Here’s my July column for the Freethinker, on the Freethinker’s shiny new website.

Ramadan clearly is widely treated as compulsory, sometimes at the state level and much more at the familial level (which tends to bleed into the neighborhood and the “community” – the notional, non-physical community as well as the literal neighborhood-surrounding one).

I consider this worrying, although I don’t think much can be done about it beyond a slow non-coercive persuasion. I do think it’s worrying that to obey a religious “command” parents can compel their older (past puberty) children to go without food and water from sunrise to sunset.

If that were punishment it would be considered abusive, and perhaps needing intervention by child protection agencies. Parents aren’t normally supposed to make their children go without water and food for 12, 15, 20 daylight hours for a month. Taking away sweets is one thing, taking away all food and drink is another.

Well isn’t it? Shouldn’t everyone be perfectly free to decline to do that? Especially minor children?

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

All right, one piece of good news. Obama signed the tweaked ENDA today and it did not include a religious exemption. Woohoo!

President Barack Obama signed a highly anticipated executive order Monday, which amends the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to include LGBT workers. The executive order restricts all federal branches and federal contractors from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The order takes effect immediately for federal employees. Federal contractors will have provisions in place by early 2015, according to the Huffington Post.

…

ENDA, who has been expanded by several presidents, previously restricted the federal government from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, but the executive order added gender identity to that restriction. This is the first time an LGBT-centric restriction was put on federal contractors.

Obama’s executive order did not include a religious exemption that many in the LGBT community feared would provide a loophole to religiously-affiliated businesses.

And many in the secular and civil liberties communities, too.

“We applaud today’s executive order, which demonstrates a concrete commitment to nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity,” said Gary Buseck, interim executive director of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), in a statement. “It’s a step that will make the workplace better and fairer for LGBT employees …”

CFI says good job.

The Center for Inquiry, an organization which advances science, reason, and secular values, has been urging President Barack Obama not to include a religious exemption in his Executive Order barring federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT Americans – whether or not those contractors consider themselves “religious” or “religiously affiliated.” Today, the president indeed signed the order without those religious exemptions.

Michael De Dora, director of CFI’s Office of Public Policy had this to say about the signing of the new Executive Order, which amends Executive Orders 11246 and 11478:

“We applaud President Obama for issuing an Executive Order that will protect LGBT Americans from discrimination by federal contractors. We are especially relieved and encouraged that the president has chosen not to bend once again to the enormous pressure applied by religious interests, but has recognized that, at the very least, taxpayer funded work must never be done under the shadow of discrimination. This will ensure that all LGBT individuals are protected—including those who work for federal contractors that consider themselves religious.

“Too often religious beliefs are used as an excuse to avoid obeying laws that apply to everyone else, as the regrettable Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby case illustrates. While there is still room for improvement in this new order – the president has once again refused to close a Bush-era loophole that allows religiously affiliated federal contractors to favor individuals of the same faith when hiring – it is a welcome step in the right direction, toward a secular government in which religion can’t be used as a shield for prejudice and unequal treatment.”

CFI was among at least 98 organizations asking the president not to include the religious exemption language, which was sought by a variety of religious groups and leaders.

Too bad about not closing the loophole letting goddy contractors hire fellow goddy types though.

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

Cheerleaders for the professional football team the Buffalo Bills are mostly unpaid.

A Jill is paid next to nothing—no money for gameday cheering, none for practice, none for the bulk of her minimum 20 personal appearances, none from the tips she receives but must turn in during the mandatory Jills Golf Tournament—and is classified by the team as a volunteer/independent contractor, though the thickness and thoroughness of the handbook makes you wonder just how independent she is.

They’re “volunteers” but they sure do have to follow a lot of rules for people who are volunteers.

The bottom document is the “NFL Buffalo Jills Cheerleaders Agreement & Codes of Conduct 2013-2014,” which is essentially the boilerplate rulebook for cheerleaders around the league. There, the basic practice and gameday rules are laid out, including how many excused absences from practice a cheerleader is allowed before dismissal, where she must get her hair done, and the scores of ways she can be fined, benched, or dismissed. It’s allprettystandard.

The more interesting stuff is in the 12-page list of glamour, etiquette, and hygiene rules. This is where we see just how much of a peppy automaton a cheerleader has to be. Shoulds and musts abound. “Hair must be worn in a glamorous style with no clips or tie-backs,” the cheerleaders are told. “A full curled or slightly bent, free-flowing style is required. Short hair must be worn full and fabulous!”

“Cheerleading” itself is actually acrobatics, and it’s quite athletic and skilled – but along with that the athletes have to be girly and pretty and perky.

There are the instructions on how to facilitate a breezy yet enjoyable conversation (everything quoted below is sic):

14. Do not be overly opinionated about anything. Do not complain about anything- ever hang out with a whiner? It’s exhausting and boring.

Well that’s me out right there. Opinionating and complaining is the sum total of what I do.

I’m kidding. It’s really because my back-flip isn’t good enough.

Always avoid:
-Politics
-Religion
-Sexual references
-Talking “about last night”
-Don’t try talk about your personal life: job, boyfriends, what you’re doing later, etc…
-Inappropriate jokes
-Strong opinions
-Gossip

It would be quicker to say what they can talk about.

No need to avoid:

-The weather

Go team.

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

There’s a new residential high-rise going up in New York that will have separate entrances for rich people and not-rich people. No this time it’s not the Onion. It’s for real.

Extell Development Company, the firm behind the new building, announced its intentions to segregate the rich and poor to much outrage last year. Fifty-five of the luxury complex’s 219 units would be marked for low-income renters—netting some valuable tax breaks for Extell—with the caveat that the less fortunate tenants would stick to their own entrance.

The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development approved Extell’s Inclusionary Housing Program application for the 33-story tower this week, the New York Post reports. The status grants Extell the aforementioned tax breaks and the right to construct a larger building than would ordinarily be allowed. According to the Daily Mail, affordable housing tenants will enter through a door situated on a “back alley.”

Anything else? Piranhas? A row of burning tires between the alley and the door? Buckets of decomposing sludge emptied on the differently moneyed as they open the door?

Any of the unwashed folk who complain about such a convenient arrangement, of course, are just being ungrateful. As the Mail points out, fellow poor-door developer David Von Spreckelsen explained as much last year:

“No one ever said that the goal was full integration of these populations,” said David Von Spreckelsen, senior vice president at Toll Brothers. “So now you have politicians talking about that, saying how horrible those back doors are. I think it’s unfair to expect very high-income homeowners who paid a fortune to live in their building to have to be in the same boat as low-income renters, who are very fortunate to live in a new building in a great neighborhood.”

But it’s not a boat. They don’t get in a boat to go to their respective apartments. It’s an entrance. It’s a door, and an approach to a door, and a lobby or hall. There’s no need to worry about a boat; it’s just the entrance to a posh apartment building. The rich people won’t be made filthy and malodorous merely by using the same front door and lobby that the less-rich people use. They won’t be assailed by intolerable smells and sounds merely by proximity to people who aren’t millionaires.

But this is America, where we believe that only good people are rich and only evil people are poor.

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

Hemant Mehta, the “friendly” atheist, is promoting a video by the “amazing” atheist now, the one who has such an “amazing” attitude toward women.

Not all that friendly to women, is he.

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

They’re taking over. No not Martians, not gremlins, not chemtrails, but anti-abortion people going into health care work in order to undermine it.

As more states push bills to strip family planning funding from Planned Parenthoods, or relocate funding so that Planned Parenthood affiliates are last in line, other clinics that provide care to low-income and uninsured residents will be forced to shoulder the burden of reproductive health care services, especially when it comes to offering birth control.

Yet, as a case in Florida shows us, those clinics are now being drawn into the war on contraception thanks to “pro-life” medical specialists who are seeking positions within those networks with absolutely no intention of providing the full range of services the clinics were set up to offer. And sadly, refusing to hire these people won’t work as then you’d be facing a discrimination lawsuit.

I told you. I told you it was the camel’s nose under the tent, all this letting pharmacists refuse to do their jobs because “religious freedom.” I told you but YOU WOULDN’T LISTEN.

Sara Hellwege applied for a job at Tampa Family Health Centers (TFHC), but was turned down. According to lawyers representing Hellwege, by refusing her an interview after noting that she was a member of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) and learning that she would refuse to offer hormonal contraception, TFHC has discriminated against her on the basis of her religion.

Say what? She told them she would refuse to do part of the job, so they didn’t hire her – so that’s discrimination?

This is just batshit.

“Hellwege’s lawsuit accuses TFHC of religious discrimination, and violating both state and federal laws that protect medical professionals from being forced to participate in abortions,” reports Lifesite News. “She is seeking $400,000 in damages, plus a fine of at least $75,000 and forfeiture of all federal funding until the company aligns its employment policies with anti-discrimination laws.”

Those laws? Those godawful horrendous laws that protect medical professionals from being forced to participate in abortions? They need to go. Yesterday. 

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

We saw yesterday that Jaclyn “stop all this divisiveness!!” Glenn is a fan or friend or both of The Amazing Atheist.

My knowledge of what exactly is horrible about the Amazing Atheist was a little rusty though (well there are so many misogynist ragers among the atheists) so I went looking for details. And found them.

RationalWiki has a useful entry.

What a guy…

As an example of his respect and care for his fellow humans, in his pompous and self-indulgent e-book Scumbag: Musings of a Subhuman (2007), Kincaid writes:[3]

Rape isn’t fatal. So imagine my indignation when I saw a chatroom called “Rape Survivors.” Is this supposed to impress me? Someone fucked you when you didn’t want to be fucked and you’re amazed that you survived? Unless he used a chainsaw instead of his dick, what’s the big deal? … The word survivor applies to people who are alive after being stabbed 73 times with an ice pick or mauled by rabid wolverines, not to a woman who gets dick when she doesn’t want it. Just because you got raped, you have to rape the English language? You vindictive bitch! Also, don’t you ever get tired of being the victim? How many failed relationships are you going to blame on a single violation of your personal space?

In the following section, Kincaid recalls a female acquaintance who rejected a guy for his small penis size. The anecdote culminates in Kincaid’s hilarious punchline:[4]

I told her, “You’re lucky it wasn’t me. I’d have busted your fucking nose and raped you.”

The “Sex” segment of the book closes with the chapter “Tits vs. Ass: The Final Showdown,” which features a helpful comparison chart of pros and cons, with such charming observations as tits being “hard to stare at without the girl noticing,” while “you can take a picture [of her ass] and she won’t be any the wiser.”[5]

And then there’s the “drown in rape semen” item.

On February 2012, in a thread on the MensRights subreddit about a disasteful username on a feminist board, he made a “joke” about how he wanted to violently rape one of its users. When he was informed the person in question was an actual rape victim and called out by said person for his abusive language and lack of respect for people with post-traumatic stress disorder, he complained about the very concept of trigger warnings and posted further graphic descriptions of how he would rape her again in a deliberate attempt to make her relive her trauma. Choice statements include “I will make you a rape victim if you don’t fuck off.” and “I think we should give the guy who raped you a medal. I hope you fucking drown in rape semen, you ugly, mean-spirited cow.”^[1] Supposedly this was some sort of clever satire of… something.^[17] This “Amazing” guy was taken to task by PZ Myers and others for his misogyny.^{[18][19] [20]} He did eventually apologize, but refused to make it public because that would mean admitting that threatening to rape people on the internet is crossing a line.^[21]

And Jaclyn “stop all this divisiveness!!” Glenn is a fan and perhaps friend of that guy. The Jaclyn Glenn whose anti-feminsm video Richard Dawkins called “brilliant” yesterday. Yeah I’m really going to take advice on how to be not divisive from that Jaclyn Glenn.

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

A pretty story from Afghanistan:

It was bad enough that the alleged rape took place in the sanctity of a mosque, and that the accused man was a mullah who invoked the familiar defense that it had been consensual sex.

But the victim was only 10 years old. And there was more: The authorities said her family members openly planned to carry out an “honor killing” in the case — against the young girl. The mullah offered to marry his victim instead.

Just gorgeous, isn’t it? The mullah said it was consensual – when the girl he raped was ten years old. And he’s a mullah. In a mosque.

Plus the bit about her family’s plans to kill her.

And it gets even more wonderful, because she was in a shelter, but this week the police took her out of the shelter and gave her back to her family – so that they could kill her easily, I guess.

The head of the Women for Afghan Women shelter here where the girl took refuge, Dr. Hassina Sarwari, was at one point driven into hiding by death threats from the girl’s family and other mullahs, who sought to play down the crime by arguing the girl was much older than 10. One militia commander sent Dr. Sarwari threatening texts and an ultimatum to return the girl to her family. The doctor said she now wanted to flee Afghanistan.

The head of the women’s affairs office in Kunduz, Nederah Geyah, who actively campaigned to have the young girl protected from her family and the mullah prosecuted, resigned on May 21 and moved to another part of the country.

The case itself would just be an aberrant atrocity, except that the resulting support for the mullah, and for the girl’s family and its honor killing plans, have become emblematic of a broader failure to help Afghan women who have been victims of violence.

Support for the mullah. How does that even work? Even in their terms? Why would anyone support the man while at the same time supporting the family’s plan to kill the girl? Are they thinking the girl raped the mullah?

Most of the anger in Kunduz has been focused not on the mullah but on the women’s activists and the shelter, which is one of seven operated across Afghanistan by Women for Afghan Women, an Afghan-run charity that is heavily dependent on American aid, from both government and private donors.

So…the raped girl is a kind of American by proxy, and that’s why they support the mullah?

Yes but then there’s that hole he punched in the wall of her vagina.

The accused mullah, Mohammad Amin, was arrested and confessed to having sex with the girl after Quran recitation classes at the mosque on May 1, but claimed that he thought the girl was older and that she responded to his advances.

The girl’s own testimony, and medical evidence, supported a rape so violent that it caused a fistula, or a break in the wall between the vagina and rectum, according to the police and the official bill of indictment. She bled so profusely after the attack that she was at one point in danger of losing her life because of a delay in getting medical care.

After the two women’s officials began speaking out about the case, they started receiving threatening calls from mullahs — some of them Taliban, others on the government side — and from arbakai, or pro-government militiamen. One of their claims was that the girl was actually 17, and thus of marriageable age, not 10.

And that fistula was totally consensual and legitimate.

Photographs of the girl that Dr. Sarwari took in the hospital clearly show a pre-pubescent child, and the doctor said the girl weighed only 40 pounds. Few Afghans have birth records, and many do not know their precise ages. But the girl’s mother said she was 10, and a forensic examination in the hospital agreed, saying she had not yet started menstruating or developing secondary sexual characteristics.

Well…maybe the mullah doesn’t see very well.

In the hospital room, the doctor found the girl’s mother holding her child’s hand, and both were weeping. “My daughter, may dust and soil protect you now,” Dr. Sarwari quoted the mother as saying. “We will make you a bed of dust and soil. We will send you to the cemetery where you will be safe.”

Even mothers here often believe that there is no choice but to kill rape victims, who are seen as unmarriageable and therefore a lifelong burden to their families, as well as a constant reminder of dishonor. “Their men feel they have to wash their shame with blood,” Dr. Sarwari said.

And last Tuesday she went back to them. She’s probably dead now – in her bed of dust and soil, safe in the cemetery.

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

Originally a comment by SC (Salty Current) on When a group is an acceptable target for hostility.

The suggestion that atheists privileged on other dimensions don’t face anything that could be recognized as oppression as atheists is wrong and unhelpful. Probably the element of anti-atheist prejudice that should be most concerning is the suggestion that atheists aren’t fully human* – that we lack some spiritual quality or knowledge or essence that limits us intellectually or ethically or even makes us dangerous. It should be easy enough to see the similarities with misogynistic and anti-Semitic ideas.

One problem, though, is that the insight that the treatment of atheists shares important features with that of other groups has been extremely difficult to impress upon some white male atheists who continue to spew and actively or tacitly support sexist, misogynistic, racist, transphobic rhetoric. Dawkins, for example, can deride journalists who say atheists aren’t fully human or archbishops claiming that reason is dangerous and leads to genocide; he seems to have more difficulty imagining growing up and living as an atheist in societies completely organized around such views or seeing the similarities with patriarchal or colonial ideologies.

They contest the misrepresentations of atheists by religious people and religious apologists – the portrayal of calm criticism as shrill ranting, the claims that we seek to oppress religious people and silence dissent, the mint julep tall tales,… But they can’t seem to recognize the same patterns of misrepresentation when they’re used against feminists. They resent the condescending suggestions from faitheists that our “strident” tone and refusal to abide by rules of civility that perpetuate the religious status quo are unethical and alienating allies, but they’ll turn around and demand that feminists adopt a compliant, “civil” attitude even in the face of vicious abuse.

They call attention to the various aspects of religious privilege that exist even in more secular societies, but then adopt a pose of utter stupidity when the concept of privilege is raised in any other context. They argue that we don’t want to be accepted as “as good” as religious people – that we don’t just want a place at the faith table, but are fundamentally challenging the assumptions about the moral and societal value of faith. But they don’t see the connection to those of us who are saying that we seek something beyond legal equality (though we want that, too) and challenging the culture of white male supremacy.

Appreciating that the treatment of atheists shares important features with other oppressions should lead in one direction: toward recognition of the need for solidarity with the victims of those other oppressions. Sadly, the reason it hasn’t in some cases appears to be that they view the treatment of atheists as illegitimate and the treatment of these other groups as legitimate. But perhaps pointing to the similarities across the beliefs and narratives and practices might prove enlightening.

* “Fully human” is speciesist dreck in general and urgently needs to go.

** The differences aren’t negligible, of course, and the societies most oppressive of atheists are far worse to women.

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

It’s happening right now in Hyde Park.

The Bread and Roses team will be at Hyde Park across from Serpentine cafe at 1pm on Sunday 20 July to defy fasting rules during Ramadan in solidarity with the many beaten, harassed, flogged and arrested for eating and drinking during Ramadan in Iran and elsewhere. You can either join our picnic if you are close by or hold you own picnic of fast-defying event. Be sure to send us photos or videos of your day!

To show your support, also join the International Day to Defy Ramadan Fasting Rules on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1426741134280903/

Onwards towards an international movement defying fasting laws!

You can find out more about the event here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrkXmUYaLIU

A media outlet associated with the Islamic regime of Iran has condemned a Bread and Roses TV programme in which we drink wine and eat bread in solidarity with all the people who are faced with the Islamic regime of Iran’s security forces and thugs during Ramadan. Those who violate compulsory fasting rules face criminal offences and are met with harassment, beatings, 10 days to 2 months in prison and 74 lashes. (These restrictions can also be found in many others countries from Saudi Arabia to Morocco.)

http://freethoughtblogs.com/maryamnamazie/2014/07/08/20-july-international-day-to-defy-fasting-rules-during-ramadan/

I’d be there if I were in London, I can tell you.

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

Oh shit I hadn’t seen this until just now. The Guardian yesterday:

As many as 100 of the world’s leading HIV/Aids researchers and advocates may have been on the Malaysia Airlines flight that crashed in Ukraine, in what has been described as a “devastating” blow to efforts to tackle the virus.

The Voice of America this morning, which is the most recent I can find:

The international AIDS community is reeling from the loss of many as 100 researchers who died when Malaysia Airlines flight 17 crashed in eastern Ukraine. They were en route to an AIDS conference that is about to begin in Australia.  Among the dead, a leader in AIDS research, Dr. Joep Lange.

Dr. Joup Lange changed the world’s view on who should receive medications to treat HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.  He was en route to Melbourne, Australia, to participate in the International AIDS Conference which begins on Sunday.

Dr. Clifford Lane, from the National Institutes of Health, told VOA Dr. Lange’s death is a tragic blow for many people who work in AIDS treatment and research.

Jesus fucking christ it’s hard to think of anything worse – a bigger loss to human beings all over the planet, in one instant of god damn idiot stupid wasteful destructive bonehead VIOLENCE.

I feel sick. I want to wrench the clock backwards.

“He was one of the first people to see the value of doing clinical research in developing country settings at a point in time when many people thought that was not the right thing to do,” he Lane.

Lane said Dr. Lange led the effort to provide drugs to poor people with HIV in developing countries at a time when these medications were only available in the developed world.

“He was able to show quite clearly from his work that there was no reason why anyone in the world with an HIV infection shouldn’t have access to drugs that are so effective in preventing that disease, and in fact, turning it around,” he said.

And 100 others, working on AIDS research.

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

Stephanie makes a very important point in “You’re Not Oppressed, White Atheist Dudes”.

Mild forms of oppression don’t historically stay mild. When a group is an acceptable target for hostility in normal times, this increases their acute risk under more unusual circumstances. Marginalized groups are more likely to be scapegoated in times of economic stresses or societal upheaval. People from marginalized groups are more likely to be considered “safe” targets of random aggression or to be the object of the rare dangerous paranoid delusion.

That that that that that.

I think that’s what’s happening right now with respect to women, and it scares me. Not for myself, but for women and girls in worse circumstances.

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

Another variety not to give.

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

Ha! So now they’re actually emailing PZ with this drivel – this “you allow no dissent / you are divisive” drivel that people mutter like a prayer in some rank places.

You seem to start arguments in the atheist community, which largely serve to divide the community and make it harder for us to get in a position to actually do something about the harm that religion causes humanity. You have people on other websites talking bad about other atheists and scientists in your name.

In MY name? That doesn’t even make sense. I’m a guy with a blog and a teaching position, with zero power and authority. I write what I think, and many people agree, and many disagree.

And what atheist community? You act as if there is some monolithic institution with a few rebels causing trouble. Atheism is a chaotic mess, with many communities within it. It seems to annoy some people that I don’t join with the libertarian, anti-feminist herd, but they never seem to consider that it takes two sides to make a rift.

Atheism is indeed a chaotic mess. That’s somehow comforting. We’re not messing up an otherwise tidy thing; we’re just staying out of the more rancid section of the chaotic mess.

More from PZ’s correspondents:

I am trying to be polite in this email but you seem to be starting a cult in your fan base. We all need to work together to make the world a better place. We won’t always agree 100% with everyone even in our little niche groups, if we do then that is a sign of something worse at work. I am not asking you to just go out and say “sorry I was a jerk” but you NEED to stop doing things to divide the community.

NOOOOOOO we don’t.

You might tell Jaclyn Glenn to stop dividing the community though. She’s planning to drop another divisive turd of a video day after tomorrow. There goes all our beautiful unity!

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

Why I don’t love the “atheist community” chapter 782. A public Facebook post by “The Amazing Atheist” who is sadly unamazing. Jaclyn Glenn shared it in a public post of her own.

PZ Myers is a pile of shit in a man suit. So here he is attacking Jaclyn Glenn for daring to not identify as a feminist. That’s feminism for you: “Women can make any choice they want! Except the choice not to be feminists!”

His main argument is the Jaclyn’s video fails because she uses some comedic exaggeration in it that he feels distorts a position. Was the position distorted? I’ll let you guys watch the video and read PZ’s blog post and decide for yourselves.

Oh, and don’t bother trying to comment on PZ’s blog if you do disagree with him. Dissenting points of view are not tolerated there.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/07/18/dont-be-this-atheist/

First, I notice I don’t call Jaclyn Glenn things comparable to “a pile of shit in a man suit.”

Second – yes, of course that’s feminism for you. Feminism is not anti-feminism – shock-horror! Yes, feminism considers Phyllis Schlafly for instance not a feminist. She can of course choose that, and she did, but that doesn’t mean feminism has to consider it feminist to “choose to” attack feminism. Anyway my feminism doesn’t rely on the claim that feminism=whatever choice any woman makes. Far from it. There are lots of choices that women can make that aren’t feminist.

Third there’s the worn-thin trope that “dissenting points of view are not tolerated” on PZ’s blog. Yeah that’s just bullshit.

So Glenn pursues her course of bashing feminists for being divisive. Hmm.

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

Well we all know the rules. Women are either fuckworthy, or killworthy. There is nothing else. (Just this morning on Twitter someone called me “old superfluous prune” – meaning, I should be dead, because I’m too old and ugly to be still alive using up resources. Old ugly men are ok because men have multiple uses but old ugly women are not ok because women have only one use.)

Hadley Freeman considers one instantiation of this universal law.

You’ll be thrilled to know – and I’m sure May will be absolutely delighted to know – that this week a male writer for the Spectator officially declared her to be hot; hotter, even, than Jemima Khan, just in case you’ve ever found yourself flummoxed by this debate.

Congratulations, May! You’ve bested Harriet Harman, who was infamously deemed not hot in the Spectator by Rod Liddle in 2009, and even though Liddle has since admitted that piece might have been a bit de trop, that hasn’t stopped another sweaty Speccie writer from trying to rehash a similar furore all over again, while writing with one hand.

In case anyone is worried that all this chat about female politicians’ shaggability might be a little sexist, don’t worry! “I can just hear the chorus of leftwing women complaining that, here we go again – judging women in politics by their looks!” writes Cosmo Landesman, the Spectator’s Theresa May fan. “Well, actually, looks have nothing to do with it. By that criteria, I should be swooning over Jemima instead of drooling over Mrs May.”

Oh yes, we pesky crazy fanatical dogmatic (and no doubt ugly every one of us) women wanting to think we have more than one use. How silly can you get.

Anyway, well done to the Spectator’s priapic writers for capturing the zeitgeist this week. It just feels so right that a male journalist should take it upon himself to judge the shaggability of the home secretary, seeing as female politicians have just been reminded, once again, that whatever the size of their portfolios, all that actually matters is their appearance.

The Mail’s predictably demented coverage of the cabinet reshuffle has been widely mocked, with the paper getting frantically sticky-palmed over “thigh-flashing Esther McVey”. That the paper doesn’t talk about male MPs as though they are geishas being offered up to potential male customers is so obvious it hardly needs stating.

But the most telling detail is the way it described the female MPs as walking “the Downing Street catwalk”. Because in the deluded mindset of the Mail and many other media outlets, women exist to be looked at, and for their hotness to be judged accordingly, hence the paper’s insistence that women “flaunt” their legs (when they are in fact just walking) or that they are on a “catwalk” (when they are simply on their way to work.)

Well hurr hurr they thought they were just on their way to work but hurr hurr they were really taking their legs out for an airing because hurr hurr they’re women and legs lead to the bit with the hole hurr hurr.

But wait, you cry. Waddabboutdamenz?! Surely male politicians’ looks and fashion choices are discussed too, yeah? Indeed they are, strawman reader. But when a male politician’s looks and clothes are discussed, they are done so in regards to how statesmanlike he looks, how in-charge-of-the-red-button he seems – not whether some newspaper editor wants to give him one. And anyway, seeing as women are still – despite the talk of Manageddon this week – in the minority in American and British governments, any comparison between treatment meted out to them and male politicians by the press is, from the off, bogus.

So it’s bogus, so what?! It sells papers doesn’t it!

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

So the Russian separatists are busily hiding and destroying all the evidence. If neutral parties show up and try to stop them doing that, they fire warning shots, and the neutral parties leave.

The OSCE was trying to gain access to one part of the large crash site but the commander of a rebel unit, known as Commander Glum, blocked them. After the warning shot, the OSCE convoy departed.

There is also confusion over the black boxes and other devices apparently salvaged from the plane. A rebel military commander initially said he was considering what to do with them, while another rebel leader, Aleksandr Borodai, contradicting his colleague, said the rebels had no black boxes or any other devices.

Black boxes? What black boxes? What’s a black box? We had a black box but it’s gone. We never had any black boxes. We have a bunch of black boxes and you can’t have them. We’re tired and emotional and don’t want to talk to you right now.

Other material on rebel social media sites was being deleted, including pictures showing the alleged capture of Buk missile vehicles by rebels from a Ukrainian air base last month.

Rebels said the boast on the social media site on Thursday that a plane had been shot down was not put up by them but by a sympathiser who mistakenly assumed it was a Ukrainian military plane that had been shot down. But in a separate posting a rebel leader also claimed that a plane had been brought down. “We warned you – do not fly in our sky,” he said. That too was removed.

A Nato intelligence specialist quoted by the military analysts Janes said the recordings “show that the Russian ‘helpers’ realise that they now have an international incident on their hands – and they probably also gave the order for separatists to erase all evidence – including those internet postings. It will be interesting to see if we ever find this Buk battery again or if someone now tries to dump it into a river.”

Buk battery? Oh no – this is just a toy we built for our children. No no this is a prop for an amateur war movie we’re making. God no, this old thing? It’s just something I picked up at the flea market last week.

Igor Sutyagin, a Russian military specialist at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, said he regarded the tape recordings as genuine, as well as postings on social media pointing the finger at pro-Russia separatists or Russia itself.

But getting evidence would be very difficult. He said: “A decision has been made on the Russian side to hide their tracks. It will be hard to find the battery.” Satellites might have been able to catch something, but the trail from the missile would have been very short, Sutyagin said.

It sounds as if a cover-up may well be successful.

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

There was a pretty good Fresh Air yesterday based on a book, Trans Bodies, Trans Selves.

The new book Trans Bodies, Trans Selves is a collection of essays describing the varied experiences of transgender people — and the social, political and medical issues they face. It’s written by and for transgender and gender-nonconforming people.

The idea was inspired by the groundbreaking 1970s feminist health manual Our Bodies, Ourselves.

That book “was put together … by a group of women who … weren’t getting the care that they needed from what was mostly male physicians at the time,” the book’s editor, Laura Erickson-Schroth, tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross. “And so they put together this really radical book that included topics like abortion and rape and lesbian identity. And this was something that I thought we could duplicate — something that was written by and for trans people about all aspects of life.”

Sounds like a plan.

There is relatively new language within the transgender community, like “cisgender,” which means not transgender, says Jennifer Finney Boylan, who wrote the introduction to the book. Finney Boylan transitioned from male to female.

“It’s worth noting that it didn’t seem that this was a word that people knew we needed for a while,” Finney Boylan says. She’s a professor of English at Colby College and the author of several books, including Stuck in the Middle with You: Parenthood in Three Genders. She is now a writer-in-residence at Barnard College.

The book covers all ages, including a chapter about gender-nonconforming children written by Aidan Key. He’s the founder of the family education and support organization Gender Diversity and co-founder of Seattle’s Transgender Film Festival.

I was gender-nonconforming as a kid. (I still am, but now nobody yells at me about it.) (Well, except for harassers of course, but they don’t count.) I never ever ever wanted to wear skirts.

Key transitioned from female to male.

“I never felt female, and I don’t fully feel male,” he says. “And I’m not sure whether that’s my innate sense of myself or just because of … my socialized experience in life. But I do feel at peace and at ease with who I am, and when people ask me questions about my gender I say, ‘I’ve got a lot of it!’ “

I liked that line; it made me laugh. Is it a lot though, or is it a little? Not feeling fully either one seems like less gender rather than more. I don’t know – I’m always hesitant to talk about it because I really don’t know.

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