I usually avoid the word “privilege,” because it’s a red rag to a bull and I’m nothing if not accommodating, but sometimes…

Like now, at Thunderfoot’s Palais de Contempt.

…what I have been trying to tell deaf ears on freethoughtblogs for the past week, that their views are poorly positioned to achieve their stated objectives and are widely unrepresentative of the wider rationalist community in:

1)      The disproportionate amount of attention it gives to sexism compared to other issues.

2)      The way that those who disagree on the matter of sexism are attacked with a disproportionate amount of strawmen, invective and branding (misogynist, MRA, etc etc).  This is a behavior more in line with bullying than free thought.

We give a disproportionate amount of attention to sexism – because obviously sexism is a very minor thing, because hardly any people are women.

That’s privilege. He’s clueless about sexism because he has the privilege of not being the object of it. Hey, it’s trivial, because it doesn’t happen to him! Case closed.

And it’s bullying to talk about misogyny merely because there are guys around who are talking about kicking us – that is, me – in the cunt. I’m bullying, by saying it’s misogyny; the guy who’s talking about kicking me in the cunt is a victim of my bullying. Derp!

Justicar says:

June 27, 2012 at 5:13 pm

If that’s true, it’s because I’ve been reading a lot of baboon writings. That’ll fuck up anyone’s critical faculties.

Consent need not be explicitly granted. Indeed, of all the times I’ve been raped, err, had sex with people after ingesting a date rape drug, I mean, having a glass of wine over dinner, I can’t recall a single conversation that entailed extracting consent from my rapist, err, sexual partner.

And if anyone ever asked me “If I can have your permission, may we now engage in a little sexual intercourse?” or anything like that, I’d have Hoggle have a sex change back to a man after his having had a sex change to kick Ophelia in the cunt to in turn kick my lousy date in the dick.

Is Thunderfoot right that our views are “widely unrepresentative of the wider rationalist community”? Are Thunderfoot and Justicar more representative of “the wider rationalist community” than we are? I don’t think so, but I don’t know. At any rate, I do know I want to stay away from their segment of it. I can’t, entirely, because some of the members of that “community” help themselves to my name and then talk about kicking me in the cunt…but I sure as hell want to.

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

Don’t read this unless you’re prepared to be upset and enraged. It’s Natasha Smith’s account of being grabbed, stripped and assaulted by a swarm of men in Cairo a couple of days ago. It’s horrible.

Don’t read even this brief excerpt unless you’re prepared. Trigger warning, in short, though I don’t usually like the term.

Men began to rip off my clothes. I was stripped naked. Their insatiable appetite to hurt me heightened. These men, hundreds of them, had turned from humans to animals.

Hundreds of men pulled my limbs apart and threw me around. They were scratching and clenching my breasts and forcing their fingers inside me in every possible way. So many men. All I could see was leering faces, more and more faces sneering and jeering as I was tossed around like fresh meat among starving lions.

Meanwhile “Thunderfoot” says we people at FTB talk way too much about sexism.

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

Dispatches from the “Sharia tribunals what could possibly go wrong” file: Charlotte Rachael Proudman in the Independent:

After fleeing a forced marriage characterised by rape and physical violence, Nasrin applied for an Islamic divorce from a Sharia council; that was almost 10 years ago now. Despite countless emails, letters and telephone calls to the Sharia council as well as joint mediation and reconciliation meetings, the Sharia council refuse to provide Nasrin with an Islamic divorce. Why? Because of Nasrin’s sex. An Imam at the Sharia council told Nasrin that her gender prevents her from unilaterally divorcing her husband, instead the Imam told her to return to her husband, perform her wifely duties and maintain the abusive marriage that she was forced into.

What more do you need to know? What more does anyone need to know? After millions of years of human history wouldn’t you think we could start to get this right by now? No, don’t force girls and women to marry someone; no, don’t forbid girls and women to escape men who abuse them. No, don’t make special asymmetrical rules by which men can do whatever they want to and women might as well be donkeys.

Read the whole thing, but be very careful of your teeth while doing so, or you’ll find you’ve ground them to powder by the end of the page.

H/t Babar Riaz.

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

David Robert Grimes has a piece on the Dublin anti-abortion ads. He points out that it’s not true that abortions tear apart the lives of the women who get them.

Dr Nada Stotland has published extensively on the topic, including a paper for the Journal of the American Medical Association entitled “The Myth of the Abortion Trauma Syndrome” in which the legend of Pas is firmly put to bed. “Currently, there are active attempts to convince the public and women considering abortion that abortion frequently has negative psychiatric consequences. This assertion is not borne out by the literature: the vast majority of women tolerate abortion without psychiatric sequelae,” she wrote.

Unless people see to it that they feel guilt and sadness.

A corollary of the research was that while women did not suffer long-term mental health effects due to abortion, short-term guilt and sadness was far more likely if the women had a background where abortion was viewed negatively or their decisions were decried – the kind of attitude fostered by “pro-life” activists.

This leads to the dark irony that while groups of this ilk claim to support women, they increase the suffering of women who have had abortions – the very women they ostensibly claim to help.

So typical of the church: pretend to be concerned while actually being crueler than the average street thug.

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

Taslima has a great post showing sexist advertising in the airline industry, with picture after picture of gorgeous pouty women falling out of their tiny shreds of underwear. Great stuff for selling sex, but peculiar for selling a way to get from A to B in a hurry.

Taslima quotes an official on the subject:

Civil aviation secretary Gabriel Mocho says, “I don’t want to give this airline the free publicity that its rather grubby little ad was designed to attract, but this kind of thing matters. Cabin crew are there to save your life, not to offer sex. Portraying them as flying centrefolds undermines their ability to ensure a safe and comfortable journey for passengers – and can make their working lives unbearable. It can breed a dangerous contempt that undervalues them as individuals and also as the people who have to get you out in an emergency or deal with abusive passengers in air rage incidents…The portrayal of cabin crew-members as sex objects undermines their key safety role and diminishes the level of respect passengers are likely to have for their professionalism and competence. This applies regardless of the gender of the individuals involved. For this reason, the federation believes the decision to promote such images to have been irresponsible and reckless. This kind of initiative does not foster a positive aviation safety and security culture – instead it damages safety.”

That’s an important point, and it doesn’t get discussed enough. It’s not that sexy pictures of gorgeous pouty women falling out of their tiny shreds of underwear are bad in themselves, certainly, and it’s not that it’s bad to enjoy looking at such pictures or to use them as inspiration when a real woman isn’t available. It’s that using them to sell airline travel translates women doing jobs into sex toys. That can breed a dangerous contempt that undervalues them as individuals. It’s tits or GTFO – it’s you’re either here to turn me on or you’re in my fucking way. It diminishes the level of respect passengers are likely to have for their professionalism and competence.

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

An Irish anti-abortion group, Youth Defence, has stuck up hundreds of posters all over Dublin announcing that abortions tear women’s lives apart.

That’s crap. Sometimes abortions are very emotionally painful, but not always. It’s certainly not true that there’s always a better answer – that’s why the right to get an abortion is worth having.

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

One hopeful sign:

The good news for nonbelievers is that, for the first time ever, more than half the American population would vote for a qualified, open atheist for president.  A recent Gallup poll shows that 54 percent of Americans would not consider a candidate’s atheism to be a disqualification for holding the nation’s highest office.

This shows remarkable progress, a nine-point increase from 2007…

From 2007. Really. What’s been going on between 2007 and now? Hmm.

[Thinks hard.]

Climate change? The Great Economic Meltdown? Obama in place of Bush?

Those could all have something to do with it. Or not. Worries about coastal cities and famines, and about bankruptcy and penury, could prompt disillusion with the whole idea of a just god, but they could also prompt reliance on a god who works in mysterious ways but makes everything ok in the end, whatever the end may be.

Another thing that’s been going on between 2007 and now is ever-increasing discussion of atheism and the reasons for atheism – or, to put it another way, new and gnu atheism.

Which we are often told “doesn’t work” and is “counter-productive”…but maybe that turns out not to be true. I don’t know, of course; correlation is not causation, so I don’t know that the open discussion of atheism and its reasons played any part in the remarkable progress since 2007. I don’t know, but it does seem quite likely. We’re out there, we’re visible and vocal, we’re pointing out obvious facts about the non-availability of god, so it seems quite likely that that has made at least some difference.

Check back in 2017.

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

Copyright Amy Davis Roth. All rights reserved.

Amy’s store is here.

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

Time out for a laugh. Important stuff is afoot.

The Duchess of Cambridge may be the future queen, but she has discovered that there are several women in the Royal family to whom she must show reverence. Mandrake hears that the Queen has updated the Order of Precedence in the Royal Household to take into account the Duke of Cambridge’s wife.

The new rules of Court make it clear that the former Kate Middleton, when she is not accompanied by Prince William, must curtsy to the “blood princesses”, the Princess Royal, Princess Alexandra, and the daughters of the Duke of York, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.

When William is with her, Kate does not need to bend the knee to either of them, but she must curtsy to the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.

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

In a press release.

American Atheists’ President Dave Silverman announced today that the organization was implementing a comprehensive Code of Conduct for all sponsored and hosted regional conferences and the annual American Atheists’ National Convention.

Dave Silverman said, “The Code of Conduct will allow all conference attendees to know that American Atheists’ events are safe, fun and informative. We want people to enjoy themselves but know there will be consequences for harmful behaviors.”

The Code of Conduct addresses conference attendees’ behavior during speaker’s sessions, access to sessions for ability-challenged attendees, respect for families who attend, as well as sexual and other types of harassment.

The Code of Conduct also provides direction for American Atheists’ staff and volunteers who will take reports of harassment and inappropriate conduct.

Silverman continued, “We are training our staff and volunteers to be able to take information from our attendees who have been harassed. These reports will be given directly to one designated senior staff member at each event to be assessed and to determine what action should and needs to be taken.”

“The Code of Conduct is a living document. We will adapt it as we learn from what works and what needs improvement. But the overall goal is to create fun, enjoyable, and safe conventions and conferences for everyone,” Silverman added.

The Code of Conduct will go into effect immediately and be used first at American Atheists’ regional conference in Minnesota, August 10-11.

AMERICAN ATHEISTS is a non-profit 501(c)3 national organization that defends civil rights of Atheists, Freethinkers and other nonbelievers; works for the total separation of church-mosque-temple and state; and addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.

You can read the whole thing.

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

A German court has outlawed circumcision done for religious reasons.

Circumcising young boys on religious grounds causes grievous bodily harm, a German court ruled Tuesday in a landmark decision that the Jewish community said trampled on parents’ religious rights.

The regional court in Cologne, western Germany, ruled that the “fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity outweighed the fundamental rights of the parents”, a judgment that is expected to set a legal precedent.

And a hugely important one. Think forced marriage, think child marriage, think FGM, think of denying children medical care. Maybe bodily integrity will be defined more narrowly, so that it wouldn’t apply to child marriage – but child marriage ruins girls’ bodies and lives (think fistula), so maybe it will apply.

The case was brought against a doctor in Cologne who had circumcised a four-year-old Muslim boy on his parents’ wishes.
A few days after the operation, his parents took him to hospital as he was bleeding heavily. Prosecutors then charged the doctor with grievous bodily harm.

Ouch.

The decision caused outrage in Germany’s Jewish community.

The head of the Central Committee of Jews, Dieter Graumann, said the ruling was “an unprecedented and dramatic intervention in the right of religious communities to self-determination.”

The judgment was an “outrageous and insensitive act. Circumcision of newborn boys is a fixed part of the Jewish religion and has been practiced worldwide for centuries,” added Graumann.

“This religious right is respected in every country in the world.”

Yes, and it shouldn’t be. There shouldn’t be a “religious right” to mutilate your children.

Mind you, one could wish it hadn’t been a German court…

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

A guy who has a blog called Eternal Life Blog with the subtitle “covering all aspects of eternal life” (I do like thoroughness, don’t you?) thinks it’s a tragedy when clerics escape.

Sadly, spiritual tragedies do occur in this dangerous spiritual environment. That is why Christians are told to guard themselves, hold on, keep themselves, etc. One of the most recent and openly publicized spiritual tragedies among preachers losing their faith would be Jerry Dewitt. Jerry DeWitt, from Louisiana, became an atheist after more than twenty-five years of Pentecostal ministry! He was senior pastor of a congregation when he became an unbeliever and now claims he could not be happier because he feels he has regained his integrity.

Emphasis his. Formatting his. Alternation between bold and italics his. Anyway he’s amazed that a former minister could be happy because he feels he has regained his integrity. I, on the other hand, find that thought completely intelligible. It’s similar to what I always think when I try to imagine myself taking up religion for any of the consequentialist reasons people so often cite – community, tradition, support in life’s difficulties, that kind of thing. It’s the fact that it would feel like such a gruesome surrender and cheat that makes it fall to the floor before it gains any respectable altitude. I couldn’t do it, because of integrity.

If Jerry DeWitt, Teresa MacBain or any atheist ever came to initial salvation or not, I can’t say. It is possible they were once saved at some point before getting back on the road to hell as they are now. As sad as it is for them to openly reject the existence of God (and therefore Jesus Christ), it is even worse when one ponders the many under their influence who might also be hurt by their horrible example. It is horribly bad for any professing Christian to renounce his faith, but even worse when a person who is considered by some to be a spiritual leader does it.

That poor man – he thinks there’s such a thing as “the road to hell” (or he professes to – who knows, really). Sucks to be him. He’s frantic about something that is not at all a bad thing. He’s throwing away his life on fictions and useless terrors.

Tragic.

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