Author: Ophelia Benson

  • It’s only a ruddy cooking lesson

    It’s good to see the Catholic church and all its offshoots and helper organizations and enablers finally learning some humility and even remorse.

    Just kidding.

    No, they’re not doing that, they’re doing the same old thing only more so. In Spain it’s another one of those reactionary legal associations named after Thomas More (fan of torture for heretics), prosecuting an artist for a film he made…34 years ago. Prosecuting him for what? For “offending religious feelings” – the stupidest “crime” on anyone’s books.

    One of Spain’s leading underground artists is due to appear in court today facing up to a year in prison over a film short he made in 1978 on “how to cook Jesus Christ”.

    Javier Krahe has been taken to court by a Catholic legal association, the Centro Juridico Tomas Moro, for “offending religious feelings” – a little-known offence. The Catholic association says the law has never before been applied in Spanish legal history.

    The film is what the title makes it sound like – a jokey cooking lesson, ending with the punchline, “After three days inside, he comes out of the cooker by himself!”

    And some falangist assholes think that merits a year in prison.

  • Spanish artist faces prison over film made in 1978

    Javier Krahe has been taken to court by a Catholic legal association for “offending religious feelings” – a little-known offence. The law has never before been applied.

  • Annual report of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan

    At least 943 women were killed in the name of honor, of whom 93 were minors. Nearly 4,500 cases of domestic violence against women were reported.

  • Turkish women protest plans to curb abortion

    Erdogan has called abortion “murder,” and his government is reportedly working on legislation to ban it after 4 weeks from conception, except in emergencies.

  • The Vatican may crumble into dust

    The Holy See is an absolute monarchy run by squabbling old, male, celibate courtiers dominated by one nationality.

  • Degodwinization

    Housework. Detailing. Metadiscussion. Tweaking. Reworking an argument that wasn’t done right the first time.

    I said something in the Rebecca explains post, after quoting Rebecca saying

    I should apparently put on a smile and pretend it doesn’t happen, because by reporting on my treatment, I am creating “a climate where women — who otherwise wouldn’t — end up feeling unwelcome and unsafe.”

    I said this:

    As Jews in Germany circa 1936 might have created “a climate where Jews — who otherwise wouldn’t — end up feeling unwelcome and unsafe.” As the Southern Poverty Law Center creates a climate where people who are the object of systematic vocal hatred end up feeling unwelcome and unsafe. That’s not to compare TAM with Nazi Germany or racist pockets of the US, of course, but then Rebecca didn’t name TAM in the item DJ quoted, either; she (or rather USA Today, indirectly quoting her) said “the freethought community.”

    Orac pounced on that passage rather rudely and aggressively.

    Nonsense, Ophelia. That’s exactly what you just did, compare TAM to Nazi Germany and women to Jews in Nazi Germany. Denying that you did so doesn’t change that. It just makes you sound disingenuous.

    As you might (or might not) know, I very much detest the gratuitous use of argumentum ad Nazi-um. I even have a special category for it on my blog:

    http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/category/history/hitler_zombie/

    My taking you to task for your analogy also has nothing to do with whether I agree with you and Rebecca regarding TAM and DJ Grothe. Rather, it has everything to do with language and not sliming your opponents with the Nazi label (while saying that’s not what you’re doing). These are things that really irritate me. I expect better.

    I’m debating whether your hyperbole is worthy of inclusion. I haven’t done a Hitler Zombie post in a long time. Maybe it’s time.

    I was annoyed by that, frankly. I was annoyed by the claim that you can’t disavow something by disavowing it. (On the other hand I sometimes think people are making fake disavowals, and I think I sometimes say so. That being the case, I probably have no right to be annoyed at Orac for saying the same kind of thing, just because he’s saying it to precious Me. But I knew the disavowal was meant to be real – but then no doubt so do other people. That one may be a wash.) I was annoyed by the bluster, especially coming from someone who never comments here. I was annoyed by the thuggish-sounding “maybe it’s time” nonsense. I was above all annoyed by the fact that Orac is a speaker at TAM. I was very annoyed by what could be seen as an attempt to ostracize me. I still am annoyed by that aspect of it, actually.

    Orac also went to the trouble of repeating his objection to my post on Chris Hallq’s post “I support DJ Grothe.”

    Well, ironically enough, part of the substance of that post was Ophelia Benson likening the issue with TAM to Jews in Nazi Germany circa 1936 and then immediately trying to say that she wasn’t likening TAM to Nazi Germany. One paragraph in that post is worthy of a Hitler Zombie post. I haven’t written one in a long time. Maybe it’s time for the Undead Fuhrer to rise from his crypt again.

    Also annoying, for at least the final reason.

    However – he does have a point. It wasn’t a good example for the point I wanted to make. That point was just that targets of hatred and vilification should not be blamed or rebuked for saying they are targets of hatred and vilification. That does, certainly, apply to Jews in Germany circa 1936, but that’s not the best example to choose because it’s colored by what happened to Jews in Germany in 1942. I meant to avoid that by saying 1936, but I should have just chosen a different example, instead. It’s not as if I think all this verbal misogynist bile is going to result in a genocide against women. I don’t think that. I think it sucks and has bad consequences, but I don’t think it’s pre-genocidal or anything like that.

    A much better example would have been LGBQ high school kids in (say) suburban Minnesota.

    So, ok. Orac had a point. I still think he was rude and a bit thuggish about it, but he had a point.

  • Skepticism gone wild

    There’s such a thing as hyper-skepticism (as Jason calls it) – as skepticism pushed past (or steered right around) reasonable skepticism into its own opposite, questioning items that there’s no real reason to question. Evolution by natural selection is one such item; Obama’s birth in Hawaii is another; the utility of vaccinations is another; the superiority of non-alternative medicine to alternative medicine is another.

    The reality of casual contempt for women is another. The fact that that reality makes at least some women feel less than “safe” is another.

    Salty Current elucidates in a comment at Jason’s.

    It’s not a safe space when women publicly talking about the problems of harassment and misogyny are accused by prominent people in the movement of doing it as some sort of self-promotion or drama-stirring for attention or blog hits, or when the behavior cited in their examples is ignored, dismissed, or excused. It’s not a safe space when women who talk about these issues publicly then have to face a stream of vicious, misogynistic attacks and slurs.

    No, it’s not.It’s odd the way this fact keeps getting brushed aside. Streams of vicious verbal attacks feel like steps on the way to worse attacks, including violence. That’s not batshit crazy, you know, because sometimes streams of vicious verbal attacks are exactly that.

     

  • A skeptic does the Dr Phil show

    The show gives the appearance of a serious look at a question, “Do psychic powers really exist?”, but it isn’t one.

  • Words, actions, or attitudes

    They’re on the story in the UK, too.

    The skeptical community is aflame once again over the issue of sexual harassment following the remarks of JREF president DJ Grothe in response to a 50% reduction in female attendance at TAM 2012.

    Remarks remarking that the angry feminazis scared off the women who should be registering for TAM because TAM is totally entitled to those women and the angry feminazis have a hell of a nerve scaring them off.

    There is not really room to pretend there is not a real problem with sexism and harassment in our community, as this data from the American Secular Census shows, women are 26% more likely to feel unwelcome, discriminated against, or harmed at Secular events 14.4% of women have felt  unwelcome, discriminated against, or harmed in the secular movement and the factors that most influence these worrying statistics are as follows:

    77% – Words, actions, or attitudes of other participants

    46% – Words, actions, or attitudes of organizers, leaders, or employees

    23% – Unwanted advances by other participants

    15.4% – Unwanted advances by organizers, leaders, or employees

    15.4% – Programs or positions of the organization itself

    8% – Choice of activity or venue

    Words, actions, or attitudes, you see – it’s not just unwanted advances. Unwanted advances are a pretty small percentage. It’s important to keep this in mind.

     

  • Wait – that was last year…

    Ok there’s another thing…

    I was re-reading Chris Hallquist’s post, trying to figure out what there is about what DJ said that he finds worth agreeing with, and I noticed something I overlooked before. From the much-quoted bit of the comment that DJ posted on more than one blog (two? more than two? I forget) –

    Last year we had 40% women attendees, something I’m really happy about. But this year only about 18% of TAM registrants so far are women, a significant and alarming decrease…

    Last year was very soon after The Great Eruption (of misogynist bile in response to elevator item). This year is in the wake of The Great Eruption. That could be part of the explanation right there. Women likely to attend TAM have had most of a year to digest The Great Eruption, and it may be that some of them just think there might be more of the same kind of thing at places like TAM because there is so much of it in other places. I think that myself, actually. I’m not certain about it, but I think it’s quite likely that there will be some Eruptionists at TAM, and that they might do some erupting.

    I wonder if DJ has considered that possibility. I suppose even if he has he could still shove the blame onto people objecting to The Great Eruption as opposed to The Great Eruption itself, but still…I wonder.

  • Rick Warren was only joking

    When he tweeted “If they’re cute, it’s flirting. If they’re ugly, it’s harassment.” Amen.

  • Woman sentenced to death by stoning in Sudan

    Intisar Sharif Abdalla is being held near Khartoum, shackled in prison with her baby son.

  • Rebecca explains

    Rebecca Watson explains why she won’t be at TAM this year.

    During my visit to Germany last week, I was asked by a conference attendee how I thought we could get more women to attend skeptic and atheist conferences. I gave the answer I nearly always give: when we increase the number of women on stage, we increase the number of women in the audience. As usual, I gave this example: The Amaz!ng Meeting (TAM) run by the James Randi Educational Foundation. I pointed out that when I first started attending (TAM 3), there were very few women on stage and the audience was only about 20% women. I explained that last year (TAM 9) an effort had been made to have women comprise 50% of the speakers. Most of those women were on panels and workshops, but it was a huge step. That, combined with ongoing promotion in places like Skepchick where Surly Amy raised thousands of dollars to give travel grants to dozens of women, helped finally raise the percentage of women in the audience to 40%.

    Skepchick helped to promote TAM to women, and to send women to TAM. Skepchick has been good to TAM.

    So it’s odd for me to be announcing that I will not attend TAM this year, because I do not feel welcomed or safe and I disagree strongly with the recent actions of the JREF president, DJ Grothe.

    I’ve attended TAM since TAM 3 in 2005, and since TAM 4 I’ve actively raised money for grants to send more women. That’s actually how Skepchick got started – selling calendars to raise money for women to go to TAM. Signed calendars were even auctioned off at TAM in order to raise even more money for the JREF. For several years, we at Skepchick actively tried to work with the JREF to help increase the number of women on stage, as well, creating long lists of potential female speakers and suggesting panels and other events that would be of interest to women. TAM was the main event for Skepchick, even after we started running our own event at SkepchickCon.

    You would think JREF would be grateful. But then DJ Grothe, president of JREF, blamed women talking about sexism and harassment for a reported decline in women registering for TAM. Say what?

    DJ was blaming women skeptics for creating an unwelcoming environment. I found that claim astonishing, since I was only aware of women speaking frankly about their own experiences and their own feelings. I couldn’t imagine that DJ would be literally blaming the victim for speaking out. To be sure, I asked him in that thread to give us examples of what he was talking about. To my surprise, this was his response:

    Rebecca: Off the top of my head, your quote in USA Today might suggest that the freethought or skeptics movements are unsafe for women. This is from the article:

    “I thought it was a safe space,” Watson said of the freethought community. “The biggest lesson I have learned over the years is that it is not a safe space. . . ”

    (http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2011-09-15/atheist-sexism-women/50416454/1)

    Over the past several years, I’ve been groped, grabbed, touched in other nonconsensual ways, told I can expect to be raped, told I’m a whore, a slut, a bitch, a prude, a dyke, a cunt, a twat, told I should watch my back at conferences, told I’m too ugly to be raped, told I don’t have a say in my own treatment because I’ve posed for sexy photos, told I should get a better headshot because that one doesn’t convey how sexy I am in person, told I deserve to be raped – by skeptics and atheists. All by skeptics and atheists. Constantly.

    This is quite obviously not a safe space for me or for other women who want to be free of the gendered slurs and sexual threats and come-ons we experience in our day-to-day lives. But apparently, DJ thinks I am lying about that, since apparently my feeling that the freethought community is not a safe space is “misinformation.” I should apparently put on a smile and pretend it doesn’t happen, because by reporting on my treatment, I am creating “a climate where women — who otherwise wouldn’t — end up feeling unwelcome and unsafe.”

    As Jews in Germany circa 1936 might have created “a climate where Jews — who otherwise wouldn’t — end up feeling unwelcome and unsafe.” As the Southern Poverty Law Center creates a climate where people who are the object of systematic vocal hatred end up feeling unwelcome and unsafe. That’s not to compare TAM with Nazi Germany or racist pockets of the US, of course, but then Rebecca didn’t name TAM in the item DJ quoted, either; she (or rather USA Today, indirectly quoting her) said “the freethought community.”

    And once again we see that the tragedy isn’t necessarily in the initial problem – like say a man propositioning a woman who has just said she doesn’t want to be propositioned, at 4am in an elevator – but in the reaction to a mild rebuke from the woman. The nonstop avalanche of rape threats she gets because she had the temerity to say “Guys, don’t do that.”

    And so here, the tragedy isn’t in the initial amount of harassment. It was (initially) only slightly more harassment than I had had to deal with in my every day life, after all, outside of this community. No, the tragedy is when the president of the organization that inspired me to join this community tells the world that women feel unsafe and unwelcome because of me. Because I talk about the men who harass me in this community, even while I encourage more women to attend these conferences and stand up and be counted, while I give conference organizers tips on improving the experience for women, and even while I help raise thousands and thousands of dollars to send women to these conferences.

    It’s deeply depressing.

     

     

     

  • Good bye DOMA

    On the other hand!

    A  federal appeals court has ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional because it denies equal rights for legally married same-sex couples. Booyah!

    Now it will go to the Supreme Court, which will overrule the appeals court. Or not  – I say those things out of settled pessimism about this Supreme Court, but then Rieux comes along to explain why actually the Supremes are quite unlikely to overturn.

    Anyway in the meantime – DOMA has been thrown out. Very good.

  • A disgrace to the good name of Seneca

    Curtis Knapp, pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Seneca, Kansas, says the government should kill homosexuals. (Whatever happened to small government? What about governs best that governs least? Inquiring minds want to know.) He said it in a sermon.

    In the sermon, Knapp cites Scripture to back up his point and said among other things: “They should be put to death. That’s what happened in Israel. That’s why homosexuality wouldn’t have grown in Israel. It tends to limit conversations. It tends to limit people coming out of the closet.

    “So, you’re saying we should go out and start killing them? No. I’m saying the government should. They won’t, but they should.”

    And why? Oh you know – because Jesus. Or Leviticus, or Timothy, or one of those guys. Does it matter? The point is – we hates’em, precious.

  • At the Café Racer

    I went to visit Café Racer this afternoon. I felt a little self-disgust or self-doubt that I wanted to – prurience? Murder porn? What are you doing? – but that went away as soon as I got there, and I’m glad I went. I now think one should make a point of visiting murder scenes.

    There were a lot of people there. There were a lot of flowers, and a lot of lit candles. There was a slightly goddy message painted on the window, but not too bad, and anyway, none of my biz. It was very, very, very quiet. It was a mourning ritual. Nothing prurient about it.

    One woman knelt down on the sidewalk and put two wine glasses down in front of the flowers – in front of the small section of flowers in front of her; she was just one small segment of what was going on – and poured them full of red wine, then took a swig from the bottle. I didn’t look at her any more after that. People were carefully not looking at each other.

    I got very chokey right away. It was good that I was wearing a sweatshirt, because the sleeves came in handy.

    There were cop cars around, driving past slowly, circling the block slowly. I don’t know exactly what for, but it felt like part of the mourning ritual, and maybe it was. Maybe cops went there for coffee and knew the people. No reason they wouldn’t.

    It was, as you can probably tell, overwhelmingly moving, and sad. That’s why I now think one should make a point of visiting murder scenes. Notice should be taken.

    It’s desperately sad that it was a place like that, though. Good cafés are among my favorite institutions (along with libraries – long live Kensal Rise branch! and the one in Elephant and Castle that Anthony Grayling and Alom Shaha used to visit often, now also closed – and bookstores and parks). A further terrible detail in this particular tragedy is that the murderer liked the Café Racer too, but he couldn’t go on visiting it because his mental illness made him go off the rails at intervals.

    I stood at one end for a bit, where the woman with the wine was, then I moved to the middle, then I moved toward the other end, then I crossed the street and stood there for a bit, then I left.

  • Irresponsible messaging

    So yesterday D. J. Grothe was worried about women not registering for TAM. He said people have been emailing him with wild claims such as “JREF is purported to condone child-sex-trafficking” along with other less wild claims. He thinks the source of this is

    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, and I find that unfortunate.

    I think the source of at least claims like ”JREF is purported to condone child-sex-trafficking” are much more likely to come from sock puppets trying to make “a small number of prominent and well-meaning women skeptics” look bad, but I don’t know. What I do know though is that TAM now looks vastly less fun and interesting to me than it did 24 hours ago. I’ve seen quite a few people saying the same thing since yesterday. Grothe himself seems to have created the very situation he was warning against, by his “irresponsible messaging.”

    Is that irony?

  • Dolan authorized payments to rapist priests

    Cardinal Timothy Dolan of NY authorized payments of up to $20k to sexually abusive priests as an incentive to leave priesthood when he was archbish of Milwaukee.

  • Tarek Fatah and Irshad Manji talk about multiculturalism

    The two authors discuss culture and racism, what values Western society has allowed for modern society, and the practice of democracy.

  • Shooting the messenger

    So DJ Grothe says the women who are talking about sexism among the skeptics are scaring away women.

    …this year only about 18% of TAM registrants so far are women, a significant and alarming decrease, and judging from dozens of emails we have received from women on our lists, this may be due to the messaging that some women receive from various quarters that going to TAM or other similar conferences means they will be accosted or harassed…I think this misinformation results from 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, and I find that unfortunate.

    Very true. I’ve noticed it myself. A woman says something – “don’t call me a cunt,” perhaps; “guys, don’t do that,” perhaps; “don’t shout at me on the street for not smiling,” perhaps. The possibilities are endless. So a woman says something like that, and by saying it, she helps create a climate where women — who otherwise wouldn’t — end up feeling unwelcome and unsafe, because of the torrent of raving bile that erupts all over her when she says one of those things.

    And yet – and yet, DJ seems to be blaming the women who say things rather than the people who respond with torrents of raving bile.

    I find that unfortunate.

    Rebecca was not much pleased either, and she asked DJ for specifics. He replied that she was one.

    Rebecca: Off the top of my head, your quote in USA Today might suggest that the freethought or skeptics movements are unsafe for women. This is from the article:

    “I thought it was a safe space,” Watson said of the freethought community. “The biggest lesson I have learned over the years is that it is not a safe space. . . ”

    (http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2011-09-15/atheist-sexism-women/50416454/1)

    If we tell people that our events or our movements are not safe for women, some women are bound to believe that.

    Yes, but then they will be believing what is true. Threats. Campaigns of vilification that have been sustained for almost a year now. Demeaning hostile contemptuous sexist language used throughout. That’s not a safe space.

    Is DJ saying Rebecca shouldn’t say that? Is he saying she shouldn’t comment on the way she’s been treated?

    If so, I find it unfortunate.