That’s how to make girls eager to go to school – force them to undergo “virginity” tests. Way to go, Indonesia.

From the Guardian:

A plan to make female high school students undergo mandatory virginity tests has been met with outrage from activists, who argue that it discriminates against women and violates their human rights.

Education chief Muhammad Rasyid, of Prabumulih district in south Sumatra put forward the idea, describing it as “an accurate way to protect children from prostitution and free sex”. He said he would use the city budget to begin tests early next year if MPs approved the proposal.

“This is for their own good,” Rasyid said. “Every woman has the right to virginity … we expect students not to commit negative acts.”

Stupid thug. Having a right to one’s own virginity is not the same thing as being forcibly ”tested” for it as a condition of attending school. That in fact is the opposite of a right to one’s own virginity, since the school is in effect raping the students by “testing” them.

And why just girls? Why is it only women who have a “right” to virginity?

The test would require female senior school students aged 16 to 19 to have their hymen examined every year until graduation. Boys, however, would undergo no investigation into whether they had had sex.

The plan has met with some support from local politicians, who said the test would help cut down on “rampant” promiscuity in the district.

It would cut down on “rampant” female education, too.

Local and national MPs, activists, rights groups and even the local Islamic advisory council have all denounced Rasyid’s plan as potentially denying female students the universal right to education, in addition to targeting girls for an act that may not have even been consensual, such as sexual assault.

Good. Let’s hope they prevail.

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

Education is important, right? It’s important to do the early stages of it well, not just the last stages, right?

Teaching is hard work. Teaching in a middle school is crazy hard work. A Facebook friend who just started teaching in a middle school posted an account of his third day, and gave me permission to quote it. It is, frankly, horrifying.

Oh oh. Day3 was worse than Day1. My 3-day experience of teaching has been pretty horrific overall. I estimate my half-life as a teacher, before I have to bail to live, is just a few more days. Jail would be better. (I could read and sleep more.) The amount of work involved is insane – and I’ll have an additional class from next week (and won’t get out of school tomorrow till 9pm, to sleep at 10 to get up at 3). There’s essentially no lesson prep time at all – except the weekend. I have huge admiration for my fellow teachers and care about almost all the students I’ve had, but those important positives are vastly outweighed by the negatives. In spite of all that, I was doing my very best in my second class this morning when I was ‘observed’ by the principal of my school (a man who has yet to respond to any of my first-week greetings when I cross his path). I was pleased that he was seeing one of my better newbie lessons. Soon thereafter I was summoned to his office, told my lesson didn’t conform to the ruling US ed. ‘group activities’ fashion and told that all my lessons must be documented at length (this week presumably during my regular five hours of troubled sleep). Why should I endure all that when I could be comfortable in England growing old with my family?

It’s as if the goal were to drive all teachers out of teaching.

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

Emery Emery, the “Great Penis Debate” guy, the Ardent Atheist, the guy who wrote that stupid piece about how we all just hate sex – Emery Emery has a new wheeze. His new wheeze is a fundraiser to donate to Michael Shermer’s legal fund.

I’M JUST A MEMBER OF THE COMMUNITY

• My name is Emery Emery and I am launching this fund raising effort for two reasons.

1. As a show of public support for Michael Shermer.

2. To help alleviate the expenses associated with Michael’s effort to defend his name.

• I do not know Michael Shermer personally and he has no idea I am setting up this fund raiser. I will be making sure that all money donated will go directly to his legal team and not to him personally.
• If any funds are raised beyond Mr. Shermer’s legal expenses it will be used to promote skepticism and science.
• The way that money will be donated will be put to a vote of the donors themselves via email.

If you believe what PZ Myers did was wrong, express your disgust by donating to Michael Shermer’s legal fund now.

All of that seems to assume complete confidence, even certainty, that Shermer has never sexually harassed anyone. That’s a lot to be that confident or even certain of, in the circumstances.

Why Should I Donate?

• Don’t sit back and do nothing while Michael Shermer is accused of a heinous crime and do not think it will stop here. PZ Myers and the FtB feminists have set their sights on skepticism and atheism in general. They clearly want to do harm to the institutions.
• A show of support will send the message that we as a community will no longer tolerate illogical attacks on people who do not condone nor support sexual harassment, sexual predation, or rape any more than we support defamation of our community members from anonymous allegations.

“PZ Myers and the FtB feminists” – sounds like a band, don’t it.

We’ve “set [our] sights on skepticism and atheism in general” – what does that mean? We want to shoot and kill skepticism and atheism? No we don’t. We “want to do harm to the institutions” – what does that mean? Nothing, really; it’s gibberish. If he means we want secularist and skeptical organizations to do a much better job of dealing with sexism and sexual harassment, and of including women instead of ignoring them, then yes, we do. But guess what – that’s not “doing harm” to them. On the contrary, it’s making them better.

Granted not everyone will see it that way. In particular, people who have been enjoying their freedom to sexually harass with impunity won’t see it that way. But people who don’t see why atheism and skepticism have to resemble frat parties will, and I think the latter vastly outnumber the former. I think better of atheism and skepticism than Emery Emery does. He thinks they’re all about people like him, and I don’t.

The most disgusting item in Emery Emery’s fundraiser is the last one, the $5000 one.

$5,000+ A Bottomless Glass Of Wine

For $5000 you will receive a night of drinking wine with Emery Emery who will not be drinking but keeping your glass full.

See what he did there? Yeah.

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

Via Sanal Edamaruku, NDTV on the passage of that law in Maharashtra.

The state government today cleared an Anti-Superstition and Black Magic Ordinance to replace a Bill that had been approved by the cabinet but had lapsed before it could be taken up in the assembly. The Bill has been pending for eight years.

Among other things, the law seeks to make it punishable for self-styled godmen to prey on people by offering rituals, charms, magical cures and propagating black magic.

Dr Dabholkar had relentlessly campaigned for a law against superstition and black magic in the face of criticism from right-wing groups who had called him “anti-Hindu”.

Sanal also linked to a separate story about a “godman” – one charged with sexual assault on a minor. Funny thing about those “godmen”…

Delhi Police have booked self-styled godman Asaram Babu on charges of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl.

A zero FIR under section 376 was lodged at Kamala Market police station in central Delhi. on Tuesday evening.

The case pertains to the rape of a girl at a hostel in Jodhpur. “We registered the complaint, but the girl said the incident occurred in Rajasthan, so the case will be forwarded to Rajasthan,” a police officer told IANS.

…

The cops are approaching the case cautiously so as not to risk hurting the religious sentiments of a community.

Yes…we get that a lot.

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

The IHEU has compiled reactions to the murder of Narendra Dabholkar.

The Humanist and rationalist community in India has reacted with dignified anger and sadness, remembering an effective and stalwart campaigner, dedicated to the people of Maharashtra but always ready to cooperate across organizational boundaries. He was one of India’s foremost rationalists, working for social justice, against  caste discrimination, and exposing the so-called miracles of exploititive ‘godmen’. His work was well-known, and some aspect of it is widely believed to have motivated his killers.

The law against fraud via superstion was passed.

Dabholkar also lead the campaign for an anti-superstition Bill in Maharashtra state, and in the space of two days since his assassination, the state government has — after eight years of campaigning by activists and prevarication by the authorities — finally pushed through the Bill which Dabholkar worked so hard to see implemented.

The Maharashtra state government enacted an emergency ordinance to ban rituals, superstition and black magic. A bill similar to which Dr Dabholkar had been campaigning for must still be endorsed by the parliament. Previous versions of the Bill had been approved by the cabinet but lapsed before they could be put to a vote, despite being on the list for eight years. The emergency legislation makes it an offence to exploit or defraud people with ‘magical’ rituals, charms and cures.

One of the many statements:

Vidya Bhushan Rawat of the Social Development Foundation told IHEU, “The work carried by him and his organisation is enormous. India and South Asia are not so receptive to free-thinking and we face it regularly in our work… It is a sad day but it can not and should not deter the humanist rationalist activist to work on. India is in danger as religious fascist and Hindu nationalist forces with active support from international and national media, are on the rise. It is a big challenge and we have to fight it. We know much tougher days are ahead. The country is in the grip of hate-mongering people ready to kill people to get their political benefit. We condemn this murder and demand immediate inquiry from the government of Maharastra.”

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

The BBC reports a situation.

Some young HIV patients are giving up their medicine after being told by Pentecostal Church pastors to rely on faith in God instead, doctors warn.

Medical staff told the BBC a minority of pastors in England were endangering young church members by putting them under pressure to stop medication.

It’s a test of faith, you see.

I wonder if those pastors ever test their faith by walking in front of trains.

The doctors and health professionals reported a variety of cases:

• Some said they had dealt with parents who felt under pressure to stop giving their young children their HIV medicine – and some had actually done so

• Others were breastfeeding mothers with HIV who refused the medicine that would stop the virus being passed onto their babies
• Some were young people, making the decision for themselves

The healthcare workers also reported that some patients had been told by their pastors they would be healed by prayer or by drinking blessed water.

That makes me feel indignant. Those pastors shouldn’t be doing that.

Dr Toni Tan, a consultant paediatrician, said some Pentecostal pastors were endangering the lives of sick followers.

“It’s my view that it’s very wrong for faith leaders to actively encourage their congregations to stop taking their medication… it will lead to their deaths.”

Pentecostals and other Christians see healing, like speaking in tongues, as a sign of the presence of God.

They should get over that.

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

Massimo Pigliucci asked yesterday, “Does philosophy have a sexual harassment problem?” He asked it in response to Jennifer Saul’s article in Salon, which was titled “Philosophy has a sexual harassment problem.”

Last week Jennifer Saul, a philosopher at the University of Sheffield, published an article in Salon entitled: “Philosophy has a sexual harassment problem.” While there is much substance and nuance in the body of the article, I sincerely hope that Prof. Saul did not actually choose the title herself (editors often do that sort of thing), because the message it sends is anything but nuanced, and if taken at face value also not particularly constructive.

And that’s what he got from that article? That saying philosophy has a sexual harassment problem is overstating the problem? Rather than that, say, the sexual harassment there is in philosophy is a problem? He is, in short, worrying more about the reputation of philosophy than he is about the women being harassed?

After that he pauses to say that sexual harassment is a bad thing and he doesn’t think it’s been addressed yet.

Saul goes on to point out that since she started a blog devoted to women in philosophy she began receiving an alarming number of anonymous testimonials of sexual harassment in the workplace, with heart wrenching stories concerning undergraduate students, graduate students, and young faculty. These stories are aggravated by the fact that often nothing was done about the incidents in question, sometimes discouragingly pointing to a failure of the people involved, as well as of their institutions, in even understanding that there was a problem. It makes for sober reading for anyone who still doesn’t take this issue seriously.

But none of this amounts to the conclusion stated in the title of Saul’s essay: we simply do not know whether philosophy as a field is particularly vexed by sexual harassment, or whether philosophy is simply a microcosm of the still largely misogynistic society in which we live.

But that isn’t the conclusion stated in the title of Saul’s essay. The title of the essay isn’t “Philosophy has an exceptionally bad sexual harassment problem.” The title just says that philosophy has a problem.

 Indeed, in the body of the article Saul herself clearly states: “When I talk to people about this, I am invariably asked whether sexual harassment is worse in philosophy than in other fields. The short answer is that we don’t really know: it’s very difficult to get good data on something that is drastically underreported and often kept confidential even once reported.” Good, then I hope that Saul protested vehemently with the Salon editor when she saw the title under which her article appeared, because it literally indicts an entire fields of professionals — most of whom do not engage in sexual harassment — with a broad brush that is as offensive as it is unsubstantiated.

No, it doesn’t. Saying there’s a problem doesn’t indict the whole field, much less all the people (whether professional or amateur) who work in the field. There just isn’t any need to be defensive about it.

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

What the hell happened to personal responsibility? Eh? Waah waah waah, they provoked me, make them stop – that’s all we ever hear. Man up, anti-choicers! If someone offers you more wine an abortion clinic to target with violence, you can just say no.

Amanda Marcotte tells us the anti-choicers in Wichita are arguing over this point, now that a new clinic has opened where Dr Tiller’s used to be until an anti-choicer shot him dead in a church.

But now there’s a new clinic in town where Dr. Tiller’s used to be, and irate anti-choice groups are petitioning the city to have it shut down.

Their reasoning is that the clinic, the South Wind Women’s Center, provokes them into harassing the people going in and out of it, and because they understand that they are super annoying people, they would like the provocation taken away. 

Better yet, an intra-fundamentalist controversy has erupted over the question of exactly how provocative the clinic is. One group says that medical workers providing private abortion care are deliberately provoking gun violence and have to be stopped before some hapless responsible gun owner who brings a gun to an abortion clinic ends up in jail because a meanie doctor pushed him to murder. The other groups say that while they fully agree that the clinic is making them harass its workers and patients, it’s a step too far to suggest they’re pushing anyone to shoot at them.

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

Sanal Edamaruku talks to Arun George about the murder of Narendra Dabholkar.

The murder of noted anti-superstition activist Dr Narendra Dabholkar in broad daylight in Pune not only highlights the risk a rationalist faces in the country, but according to some like activist Sanal Edamaruku, it should serve as encouragement to others to take up his cause.

“He was one of the most wonderful soldiers of rationalism in Maharashtra because he was taking the movement down to the villages on one side and the legislature on the other,” Edamaruku told Firstpost. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK8tnjks08I

Edamaruku may be right. Sometimes an assassination or an attempted assassination does inspire others to take up the cause. That’s happened with Malala Yousafzai, for example. It’s much too stiff a price to pay, though.

During the course of his battle against superstition, Dabholkar had received many threats from various groups but had never allowed it to deter him. Edamaruku, the president of an organisation called the Indian Rationalist Association, says the threats usually come from those who are perpetrating superstitions and other beliefs.

It’s a nice racket for them; they don’t want people messing it up.

“It is not the victims of superstition who are normally against rationalists but the exploiters who are using superstition and are using the gullibility of people, they are the ones against us,” Edamaruku said.

He said the persecution rationalists faced only encouraged them to continue to battle harder against it.

However, successes are few. Edamaruku pointed out that Dabholkar’s mission — the anti-superstition bill — had been significantly watered down and had still not been passed by the Maharashtra legislation.

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

Terrible news from India today -

Renowned rationalist Narendra Dabholkar, who fought for a law against superstition and black magic, was shot dead this morning in Pune in Maharashtra, an incident which sparked grief and outrage in the city and his hometown Satara.

The 70-year-old was on his morning walk when he was shot near the Omkareshwar Bridge in the city by gunmen on a motorcycle. The police said four shots were fired at him at close range, two of which hit him in the back of his head.

The authorities don’t think it was random.

In Dr Dabholkar’s hometown Satara, thousands came out on the streets to pay tribute to a man loved and respected for his campaign against superstition and self-appointed godmen.

Political parties also announced a shutdown in Pune on Wednesday. All autorickshaws will stay off the roads.

Announcing Rs. 10 lakh for any information on the murder, the Maharashtra government called it a planned killing and slammed the police for failing to protect the senior activist.

The IHEU has more:

Dr. Dabholkar, a medical doctor, plunged into anti-superstition work in 1983 and built a concrete movement in his home state of Maharashtra.  He was founder of the Maharashtra Forum for Elimination of Superstition, Maharashtra Andha Shraddha Nirmulan Samiti, editor of Sadhana magazine devoted to propagation of progressive thought, and had served previously as vice president of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations (FIRA), an Member Organization of IHEU.

Dabholkar’s work over many years confronted and exposed the fraudulent practices of babas and swamis by explaining the science behind so-called miracles, often used to defraud some of the least well-off members of society of their money or possessions. Dabholkar organised travelling troops of activists travelling all over the state, and campaigned at a political level with great erudition against superstition and so-called ‘black magic’.

India needs more people like that, not fewer.

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

Aha, a gap in my knowledge of popular culture. (There are a lot of those.) I didn’t know kawaii was a thing. I knew about the Japanese cult of cuteness, but I didn’t know it had a name, or that it was a fashion outside Japan.

(I know a woman, a PhD-MD, whose parents left Japan for the US when she was a child because they couldn’t stand to let her grow up under that kind of pressure – and that was decades ago.)

Wikipedia clued me in.

Kawaii (かわいい [kaw͍aiꜜi], “lovable”, “cute”, or “adorable”^[1]) is the quality of cuteness in the context of Japanese culture.^[2][3][4] It has become a prominent aspect of Japanese popular culture, entertainment, clothing, food, toys, personal appearance, behavior, and mannerisms.^[5] The noun is kawaisa (可愛さ^?), literally, “lovability”, “cuteness” or “adorableness”.

My skin is crawling already. I can’t bear cuteness in adults – that is to say, in adult women, because not too many men go in for it.

Japanese women who feign kawaii behaviors (e.g., high-pitched voice, squealing giggles^[15]) that could be viewed as forced or inauthentic are called burikko and this is considered a gender performance.^[16] The term burikko (鰤子^?) is formed with buri (鰤, literally ‘amberjack’ a fish), a pun on furi (振, ‘to pretend or pose’),^[17] and ko (子, ‘child’).^[16] It was a neologism developed in the 1980s by singer Kuniko Yamada (山田邦子, Yamada Kuniko^?).^[16]

Ew. Yes of course it’s a gender performance, but it’s a peculiarly gross one. Those squealing giggles…

Japanese women often try to act cute to attract men.^[18] A study by Kanebo, a cosmetic company, found that Japanese women in their 20s and 30s favored the “cute look” with a “childish round face”.^[7] Women also employ a look of innocence in order to further play out this idea of cuteness.

Yup. They duck their heads and then peer up adorably; they let their mouths open a little so that a couple of darling little pearly teeth show…

And to quote an immortal concluding line of Dorothy Parker’s, Tonstant Weader fwoed up.

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

Jennifer Saul goes on to talk about the other ways women are belittled and overlooked in philosophy departments.

The blog also contains story after story of women whose point isn’t taken seriously until repeated by a man; or who simply aren’t called on during question periods.  And the Gendered Conference Campaign (run by the group blog Feminist Philosophers, of which I’m also a part) documents conference after conference with absolutely no invited women speakers. Recent work by Kieran Healy has dramatically demonstrated how infrequently work of women philosophers is cited.

What lies behind this?  There is undeniably still some outright prejudice in the field: One male philosopher I knew was well-known for openly declaring that women and black people are generally of inferior intelligence, and he remains highly respected and extremely well-paid.  But much more frequently what’s probably going on is due to implicit bias — unconscious associations we hold largely due to living in cultures structured by social categories like race or gender.  Psychologists have firmly established that these associations lead us — even, very often, the committed egalitarians among us — to judge the very same CV to be less good when a female name appears at the top rather than a male one.  They also lead us to take women’s comments less seriously, to have more difficulty recognizing them as leaders, and to be less likely to think of them when considering who to invite to a conference.  All this takes place largely outside of our conscious awareness, and can’t be corrected simply by trying harder to be unbiased.

So…could someone develop a pill, please? Or an implant? Or a genetic modification?

Anything?

Moreover, reflecting approvingly on one’s own objectivity (as philosophers are wont to do) will make it worse.

Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god – it’s The Skeptics again. I think they’re even more wont to do that than philosophers are. They are very wont to do that. Remember Mr Deity the other day? Yammering about other people’s cognitive biases while in the very act of hotly insisting that a friend and collaborator of his couldn’t possibly have a skeezy side? Yeah. Irregular verbs, but even more irregular than usual – I’m objective and you’re not.

I know I have implicit biases. I know I do. I was raised on cowboy shows and cop shows and war movies like everyone else! How could I possibly not have them?

I think an implant would be the best way to go. At birth. Mandatory.

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

One item from What’s it’s like to be a woman in philosophy.

I was in my second year of studies at a top philosophy department in the US. I took a course in X that was offered by a very prominent male philosopher who also happened to be quite active and outspoken in attempts to improve the position of women in philosophy. Once after class I mentioned to him that I was considering the possibility of writing a dissertation under his supervision, and he seemed supportive as I was among the best students in his course. One evening toward the end of the term we discussed possible topics for my thesis in his office. At one point during that conversation he stood up, looked at me in a strange way and said that he had an irresistible desire to touch my breasts. As he approached me I recoiled in disgust and rushed outside. When I later told some of my friends what happened they wondered why I was so shocked about the incident because they said this professor hitting on female students was common knowledge in the department. This was too much for me. It obviously meant that this behavior was tolerated and that none of my other teachers in that department felt any obligation to do anything about it. I left the program after a few weeks for good and never returned to philosophy studies again.

There you go – common knowledge; tolerated; no obligation to do anything about it; woman leaves the program and philosophy, forever.

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

I like this idea of dramatizing life among the Extreme Skeptics™, I want to do some more of it.

Scene 1

The living room. Chris is watching “Hoarders” on tv; Terry enters.

Terry: Let’s go swimming?

Chris: Why?

Terry: “Why?” What do you mean why? For fun, that’s why.

Chris: What’s your evidence that swimming is fun?

Terry: What are you talking about?! I like swimming, that’s my “evidence.”

Chris: That’s just a feeling. Feelings are not evidence.

Terry: Oooooookay, see you later. [Exit carrying towel and bathing suit]

Scene 2

The living room. Chris is watching “Man vs Food” on tv; Terry enters.

Terry: You drank all the milk!

Chris: What’s your evidence for that?

Terry [shaking a plastic milk jug]: There are like three drops left and it was nearly full this morning! That’s my evidence.

Chris: Maybe you drank it all.

Terry: I didn’t.

Chris: What’s your evidence for that?

Terry: I don’t have any evidence! I just know I didn’t. I had a little on my cereal for breakfast and that’s it, and I was at work all day.

Chris: Maybe you had a blackout and don’t remember.

Terry: Or maybe you drank it all and didn’t bother to get more.

Chris: What’s your evidence for that?

Terry: That’s it – I’m moving out.

Curtain.

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

PZ has a post on this fun new trick of saying “I am Skeptic, I don’t just believe your claim just like that, I wasn’t born yesterday, I demand evidence for all claims” whenever there’s a woman muttering something about harassment. He does it with a short one-act play about a visit to SkepticDoc, M.D.

PZ: Doctor, lately I’ve been experiencing shortness of breath and an ache in my left shoulder when I exert myself…

SkepticDoc: Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down! See the name on the shingle? It’s SkepticDoc. Do you have anything other than your feelings to justify wasting my time here?

PZ: What? I’m telling you my symptoms…

SkepticDoc: Yeah, yeah, your feelings. Do you have some physical evidence that you felt pain? Some independent corroboration that you felt this remarkable “ache”? So far, this is just gossip.

Sound familiar? Yeah. All too god damn familiar.

Let’s live like that, shall we? Whenever a friend is unhappy about something – demand evidence of the unhappiness! Then demand an airtight logical argument for the unhappiness. Then give a lecture on how to develop a backbone and (use a lot of anger in the voice and facial expression here) personal responsibility. Then ask for money.

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

That was an estimated 5000 people marching in Dublin today, calling on the Government to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples.

RTÉ News has video from the march.

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