Guest post by Lady Mondegreen (aka Stacy).

It’s happened again. Feminists of the atheoskeptisphere have pointed out that one of our Famous Men said something sexist; the assertion has been met with intense defensiveness and downright rage. The defensiveness is understandable, but the rage baffled me until I realized that it comes, at least in part, from a profound misconception about what sexism is and how it works.

To start with, here’s a statement from a comment by Folie Deuce, on Ophelia’s post #EstrogenVibe

If everyone is sexist than nobody is sexist.

No. Category error.

The wrongness there can be understood by substituting a few other words for the word “sexism”:

If everyone is affected by cognitive biases, then nobody is affected by cognitive biases.

See the problem? Everybody IS affected by cognitive biases. They’re implicit. Same with sexist biases, and racist biases, and other out-group biases. We all share them, to varying degrees–even those of us who belong to the groups in question. We’ve internalized them. If you react with outrage when you or one of your heroes is criticized for a cognitive bias lurking behind your/their thinking on a subject, you’re being defensive, not skeptical. Since none of us is ammune to implicit bias, you should at least consider the possibility that the critic is right. Most skeptics familiar with critical thinking (or its language, at least,) will grant that in the abstract, but many can’t acknowledge it when the subject is sexism.

They should.

Like cognitive biases, sexist and other out-group biases are implicit. Their content is dependent on culture and varies to some degree from place to place (I’ve read–I can’t vouch for the truth of this–that in Japan, the notion that women are less intelligent than men isn’t common. There are other stereotypes about women to be found there, but not that particular one,) but if you’ve grown up in a culture steeped in stereotypes and biases against Group X, you’ve internalized those stereotypes and biases. Yes, even you, Mr. Big Stuff. You’re not a brain in a vat. You grew up with the same implicit assumptions as everyone else in your society.

When Sam Harris insists “I’m not the sexist pig you’re looking for,” he’s assuming that “you said something sexist,” translates into/as “you think that men are better than women,” or even “you are a male supremacist.” But that’s not what “you said something sexist” means. That’s not what it means at all.

Does this seem obvious to you, reader? If you’re a regular reader of this blog, it probably does. But there are lots of people, some very smart ones among them, who haven’t thought this through.

Ian Cromwell, aka The Crommunist, has argued against using the word “racist” as a noun. We shouldn’t characterize anyone as “a racist,” he thinks, in part because of confusions like the one I’m discussing here. I wouldn’t go quite that far–I think it’s fair and useful to call a person who holds explicit white supremacist views a racist, and a person who thinks it a shame women ever won the right to vote, a sexist. Sam Harris, on the other hand, is correct that he’s not a “sexist pig.” He is, however, sexist–along with me, and you, and everyone else. How nice if he could acknowledge that fact, and turn his attention from defending himself to examining the content of actual claims made by and about women, even–dare we hope–the implicit ones.

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

Michael wants me to respond to his post without the sarcastic paraphrasing. Fair enough. I can at least try, although it’s a very long and winding post, which does make it difficult. This won’t be complete, therefore, but it will be something.

Item.

I believe that the approach taken by PZ Myers, and by some other people on (for shorthand) the FreeThought Blogs perceived ‘side’ of some disagreements, is counterproductive to these aims. It is also unjust and harmful in itself, because it routinely demonises decent people who support equality but who have a different approach to it.

That’s not a good shorthand. There are a lot of bloggers on this network, and many of them don’t write about disputes within Anglophone atheism and secularism at all. It’s not fair to them to keep using the name of the network as a “shorthand,” especially when so many people use it not as a shorthand but as a code for “what we all hate.” I think Michael was hinting at that himself, frankly.

Item.

Some of these more mainstream media analyses imply that there is a single ‘atheist movement’, and that it is best analysed through some opinions of some mostly American bloggers and activists who, while committed and sincere and doing good work, are not representative of atheist activism worldwide.

There’s a whiff of xenophobia there. The claim isn’t really true, and it’s a little bit creepy.

Item.

In the last year or so, he has publicly accused Richard Dawkins of seeming to have developed a callous indifference to the sexual abuse of children…

On the basis of things RD wrote, no? I myself think Richard Dawkins has been displaying a callous indifference to the sexual harassment of women lately, because of things he’s said on Twitter. I’ve replied to Richard directly, and I’ve also blogged about what he’s been saying. I think people who have large influence and visibility have a particular responsibility to be fair and reasonable in what they say about such things.

Michael Shermer of multiple unreported serious crimes…

What are people supposed to do then? Keep the secrets forever? Never make any public warnings about guys who get handsy or ply women with alcohol in hopes of scoring? Just shut up, always, no matter what?

Item, the penultimate paragraph.

I believe that we should robustly question the ideas and behaviour of people who are, or who are perceived to be, authority figures in our own spheres of activity. I also believe that everyone, on various sides of these disagreements, should reconsider what I describe as the ethos of “You must be more compassionate, you fuckbrained asshole!”

Probably a good suggestion.

Updating to add, at Michael’s request –

There’s probably much in the post that I agree with. I skimmed much of it, and I probably agree with the skimmed part. I certainly agree that the Atheist Alliance International is a great thing. One of the many rewards of the Empowering Women Through Secularism conference in Dublin last summer was meeting and talking to Carlos Diaz.

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

Originally a comment by Brony on Thou shalt respect The Leaders.

Am I correct in remembering that Nugent was the one that tried to host the debate to heal the deep rifts earlier on? If so that matters.

On describing decency and demonization

So how does this,

I believe that atheist and skeptic people and groups, like all people and groups within society, should promote compassion, empathy, fairness, justice, equality and respect for people, combined with robust rational analysis of ideas.

…relate to this,

I believe that the approach taken by PZ Myers, and by some other people on (for shorthand) the FreeThought Blogs perceived ‘side’ of some disagreements, is counterproductive to these aims. It is also unjust and harmful in itself, because it routinely demonises decent people who support equality but who have a different approach to it.

…when it comes to the specific content of the characterizations PZ and others are making? He needs to define demonization.

I noticed that Nugent spared ZERO effort to actually describe the content of the controversies involving “decent people being demonized”. Is it demonization of me to suggest that Harris was dismissing his critics because he thinks that women are probably not good at criticism, because of estrogen? Those are not his literal words but I would be happy to defend that way of portraying his views. I don’t think that someone like that is acting like a decent person. If Nugent is willing to call out behavior he should be willing to get specific when he is taking sides. Otherwise this is a more complicated pissing on fire hydrants.

I don’t think that Dawkins is acting like a decent person when he literally gets personal in his rhetoric by dismissing critics as only in it for the money (and the other stuff that has been mentioned here). I don’t think that Shermer is a decent person after hearing Randi’s defense of him. Nugent is dry and tasteless without details.

I believe that the approach taken by PZ Myers has been central to the escalation of what some people call ‘the deep rifts’.

Actually some of us have decided to support him more openly BECAUSE is willing to escalate when appropriate. That is a skill I admire. Calling out behavior that is worth calling out is is critical to any society, especially among the leadership because they set moral and ethical tones for those below. I want a less hierarchical society but some parts of human psychology will be things to deal with as they are. I require Nugent to give me examples of when it is appropriate to escalate in order to take him seriously.

But something seems to happen to him when he gets behind a keyboard. He routinely demonises people in a way that he doesn’t do in person, and that he recognises as unfair when others do it to him. He routinely attacks people as individuals, as opposed to merely attacking their ideas or behaviour.

So why does Nugent keep making the claim that PZ demonized someone without actually trying to back it up? I don’t care if you are a commenter, a blogger, or the president of the united states if you are directing strong words at someone you have the responsibility to do a minimum level of demonstration. PZ and others at FTB outlined why they said what they said in specifics.

By specific I mean he should line these characterizations of what PZ said, with the reality to show why the are demonization.
*”He routinely attacks people as individuals, as opposed to merely attacking their ideas or behaviour.”
*accused “…Michael Shermer of multiple unreported serious crimes…”
*accused “…Russell Blackford of being a lying fuckhead.”
*”…described Robin Williams’ suicide as the death of a wealthy white man dragging us away from news about brown people…”
*”…a white lady who made racist comments looks like the kind of person who would have laughed at nanu-nanu…”
*”Richard Dawkins has been eaten by brain parasites and is grossly dishonest.”
*”Christina Hoff Sommers promotes lies about feminism and claims them as inalienable truths.”
*”Michael Shermer is a liar and an assailant”
*”Sam Harris has scurried off to write a tendentious and inexcusably boring defence of sticking his foot in his mouth.”

Some of these are worth talking about as problems too. But we can’t actually tell if a characterization is accurate without it being lined up with reality and I’m simply not satisfied that Nugent has even done that for himself with what I just read. He’s simply acting startled at tone towards authority figures and letting that direct his analysis. And of course he displays no problems with the tone or the content of Dawkins and Harris et al.

Dawkins inverted

Did anyone else notice the huge list of “atheists doing nice things” that was provided because Nugent was afraid of the atheist community looking bad because of press coverage? Dawkins was pointing at suffering that he believed was worse elsewhere in the world to get women to stop talking and to encourage others to stop paying attention to them. Nugent is now pointing at good stuff atheists are doing elsewhere in the world to get PZ to stop talking and encourage others to stop paying attention to him and FTB.

The measuring of “goods” is just as fallacious as the measuring of “bads” like suffering when figuring out of a behavior is appropriate. His piece could have been half as long and I would not have been insulted by him.

On tactics

I believe that this should include tackling sexism, racism, homophobia and other discriminatory biases in society, and making our groups and events welcoming to everybody who wants to be involved.

That is literally what is being done at FTB. Nugent is not helping by being an ally to sexists and creeps at best.

I believe that we can do this without routinely demonising good people who support equality but who have a different approach to it, without uncharitably misinterpreting tweets and impromptu comments as if they were formal pronouncements of misogyny, and without ignoring the principles of natural justice by publicly accusing named people of serious alleged crimes.

Given that we have no idea what he means by “demonization” there is no way to tell what he means by “ignoring the principles of natural justice”. Authorities calling out other authorities is probably part of natural justice for apes. Large numbers of people calling out authorities is natural for apes. But so is harassment and criticism can be harassment if done a certain way so I’m not saying that there is nothing that he could call demonization. I am saying that Nugent has done a terrible job of framing the conflict.

I believe that we should robustly question the ideas and behaviour of people who are, or who are perceived to be, authority figures in our own spheres of activity.

Why yes we should! So why did you ignore PZ, Ophelia Benson, Stephanie Zvan and others when they questioned Dawkins, Harris, Shermer and others? I get literally no impression from Nugent’s piece that he saw more than the twitter paraphrasing of this conflict.

Nugent is MASSIVELY mistaken in his piece and getting preemptively defensive should be unnecessary, unless he knows at some level that he did not do his homework.

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

Guest post by Josh the SpokesGay

I’m pondering this and haven’t come to any firm conclusions, but I want to float it for conversation.

We’re seeing an enormous number of people (who we thought would know and do better) ignore the most awful behavior from Dawkins. Obviously, not just with him, mind. It’s sometimes staggering; it’s so surprising to see people one knows to be capable of independent thought and analysis turn so completely nasty and dishonest in their attempts to stop any suggestion that Dawkins might be wrong.

We know that people have heroes. We know that we, too, are subject to the same instinct to circle the wagons. But the degree to which Dawkins supporters are doing this genuinely stuns me. It is quite literally watching rational people become irrational, fact-free, religious (perhaps ‘tribal’ is better) adherents for whom no argument is too dishonest or low.

I suspect a structural tragedy is responsible: There simply are not enough venues in public discourse for disaffected secularists to build solidarity, a shared identity, and the confidence to push back against religious privilege. Especially for those with traumatic experiences of religion, Dawkins seems like a lifeline. Finally, somebody isn’t afraid to call the emperor out on his non-existent clothes.

It felt that way to me when Dawkins wrote The God Delusion. I understand this impulse. It’s normal, it’s not weird, and it’s there for good, justifiable reasons. The first fan letter I wrote was to Richard Dawkins, thanking him for being an “oasis” in a sea of privileged religious bafflegab. And I sent this to him even before TGD came out. That he wrote me back the very next morning had me on a cloud for days.

Shorter version: many people perceive, correctly or not, that Dawkins is the only or best “venue” for people like them starved for secular discourse. The threat of that being taken away (meaning that Dawkins might actually be a jerk, or that he may be so badly wrong on other counts that one has to find new heroes) is simply too much for them.

Perhaps that explains Nate Phelps, son of Fred Phelps. Undeniably traumatized by religion, one can understand why he might see Dawkins and his circle as a haven. I recently saw Nate compare Ophelia Benson, of all people, to his father, the vicious preacher Fred. No, he didn’t come right out and say “you’re as bad as he is.” But Nate did compare Ophelia’s stance on “the whole feminism -vs- secularism issue” to the “you’re either for us or against us” approach his fundamentalist father insisted on.

We see this a lot. People victimized by religious extremism often paint other, non-abusive forms of vehement position-staking as “just as bad as the fundamentalists.” They mistake the form for the content. They react against the act of uncompromisingly defending one’s position while not paying attention to the content of the position. They don’t seem to understand that it is not automatically Wrong to have confidence—even a degree of righteousness—in one’s opinion. What matters is whether that confidence is justified.

Whether you totally dig Ophelia or not, I hope anyone can see how badly wrong Nate’s comparison is. So—is it the perception/reality of the scarcity of robust secular voices and spaces, particularly in the US, that causes people to defend Dawkins doing the indefensible? Is it a deeper structural problem that can only be effectively addressed over a long time by building other and better “venues” for being a non-apologetic secularist?

Shortest of all: Is Dawkins a case of perceived but artificial scarcity?

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

PZ has a terrific guest post by Marcus Ranum on the nasty undertones of the bullshit about “click bait.” I was going to quote from it when it was a comment, but when I got around to it it had graduated to being a post.

I automatically despise people who use the “clickbait” “to make money” argument. And here is why: it never seems to come from someone who is enduring economic hardship, and it implies that the person supposedly doing it is so desperate that they need the extra fractions of a cent they might get. If you’re a bestselling author and lecturer with an international stature with an estimated net worth of over $100 million, claiming that your detractors are pushing click bait amounts to asking “why don’t they eat cake?” (“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”) yes in the internet era there is money to be made with click bait, but it requires huge volumes such as that driven by celebrity selfie leaks and sex tapes. From the sound of it, bloggers such as those on FTb and Patheos make vastly less blogging than someone of Dawkins’ stature commands from a single speaking engagement.

Vastly less. A fraction. It’s ludicrous that they think otherwise.

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

Originally a comment by =8)-DX on The cavalry has arrived.

I’m just going to try to give a really accommodating interpretation of the events:

James Randi, Sam Harris, Michael Shermer, Richard Dawkins: all agree women are human beings and should be treated as such. But in their specific, biased, tribal, personal, ordinary, everyday, exploitative, non-sexist!, clearheaded, logical, rational, fun-loving, emotional situations a crack has appeared. This is the crack through which feminist thought, language, experience, evaluations seeps through.

And they don’t know what the fuck to do. They’re not equipped for it. Because in the past three years they decided to ignore the rising tide of feminist voices. That wasn’t important, that couldn’t happen, they didn’t do it. And now they’re stuck.

When my favourite atheist YouTuber said “guys, don’t do that”, I thought I’d learned something new. But I was wholy ignorant of reality: atheist emancipation, feminist thought, equality, secularism and skepticism, can’t take place on a backburner of slow, incremental progress. I had to take into account the gender of each participant, I had to take into accout the legion of bigots who at every turn need to express a reluctance to change.

“If only people could get together, sit down and sort things out.” doesn’t work when most (90%?!) are operating on prejudice alone, expounding confirmation bias and have no problem shouting their ignorance to the world.

People: you’ve always helped me in my ignorance, by taking me to task. Why don’t the big names understand this? Because equal rights are not just a word, but a whole field of inquiry that takes years of research and listening to grasp.

Shutting up now.

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

Shoulder to shoulder the Thought Leaders stand, resisting the barbarian hordes of witch-hunting thought-police feministas.

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins · 17m
I wonder, is it best, @SamHarrisOrg, to just ignore the Outrage Junkies & Offence Junkies? Don’t feed their craving?
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/im-not-the-sexist-pig-youre-looking-for …

Sam Harris, witch of the week, talks sense as ever. Probably won’t satisfy the Thought Police. http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/im-not-the-sexist-pig-youre-looking-for …

Retweeted by Richard Dawkins
Steve Zara @sjzara · 14m
@RichardDawkins @SamHarrisOrg I agree Richard, that it’s best to ignore. Engagement is seen by them as a victory.

Retweeted by Richard Dawkins
Daniel Sidnell @DanielSidnell · 14m
@RichardDawkins @SamHarrisOrg Indeed. Being “offended” makes them feel all warm and fuzzy. Loved Sam’s blog though.

Retweeted by Richard Dawkins
Jeremy Stangroom @PhilosophyExp · 16m
@RichardDawkins @SamHarrisOrg Yes! There’s absolutely no point in directly engaging. It just gives them credibility. (Same as creationists!)

Retweeted by Richard Dawkins
Finch @AlinaFinch · 46m
@RichardDawkins @SamHarrisOrg no point in engaging. It makes them feels like their point is worth arguing about

Retweeted by Richard Dawkins
David Galiel @davidgaliel · 47m
@richarddawkins YES! Don’t give them the oxygen they crave. @samharrisorg

Retweeted by Richard Dawkins
Chloe Newsom @ChloesThinking · 47m
@DanielSidnell @RichardDawkins @SamHarrisOrg Stephen Fry’s go-to response to the phrase “I’m offended” is, “Well. So fucking what?”

Retweeted by Richard Dawkins
Almonds @spartannik · 44m
@RichardDawkins @SamHarrisOrg Definetely ignore, these people don’t want equality they simply want attention.

Retweeted by Richard Dawkins
Michael Noone @MichaelNoone4 · 44m
@RichardDawkins @SamHarrisOrg engagement=vindication. Ignoring them leaves them sat there boiling

Retweeted by Richard Dawkins
Sean Aitken @SeanAAitken · 45m
@ChloesThinking @RichardDawkins @DanielSidnell @SamHarrisOrg Or Hitchens’ “I’m still waiting to hear what your point is”

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins · 38m
.@joshuapaling @SamHarrisOrg Yes, that’s the opposite argument I often put myself (eg whether to debate creationists). I can’t decide.

Retweeted by Richard Dawkins
Musycks @Musycks · 42m
@RichardDawkins @SamHarrisOrg Pointless engagement. You and Sam are genuinely inquiring, seeking answers, they are seeking conflict.

Retweeted by Richard Dawkins
Jonathan Anatrella @The_Uchi_Mata · 44m
@RichardDawkins @SamHarrisOrg They’re outraged nobody listens to their opinions, and rightfully so- they’re looking for excuses to be angry.

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

A couple of more notes on Harris’s pig piece, for thoroughness, just because they’re nagging at me. I was short on time when I did the first post so I rushed it.

I am well aware that sexism and misogyny are problems in our society. However, they are not the only factors that explain differences in social status between men and women.

Nobody said they were. It was Harris who tried to answer the question about why so few women in your audiences as if innate differences were the only factors. It was Harris who gave the simplistic one-factor explanation, not the pesky PC feminists.

For instance, only 5 percent of Fortune 500 companies are run by women. How much of this is the result of sexism? How much is due to the disproportionate (and heroic) sacrifices women make in their 20’s or 30’s to have families?

Good grief – can he really think those two are mutually exclusive? The fact that women have to make disproportionate sacrifices to have families is partly due to sexism.

Anyone who thinks disparities of this kind must be entirely a product of sexism hasn’t thought about these issues very deeply.

But hardly anyone does think that. It’s Harris who’s not thinking very deeply here. (Go away and learn how to think, is it?)

[H]aving been raised by a single mother since the age of two, I have always had a very visceral sense that men have a responsibility not to be evil jerks. And when they are, they should be sorted out—physically, if need be—by good men. Call me old-fashioned.

Well no, I’m afraid I’m just going to call you sexist again. When the sorting out doesn’t need to be physical, then why on earth can’t women (also) do it? Why specify men? Women and men both need to be able to teach men who are being evil jerks to stop being that.

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

Sam Harris has posted his response to objections to his claims about women in atheism.

He doesn’t start well. The title is not propitious.

I’m Not the Sexist Pig You’re Looking For

Not good. Why assume we’re “looking for” sexism? Why dismiss our objections from the outset by assuming that we wanted to find them, for some evil purpose? And then the pig part is outdated, and dismissive. He’ll be complaining about political correctness next.

Also? He illustrated it.

Sigh.

But onward. What did he say? He recaps what he said and then comments.

“I think it may have to do with my person[al] slant as an author, being very critical of bad ideas. This can sound very angry to people… People just don’t like to have their ideas criticized. There’s something about that critical posture that is to some degree intrinsically male and more attractive to guys than to women,” he said. “The atheist variable just has this—it doesn’t obviously have this nurturing, coherence-building extra estrogen vibe that you would want by default if you wanted to attract as many women as men.”

It is a measure of the ridiculous paranoia engendered by political correctness that in the second it took me to make that joke about my sex appeal, I worried whether my assuming that most women are heterosexual would offend some number of lesbians in the audience.

Oh look, he actually does talk about political correctness! I thought I was kidding.

He says the reporter pretty much set him up, which may be true. Allowances for that.

Let me be clear about what I was trying to say (and actually do believe):
1. I started by claiming that my readership seems more male than female. And when I shifted to speaking about atheists as a group, I was referring to active atheists—that is, the sort of people who go to atheist conferences, read atheist books, watch atheists debate pastors on YouTube, or otherwise rally around atheism as a political identity. I was not talking about everyone on Earth who doesn’t believe in God.

Oh. Right. Exactly what Michael Shermer said, then – he’s not saying the kind of atheists who just passively sit in chairs and listen are mostly men, no no, he’s saying the active ones, the sort of people who go to atheist conferences, read atheist books, watch atheists debate pastors on YouTube, or otherwise rally around atheism as a political identity, are mostly men. So that’s way less insulting and patronizing.

2. Although I share the common perception that there is a gender imbalance among active atheists, I don’t actually know whether this is the case. I used to joke that my average “groupie” was a 75-year-old man. Happily, my audiences are now filled with young people, but I still encounter many more men than women. I wouldn’t be surprised if the split were 70/30. I would be very surprised if it were 50/50. Again, I am talking about active atheists. I have no idea whether there are more male unbelievers than female.

You know, I can think of an explanation for that that’s nothing to do with Our Essential Womanly Natures. It could be that a lot of women think Sam Harris is kind of an asshole about women, and don’t feel like going to his talks.

Then he goes on to repeat what he said, at more length, as if we hadn’t understood. Men in the aggregate like pugnacious commentary, and women in the aggregate don’t. Yes, we got that; we understood that that’s what he was saying.

And then he quotes an exchange he had with a woman after the interview.

She: I’m not saying that women and men are the same.

Me: Okay, great. So I think you misunderstood the intent of what I was saying. I was just acknowledging that some differences in the general tendencies of men and women might explain why 84 percent of my followers on Twitter are men. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to get into this, because there are 200 people standing behind you in line patiently waiting to have their books signed.

She: You should just know that what you said was incredibly sexist and very damaging, and you should apologize.
Me: You really are determined to be offended, aren’t you? It’s like you have installed a tripwire in your mind, and you’re just waiting for people to cross it.
She: No. You’re just totally unaware of how sexist you are.

Me: Listen, I was raised by a single mother. I have two daughters. Most of my editors have been women, and my first, last, and best editor is always my wife.

Etc etc etc.

I remain unconvinced that he’s not at all sexist.

Update

Oh zing.

Retweeted by D.J. Grothe
Sam Harris @SamHarrisOrg · 30m
.@OpheliaBenson The problem, Ophelia, is that you seem not to know the difference between being critical and being unfair.

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

Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti doesn’t like Islamic State and al Qaeda. He thinks they’re just big ol’ heretic factional cultist splitter types.

But Saudi Arabia isn’t exactly a paradise of liberal tolerance itself, as you may have noticed.

The arch conservatives Abdulrahman al-Barrak and Nasser al-Omar, who has more than a million followers on Twitter, have accused Shi’ites of sowing “strife, corruption and destruction among Muslims”.

Sheikh Saleh al-Luhaidan was sacked as judiciary head in 2008 for saying owners of media that broadcast depravity have forsaken their faith, a crime punishable in Sharia law by death, but he remains a member of the kingdom’s top Muslim council.

Abdulaziz al-Fawzan, a professor of Islamic law and frequent guest on the popular al-Majd religious television channel, has accused the West of being behind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, saying “these criminals want to take control over the world”.

Such opinions, which echo the views of militants in Iraq, are not unusual in Saudi Arabia, which applies Sharia Muslim law, has beheaded 20 people in the past month, and where clerics oversee a lavish state-funded religious infrastructure.

The problem with IS isn’t so much all the killing and enslaving; it’s the attempting to move in on the territory.

Saudi authorities point to the influence of the radical wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in developing modern jihadi thinking, but play down Riyadh’s decades of support for Islamists around the world as a counterweight to anti-royal leftist ideology.

The government’s inability or reluctance to crack down on expressions of intolerance towards non-Sunnis has led some Saudi liberals and foreign analysts to ask if the kingdom is committed to tackling radicalism’s roots, or only its symptoms.

“It’s their definition of extremism we may not agree with. It is still very mainstream to call Shi’ites infidels. That’s not seen as extremist,” said Stephane Lacroix, author of Awakening Islam, a book about Islamism in Saudi Arabia.

Whereas in secular democracies, “infidel” isn’t even a category.

I like our way better.

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

Finally, says Patricia Miller at Religion Dispatches, an unvarnished pro-patriarchy argument in all its glory.

Republican State legislator Paul Wieland filed suit requesting that he and his wife be allowed to opt out of the requirement under his coverage in the state health plan because it “violates their religious beliefs as Catholics and parents of three daughters,” says the National Catholic Reporter.

Wieland’s lawyer argues that if a closely held corporation like Hobby Lobby is allowed to opt out of the mandate, so too should individuals with objections to contraception. “If the corporations don’t have to do this for their employees, certainly Mom and Dad don’t have to do it for their daughters,” said Timothy Belz of the Thomas More Society.

Because Daddy is paying for it, you know! Gummint can’t make him pay for contraception for his daughters because he’s Daddy.

These groups simply don’t want any woman who works for them to get contraception through any kind of scheme linked to their insurance—even if they have nothing to do with it—because it undercuts their moral authority as men to regulate the reproductive behavior of women under their purview.

Women who can do that for themselves are made into sluts. Good women are always under the control and protection of a man. They’re too feeble and too slutty to manage without it.

According to social anthologist Jack Goody in his book The Development of Marriage and Family, the church’s insistence on policing the sexual morality of everyone in the society around it goes back to the earliest days of Christianity. From its founding as a sect within Judaism until well into the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church imposed it rules regarding sex and marriage on society in order to weaken pagan practices and t0 capture inheritances (that would have otherwise gone to family members) in order to strengthen the church. “By insinuating itself into the very fabric of domestic life, of heirship and marriage, the Church gained great control over the grass roots of society itself,” he argues.

Well of course it did. So would I, if I could do that, but I’m not a church, so I can’t.

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

Originally a comment by thephilosophicalprimate on I’d love to agree, but…

Change always inspires reactionary backlash. Indirectly, the increasingly crude, loud, shouty open misogyny is evidence that feminism is winning. Actually dominant social views don’t need to resort to such open methods: Their very omnipresence makes them subtle and hard to focus on, like the air. What we’re seeing is the flailing, spastic death throes of dying attitudes, lashing out in desperate hope of fighting off the forces of change that are killing them — but it’s ineffective thrashing, and it’s only deepening the wounds. As Penny argues, their antics aren’t winning them friends and influence, but rather the opposite.

The open racism of the Tea Party — which is ultimately indistinguishable from the Republican “base” that the Southern Strategy worked on for years, even in the North — has much the same character. Racist attitudes are also mortally afflicted by cultural change and brute demographic facts, but by Gawd they’re going to go down screaming and flailing for all they’re worth!

In the end, though, I suspect that reactionary sexist and racist backlash is mostly sound and fury, signifying much less than it may appear. It’s an inevitable response to real change, but it doesn’t have any real potency to STOP the change. If anything, exposing its poisonous ugliness to the light of day only accelerates the pace of change.

Or at least, that’s what I think on my more optimistic days.

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

Laurie Penny says we’re winning.

There’s a culture war happening right now. It’s happening in games, in film, in journalism, in television, in fiction, in fandom. It’s happening online, everywhere. And everywhere, sexists, recreational misogynists and bigots are losing.

They are losing, and they don’t know why.

I don’t think they are losing – unless by “losing” she means “failing to drive all the women, especially the feminist women, out.”

I don’t think they’re going to drive all of us out, but I don’t think they’re going to admit defeat and stop trying, either. I think we’re stuck with this mess. Too many people are having too much fun being shitty.

The routine, the arguments, have become far too familiar. A woman or a handful of women are selected for destruction; our ‘credibility’ and ‘professionalism’ are attacked in the same breath as we are called ugly, slut-shamed for dismissed either as stupid little girls or bitter old women or, in some cases, both. The medium is modern, but the logic is Victorian, and make no mistake, the problem is not what we do and say and build and create.

The problem is that women are doing it. That’s why the naked selfies, the slut-shaming, is not just incidental to the argument – it is the argument. Underneath it all, you’re just a woman, just a body. You can be reduced to flesh. You are less. You are an object. You are other. LOL, boobs.

Or LOL, no boobs. One of those. But either way it’s something a lot of people enjoy doing – just like gaming! – and I don’t see any reason to think they’ll stop.

They can’t understand why their arguments aren’t working. They can’t understand why game designers, industry leaders, writers, public figures are lining up to disown their ideas and pledge to do better by women and girls in the future. They can’t understand why, just for example, when my friend, the games critic and consultant Leigh Alexander, was abused and ‘called out’ as an unprofessional slut, a lying cunt, morally and personally corrupt, just for speaking truthfully and beautifully about all of this, it was Alexander who was invited to write her first piece for Time magazine, Alexander who got to define the agenda for the mainstream, who received praise and recognition, whilst her abusers’ words will be lost in a howling vortex of comment threads and subreddits and, eventually, forgotten.

But that doesn’t happen to every woman who is ‘called out’ as an unprofessional slut, a lying cunt, morally and personally corrupt, and blah blah blah – most of us get neither an invitation to write a piece for Time nor any other kind of prize or win. And for every public figure lining up to pledge to do better by women and girls in the future, there’s a Dawkins shouting his incredulity at claims that a friend of his is a harasser and praising the “feminism” of Christina Hoff Sommers as opposed to that pesky other kind that takes sexual harassment seriously.

They can’t understand why the new reaction to nude selfie leaks isn’t ‘you asked for it, you whore’, but ‘everyone does it, stop slut shaming.’ They can’t understand the logic of a world where ‘Social Justice Warrior’ just doesn’t work as an insult, because a great many people care quite a lot about social justice and are proud to fight for it.

They can’t understand why they look ridiculous.

This is a culture war. The right side is winning, at great cost. At great personal costs to people like Anita Sarkeesian, Leigh Alexander, Zoe Quinn and even Jennifer Lawrence, and countless others who are on the frontlines of creating new worlds for women, for girls, for everyone who believes that stories matter and there are too many still untold. We are winning. We are winning because we are more resourceful, more compassionate, more culturally aware. We’re winning because we know what it’s like to fight through adversity, through shame and pain and constant reminders of our own worthlessness, and come up punching. We know we’re winning because the terrified rage of a million mouthbreathing manchild misogynists is thick as nerve gas in the air right now.

Yes but we thought that 40 years ago, too. We thought all that then. And we were right, up to a point, but…sexism and misogyny are in some ways worse than ever. No, I don’t think we’re winning.

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