You know, nostalgia for the 80s, before people started frowning on homophobia and transphobia and we all lived happily together. (That’s not how I remember it actually. I remember frowning on homophobia in the early 70s. I remember knowing people who agreed with me about that. Lots of people.) (Granted, transphobia not so much. That was more buried.)

carlie has a good comment on the subject at PZ’s place.*

My mind is still stuck on Barbara’s “Oh, how I long for the days when no one would call us on shit when we talked about people” comment, because that sentiment comes up so often in this stuff. And what it comes down to is that they just don’t realize that people in those marginalized groups were never ok with those comments, but didn’t have the social standing to even complain about it back then. So they’re creating a fantasy past in which people in marginalized groups were all ok with everything, when really it was a world so oppressive that they couldn’t even risk voicing any negative opinion and at most just laughed nervously to cover their pain.

And people like her think that was a good time to live in.

I think that’s a shrewd observation.

Addendum: the remark in question.

Barbara A. Drescher I want the 1980s back. Yes, it was a bit oppressive, but people laughed at such over-the-top PCness. Today, we aren’t even allowed to be direct or honest without being accused of bigotry and “privilege”. Frankly, I don’t think most people would recognize real bigotry if it bit them in the ass.

Like 30

*Last sentence revised.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

So things must have been too calm and boring, so D.J. Grothe decided to throw a little bomb on Facebook and Twitter.

No hyperbole: I just saw the worst-passing transsexual I’ve ever seen in the lounge here. It was so disruptive that I am forced to believe it was an intentional way to protest against rigid gender binaries. Or so I’d like to think.

There were some shocked comments, and then a bunch of “PC gone mad/it’s all the fault of rage bloggers” people rushed in to circle the wagons in such a tight circle that not even an atom could get through.

Update: Part of the wagon-circling: Sara Mayhew posted her view of the matter on that Facebook thread:

That’s PZ, me, Rebecca, Amy, Melody, and in the front row, Carrie and…Elyse. That last one is so vicious I can hardly believe my eyes.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Amanda Knief of American Atheists was on CNN yesterday along with a Dallas Baptist pastor to discuss Greece v Galloway. Amanda said better things than the pastor said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlZSwYuZ57g

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Heh. Heina on Twitter.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

First you need this:

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins

Bin Laden has won, in airports of the world every day. I had a little jar of honey, now thrown away by rule-bound dundridges. STUPID waste.

The tragedy!!!!!

Wait, some dismal pedant might object, what about starvation in Somalia and malnutrition in Bangladesh? Is it really worth an all-caps STUPID for a little jar of honey? When if it’s really that important you can always just check the bag?

IT’S A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE!!!!!!

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins

Do you idiots seriously think I give a damn about my stupid honey? It’s the PRINCIPLE I care about. Get it? Principle, not honey, principle.

Vanilla Rose @MsVanillaRose

@RichardDawkins Oh. And @rebeccawatson not wanting creeps hitting on her in lifts is *not* a matter of PRINCIPLE? #DoubleStandards

 Now you need Doubting Tom’s Dear Muslimo. You have to go there to read the whole thing because it’s only right, but here’s how it ends:

But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor British brothers have to put up with.

Only this week I heard of one, he calls himself “Richard Dawkins,” and do you know what happened to him? A TSA security agent took away his jar of honey. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He took his jar of honey. Of course he protested, and of course he knew the preexisting security rules, but even so . . .

And you, Muslimo, think you have inconvenience, intrusion, and harassment to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.

Tom

Oh my stupid honeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey.

Update

Via @BoingBoing

EXCLUSIVE: Photograph of Richard Dawkins at TSA screening point.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

If you see a suffering animal with an open wound you’ll probably feel both disgust and empathy. Arielle Duhaime-Ross looked into the sources of both.

But with conflicting signals from empathy and disgust flooding our brains, how does one emotion prevail over the other? “We are full of conflicting desires, that is the nature of human beings,” Curtis observes.  “At any one time we have to weigh different motives and make a decision what to do based on circumstances, so people may simultaneously want to comfort a sick animal and recoil from its open wound.” What you choose to do, she says, “depends on the strength of your disgust and the strength of your desire to care.”

That’s one reason people who want to hate X or Xs tend to work up a lot of disgust at X or Xs. That, in turn, is a reason to be wary of the habit of working up disgust at people, whether individuals or groups.

H/t Brony.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Originally a comment on Pardon me, are you sufficiently feminine yet?

The rejection of “femininity” as a prescription for what all women should be while attempting not to de-value traditionally “feminine” attributes creates a serious double bind. I hate it. I hate it all the more because I possess a lot of those traditionally “feminine” attributes: I’m not trying to, I’m not trying to play them up, but I do. I still don’t want to be used as an example of a “good” or “real” woman by assholes who think women should just be barefoot and pregnant (and silent) in the kitchen.

This particularly sucks because of my career choices. I currently have a career in STEM. While it has given me a lot of financial security when I needed it most, and any sexism I have encountered in it has been so minor as to not rise above the general din of sexism everywhere… I hate it. I just don’t enjoy what I have to do every day. I can do it, I’m pretty good at it, but it takes everything I’ve got just to pay attention to what I’m supposed to be doing. So, I’ve decided (after long deliberation) that maybe I would better enjoy being a psychotherapist, and my natural empathy, warmth, and patience would come in handy in that occupation. I’m working on getting the right degree. And I’m really not eager to shout this from the rooftops…

I don’t want to play to the stereotype. I don’t want to be held up as an example of the stubborn woman with something to prove getting into STEM and then quitting, because she just wasn’t fulfilled and needed a more properly nurturing career. My choices aren’t right for everyone else, and I wouldn’t have them used to take away the choices of others. I just want to do what makes sense for my life, and what makes me happy, without the stereotype threats attached.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Laurie Penny takes a look at the familiar subject of hipster sexism, this time in the person of Russell Brand.

Brand is playing the court jester, and speaking limited truth to overwhelming power in one of the few remaining ways that won’t get you immediately arrested right now – from an enormous stage made of media money, liberally thickened with knob jokes, with a getaway sportscar full of half-naked popstars parked out back and one tongue firmly in his cheek.

But what about the women?

I know, I know that asking that female people be treated as fully human and equally deserving of liberation makes me an iron-knickered feminist killjoy and probably a closet liberal, but in that case there are rather a lot of us, and we’re angrier than you can possibly imagine at being told our job in the revolution is to look beautiful and encourage the men to do great works. Brand is hardly the only leftist man to boast a track record of objectification and of playing cheap misogyny for laughs. He gets away with it, according to most sources, because he’s a charming scoundrel, but when he speaks in that disarming, self-depracating way about his history of slutshaming his former conquests on live radio, we are invited to love and forgive him for it because that’s just what a rockstar does.

And it’s even worse when you’re ancient enough to know that this particular dispute has been going on since the late 60s. How depressing is that?

I don’t believe that just because Brand is clearly a casual and occasionally vicious sexist, nobody should listen to anything he has to say. But I do agree with Natasha Lennard, who wrote that “this is no time to forgo feminism in the celebration of that which we truly don’t need – another god, or another master.” The question, then, is this: how do we reconcile the fact that people need stirring up with the fact that the people doing the stirring so often fall down when it comes to treating women and girls like human beings?

We think of different, and better, ways of stirring things up.

It comes up whenever women and girls and their allies are asked to swallow our discomfort and fear for the sake of a brighter tomorrow that somehow never comes, putting our own concerns aside to make things easier for everyone else like good girls are supposed to. It comes up whenever a passionate political group falls apart because of inability to deal properly with male violence against women. Whenever some idiot commentator bawls you out for writing about feminism and therefore ‘retreating’ into ‘identity politics’ and thereby distracting attention from ‘the real struggle’.

But what is this ‘real struggle’, if it requires women and girls to suffer structural oppression in silence? What is this ‘real struggle’ that hands the mic over and over again to powerful, charismatic white men? Can we actually have a revolution that relegates women to the back of the room, that turns vicious when the discussion turns to sexual violence and social equality? What kind of fucking freedom are we fighting for? And whither that elusive, sporadically useful figure, the brocialist?

More than four fucking decades, we’ve been asking that. I seriously hope Laurie Penny won’t still be having to ask it more than four decades from now.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Bill Cooke is the Director of Transnational Programs at the Center for Inquiry.

On the fertile high country in central Kenya, in the shadow of the Nandi Hills, is the Ogwodo Primary School. Five or so buildings, two of them built by the parents out of mud and cow dung. All quite large and bare, with forty or more children to each room, sitting on hard pews and working at long benchtops. Here is where a sizable group of orphans are getting their schooling thanks to the Center for Inquiry, the humanist think-tank based in Amherst, New York.

There are many orphans in Kenya, most the result of their parents having died from HIV/AIDs, being too poor to afford medication, or learning of their disease too late. The churches bear a huge responsibility for the unnecessarily high death toll. Their primitive attitudes toward contraception and their encouragement of superstitions and misinformation about what HIV/AIDs is and how it is caught is a scandal to all civilized people. In the face of this ongoing catastrophe, George Ongere of CFI–Kenya has set up the Humanist Orphans program.

School fees keep many of the poorest children away from school in Kenya, as does the cost of uniforms. Most schools in Kenya insist on a uniform. It’s a way of weeding out those parents who are not serious about their children’s education. But, with no parents to look out for their interests, most orphans miss out on school altogether, and have no future to look forward to.

So George Ongere has gathered together this group of orphans in his home district, overseen their placement in the homes of relatives or neighbors, and ensured their school fees and uniforms are paid for from his already-overstretched CFI stipend. It was deeply moving to see these young people being given a chance at life. The needs of the orphans are still legion. But some sort of start has been made.

Addendum: If you want to donate to support this work, donate to CFI and earmark it for the International Program.

George Ongere is on Facebook.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Yemisi Ilesanmi is having an argument with some God-invoking homophobes on her Facebook wall, and using graphics and cartoons to illustrate some of her points. Good clean fun.

And there’s her book…

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

You know how there’s something of a tension in feminism between different attitudes to “femininity”? To put it crudely, one view is that it’s just a set of (implicit) rules that keep women feeble and silly, while the opposite view is that disparaging femininity is patriarchal because it just amounts to seeing anything female as worthy of disparagement.

What about that? I tend toward the first view, but I also suspect that means I’m an unreconstructed dinosaur beached on the second wave and incapable of learning better.

But, I think the words (and what they express) are stupid, both of them – masculine as well as feminine. They’re advertising language, for one thing – have this masculine cologne at $3700 the ounce, don’t you love these feminine shoes in which you can break your ankle so easily.

But I probably dislike the word “feminine” more. Well what does it mean? It doesn’t mean strong (in any sense) or independent or adventurous or brilliant. What does it mean? (It’s a silly word, for a silly idea.) Dainty, delicate, pretty, fluffy. Conforming to gender norms if you’re a woman, a disgrace if you’re a man.

I get the point, that disliking what the word names is too much like disliking the female, but I don’t really believe it. I guess that’s because to me it’s always meant a trap.

Maybe rather than worrying about how to think about “femininity” we should just ditch the whole concept as too stupid to bother with.

Or, we could Google and find that Life Site News has opinions on the subject.

ROME, March 18, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – On March 11^th, a few days before the papal election, one of the Catholic world’s most eminent philosophers, Alice Von Hildebrand, celebrated her 90^thbirthday. Von Hildebrand taught philosophy at a private, secular college in the US for 37 years, but is today perhaps best known as one of the leading proponents of the “New Feminism” that was brought to the fore under the papacy of John Paul II.

New Feminism, promotes the concept of the natural biological and complementarity of men and women, and opposes the “gender” ideology – along with abortion, contraception and sterilisation – of Second and Third Wave academic feminism. It is this type of feminism that von Hildebrand identified in an extensive 2003 interview as “the worst attack on femininity that has ever taken place in the history of the world”.

Well there you go. If the papacy likes it, I don’t have to.

Secularist feminism, still very much in ascendancy in politics and academia, advocates competition between the sexes for jobs and social advancement, looks upon motherhood as an obstacle to self-fulfillment and insists as a central tenet, on legalised abortion and artificial contraception to allow women to compete in the marketplace with men. And crucially for the new pope, it identifies the Catholic Church and the papacy as among its greatest enemies. Before the crowds had left the Piazza on Wednesday night, the world’s media were already carrying demands from the proponents of the feminist-inspired Sexual Revolution that the new pope overturn the Catholic prohibitions against abortion, birth control and homosexual activity.

Dang, the author of this piece – Hilary White – sure has a hard time with commas. But my point is, this is who thinks “femininity” is a real thing, and important.

In the last 40 years, there has been much talk among Catholics of creating a new “Christian feminism” that would assert the equal dignity of man and woman while maintaining the existence of differences between the sexes and upholding the sanctity of life and marriage. Perhaps among the greatest contributors to this discussion has been Alice von Hildebrand, whose books include, The Privilege of Being a Woman (2002), Man and Woman: A Divine Invention (2010).

In the 2003 interview with Zenit, von Hildebrand described academic, Marxist-based feminism as a kind of “trap” producing little more than misery. She said that the unintended consequence of feminist thought was to convince women that it was bad to be women.

The “amazing thing” about feminism, she said, was that “instead of making women more profoundly aware of the beauty and dignity of their role as wives as mothers, and of the spiritual power that they can exercise over their husbands, convinced them that they, too, had to adopt a secularist mentality”. This mentality, that she describes as “utilitarian” holds that human value is derived only from work and external accomplishment.

Ah yes the beauty and dignity of their role as wives as mothers, and of not having the freedom to choose anything else, in addition or instead. That’s “femininity” – being happy to be secondary and dependent.

Women “let themselves become convinced that femininity meant weakness. They started to look down upon virtues – such as patience, selflessness, self-giving, tenderness – and aimed at becoming like men in all things,” von Hildebrand said. This, she said, sparked the “war” between the sexes that we are all still suffering from today.

“Those who fell into the traps of feminism,” she continued, “became blind to the fact that men and women, though equal in ontological dignity, were made different by God’s choice: Male and female he made them. Different and complementary.”

And yet! There is Alice Von Hildebrand, doing something other than being a wife and mother…writing books telling other women to settle down to being wives and mothers.

Asked how women can claim the benefits of their natural inclinations, von Hildebrand said that while from a “naturalistic point of view,” men are “more creative, more inventive and more productive” as engineers, architects, philosophers and theologians, from God’s point of view all these works are “dust and ashes compared to every act of virtue”.

Women, she said, are not called to be “productive” in this material way, but every woman, whether married or unmarried, is “called upon to be a biological, psychological or spiritual mother.”

“She knows intuitively that to give, to nurture, to care for others, to suffer with and for them – for maternity implies suffering – is infinitely more valuable in God’s sight than to conquer nations and fly to the moon.”

It is to the lives and examples of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the woman saints that modern women can turn for guidance. These, she said, “teach us that an awareness and acceptance of one’s weakness, coupled with a boundless confidence in God’s love and power, grant these privileged souls a strength that is so great because it is supernatural.”

Fuck all that. Ima watch football and smoke cigars and throw sandwich crusts on the floor.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

No reason. Just because.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The Bishops continue their tireless efforts to impose their viciously obscurantist godbothering views on all of us. They report it proudly on their episcopal website, because they think they are morally better than the rest of us. They are so wrong about that.

The chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities wrote to members of the House of Representatives to support the “Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act” (H.R. 3279), to address one part of the abortion-related problem in the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

The House of Representatives ought not to be beholden to the US CCB. It ought to be entirely independent of them.

In his Nov. 1 letter, Cardinal Seán O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, wrote: “Under the ACA, unless state law requires otherwise, each insurer may choose whether to include elective abortions in the health plans it offers on a state health exchange. If the insurer does cover such abortions, the overall health plan may still receive federal tax subsidies; and every enrollee — regardless of age, sex, or conscientious objection – must make a separate payment solely to cover other enrollees’ abortions. This violates the policies governing all other federal health programs. In no other program may federal funds subsidize any part of a health plan that covers such abortions; and nowhere else does the federal government forbid insurers to allow an ‘opt-out’ from such coverage on conscience grounds.”

Because it’s not necessary to forbid it, because it’s not an issue, because it’s only women’s reproductive services that are treated as a special case demanding bishops’ meddling and obstacle-creating.

Citing a 2009 poll, Cardinal O’Malley said most Americans, particularly most women, do not want abortion coverage in their health plans.

Cardinal O’Malley is an expert on what women want? I don’t think so.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Chris Clarke wrote a wonderful little bit of ethological observation as a Facebook status.

Today I watched a raven with a Cheeto being carefully stalked by two California gulls looking for a way to snatch the treat away. The raven hid the Cheeto under a leaf as the gulls watched. The gulls seemingly concluded that the Cheeto was gone and wandered off.

As people pointed out in comments, this neatly shows that gulls don’t have object permanence while ravens do have theory of mind.

(I look forward to an avalanche of Cheeto ads in my future…)

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Some of you are in Spain, and thus probably know other people in Spain, and others of you not in Spain might still know people in Spain. Maybe you know someone who can offer Michael Dickinson a spare room or a flat empty during vacation or similar.

Here’s what Torcant Torcant told me:

Do you remember Michael Dickinson, the British collage artist that lives in Turkey? I remember you blogging about him in 2009 – I know it’s been a long time.

Back in 2009:

1. He was sued for insulting Turkish PM with a jail sentence prospect 2. The court acquitted him 3. The case went to the high court and the high court overturned the case 4. He was re-tried and found guilty but the jail sentence was suspended with the condition that he shouldn’t commit the same “crime” again
About 10 days ago, he was arrested for some anti-government protest he made in public, stayed in a hellish immigrants prison for 10 days, then he was deported. Moreover was banned to re-enter Turkey for 5 years.
He was offered a choice between Britain or Spain. He chose Spain and he was loaded in a plane to Barcelona. He is now staying in a cheap hostel in Barcelona with a backpack that holds whatever is left of all his belongings, just 200 Euros and no source of income.
He badly needs help. He can be contacted at michaelyabanji@gmail.com

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Becca Aaronson reports that at least nine abortion facilities in Texas – a quarter of the Texas total – have stopped providing abortion services.

I keep telling people this and they (some of them) don’t believe me. Yes abortion isn’t yet 100% illegal again, yet, but it is more and more difficult to get one in more and more of the country.

From Aaronson’s story in the Texas Tribune:

After the U.S. 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision Thursday to lift an injunction on new abortion regulations in Texas, at least nine abortion facilities — about a quarter of the state’s abortion providers — have discontinued abortion services in light of the new law.

The court’s decision is “having an immediate impact starting today, and what that impact is depends on each woman and where she lives,” said Sarah Wheat, vice president for community affairs for Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas. Planned Parenthood has discontinued abortion services at four Texas locations: Fort Worth, Austin, Waco and Lubbock. Wheat said staff members began calling patients to cancel appointments Thursday evening soon after the appellate ruling came down.

“Depending on that patient and what her circumstances are, we’re either referring her to another health center in that same community or telling her which cities she’ll have to travel to,” Wheat said.

Victory for the “don’t let the bitches weasel out of it” crowd.

The appellate court’s decision overrules U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel’s ruling that a provision in House Bill 2 that requires abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital imposed an undue burden on women seeking the procedure. Additionally, Yeakel ruled that it would be unconstitutional for the state to require physicians to follow federal standards for drug-induced abortions if a physician determined it would be safer for the woman to use a common evidence-based protocol.

“The law is in effect and facilities are required to comply effective immediately,” Carrie Williams, spokeswoman for the Department of State Health Services, said in an email. “The new requirements will be part of our review criteria when inspecting facilities.”

Abortion opponents and several state leaders are praising the appellate court’s ruling.

Of course they are. More women held hostage to their reproductive machinery.

“While the Supreme Court prohibits state legislatures from banning most abortions, states should have the right to protect women from dangerous abortion procedures,” Joe Pojman, the executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, said in a statement. He said the provisions would increase patient safety and lauded the appellate court for allowing them to take effect.

The appellate court’s decision “affirms our right to protect both the unborn and the health of the women of Texas,” Gov. Rick Perry said in a statement. “We will continue doing everything we can to protect a culture of life in our state.”

By which he means, everything we can to prevent women from having control over their own lives.

“It is a sad and dark day for women in Texas,” Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder and chief executive officer of Whole Woman’s Health, said in a statement. She said Whole Woman’s Health is stopping abortion services at three of its five locations — in Fort Worth, San Antonio and McAllen — because those locations do not have a physician with hospital admitting privileges within 30 miles of the facility. Whole Woman’s Health facilities in Beaumont and Austin will continue to provide abortion services.

Well that’s ok, it’s not as if there are large distances to travel in Texas.

Oh wait.

The only other abortion provider in the Rio Grande Valley, Reproductive Services in Harlingen, is also discontinuing abortion services, because its physician does not have hospital admitting privileges. That means the closest abortion facility to the Rio Grande Valley is now in Corpus Christi, which is more than 100 miles away from McAllen and Harlingen.

A separate Reproductive Services clinic in El Paso has also stopped providing abortion services. While there is an abortion facility in nearby New Mexico, the closest Texas abortion facilities to El Paso are in San Antonio and Dallas, which are more than 500 miles away. With abortion facilities in Midland and San Angelo recently shuttering, and with the Planned Parenthood clinic in Lubbock discontinuing abortion services, there are vast stretches of West Texas and the Panhandle without a nearby abortion provider.

Bastards.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)