New news from Nigeria – Monica Mark reports in the Guardian:

For two weeks, retired teacher Samson Dawah prayed for news of his niece Saratu, who was among more than 230 schoolgirls snatched by Boko Haram militants in the north-eastern Nigerian village of Chibok. Then on Monday the agonising silence was broken.

When Dawah called together his extended family members to give an update, he asked that the most elderly not attend, fearing they would not be able to cope with what he had to say. “We have heard from members of the forest community where they took the girls. They said there had been mass marriages and the girls are being shared out as wives among the Boko

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A piece by channel4 news on April 25th:

Amid mounting public fury and an international outcry over the fate of 230 kidnapped Nigerian teenaged girls – now missing for nearly two weeks - the mother of one of the girls has warned that unless they are rescued urgently, she and other parents would likely be collecting their children’s dead bodies.

Speaking by telephone from Chibok, the town in north-eastern Borno state where the girls were kidnapped from their school in the middle of the night, a distressed Mrs Rahila Bitrus told Channel 4 News of her family’s anguish and accused the Nigeriangovernment of failing to act fast enough.

“They’d assured us they would rescue our children but today,

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Via Stepping Stones Nigeria

[It's Borno, not Burno]

#BringBackOurGirls Very little is known about what the authorities are doing to bring back the 200+ girls abducted whilst at school. Even the exact figure of the girls taken is different between reports. These are precious lives and, if you care, we need to keep the pressure on the Nigerian Government and international organisations to rescue these girls. Sign now at: https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/over-200-girls-are-missing-in-nigeria-so-why-doesn-t-anybody-care-234girls

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A joint press release: ‘Wills without bigotry – protest against the Law Society’

About 70 protesters rallied outside the office of the Law Society to condemn their endorsement of discriminatory sharia law on April 28 2014. The protest was organised by anti-racist, feminist and human rights groups, namely One Law for All, Southall Black Sisters, Centre for Secular Space, and London School of Economics SU Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society. Chris Moos was the master of ceremonies of the rally.

At the protest, Pragna Patel, director of Southall Black Sisters called upon the Law Society to withdraw its guidance:

“Our message to you is this: Wake up: You are the Law Society and not a body advising on the … Read the rest

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We’ve noticed many times how jeremiads about religious freedom seem to go in only one direction – freedom to refuse service to gay couples, freedom to refuse to perform medically necessary abortions, freedom to shield child-raping priests from the law. Mark Joseph Stern at Slate points to an example from silence as opposed to jeremiad.

On Monday, the United Church of Christ brought a federal lawsuit against North Carolina’s marriage laws, which were amended in 2012 to ban gay unions. What interest does the United Church of Christ have in toppling the state’s homophobic ban? Under North Carolina law, a minister who officiates a marriage ceremony between a couple with no valid marriage license is guilty of a Class A

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Jessica Valenti points out one of the ways women are given special treatment.

When I argue with a sexist, there’s an inevitable point at which he will call me “sweetheart”. (I like to think of it as shorthand for “you’re winning”.) If I’m really making him feel foolish, he may resort to “bitch”. “Ugly” is the last refuge of the hopelessly destroyed.

I’ve been writing about feminism on the internet long enough that these names don’t really bother me. But nothing is more grating than when a man I don’t know – in comments, Twitter or real life – calls me “Jessie”.

I don’t know if I find the diminutive the most grating item, but I do find it … Read the rest

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The BBC’s correspondent in Nigeria, Will Ross, reports on the agonizing wait.

Almost two weeks after they were driven away from their boarding school in the town in the middle of the night, parents are desperate for news of their daughters.

[Oops, editor needed. That should be "Almost two weeks after their daughters were driven away from their boarding school in the town in the middle of the night, parents are desperate for news of them."]

 A resident of the small town of Gwoza in the remote north-east said on 25 April she saw a convoy of 11 vehicles painted in military colours carrying many girls.

This will be of little comfort to the parents as it suggests at

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Pablo Flores pointed out another Facebook page about street harassment, this one started by a young woman in Argentina. My Spanish is minimal and rusty but I can get some and anyway there’s the Translate button. Acción Respeto: por una calle libre de acoso.

Here’s a cartoon posted there:

 … Read the rest

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Here’s a sad finding from sociologists in gender studies – girls view sexual violence as normal.

(April 2014) – New evidence from the journal Gender & Society helps explain what women’s advocates have argued for years – that women report abuse at much lower rates than it actually occurs. According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), 44% of victims are under the age of 18, and 60% of sexual assaults are not reported to police.

The study, “Normalizing Sexual Violence: Young Women Account for Harassment and Abuse,” will appear in the June 2014 issue of Gender & Society, a top-ranked journal in Gender Studies and Sociology. The findings reveal that girls

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We’ve heard about street harassment in Cairo and Brussels; now let’s hear about street harassment in Lima, via the Stop Street Harassment blog.

When I arrived in Lima, Peru, as an American exchange student about two months ago, I thought I knew about street harassment. I had read about it, I had experienced a few catcalls here and there, and I had even had an egg thrown at me out the window of a moving car. But it had never been as constant as what women here experience every day. During my first of many ten-minute walks to school, I experienced endless “piropos” –  honking, whistles, and of course the infamous kissing noises that Limeña women are forced to endure

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Missing the point. Damion Reinhardt at Skeptic Ink.

Freezing Peaches at AACON

If you were to Google for “removing the objectionable paintings” as a phrase, it will lead you to (as of this printing) exactly one place on the World Wide Web,  a place where the writers call themselves “free thinkers” and are presently discussing removing three paintings from an art show because said paintings depict women in various states of undress:

Not just missing the point but also distorting – “discussing removing three paintings” sounds as if the terrible people in question were discussing doing the removing themselves, which was not the case.

But the missed point is the more important aspect, because it’s so typical (of the … Read the rest

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A great Jesus and Mo this week. (They’re all great, but in light of the recent demonizations of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, this one is especially so.)

… Read the rest

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Gnu Atheism at Facebook on a certain recent canonization:

 … Read the rest

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David Robert Grimes points out that mathematics is of fundamental importance, a claim which I would have thought was uncontroversial in this high tech age, but apparently it’s not.

There is still a self-perpetuating apprehension about mathematics, and an attitude of contempt that must be overcome. The comment by Sheila Nunan, the general secretary of the INTO, that “it was the boys who did the honours maths led the country to ruination” borders on the profoundly anti-intellectual, and such sentiments are counterproductive to improving our national numeracy problem.

Ireland however seems to have other ideas of what’s important.

It is a damning testament to our skewed priorities that until now we have insisted primary teachers have honours Irish but

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

David Robert Grimes points out that mathematics is of fundamental importance, a claim which I would have thought was uncontroversial in this high tech age, but apparently it’s not.

There is still a self-perpetuating apprehension about mathematics, and an attitude of contempt that must be overcome. The comment by Sheila Nunan, the general secretary of the INTO, that “it was the boys who did the honours maths led the country to ruination” borders on the profoundly anti-intellectual, and such sentiments are counterproductive to improving our national numeracy problem.

Ireland however seems to have other ideas of what’s important.

It is a damning testament to our skewed priorities that until now we have insisted primary teachers have honours Irish but

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

Those abducted schoolgirls in Borno state, Nigeria, are still missing. Borno women appealed for the girls’ release on Wednesday.

Women in Borno State yesterday stated their willingness to go into the Sambisa Forest in search of schoolgirls abducted from the Government Girls Secondary School Chibok two weeks ago.

The women, who appeared in black dresses and sobbed over the incident, spoke to journalists in Maiduguri, where they urged for the release of the female students.
Authorities believe that at least 234 of the schoolgirls are still missing, after some of them escaped from their Boko Haram kidnappers.

Prof Hauwa Abdu Biu, who spoke on behalf of the concerned women yesterday, called on the sect to release the girls, saying the

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Samantha Power, US ambassador to the UN and author of The Problem From Hell, raised objections to a recent UN election.

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power protested the election of repressive regimes including Iran to the U.N. Committee on Non-governmental Organizations which deals with civil society groups accredited to the United Nations.

Iran’s U.N. Mission responded Thursday by rejecting “baseless accusations” raised by Power on the status of human rights and civil liberties in the country.

Did it? Iran thinks the status of human rights and civil liberties are pretty good in the country?

Power accused Iran in a statement Wednesday night of regularly detaining human rights defenders and “subjecting many to torture, abuse and violations of due process.” She

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There’s a comment on The racism of the white wolf who cried Islamophobia that suddenly clarified for me what is probably a widespread misconception.

Interesting post, I’m a little bit disheartened by your suggestion of Harris & Dawkins as racist. I know at times they have not provided the nuance on Islam we would all like to see (something especially hard on twitter) but they have at least started a discourse which really did not exist from the liberal perspective circa 10 years ago.

No. That’s seriously wrong.

They have helped to draw attention to that discourse, but they certainly did not single- or rather double-handed start it all by themselves. The two of them did not create or start … Read the rest

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