You know that T shirt that Harriet Hall wore?

This is the back view

She wore it three days in a row, at least. My source didn’t see her on the fourth, but it seems likely she wore it then too.

I don’t understand this. I don’t understand people.

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

Alex Gabriel has an excellent, thorough, detailed, courteous reply to Paula Kirby.

He makes an important point at the beginning that has been steadfastly ignored both by Paula and by many of her supporters in this dispute.

I know that, as I think your letter hints, feminist skeptics including at FreethoughtBlogs have disagreed with you before and may have been barbed. But I’d like to point out those comments were always qualified: PZ said FtB was criticised ‘by no less a person than Paula Kirby’; Rebecca Watson referred to ‘the esteemed Paula Kirby’; Ophelia, on the idea FtB was totalitarian, said ‘the sad thing is that it’s Paula Kirby calling us that’. I typically make a point of not speaking for others, but I don’t think anyone on this side of the dispute likes being at odds with you – certainly not how we to like scrap with, say, creationists.

I certainly don’t. I said more than the bit that Alex quoted.

Paula’s a terrific writer. She was very nice to me at QED, despite the defriending last year. We were on a panel together, along with Maryam and (don’t laugh)…DJ Grothe.

Paula’s never given the smallest nod to any of that, and she has also never reciprocated. She called me very nasty names, and there was no prefatory regret or acknowledgement of an ok quality or two; no reservation or mitigation of any kind. Yet I’ve seen people announcing things like “It’s an FTB rule that you never say anything good about Paula Kirby.” That kind of lying and double standard gets me down.

I particularly like the part where Alex addresses Paula’s claim that we (we Oppressed Sisters) see a conspiracy everywhere, and that in fact women are unwilling to speak in public and we hold ourselves back.

As your reference to WiS acknowledges, many skeptical and atheistic women have gained prominence and are regular speakers on the conference scene. This is very different from your struggle to find female speakers: we know as a matter of fact that many skeptical ones exist, and accept invitations to speak when they get them – but conferences still frequently suffer from gender-imbalance. At worryingly many, no women give talks at all.

Why is this, when it’s obviously not that women are unwilling? Because they can’t accept invitations they don’t get. You’ve told us your experiences; here are mine.

Thoughtlessness

The first time we met was at the atheist student group I used to run, when you did a talk for us (an excellent one) on moral problems with Christianity. Yours was the last talk of the term, during which, if memory serves, half a dozen or so other guests had spoken. They were all male.

The same was more or less true of the next term, and at the week of events when you came back and spoke again there were twice as many men as women giving talks. Had I and the dozen or so other organisers conspired, in twilit rooms at witching hour, to keep women out? Of course not. But it was still our fault, and in hindsight – forgive the pun – a serious cock-up.

At events promoting godlessness and skeptical thinking, I believe we should show how diverse our community is. Is there something wrong with male speakers? Clearly not – no more than with, say, physicists giving talks. But if all or two thirds of a conference’s speakers were physicists, that wouldn’t reflect the breadth of the skeptical movement. The people onstage should, I think, be as varied as the people in the room – or as varied, as the case may be, as the people we’d like to have in the room. So why are they so often not?

Because when groups of men like the one I was in are running events, they don’t always think about this. I didn’t.

It doesn’t help that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: that when lots more of the speakers we knew about were men, lots more of the ones we invited and therefore hosted were men. We threw out the names of all the interesting people we wanted to invite in our very first meeting, brainstorming at lightning speed – and of course, we ended up with a shortlist that was as unbalanced as our long list.

I’m not suggesting we bar potential speakers because they’re male, or become draconian. But I am suggesting guys in organising groups put time into specifically researching female atheists, to the point of being able to write an A4-length list of speakers they’d like to host who aren’t white men. (Try it, other readers. I can do it.) Because when we have to think of interesting godless people and our minds run toward those groups by instant default, we propagate the existing imbalances.

It’s not a conspiracy. It’s thoughtlessness.

We know this is true. PZ used to report this all the time – that he would tell organizers, “Hey, you need to get some women to speak,” and they would always look befuddled and say, “Uh……we don’t know any.” He would sigh and give them some names. That would be the end of that.

Now, at last, it is changing. It’s been changing for a couple of years. That’s partly because we – we Oppressed Sisters – did some yelling about it. Why, exactly, is this a bad thing?

I don’t think it is. I don’t see how it is. I don’t see why Paula is so furious about it.

Maybe she and Pamela Gay could have a chat. Seriously.

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

I gather (via Twitter) that Pamela Gay gave a great, standing ovation talk at TAM just now.

Pamela Gay just gave a talk highlighting the sexual harrassment in the skeptic community and called out for change! #TAM2012

Thank you @starstryder for tackling the harassment issue head-on at the #tam2012 podium, elegantly, eloquently, & w/many other great ideas!

@starstryder Thank you x a million. I wondered if anyone would say it. You knocked it out of the park. #TAM2012

Thank you, @starstryder!! That was exactly what #tam2012 needed and you were exactly the woman to do it. Inspiring.

@starstryder knocked it out of the park. Smart, measured and impassioned decimation of the trolls

Over hearing women sharing TAM harassment stories in the restroom. I think @starstryder‘s courage is contagious #tam2012

My friend Mya says she clapped until her hands hurt.

Excellent!

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

I was flicking idly through the channels yesterday evening and I hit the Comedy Channel just as Tosh.0 was starting. I’d never seen it, never had a thought about it before the other day, but given the other day, I decided to have a look, see what he’s like overall, when not raging at a woman who interrupted his act. I think I managed less than two minutes. It was shitty sneery let’s hate everyone stuff, and then he asked, “when is it ok to make fun of the handicapped?” and a bit of video played while he shouted “Now! Now!” and everybody laughed, and bang I changed the channel.

That was quick. He makes it way obvious what he’s like, and what he’s like is disgusting. It’s shit. It’s nasty little boy in a bad mood stuff, turned into a whole performance, to an audience. It’s designed to make everything horrible. It’s loathing and contempt elevated to a principle.

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

Michael Nugent reports that Alex Aan has sent a message to his supporters, saying that their our support helps him, that he would feel alone without it. He also says that

Atheist Alliance International is very active on this issue, and will forward messages of support to Alex if you email info [at] atheistalliance [dot] org with “Message for Alex” in the subject line.

So I rushed to do that, and you should too.

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

Next (that is, this next, approaching, this year) November 30 to December 2 is Eschaton 2012, in Ottawa, presented by the Centre for Inquiry Ottawa. Look who will be speakers!

• P.Z. Myers
• Ophelia Benson
• Chris DiCarlo
• Ian Cromwell
• Natalie Reed
• Udo Schuklenk
• Eugenie Scott
• Jim Linville
• Sara Mayhew
• Larry Moran
• Jeff Shallit
• Eric MacDonald
• Ania Bula
• Heina Dadabhoy
• The Reality Check
• Annie Urban
• Allan Daoust
• Crystal Beauvais Daoust
• Anila Asghar
• Steve Tomlins

and more to come….

Eric! Udo! Crommunist, PZ, Larry Moran, Genie Scott. Good eh? I didn’t know Eric and Udo were going, so I’m excited.

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

The BBC:

A prominent female Afghan politician has been killed in a bomb attack in eastern Afghanistan, officials say.

Hanifa Safi died after a bomb attached to her car exploded as she left her home in Laghman province. Her husband and daughter were injured.

As the provincial head of the Afghan ministry of women’s affairs, Safi had for years been a leading advocate of fair treatment for women.

She had been known locally for going out without her head covered.

Dammit.

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

Another repetition of the hissy finger-pointy meme that (deep breath and then say along with me) FTbloggersareevilbullies.

I should have written this post a few months ago…I am ashamed that I didn’t write about this months ago. It is with more than a little apprehension that I say the following: I think there might be some truth to the seemingly outrageous claim that a few of the bloggers at FtB are acting like bullies.

To be clear, the majority of those writing for FtB have not been doing any detectible bullying. In fact, I am referring to a relatively small group of about 4 or 5 at most. Based on the comments I’ve seen here and on other atheist blogs, as well as the email I’ve received, I am fairly confident you know who they are. So while I am of the opinion that FtB and any other blog conglomerate is generally a bad idea, this is not an indictment of the entire FtB team.

No no, not at all…But then why say FtB at all? Why not just talk about the specific blogs instead? “FtB” doesn’t blog anything; specific blogs do. Talk to them, don’t talk to the umbrella.

Then there’s the lack of specifics. There are three links to posts – one each of PZ’s, mine, and Jason’s – but there are no quoted passages. There’s a lot of very stale, recycled-looking generalization, with no particulars at all. The generalization is so recycled that it’s even labeled as such in places -

From what I have seen for myself and heard from others, they quickly dismiss ideas different from their own…Phrases like “groupthink,” “hive mind,” and “echo chamber” have been used when describing these few FtB bloggers. There was talk of this well before Kirby…I have heard from many people who are questioning whether they can continue to support FtB as long as they promote the few bloggers to which I am referring.

People say, therefore it must be true, so I will say too, without troubling myself to give any particulars at all, even to illustrate what the hell I’m talking about, let alone actually demonstrating it. Buzz buzz buzz, whisper whisper whisper, ooooooh doncha just hate that FTB.

There is also the fact that at least some of that buzzbuzz is coming from a very small but very dedicated and very obsessed group who hate the mythic beast FTB out of all proportion to its actual evil or importance. They are having some success in creating an impression that Everybody Thinks FTB is terrible – so people like this Atheist Revolution feel “ashamed” that they didn’t get out ahead of the curve and talk smack about FTB “months ago” – as if it were some urgent duty left undone as opposed to a stupid spiteful campaign of cyberstalking.

There’s one item I want to dispute directly.

Kirby deserved flak for the “feminzai” slur. Isn’t that one of Rush Limbaugh’s words? She should have known that this would color everything else she wrote, even though some of her points were valid. But I do think it should have been okay for her to raise the issue of bullying without being ripped to shreds over it. Based on the prolonged reaction to her letter, I’m not sure this was the case.

That’s stupid. She didn’t just “raise the issue of bullying” (and it’s debatable whether there really is an issue separate from the campaign to make it an issue); she called people a lot of very rude names including Nazi and Stasi in the process of claiming that they’re bullies. That’s why she got harsh responses. Since there is no rude-names-free version of Kirby’s discussion of “the issue of bullying,” it’s not possible to know how that version would have been received, and it certainly makes no sense to scold us for not addressing a version that doesn’t exist. The sneering epithets are interwoven into the “Oppressed Sisterhood” article, and that’s the article I and others criticized.

I could always just get a T shirt made up…

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

Women held a rally in Kabul on July 11 to protest violence against women. Radio Free Europe words it strangely though.

Dozens of women have rallied in Kabul to condemn violence against women.

The protest on July 11 follows the public execution of a young married Afghan woman in Parwan Province who was accused of adultery.

That was no execution. That was a murder. There was no trial, no judge, no jury, no defense, no due process of any kind. There was just an accusation, followed by a public murder. Yet RFE calls it an execution twice more, before finally calling it a killing at the end.

It was a murder.

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

Religion News is interested in our little spats. (Well it would be, wouldn’t it – except that JREF and TAM actually aren’t atheist, and are a bit hostile to atheism, at least at TAM.)

Officials for The Amazing Meeting, or TAM, said Wednesday (July 11) that women would make up 31 percent of the 1,200 conference attendees, down from 40 percent the year before. A month before the conference, pre-registration was only 18 percent women, organizers said.

The explanations are many — the bad economy, that women, as caregivers, are less able to get away, and that more men than women identify as skeptics, whose worldview rejects the supernatural and focuses on science and rationality.

But in the weeks preceding TAM, another possible explanation has roiled the nontheist community. Online forums have crackled with charges of sexism in TAM’s leadership and calls for the ouster of D.J. Grothe, the male president of the James Randi Educational Foundation, TAM’s organizer. In June, Rebecca Watson, a skeptic blogger and speaker, canceled her TAM appearance because, she said on her blog, she does “not feel welcome or safe.”

Other nontheists — both male and female — have shared stories of unwanted sexual attention at nontheist gatherings, including propositions for sex and unwelcome touching. Chatter has ranged from calls for more women to attend nontheist events to personal attacks on prominent female skeptics for discussing harassment. Meanwhile, two more skeptic/feminist bloggers announced they will not attend TAM.

Two? Who’s the other one?

The current hullabaloo can be traced to May’s Women in Secularism Conference, a first-of-its-kind gathering for nontheist women. On a panel examining feminism and nontheism, Jennifer McCreight, an atheist blogger, said women speakers at nontheist events warn each other privately about male speakers who make unwanted sexual advances.

“They brought up a concern about harassment at conferences and I was not aware of that problem,” said Ron Lindsay, president of the Center for Inquiry, a humanist-skeptic group that organized the women’s conference. “Maybe I should have been. But once I became aware of that concern it wasn’t that difficult to come to a decision that we should have a policy in place to deal with that.”

So they did, and so did other organizations. But…

As these groups and others unveiled their policies, members of the skeptic community asked whether TAM had one in place.

And that’s where things got ugly. In an appeal to assure women that TAM is welcoming and safe, Grothe made comments that upset some in the community. They accused him of underplaying, and even ignoring, reported harassment at past meetings, and of “blaming the victims” of the alleged incidents. Grothe apologized to Watson on her blog, Skepchick.

“I believe strongly that women’s voices need to be taken seriously in the atheist and skeptics movements, that any reports of harassment or assault at atheist and skeptics events need to be taken seriously and recorded, and acted on effectively, and that those who make reports of such harassment shouldn’t ever be blamed for such,” Grothe wrote.

Asked to comment for this story, Grothe said he stood by his online remarks.

Too bad the article quotes only the later remarks, not the ones that “upset some in the community.” And pathetic that DJ said he stood by his remarks.

Many skeptic women say they have no plans to abandon the conference or the broader nontheist community.

“We may not be able to ever completely solve misogyny online but we can absolutely do a better job ensuring that our physical events are welcoming and safe spaces for women and minorities than we have been,” said Amy Davis Roth, a longtime skeptic who has helped raise almost $8,000 for grants to send 22 women to this year’s TAM.

“Anti-harassment polices are a good start because it sends the message that event organizers want everyone to feel safe and that harassment will not be tolerated by our community,” she said.

Which is why it’s a pity that TAM still doesn’t have one. It has sarcastic T shirts, instead.

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

Jessica Valenti explains (more patiently than I could) why most rape jokes are not funny (and what kind are).

But here’s the thing: threatening women with rape, making light of rape, and suggesting that women who speak up be raped is not edgy or controversial. It’s the norm. This is what women deal with every day. Maintaining the status quo around violence against women isn’t exactly revolutionary.

The woman who was the target of Daniel Tosh’s “jokes” tells what that was like. Tosh told some rape jokes (not the funny kind), and she disrupted his routine by yelling, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!”

After I called out to him, Tosh paused for a moment. Then, he says, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…” and I, completely stunned and finding it hard to process what was happening but knowing I needed to get out of there, immediately nudged my friend, who was also completely stunned, and we high-tailed it out of there. It was humiliating, of course, especially as the audience guffawed in response to Tosh, their eyes following us as we made our way out of there. I didn’t hear the rest of what he said about me.

It’s reminiscent of Michael Richards’s racist “jokes” yelled at another heckler a few years ago. That was a career-ender. Will the same apply to Tosh? I don’t know, but I doubt it.

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

Want to see why? This is why.

Picture credit “Karl Withakay”

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

How poignant. A Catholic priest in Poland put up that giant statue of Jesus but it didn’t do any good. People in Poland are still wandering away from the church.

Just past the Polish border, passengers traveling by train from Berlin to Warsaw can see Jesus. He is 36-meters (118 feet) tall, made of concrete, and towers over the surrounding fields near the town of Swiebodzin, a gilded crown perched nobly on his head. His gaze is directed over the Recaro plant, which makes car seats…

Well that could be your problem right there. Maybe his gaze should be directed over a plant which makes bicycle seats, or zippers, or napkin rings.

The plaque at the base of the giant religious statue says that Jesus Christ is the true king of Poland and will rule for eternity. It is not for nothing that the country is, in the eyes of the church at least, Europe’s most Catholic nation.

Yet despite the monumental redeemer, Swiebodzin has not become a pilgrimage site. “The statue has not triggered a tourism boom yet,” confirms Waldemar Roszczuk, editor-in-chief of the city’s newspaper and publisher of a regional Internet publication.

I’m telling you, it’s that car seat plant. Thinking more broadly here, maybe Jesus’s gaze should be directed over something that’s not a plant at all, but something more attractive to tourists – an insurance office, a shopping mall, a meadow full of wild flowers.

After joining the European Union, Poland turned to the West and embraced the Western lifestyle more than almost any other country. Nowadays, Polish women dream of careers, self-fulfillment and children. Hundreds of thousands of young Poles live together without being married. In booming cities like Warsaw and Poznan, gays and lesbians live their lives as openly as in Berlin or Madrid.

“More and more taboos are falling by the wayside. But the church reacts by hardening its positions even further,” says Barto.

And putting its giant statues of Jesus next to plants that make car seats.

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

Brilliant. The Washington Monthly does a big ol’ serious thinky article on Y No Wimmin at policy events, forums, and conferences around DC, and before people can even get to the serious thinky words they get an eyefull of a pouty babe with big tits in a tank top.

The comments below the article are mostly pretty annoyed.

H/t Katha Pollitt

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

How miserably sad and depressing. Farida Afridi, an activist for tribal women in Pakistan, was murdered today. (You know how. You don’t even need to look. Leaving home for work. Guys on motorcycles. Guns. Died on the way to the hospital.)

Along with her sister Noor Zia, Farida was committed to social change and economic emancipation for women from the platform of a welfare organisation called the Society for Appraisal and Women Empowerment in Rural Areas (SAWERA). Both women were among the founding members of the NGO and had a Masters degree in Gender Studies.

Due to tribal customs and traditions, women in the area remain mostly restricted and unable to achieve their true potential, but Farida broke all barriers and relentlessly worked for women’s development. “We have lost a great member of our team,” said Lal Jan, the technical advisor of the organisation.

…

The sisters faced tough resistance when they told their family about the path they had chosen for themselves. “We told our parents that we would work in accordance with our religious and cultural traditions, assuring them that we would never let the family honour suffer because of our line of work. Finally, they agreed,” Noor had said.

Syed Afzal Shinwari, project coordinator in Community Appraisal and Motivation Program (CAMP), said that SAWERA started small but is now an influential organisation. “Because of this brutal act, women in Fata will be discouraged to work and development will come to a halt,” he said.

You can go back and read an optimistic article about them from last September.

If it weren’t for the support of their father and the persistence of their mother, Farida Afridi and Noor Zia Afridi would not be able to read a single word of this article. But today, the two are not only final year students of MSc in Gender studies and holders of MBA degrees, but are also determined champions of women’s education and empowerment.

Farida and Noor’s long struggle against discriminatory tribal customs started when they were school children. “After we completed our primary education, our male family members wanted us to stop going to school,” says Farida. But the girls’ parents were adamant that they would continue their education.

Since then, equal status for women and children’s rights have been issues close to their hearts. It was to win these rights that the two established the Society for Appraisal and Women Empowerment in Rural Areas (SAWERA) in the Jamrud subdivision of Khyber Agency in December 2008.

And this is their reward.

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