Via the Global Secular Humanist Movement page on Facebook -

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

Lindy West, like many observers, points out that a report abuse button on Twitter could be used for just more of the same abuse.

The thought of having my Twitter account potentially suspended by abusers in retaliation for fighting back against my own abuse is profoundly enraging. On the other hand, though, this week someone created a parody account of my dead father to harass me because of my stance on rape jokes (still going on, because COOOMEDYYYYY). And you better fucking believe I wanted a “report abuse” button for that. I can see both sides—though mostly what I see right now is how hard the entire system is rigged to fuck women over.

I used personal examples there, because I happen to have those on hand (so, so many of those), but this isn’t actually about how I, Lindy West, am treated on the internet. This is about how people—particularly women—are treated on the internet when we challenge entrenched power structures.

We are treated like subhuman garbage, and that’s because internet trolling is not random—it is a sentient, directed, strong-armed goon of the status quo. And the more we can hammer that truth through the public consciousness, the sooner we can affect the widespread cultural change we need to begin tamping down online hate speech.

Yes. A technical fix, if it worked, would be good, but not nearly as good as a widespread cultural change which makes it be the case that people don’t want to treat anyone like that.

One of the pillars of conventional wisdom about internet trolling is that internet trolling just happens. You hear this all the time, from even the most progressive allies: Oh, well, it’s the internet. There are trolls. Trolls troll the internet. Rape threats are like oxygen. Whatareyagonnadooooo. So, I’m just supposed to accept that psychological abuse is built into my job and I’m some thin-skinned rube if I complain about it? Easy for you to say, Señor Rando. Not only is that framework supremely unsatisfying for me personally, I’d go so far as to say that it’s a dangerous and patently false myth. Internet trolling does not “just happen.” It is not some mysterious, ambient inevitability that affects all internet users indiscriminately.

Internet trolling is a force with a political agenda.

Hmmmmmmyes and no. Much of the “political agenda” is just trolling itself. It’s how some people socialize with their friends. That’s a sick, depressing fact, but there it is. It has to be fun for them, because if it weren’t, they would stop after a few hours or days. We know they don’t: they keep at it for years.

…when we ignore the issue—leaving trolls to twist in the wind—not only does it not fix anything, it actively hurts us. It poisons healthy conversations. And, more specifically, it actively drives women off the internet and out of the conversation and back into our “safe spaces”—which is exactly what the trolls want. They want us to shut up. They want us out of their territory.

But engaging with the issue is exactly what trolls want too. They revel in attention. So that’s the conundrum: As soon as we acknowledge them, they win. But if we never acknowledge them, they also win, plus discourse shuts down and we all get dumber. So what are we going to do? Well, in light of that idiotic Catch 22, I know what I’m going to do. Whatever I fucking feel like doing. I’m sick of being told that I’m navigating my own abuse wrong.

I’ve been sick of it all along.

Cumulatively, the sheer volume of hate that we’re expected to shoulder, in silence, every day, is wearing a lot of people out and shutting down rational discourse. Female bloggers are being hounded off the internet. Teenage girls are being hounded off the earth. There’s no good solution, but we have to do what we can to stop these people—unmask them, shame them, mock them, cement their status as social pariahs—for our own sanity and for those whose armor isn’t so thick (upgrade yo greaves, son).

We’re doing our best.

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

Pakistan now has its own caped crusader, but under the cape is a burqa. Hmm.

Pakistan’s first caped crusader is a burka-clad superhero who fights school-hating baddies by night and moonlights as a gentle, compassionate schoolteacher by day.

Burka Avenger has yet to launch on TV, but she is creating quite an impression in a country where female literacy is estimated at a grim 12% and the Taliban are continuing a campaign which has seen hundreds of girls’ schools blown up in the north-west.

That sounds quite good, in a way. But…a burqa?

“This is such an interesting way to reinforce positive social messages for kids,” Mr Rashid told the BBC. “The Burka Avenger is a great role model. We lack those in Pakistan.”

Many real life women’s rights crusaders in Pakistan might not agree. The use of the burka, the full cloth head-to-toe veil that is often worn by women in the north-west and tribal areas of Pakistan, is controversial in a country which has been reeling from the effects of religious extremism over the past decade.

Marvi Sirmed, an Islamabad-based journalist and human rights activist, thinks that it is not right to build a resistance figure out of a woman wearing a garment that has been strongly associated by some with the suppression of women.

“It is subversive and it says that you can only get power when you don a symbol of oppression,” says Ms Sirmed.

“It is demeaning to those brave women in the conservative parts of Pakistan who have been fighting for women’s rights, education and justice, and who have said ‘no’ to this kind of stereotype.”

In one way, yes, but in another way, it’s more like subverting the burqa.

Taha Iqbal, the head of animations for Burka Avenger, thinks that everyone should just wait for the series to come out.

He says like any other superhero, Burka Avenger has a back-story too and her reasons for wearing the burka have nothing to do with subservience.

“Besides she has to kick ass,” he says. “Tight leather pants are hardly practical for that purpose.”

No, but dude, neither is a giant bag over your body and a smaller bag over your head. Those aren’t practical for kicking ass either.

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

Just because. The parrot sketch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218

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

Texas is racing at top speed toward the edge of a cliff again.

At least six creationists/”intelligent design” proponents succeeded in getting invited to review high school biology textbooks that publishers have submitted for adoption in Texas this year. The State Board of Education (SBOE) will decide in November which textbooks to approve. Those textbooks could be in the state’s public school science classrooms for nearly a decade.

Deep sigh.

It’s biology. It’s not church. Biology textbooks should not be reviewed according to churchy criteria. Ever.

Next question?

Following are the six creationists/evolution critics we have identified so far on the biology review teams:

• Raymond Bohlin is vice president of vision outreach for Probe Ministries in Plano and a research fellow for the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. The Discovery Institute promotes the pseudoscientific concept “intelligent design” over evolution. Founded in 1973, Probe works “to present the Gospel to communities, nationally and internationally, by providing life-long opportunities to integrate faith and learning through balanced, biblically based scholarship.” Bohlin has a doctorate in molecular and cell biology from the University of Texas at Dallas, making him a star performer for anti-evolution groups. He is listed as a “Darwin Skeptic” on the Creation Science Hall of Fame website. Probe and the Creation Science Hall of Fame promote a fundamentalist, literal interpretation of the Bible’s creation story. We know that Bohlin is in Austin this week to participate in the biology review panel meetings.

Groan.

• Ide Trotter is a longtime standard-bearer for the creationist movement in Texas, both as a source of funding and as a spokesperson for the absurdly named creationist group Texans for Better Science Education. Trotter, listed as a “Darwin Skeptic” on the Creation Science Hall of Fame website, is a veteran of the evolution wars at the SBOE and is participating the biology review panel meetings this week. He testified before the board during the 2003 biology textbook adoption and again in 2009 during the science curriculum adoption. In both instances, Trotter advocated including scientifically discredited “weaknesses” of evolution in Texas science classrooms. Trotter, who has a doctorate in chemical engineering, runs his own investment management company and served as dean of business and professor of finance at Dallas Baptist University. He claims that major scientific discoveries over last century have actually made evolutionary science harder to defend:
  

  “The ball is rolling and it’s going downhill. There are not enough forces on the side of Darwinism to keep pushing it back uphill forever.”

Groan. Texas Texas Texas – please grow up.

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

Marcela Kunova on online harassment at the Huffington Post UK:

Virtually every woman who publicly contributes to a political debate is subjected to virulent and largely anonymous online invective, or “trolling”. But it is far more than simply readers’ feedback. Trolling is intended to make women shut up – and to remind them their primary purpose is to be there for male sexual pleasure. Or not to be in public life at all.

It now seems to be an established fact: women who speak publicly get threatened with rape, physical violence, harming their relatives and murder. It is not just a bit of fun. Many are stalked and get their home addresses published. And it doesn’t really matter whether those threats will subsequently come true – they are already an act of violence.

Internet has offered women new ways to express themselves. But it has also enabled some misogynistic men to open the floodgates of hate and – cocooned in online anonymity – to bully women who have penetrated traditionally male-dominated public life.

The worst thing is that the strategy of harassing and intimidating female journalists, bloggers and other female public figures, was often sucessful. Some journalists, like Linda Grant, admits she stopped writing her regular column for the Guardian, because of violent threats. Some bloggers think twice before publishing a post.

Some bloggers refuse to second-guess themselves because of what a lot of abusive trolls say, but they also get tired of the abusive trolling.

But since 2011, when journalist Laurie Penny spoke out about the violent sexual threats she regularly receives, things are perhaps starting to change. Others joined her initiative and testimonies started to flow.  More recently, American feminist Soraya Chemaly published a bone-chilling post about death threats she received via Facebook and Twitter.
Now thousands of women have joined their voices worldwide in online campaigns like #shoutingback, #silentnomore, and @EverydaySexism, to mention only a few.

It’s a start.

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

That bit of Newsnight is on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0UqtZMqxT8

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

Things get more interesting every day.

BBC Newsnight talked about the Twitter harassment tonight (that is, two and a half hours ago). Paul Mason wrote a related article about it. It traced the harassment back to none other than Rebecca’s “guys, don’t do that” video, and showed a bit of said video. Then it talked to oolon about the block bot.

Paul Mason sets the stage:

Since I’ve been on the trail of the people threatening high-profile women with rape on Twitter I’ve learned a lot. I get a fair amount of grief on social media, usually from the kind of people who get driven to using the F-word about Keynesianism, or the Laffer curve.

Now my timeline’s been flooded with abuse – and its alter ego, gentle condescension laden with malice – from all kinds of trolls, griefers and flamers (the latter, one of the trolls explained, are not serious, adding that it is they, the trolls, who are the kings when it comes to ruining people’s lives online).

Proposed solutions range from forcing Twitter to suspend the account of anybody reported for threats or violent abuse, to forcing all users to sign up with a verifiable e-mail address. But who are the “trolls” and can anything be done to stop them?

He talked to a technical person who thinks blocking is all one can do.

Since I did this report I’ve been flamed by a particular community. I put it to Ms Norton that if I sanitise my own experience by blocking individuals and – unlike with Stella Creasy MP or Caroline Criado-Perez – they do go away, this
just leaves me trapped in a sanitised reality while a “dirty” reality goes on around me.

She says “Throwing that ‘dirty’ conversation off Twitter doesn’t end it. And actually knowing where it is, I think that’s helpful. I thinking knowing that those dirty conversations are out there, that we can choose to engage with them or choose to ignore them depending on the time and energy and motivations that we have.”

If it’s a social problem and not a technological one, what is the root of it? Ms Norton, believes it is stark:

“The social problem is that men are raised to hate women and technology is not going to fix that. What’s going to fix that is a societal conversation about why that is and why it shouldn’t be, and why women aren’t a threat to men. And the technology gives us the opportunity to have that conversation. It’s not always a pleasant conversation, but we need to have it. Just shutting down the voices we don’t like doesn’t make the sentiments go away.”

I don’t think so. I think having extra places and ways to have the “conversation” just makes that way of seeing women more entrenched and more feverish. I think shutting it down on various media would help.

Personally, as I get enough great conversations from the people who are prepared to debate ideas without abuse, I’ve resorted to the “shared block list” strategy. This focuses the wisdom of the Twitter crowd onto the most notorious idiots and enables those who sign up to engage in a collective block, without necessarily banning the perpetrators from the internet.

I’ve installed The Block Bot and I’ll be talking to the man who coded it tonight about the strange online community that revels in the belittling of women. Though I’ve been aware of trolls, sexism and the flaming of fellow women journalists for years now, what this has taught me is that violent misogyny is probably the defining fault line of the internet, and is what has a better chance of killing the social media than Ayatollah Khamenei and Kim Jong-un ever could.

You can already feel cyberspace divided into a world that hates women and one that does not. Fortunately the former is small, but incredibly powerful – and underestimated at its peril.

And that man is our very own oolon – whom I used to rebuke for his frivolity about the whole thing, but he (obviously) took it more seriously as time went on.

Toby Young was also on Newsnight. He boasted about having tweeted about an MP’s cleavage. The guy is a complete asshole.

Update

A sock puppet commenter pointed out that Jeremy Stangroom is talking about suing oolon for defamation. It’s true.

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

Sometimes the 140 character limit can produce aphoristic wisdom.

From Quinn Norton for instance.

if I always tried to police my language for those out there who want to use it to attack me, I would have no words left

anyhow, the act I do which causes the most offense is living unquietly.

Recognized.

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

This made me laugh.

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

Secular Woman responds to the Salon piece on where oh where oh where are the women atheists.

Last week Salon writer Katie Engelhart asked, “Where are the Women of New Atheism?” Since she couldn’t seem to find many, or mention by name most of those she did acknowledge, we decided to give her a hand by rounding up several leaders in atheism and interviewing them ourselves. (We are taking submissions as they come in; please see the contact information below if you would like to participate!)

Most of us made much the same point – the one made by “she couldn’t seem to find many, or mention by name most of those she did acknowledge.” We said it’s stupid to keep asking where the women are when there are so many right out in plain view, and it’s even more stupid to talk about how they’re overlooked when you overlook them yourself.

Kim Rippere said it.

When we are not asked to appear, are not asked for our input (even on a piece supposedly about us), and are sidelined and ignored it is difficult to be or become prominent. Salon merely mirrored the typical media dance in dismissing women in favor of men––even in a story about women.

Amy Davis Roth said it.

It seems to me that almost every year the same article is written, asking where the atheist women leaders are. Then, every year women from the secular community speak up and say, “Look! Here we are and here are other prominent atheist women fighting for social justice and speaking out! We are right under your nose!” And then next the year the same article is written featuring photos of a very specific group of prominent men in the movement and once again asking where we are. Instead of just asking were the atheist women are, without actually looking, perhaps it’s time journalists realized that writing articles about the women who are here and are making a very real difference will encourage even more women to come forward. We are only invisible to the society at large because the media chooses not to focus on us.

Monette Richards said it.

The author should, perhaps, read this article and ask “Where are the atheist women?” because they weren’t named in the title, or in the links to their works or in the picture. The title named men. The pictures were of men. Women’s works were linked to namelessly. The author quotes Bekiempis, saying, “Let’s reframe. For every mention of Hitchens, counter with a mention of Hecht.” Yet, Hitchens was mentioned four times (without counting the picture caption), while Hecht only got in three times. Interview more women. Mention more women by name. Use pictures of atheist women, especially when talking about atheist women. We can, at least, start with the little things?

Noelle George said it.

If we want to increase the number of women involved in atheism, let’s celebrate, recognize, and appreciate the outstanding women who are contributing now. This will not only strengthen our movement from the inside, but it will also draw in talented people outside the movement who want to contribute. This goes for all underrepresented demographics, not just women.

It’s not that women aren’t involved, and it’s not that quality women aren’t involved. But the very question “where are the women” discounts every woman who is here now.

Teresa MacBain said it.

As an atheist woman among many atheist women, I’m insulted! Our movement has a large number of female leaders who are changing the landscape of freethought and making our community more diverse. I was honored to be a speaker at the recent Women in Secularism 2 conference, which celebrated the reality of atheist female leaders in the freethought world.

Mandisa Thomas said it.

Articles that pose the question asking about a specific demographic should be well researched, and indicate an exhaustion of all avenues. If writers really want to know about the diversity of the atheist community, there’s plenty of information and organizations to choose from. Our hard work shouldn’t be in vain.

And others said it. I said it. Most of us said it.

I wonder if journalists will ever learn.

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

Colin McGinn forgot someone for his all-male contrarians list. Toby Young should be on it, because he’s very like Colin McGinn, right down to the thinking he’s funny when he isn’t.

He doesn’t like feminism. Wo, that’s original!

Right, that’s it. I’m not shopping at the Co-op again. The bog-standard supermarket chain announced this morning that it has caved in to growing pressure from loony Left feminist campaigners and given the publishers of lads’ mags an ultimatum: place your magazines in “modesty bags” before 9 September or we’ll no longer sell them.

Needless to say, this decision has been welcomed by Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem Under-Secretary of State for Women, Equalities and Politically Correct Mumbo Jumbo Foisted On Us By New Labour That The Present Government Is Too Cowardly To Get Rid Of.

“Exposing children to lewd pictures that portray women as sex objects is not appropriate,” Ms Swinson told the Guardian. “That’s why the Co-operative’s decision to implement the Bailey review recommendation for publications with overtly sexual images on the cover to be displayed and sold in modesty bags is very welcome.”

“Modesty bags” is a horrible phrase, and concept – but the magazines are displaying women as if they were pork chops – pork chops with their legs spread. Thinking that’s not great for equality between the sexes is not “Loony Left.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if UK Feminista and Object – the organisations behind the Lose The Lads’ Mags campaign – do start clamouring for the Beano to be taken off sale. Give ’em a finger and they’ll take a hand. These puritanical fanatics are the Left-wing equivalent of the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. At this rate, they’ll soon be patrolling our city centres in Toyota Land Cruisers, administering on-the-spot punishment beatings to any man caught looking at a woman’s cleavage for more than a second. Like most red-blooded, heterosexual males, I’ll never be able to leave the house again.

Got that? He’s not gay. That’s the important thing.

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

Soraya Chemaly offers answers to the perennial, silly question, “where are all the women in ___?” Actually it’s not in ___, but it might as well be. It’s in atheism, but it could be philosophy or gaming or politics or you know the drill.

In a Salon piece last week called, “Where are the women of new atheism?”, Katie Englehardt described what looks like diminishing participation of women in atheist life. She also encouraged atheist women to more openly embrace their beliefs.

Yeah it’s not that we don’t embrace our beliefs openly – it’s that people always forget to mention us, including Engelhart herself. Yes, Engelhart herself – in the very act of writing (yet another) article wondering where we all were, she herself concealed the names of a lot of us for no earthly reason. Look at it again – the article wondering where we all were.

But before long, these New Atheists were depicted as an old boys’ club—a clique of (white) men, bound by a particularly unyielding brand of disbelief.

Where were the women?

Why, they were right there: stolidly leading people away from the fold. They were irreverent bloggers and institution founders. And scholars. Around the time that the Dawkins-Hitchens-Harris tripartite published its big wave of Atheist critique, historian Jennifer Michael Hecht published “Doubt” and journalist Susan Jacoby published “Freethinkers“—both critically acclaimed. And yet, these women, and many others, failed to emerge as public figures, household names.

See that? Two names, but also a whole slew of concealed ones, hiding under all those links. Stupid, isn’t it? Why not include the names in the article, instead of hiding them under links? Is it immodest to name women? Under irreverent you have Jen McCreight, under bloggers you have all the women of Skepchick (like Rebecca Watson, Amy Davis Roth, Elyse Anders, Heina Dadabhoy), under institution you have the pillars of Secular Woman like Kim Rippere and Monette Richards, under founders you have Annie Laurie Gaylor of FFRF. Under many you have Annie Laurie again and under others you have…me.

So that’s one place the women are - they’re being concealed even by people who are ostensibly writing about their very concealment. There aren’t enough face-palms in the world…

Among Soraya’s reasons -

Second, sexism is real and has an effect on women’s participation and leadership within the atheist community.  Rape jokes and sexual harassment, as penalties and tools to silence women, exist in atheist and secular groups as well as religious ones. Many people hold the tacit belief that atheism equals rationalism and rationalism is gender-neutral, and therefore sexism can’t exist among atheists. But critical thinkers do irrational things all the time — and unless they actively try to resist existing prejudices, they can easily fall into them.  The discrimination based on class, race, gender and sexuality that we see in the broader culture exists in atheist and secular communities too, and requires the same dismantling.

Big time. We’re working on it, but…right now it’s like going up a down escalator.

The Women in Secularism Conference, started by Melody Hensley and the Center for Free Inquiry in 2012, is meant to address imbalance. This year’s conference, which began with an efflorescent expression of the problems at hand, was bigger than last year’s.

Fifth, it’s no exaggeration to say that managing sexism is exhausting, depressing and distracts from work women could be doing as visible spokespeople of fighting for higher and equal pay, or immigration policies that include uneducated women, or ending sexual predation, or advocating for the right to control our own reproduction. All of which, by the way, would probably contribute to the growth of secular and non-religious culture.  (There are reasons why seven of the ten most religious states in the US are also rated the worse states for women to live in.) The need to constantly struggle against gender-based prejudice leaves women with less time and energy to work on any of these issues.

Conferences like Women in Secularism Conference or Blackout, a secular rally celebrating diversity started by Mandisa L. Thomas, president and founder of Black Nonbelievers, are vibrant events and important to building communities. But they’re not enough.  Kim Rippere, founder of Secular Woman explains,  “The secular community needs to be self-reflective regarding acceptance and inclusion both within our community and in society and the media has to stop ignoring women atheists or it will continue to be difficult for women to emerge as atheist leaders.”

Katie Engelhart please note.

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

It will add a report abuse button.

Twitter today said it had introduced a button for reporting abuse on its latest iPhone app and is now looking to expand this function.

A spokesman said: “The ability to report individual Tweets for abuse is currently available on Twitter for iPhone, and we plan to bring this functionality to other platforms, including Android and the web.

“We don’t comment on individual accounts. However, we have rules which people agree to abide by when they sign up to Twitter.

“We will suspend accounts that once reported to us, are found to be in breach of our rules. We encourage users to report an account for violation of the Twitter rules by using one of our report forms.”

Ms Criado Perez, who has received support from MPs and celebrities, said: “It’s sadly not unusual to get this kind of abuse but I’ve never seen it get as intense or aggressive as this.

“It’s infuriating that the price you pay for standing up for women is 24 hours of rape threats. We are showing that by standing together we can make a real difference.”

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

Right-on dude is right-on.

And yet…

Yeah.

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

Chaospet on “hand jobs” and sophisticated philosophers.

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