines gradually fading out of fashion have an almost hysterical need to define what is and isn’t allowed to be sexy, and it seems not to bear much relationship to what people choose in real life. I remember, growing up,  a lot of pressure on finding the right type of woman attractive – namely FHM’s sexiest 100 women, which as an exercise is like asking all humanity what their favourite foods are and then blending all the results into a sort of bland gruel.

    Laurie: I like that. Ever thought about writing for a living?

    Martin: Not sure there’s any money in it!

    They talk about the difficulties of male feminism.

    Martin: …Feminism can be a daunting area for men. Feminism has its own language, codes, like any cliquey area of writing. I’m keenly aware of blundering in as a man and saying stupid things, it put me off writing about it for a long time until I had the confidence. I was nervous about this chat. I’m keenly aware that you could probably make mincemeat of me on this topic.

    Laurie: Unfortunately, it is true that there’s a small but serious risk of getting painfully jumped on if you get something wrong, particularly with the internet.

    Martin: You almost need a sort of training arena where you can say stupid things to feminists and not get shot down in public. When I was struggling to understand patriarchy, I found feminist blogs unhelpful. I was asking questions I now realise were a bit stupid, but out of naivety rather than anything else.

    Laurie: I’ve thought about this a lot and unfortunately, I do think female feminists are going to have to be a bit more forgiving and generous in our corrections from time to time, if we can do that without diluting the message – firm but fair. Which of course sucks balls, because we’ve spent our lives being told to be forgiving and generous and make men feel better.

    Yes. We want to be (ahem) assertive, but we get called cunts for being it.

    Martin: Why are more men not talking about this? Where are the spaces where men can stand up and say – actually, this is fucked up? I wish feminism was seen as a discipline in which we discussed men’s issues as much as women’s.

    Laurie: We need some more outspoken male feminists. Maybe you should be one. I’ll train you, we can be like Pai Mei and Beatrix. I’m Pai Mei.

    [Insert elaborate training montage where Martin is made to climb an enormous mountain of privilege-comprehension, dodge the tar-pits of in-fighting and finally destroy Rick Santorum in hand-to-hand combat armed only with a copy of The Dialectic of Sex ]

    Martin: *gasps* I…I know feminism.

    Laurie: Now you’re ready.

    He’s trained. Booya.

     

  • Laurie Penny and Martin Robbins on talking to men about sexism

    So what you’re saying is that men are socialised to feel bad if they don’t participate in a culture that hurts and objectifies women?

  • Pussy riot rockers could get 7 years in prison

    They pleaded not guilty to the official charges of hooliganism driven by “religious hatred” for performing a punk prayer in Moscow’s main cathedral.