Posts Tagged ‘ FTB ’

Relatively benign

Dec 23rd, 2013 5:31 pm | By

Gita Sahgal alerted me to this long article by Ann Elizabeth Mayer on “A Benign Aparheid: How Gender Apartheid Has Been Rationalized” [pdf].

An examination of the situation of women in some Middle Eastern countries reveals patterns of systematic, egregious gender discrimination. However, to date international law has failed to classify such treatment as a kind of apartheid, and the international community has failed to impose sanctions to deter such treatment of women. This article explores why gender apartheid, despite its direct analogies to racial apartheid, has largely been seen as a relatively benign phenomenon. Both countries defending their discriminatory treatment of women and Western apologists for such treatment depoliticize laws and policies discriminating against women. Cultural relativist proclivities mean

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



It’s hard to get people to leave their desks

Dec 23rd, 2013 4:36 pm | By

A couple of weeks ago the Secular Coalition for American held a briefing for Congress to introduce the ”Model Secular Policy Guide,” a book of separation-of-church-and-state policy prescriptions. They chose a rather…strange way to go about it. USA Today reports:

It had all the makings of a Christmas party: sparkling cider, cheese, chocolate-covered strawberries, even fashion models wearing sparkling gowns.

……………………………….What?

Yes, you read that correctly: fashion models wearing sparkling gowns. USA Today has a picture of them, sparkling. They look very nice, no question, but is that really the best way for the SCA to promote its work? No, it’s not. It’s a good deal too much like draping a hotty in a bikini over the hood of … Read the rest

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Mutts and purebreds

Dec 23rd, 2013 12:15 pm | By

Motivated by Janet Heimlich’s post and the discussion of it here, I’m reading Nicholas Humphrey’s 1997 Amnesty lecture published at Edge. Its subject is childhood teaching and indoctrination. One major theme is the difference between the two; between open and closed.

Donald Kraybill, an anthropologist who made a close study of an Amish community in Pennsylvania, was well placed to observe how this works out in practice. “Groups threatened by cultural extinction,” he writes, “must indoctrinate their offspring if they want to preserve their unique heritage. Socialization of the very young is one of the most potent forms of social control. As cultural values slip into the child’s mind, they become personal values—embedded in conscience and governed by

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Gopal v liberals

Dec 23rd, 2013 11:19 am | By

Priyamvada Gopal is still throwing verbal bricks at liberals. I understand liberals here to mean people who defend universal human rights as opposed to people who carve out exceptions for “cultures” or “communities” or religions or, usually, all three. She threw her latest bricks while offering Laurie Penny support in her battle with “white” yaddayadda on Twitter.

Priyamvada Gopal @PriyamvadaGopal

@PennyRed Don’t be apologetic with liberal bullies who for all their protestations,don’t like to hear non-European feminists speak nuance

Far from being defenders of the rights of non-European/Muslim women, want them silenced uness they say the right things their way

Faced down astonishing abuse and footstamping liberal tantrums this past week which would be horrifying if it weren’t amusing.

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You have to judge

Dec 22nd, 2013 6:10 pm | By

Janet Heimlich would like to get Richard Dawkins to withdraw a comment he made about how we should view people who abused children a few generations ago. She explains in a post at her blog at Religious Child Mistreatment.

Dr. Dawkins made the comment after he was asked about his downplaying of having been fondled by a teacher at his boarding school in Salisbury, England. Calling the molestation “mild pedophilia,” Dr. Dawkins said that he didn’t think that he, nor other boys who experienced the same molestation by the teacher, suffered “lasting harm.” Then Dr. Dawkins stated,

I am very conscious that you can’t condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours. Just as we

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The virtues of being partisan

Dec 22nd, 2013 5:10 pm | By

Maryam interviews Marieme Helie Lucas. Right at the start MHL makes an important point:

As long as all these attempts by Muslim fundamentalists – whether in the form of different rights for different categories of citizens, veiling, sex segregation and so on – is not analysed in political terms – as the expression of an anti-democratic programme, but rather in terms of religion or culture, the British government will not limit the rise of this extreme-Right movement, which will be increasingly difficult to control.

That’s a very good point, all the more so in a time when both religion and culture are treated like fragile much-loved babies, while political concerns are supposed to be robust enough to take care … Read the rest

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Dog’s elevenses

Dec 22nd, 2013 3:17 pm | By

Laurie Penny amended her article slightly in response to the comments she got on Twitter.

Her second paragraph as she first wrote it:

The recent blanket coverage of the “gender segregation on campus” story was a textbook case. This month Student Rights, a pressure group not run by students, released a report vastly exaggerating a suggestion by Universities UK that male and female students might be asked to sit separately in some lectures led by Islamic guest speakers. The tabloids went bananas. Extremists were taking over the academy.

The amended version:

The recent blanket coverage of the “gender segregation on campus” story was a textbook case. This month Student Rights, a pressure group not

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Be sure not to support liberal feminists of Muslim background

Dec 22nd, 2013 12:52 pm | By

Alom Shaha alerted me to a tumblr post by King of Dawah.

Jemima Cheltenham – We Betray Our Principles By Supporting Them

As white liberal feminists we must oppose misogyny in all its forms.

Especially when we get scared by requests from Muslim feminists that we stand side by side with them in the face of angry reactionaries and passive aggressive sulking community leaders.

Yes, the Muslim liberals and feminists who are fighting for equal rights and against the dictates of clerics are very brave. But as white liberals we have to be even braver, by ignoring them, so we don’t get scared by scary men with beards demanding reactionary things who may call us racist for supporting women who

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Another dog’s breakfast

Dec 22nd, 2013 12:04 pm | By

Oh christ, not again. This time it’s Laurie Penny getting it all wrong.

This isn’t ‘feminism’, says the title, It’s Islamophobia. The title isn’t directly the fault of the author, since editors write the titles, but that one does reflect what the article says, and it’s the same old crock of shit.

As a person who writes about women’s issues, I am constantly being told that Islam is the greatest threat to gender equality in this or any other country – mostly by white men, who always know best.

Well that can happen, yes. (Dear Muslima? Yes. It can happen.) But that doesn’t mean that there is no problem with conservative Islam and Islamism when it comes to gender … Read the rest

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He knows a hawk from a handsaw

Dec 21st, 2013 5:43 pm | By

Is Anjem Choudary a joke or not? Maybe not, according to Sunder Katwala in the New Statesman blog (the Staggers blog called the Staggers).

Choudary backed out of a Panorama interview, apparently because he didn’t want to be pressed on his lack of truthfulness about how well he knew Michael Adebolajo, one of the accused in the murder of Lee Rigby in Woolwich.

Normal service was resumed this morning – as Choudary was given the prestige 8:10am slot on the Today programme. Choudary refused, as usual, to condemn a murder that he has previously been willing to condone and justify. But he was not asked the questions that he pulled out of thePanorama interview to avoid, or about whether

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The hole is too small

Dec 21st, 2013 5:13 pm | By

There’s a clinic in West London that undoes a small part of the damage done by Female Genital Mutilation, specifically infibulation. It makes the hole bigger.

Dr Naomi Low-Beer, Consultant Gynaecologist at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, and lead doctor for the FGM service at the West London clinic, performs the invaluable reversal surgery. She explained: “With the most severe type of FGM, the clitoris and labia have been totally removed, the vaginal opening closed, with a tiny passage left for urine and menstrual blood. This makes sex painful or impossible.

“Women with this type of FGM do benefit from surgery. It is often referred to as ‘reversal’, but rather than reversing the FGM the surgery opens the vagina so

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Mexico has first dibs

Dec 21st, 2013 4:34 pm | By

Ah, Texas. Texas, Texas.

The Gay Star News (geddit? Lone Star state?) reports on a Texas Republican who hopes to be elected governor.

Texas Republican Larry SECEDE Kilgore hopes to win the support of LGBTI voters in his bid to become governor of the state – but then plans to secede from the United States and introduce Biblically based laws, including the death penalty for homosexuality.

Sounds like a winner. “Support my campaign for governor, then when elected, I will do my best to get laws passed that will make your existence a crime punishable by death.” Who could resist such an offer?

Kilgore, who legally changed his middle name to SECEDE last year, hopes that gay voters will support

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And while I’m at it

Dec 21st, 2013 4:01 pm | By

The Fish Slapping Dance. It’s an important accessory for revenge fantasies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8XeDvKqI4ERead the rest

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Sums it up

Dec 21st, 2013 3:30 pm | By

Very well.

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Judith Butler turned down the Civil Courage Award from Berlin Pride

Dec 21st, 2013 10:48 am | By

And then there’s “homonationalism.”

There’s what?

Let Robyn Brush at Representation and the Body explain it for you, in a post from February 2012 titled Judith Butler Speaks Out Against Homonationalism.

In June of 2010, Judith Butler turned down the Civil Courage Award from Berlin Pride, critiquing the organizers’ association with homonationalism.  She said that if she could, she herself would award the prize to the number of activist groups which work to fight both racism and homophobia.

But what exactly is homonationalism?

In her speech, which was received with much applause from the audience and contempt on the part of the organizers, Butler described the problem as such: “Lesbian, gay, trans, and queer people can be used [by] warmongers

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Fons et origo

Dec 21st, 2013 9:45 am | By

I think I know where Pryiamvada Gopal got her distorted and ignorant idea of the people behind the protest against gender segregation. I think she read a repellent article at “Loonwatch” on the website “Islamophobia Today” titled UK: Islamophobes Manufacture “Gender Segregation” Controversy. It’s wrong in just the way her article is wrong, and it does it a few days earlier.

The author is billed as “Ilisha.”

An Islamic society wants to host a university event where–gasp!–men and women are seated separately. Suddenly this minor event is major news in the UK.

Yes, “gasp,” Ilisha. It’s not just routine and normal for university events to seat women and men separately.

People who apparently never planned to attend the event

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Taslima is banned yet again

Dec 20th, 2013 6:03 pm | By

Taslima is Finally, Banned.

The drama series or mega serial are banned.

The story of three sisters who are struggling to live with dignity and honour is banned.

The truth is banned.

Lies won. Insanity won. Fatwas won. Threats won. Barbarism won.

A bunch of faith-heads, hate mongers, anti-freespeech, filthy misogynist fanatics won.

The government of West Bengal in India made them win. On the 19th of December, 2013.

That sounds like a drama series or mega serial I would kill to see. Mind you it would have to be subtitled, but I’ve never minded that. I would so love to see a series about three sisters written by the mind that’s inside Taslima’s head.

Not a single episode

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Miscarriage of medicine

Dec 20th, 2013 5:30 pm | By

The ACLU and MergerWatch have combined forces to put out a report on the growth of Catholic hospitals and the threat to reproductive health care [pdf]. There’s also a press release.

With the rise of Catholic hospitals has come the increasing danger that women’s reproductive health care will be compromised by religious restrictions. The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (the Directives), issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), govern care at these facilities. The Directives prohibit a range of reproductive health services, including contraception, sterilization, many infertility treatments, and abortion care, even when a woman’s health or life is in danger. Moreover, they often restrict even the ability of hospital staff to provide

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Annals of pointless hatred

Dec 20th, 2013 4:03 pm | By

Today for our lesson in pointless stupid unreasoned hatred, we go to the Chicago suburb of Morton Grove, and its library, which rejected a donation of about $3,000 from Hemant Mehta, because atheism.

Hemant Mehta, a Naperville teacher who writes a blog called the Friendly Atheist, launched a fundraising campaign after a local veterans group, American Legion Post 134, pulled funding and volunteer resources from the Park District because of a park board member’s refusal to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Oh, there’s another item for the annals of pointless hatred. Let’s go to the Morton Grove Champion for more on that item.

Morton Grove Park Commissioner Dan Ashta was two minutes late to the Nov. 21 monthly

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Your life is not your own

Dec 20th, 2013 3:14 pm | By

Spain has passed a new anti-abortion law to replace current legislation permitting the procedure without restrictions until the 14th week.

Justice minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón said on Friday that abortion will only be allowed in the case of rape or when there is a serious mental or physical health risk to the mother. Accredited fetal deformities that would endanger a child’s life if born will also be accepted.

He said 16- and 17-year-olds will once again have to obtain permission from their parents to have an abortion.

Gallardon’s ruling Popular party has always sided heavily with the Catholic church on moral and social issues.

With the Catholic church, and against women and people in general who want to be able … Read the rest

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