I’ve been wondering what Richard Dawkins thinks of Paula Kirby’s salvo against the Sisterhood of the Oppressed and the Approved Male Chorus. I expect a lot of people have, seeing as how she’s the executive director of RDF-UK. I’m sure we’ll never know, in the sense of being told in so many words. But possibly there are hints…he did a tweet today quoting and endorsing praise of Paula’s Washington Post blog post from last year, Religion lies about women. I RTd it with a “Ditto.” I liked (and posted about, and wished I’d written) that article last year, and I still do.

But I don’t see any RTs of the salvo against the Sisterhood of the Oppressed. That’s possibly a hint. Or it’s possibly just discretion and a disinclination to spit in the faces of friends and allies, such as the people who run CFI and the people who were speakers at the conference and attended the conference. But then…if it’s that, it is in fact a tacit opinion of Paula’s salvo, because Paula’s salvo conspicuously spits in the faces of all those friends and allies. Consider some of them – Margaret Downey, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Wafa Sultan, Susan Jacoby, Jennifer Michael Hecht…You can see how Richard wouldn’t want to insult them by calling them the Sisterhood of the Oppressed, or his many friends and allies at CFI who organized and hosted the conference by jeering at the whole idea.

Anyway, that article. Take a passage from the article -

In the eyes of the Abrahamic religions, the archetypal woman is Eve: disobedient, unreliable, easily led astray, and a seductive temptress of man – man being more noble, yet easy prey to the wiles and seductions of his weaker mate. Woman is the source of danger, the one who corrupts him, the conduit for all that is evil in the world. She is dangerous … yet irresistible; and this very irresistibility makes her more dangerous still. But you will notice that the dangers of sexual temptation are not to be faced equally by men and women: no, religion demands that it is the woman who bears the burden. Solomon, we are told, had 700 wives and 300 concubines, and David had a more modest yet still energy-sapping five wives and 10 concubines, yet neither of these has become a by-word for male insatiability. Jezebel, on the other hand, has become synonymous with sexual excess, despite this not being among the vices attributed to her in the bible story.

Indeed. And? What about it? Why criticize it? Aren’t we supposed to ignore all that and just focus on being strong and determined ourselves? From the salvo:

I did a sociology module as part of my degree many years ago: I know the arguments about socialization and normative values, and structural discrimination and all that malarkey. All I can say in response is that, while all these things may be true to a greater or lesser extent, banging on about them does not even begin to help women achieve their goals. If we, as women, externalize the reasons why we are not being heard as much as we say we’d like to be, and seek to put the blame on other people, nothing is going to change or, at the very best, it is only going to change painfully slowly. It is a simple fact of life that it is always easier to change our own behaviour than to persuade other people to change theirs.

So why bang on about religion? Why bang on about the Abrahamic religions and their view of the archetypal woman? If it does not even begin to help women achieve their goals, as Paula claims, then why did she trouble to write that article?

So there is an alternative, and it is this alternative that I would urge women to seize with both hands – whether we’re talking about how we interact in our jobs, in our social lives or in the atheist movement. And that alternative is to take responsibility for ourselves and our own success. To view ourselves as mature, capable adults who can take things in our stride, and can speak up appropriately. To really start believing that we can do whatever men can do. To stop seizing on excuses for staying quiet and submissive, stop blaming it on men or hierarchies or misogyny or, silliest of all, “privilege”, and start simply practising being more assertive.

You could re-write that last sentence to say “To stop seizing on excuses for staying quiet and submissive, stop blaming it on men or hierarchies or misogyny or Abrahamic religions or, silliest of all, “privilege”, and start simply practising being more assertive.” Why would the added item to stop blaming it on be out of place? It seems to me to fit perfectly well. If Paula thought then that it was worth saying how religion described women and what it told them to do, why does she now think it’s a big mistake to say that? I would seriously like to know.

In truth I have a very hard time even understanding the thinking in that passage. The idea that social and cultural factors just don’t matter, or that even if they matter it’s much better to ignore them and simply push harder – I can’t think my way into it. It seems like thinking breathing doesn’t matter. We live in the world, we’re embedded in the world, everything we have and do and think about is part of the world. We can’t just detach from it and do everything in glorious isolation.

I’m practicing being more assertive when I say that.

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

Boy, the chief justice of the Indonesian Supreme Court has a weird sense of humor. He told Angela Merkel (who is in Indonesia on a visit) that the Indonesian constitution guarantees the rights of atheists. Orilly? How does he explain Alexander Aan then?

Supreme Court chief Mahfud MD is telling the vesting German chancellor that the Indonesian Constitution gives people the freedom to be atheist or communists.

Mahfud was answering Chancellor Angela Merkel’s question about the freedom of religion and democracy in Indonesia during a visit to the Supreme Court on Tuesday evening.

“Since its inception, the Supreme Court has guaranteed the freedom of atheists and communists in this country, as long as they do not disturb the freedom of people of other religions. Freedom is equality.” Mahfud said.

Something seems to have gone wrong then, because Alexander Aan is in prison, serving a two year sentence for saying God doesn’t exist on Facebook. 

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

On that Popehat post All This Talk of Harassment Is Harassing Me! - a comment that helps to explain the basic confusion. Author, Robert White.

Sounds to me like this “free Thought” movement is having what I call “the Libertarian problem”.

As a movement, I have found, Libertarianism is a thin rich chocolate shell of progressive idealists hiding a meaty, inconsistent nougat of biggoted ass-hats looking for a system of thought that can keep the faggots, darkies, spics and freeloading liberals out of their lives. Both outer shell and inner douchebag (again, talking libertarian here) unable or unwilling to take their propositions all the way to their logical conclusions…

Ohhhhhh – they* think “freethought”=libertarian. Nooooooo. No no no no no. All wrong. Freethought is a child of the Enlightenment. Libertarianism is a child of Ayn Rand and Hollywood. Freethought is liberal (in the classical sense), progressive, egalitarian. Libertarianism is liberal (in the classical sense) but not progressive or egalitarian.

*By “they” I mean the trolls who’ve been trolling Freethought blogs since the day of its birth.

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

Revisiting an old grudge for a moment – you may remember that Orac jumped on me very hard for an analogy about [people complaining about oppression and thus making things worse by scaring people who are subject to the same oppression]. The analogy I used was Jews in Germany in 1936. Orac is a self-appointed cop of (apparently) any kind of Nazi analogy. He said so himself.

As you might (or might not) know, I very much detest the gratuitous use of argumentum ad Nazi-um. I even have a special category for it on my blog.

I was annoyed by the bossy tone and the timing*, but on consideration I decided he had a point, so I withdrew the analogy. There was a brief unproductive email exchange, in which he insisted on talking to me as if he were my boss and I were a janitor found asleep in his desk chair, so I abandoned it.

But then Paula Kirby called me and other women Feminazis (and other things) on Twitter and in her famous open letter. Lots of people wondered aloud when Orac would pounce on Paula Kirby as hard as he’d pounced on me.

I didn’t realize until just now that he’d specifically answered that question, and that the answer was never.

elburto

July 3, 7:03 am

…

OT but speaking of Hitler zombies, Paula Kirby has claimed that feminist bloggers are simultaneously Nazis and Stasi for denouncing sexism.

Baron Scarpia

July 3, 7:23 am

Actually Kirby didn’t. She called certain people Feminazis and at the same time made it very clear that she did not mean they were Nazis- she said this explicitly (She compares the term to ‘Grammar Nazis’). Given that intent is not magical, you may still think that it carries the connotation that such people are Nazis, which would indicate a failure of communication on her part. (Frankly I do not think she should have used the term at all, because I do not see how you can separate the two terms in the minds of the public)

What you can’t do is say that she called Myers, Watson, Benson et al Nazis, because she didn’t.

I won’t touch the ‘sexism’ part of the comment, there have been enough strawmen in the debate already…

Orac

July 3, 8:06 am

Please, people. I really don’t want that argument metastasizing to my comment threads. I’ve already been burned badly enough by it, and I admit my massive error for every having said anything in the first place. These days, I’d rather deal with a torrent of Thingy comments than for a comment thread on my blog to become dominated by this kerfuffle.

He’s been burned badly by it. I have the lying liars who used to hang out at ERV running around claiming that I believe there’s something called “parallel logic” when that’s their invention** pitching fits about it – and he’s been burned by it. No he hasn’t. I have, he hasn’t. And Paula Kirby actually made the real life gratuitous use of argumentum ad Nazi-um, when I didn’t – but he nailed me and left her alone.

He’s a jerk.

*Shortly before TAM and during the spreading fuss over DJ Grothe’s blame-the-women move.

**Corrected. I’d tried to find where I said anything about parallel logic and failed, but ever-attentive “Scented Nectar” rushed to point out exactly where I said it. She’s a scholar in the subject.

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

I’ve just thought of something – well, a few minutes ago, while walking up the street.

Remember the opening of The God Delusion? “I didn’t know I could”? Remember the way the argument turns on that idea – not knowing you can get out, and consciousness raising as the first step to getting out?

Well that’s feminism, you know. Knowing you can. That’s where consciousness raising came from, remember?

The two rebellions have a great deal in common, you know. Both rebel against the principle of male authority and arbitrary hierarchy. Both are about humans standing up straight instead of squirming on the ground. Both are fundamentally about a break with monarchy.

So it’s odd that a segment of the atheist movement (though not the biggest segment) is so hostile to feminism. Big gods, little gods, it’s all the same shit. No kings, no priests. Thank you for your attention in this matter.

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

You know how Dan Savage likes to say that conservative Christians should ignore what the Bible says about homosexuality just as they ignore what the Bible says about slavery? Peter Montgomery at Religion Dispatches points out that actually they don’t always ignore what the Bible says about slavery. Sometimes they use it to tell the workers to submit. Ralph Reed, in 1990:

Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God.

Does that remind you of anything? It reminds me of anything.

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

Jadehawk does a great fisking of Paula Kirby’s recent declaration of war. I’ve been half-wanting to address the substance but half not wanting to, because there is such a thing as boredom and too much of one subject and let’s move on already. But now Jadehawk has done a thorough one, so that’s that off my mind.

(What I would have said, if I’d said it, is that the whole idea that the answer to systemic injustice is to redouble one’s own efforts is just fatuous, and also strikingly illiberal. Why should anyone have to redouble her efforts in order to overcome systemic injustice? What the hell is wrong with trying to get rid of the systemic injustice? Why should people just put up with it and accept that they have to work four times as hard as luckier people just to get to the same place? Or as Jadehawk put it, “Where in the goddamn universe has being silent about systemic oppression and telling people to instead fix themselves ever worked?”)

One thing Paula said I will comment on now though.

So there is an alternative, and it is this alternative that I would urge women to seize with both hands – whether we’re talking about how we interact in our jobs, in our social lives or in the atheist movement. And that alternative is to take responsibility for ourselves and our own success. To view ourselves as mature, capable adults who can take things in our stride, and can speak up appropriately. To really start believing that we can do whatever men can do. To stop seizing on excuses for staying quiet and submissive, stop blaming it on men or hierarchies or misogyny or, silliest of all, “privilege”, and start simply practising being more assertive.

Hey you know what? I’m not seizing on excuses for staying quiet and submissive, and I’m not staying quiet and submissive, either. Isn’t that why Paula is so furious at me? Because I didn’t stay quiet and submissive? Because I said DJ shouldn’t have blamed women who talk about harassment for the decline in women registering for TAM? The quiet and submissive thing to do would have been to say nothing, and decide to do my TAM talk on…I never could figure out what, frankly. That was one reason the whole thing was such a clusterfuck – what exactly did DJ want me to talk about? I had no clue. Clearly nothing related to women in secularism – and he was on record as not wanting atheism to be on the menu – so what, then? Why did he invite me in the first place? Again: no clue.

But anyway: quiet and submissive would have been to say nothing, but instead I said something. Rebecca hasn’t been very quiet and submissive either, and again, isn’t that why Paula is so furious with her? I’m already assertive. I assert all over the place every day. I don’t need practice. I don’t “seize on excuses” – I talk about sexist epithets and harassment and bullying because I think they’re bad harmful things, not because I’m looking for “excuses.”

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

So Leeds Skeptics in the Pub has uninvited Steve Moxon. Now they’re discussing the matter. There’s one crux that I think is interesting, and I think more clarity on it would help a lot of people who are disputing about it. It’s a crux we’ve discussed here at FTB, too, especially in last week’s hangout.

This is the crux:

Amy: There are some things that should be a given in any skeptical society, and the equality of its members in terms of gender, sexuality, race etc should be one of those things. Having Moxon speak just gives credibility to the idea that his wacky, bigoted views on women are worthy of debate.

Norman: Not sure how anything can be a ‘given’ in a skeptical society? Surely the point of a skeptical society is that all view points are subjected to a rigorous process of critical analysis, regardless of whether it agrees with our world view or not. One could argue that it is the very ‘givens’ of our own world views that require even more in depth challenging.

Here’s one way something can be a ‘given’ in a skeptical society: you can make a distinction between a view point, or, better, a truth claim, on the one hand, and a moral or political commitment on the other.

It’s perfectly possible for a skeptical society to have a basic commitment to equality, in fact one would rather hope that any skeptical society would have such a commitment, if only so that skepticism won’t be some kind of preserve for the people on top. That’s what Amy was talking about, and it needn’t be or imply dogmatism. It’s an ethical commitment, not an empirical claim. Ethical skepticism isn’t identical to empirical skepticism. It’s helpful to keep those distinctions in mind.

There are some ethical commitments that you don’t really want people challenging except in a philosophy seminar. “When you come right down to  it, shouldn’t I just be grabbing whatever I can and the hell with everyone else?” “If you think about it, what’s the problem with beating people up whenever you get pissed off?” “All this bullshit about treating people as equals is just PC-Nazism and I say the hell with it.”

We’re allowed to have ethical commitments. We should have ethical commitments. Having ethical commitments is compatible with skepticism.

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

Taslima and I have been thinking along the same lines today.

Mine

Not only no thinking. Worse than that. No thinking because no challenging of beliefs. Thus no learning, no changing of mind, no change, no progress, no education.

The Texas Republican party has come out in favor of stagnation and ignorance and dogmatic, fixed beliefs.

Taslima’s

If we want to make the world a better place, we have to stop the system that forces our children to read the books of barbarism and lies and believe everything without asking questions. If we do not inspire our children to study science and have a thinking mind, we will see the crowds of ignorant people everywhere. If we do not encourage our children to study secularism and humanism, we will not be able to stop fanaticism, caste-ism,racism, sectarianism.

Sisters.

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

No thinking please we’re Texas, says the Republican Party of Texas. It says it in its party platform.

We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

Not only no thinking. Worse than that. No thinking because no challenging of beliefs. Thus no learning, no changing of mind, no change, no progress, no education.

The Texas Republican party has come out in favor of stagnation and ignorance and dogmatic, fixed beliefs.

Boy, there’s a program. Less curiosity and progress and cumulative knowledge, more disease and crop failure and technological backwardness. Booya!

No worries, some farmer will find some kind of valuable grease or jewel or medicine under the pasture and Texas will have another boom like the oil boom. God will see to it…provided nobody ever thinks.

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

Stephanie Zvan made a crucial point yesterday about inviting a certain kind of (contrarian or “controversial” or anti-consensus) speaker to give a talk. She started from something LeftSidePositive said in a previous comment.

(or indeed if the audience should be expected to have the tools to critique it thoroughly if it is not in their field)

QFT. If you have a speaker who is willing to misrepresent the conclusions of a paper, how does an audience who’ve never seen the paper properly question the speaker?

Charlotte and Amy amplified the point today on the Leeds SITP Facebook page. In response to a suggestion that

The only way SITP can come out on top is if the members take him to task; it’s recorded and publicised in order to counteracts any publicity claims he makes himself.  It needs to be clear that this is an exercise in critical analysis and the application of skepticism and not a sounding-off platform.

Charlotte objected

But when he’s so badly misinterpreted his references, how can we trust any of the claims he makes enough to debate them? We’d have to do extensive homework for this and read most of the things he references in his book, and I don’t honestly have the time to do more on this.

You know what that’s exactly like? David Irving. That’s what Irving did, except that he didn’t misinterpret, he outright falsified. A judge has ruled that, so I can say it without fear of being sued for libel. A judge ruled it because a historian did the hard work of checking Irving’s references – thousands of them – and finding systematic falsification. That happened only because Irving was stupid enough to sue Deborah Lipstadt for libel for saying he did the very thing he ended up being shown to have done. That happened only because Penguin defended the case and could afford to pay the historian Richard Evans and two grad students to do the time-consuming work.

All skeptics should read chapter 2 of Evans’s book on the trial and his investigation, Lying About Hitler. It’s all about this crucial epistemic issue of the difficulty of demonstrating misinterpretation and/or falsification.

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

It was at a UCL debate on the question: Is Feminism Sexist and does the MRM even exist?

They went to dinner together. Isn’t that convivial? They totally know each other. More surprising, they’re not the same person. They sure sound like the same person.

The debate ran as I would have expected and there were no surprises. Tom Martin gave a good account of himself; Steve Moxon attempted the impossible and tried to explain the complexity of evolutionary psychology in under 1 minute (please read his book); there were a number of “can’t we all just get along?” types; a couple of male-feminists who were disappointed in the comments from men (hell, let’s be more honest; they were disappointed in being born male); lots of emotion from a couple of women about how discussing false rape meant that genuine rape was being trivialised; and the good, old fashioned man-hating types embodied by the substantial Estelle Hart.

…

The debate came and went and then it was off to a restaurant for further discussion for myself, Tom Martin, Steve Moxon, and a few other guys who shall remain nameless…

And then he goes into why he hated all the other guys, but that’s not relevant. (Deep rifts!)

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

More Steve Moxon.

The Guardian’s Northern Blog on why even UKIP didn’t want him.

Moxon’s opinions have now cost him his place as UKIP’s candidate in Sheffield‘s local elections, where he is standing for the Dore and Totley ward, a Liberal Democrat stronghold in Nick Clegg’s constituency. The party has dropped him after attention was drawn to a post he wrote on his blog last August which endorsed the reasoning in the testament of the Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Breivik.

He wrote, inter alia:

That pretty well everyone – myself not excluded – recoiled at his actions, does not belie the accuracy of Breivik’s research and analysis in his ‘manifesto’, which is in line with most scholarship in respect of both Political Correctness and Islam.

It is clear that the mass of ordinary people are considered with utter contempt by the government-media-education uber-class across the Western world; this as the result of ‘cultural Marxism’. So we are, in effect, ‘at war’ within our societies over PC, as Breivik claims.

It’s nice that he first stipulates that he doesn’t actually approve of machine-gunning teenagers to make a point.

Then there’s the Sheffield SITP Facebook page. There’s a long discussion on May 16 with many contributions by Moxon, and this observation by someone else -

I have been approached multiple times by people, particularly women who find Steve’s views so consistently repellant that they feel excluded from contributing to this group, or even from attending SITP. I’m all for free speech but that includes both sexes and not just people called Steve. We haven’t yet reached the point of blocking anyone but there is a ‘for the good of the group’ argument to consider…

Leeds SITP please note.

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

I understated the awfulness of Steve Moxon. Google turns up more.

Like the fact that he was dropped by UKIP because he said nice things about Anders Breivik.

Steve Moxon, author of the classic anti-feminist book ‘The Woman Racket‘, was dropped as a candidate for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in this week’s local elections over comments he made on his blog previously regarding Anders Breivik. Whilst stressing how appalling and insupportable Breivik’s actions were, Moxon had noted that his manifesto presented an accurate account of the spread of political correctness in Europe. This was picked up by a local paper in the city that Moxon was standing in (Sheffield), forcing UKIP to drop him as a candidate – despite the vast majority of UKIP supporters no doubt sharing the same anti-PC views.

He’s too right-wing for UKIP. His special flavor of right-wingness is anti-feminism and belief that women get all the nice things.

He explains everythings on his blog, like for instance the fact that domestic violence is women beating up men.

Make that two pints, and a bottle of gin.

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

and punch them in the mouth.

Upcoming event July 21: a talk by a dude called Steve Moxon on Y women R so dumb.

Talk by Steve Moxon. Leeds psychologist Dr Gijsbert Stoet finds no evidence that women under-perform through internalising false stereotypes, a recent major review reveals no sex-discrimination in academia, and ground-breaking field research shows that it is actually in favour of women in recruitment; so why is it women tend not to ‘get to the top’?

It iz becoz they R so dumb.

Recent science confirms the sexes to be not just different but dichotomous, albeit that confounds with other factors often obscures this, and on many measures there is more variation within- than between-sex.

Some dumb woman must have wrote that sentence becoz it make no sense.

Anti-male / pro-female prejudice is reinforced in periods of rapid social change because arrangements in place to privilege women become anachronistic yet are held on to through the very pro-female prejudice that also ensures new arrangements are quickly made. Both the tardiness and rapidity of change contribute to an ‘unfalsifiable’ feminist perception, which is furthermore grounded in the ‘political-correctness’ backlash against the mass of ordinary people by the intelligentsia to salve the ‘cognitive-dissonance’ of its political-Left mindset. The failure of the ethos to have any practical impact led to the blaming of ‘the workers’ for not ‘following the script’, and their replacement by those who are not stereotypically ‘workers’: women.

Our deeply politicised back-to-front perception that women are the subject of prejudice and disadvantage is the greatest fraud in history, but given important facts have never been effectively suppressed for very long, it should be only a question of the time-scale over which it collapses.

Boy I sure do wish I could attend that Skeptics in the Pub, don’t you?

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