Posts Tagged ‘
FTB ’
Jul 29th, 2013 4:13 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Soraya Chemaly offers answers to the perennial, silly question, “where are all the women in ___?” Actually it’s not in ___, but it might as well be. It’s in atheism, but it could be philosophy or gaming or politics or you know the drill.
In a Salon piece last week called, “Where are the women of new atheism?”, Katie Englehardt described what looks like diminishing participation of women in atheist life. She also encouraged atheist women to more openly embrace their beliefs.
Yeah it’s not that we don’t embrace our beliefs openly – it’s that people always forget to mention us, including Engelhart herself. Yes, Engelhart herself – in the very act of writing (yet another) article wondering … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Jul 29th, 2013 2:56 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The Telegraph has more.
The social networking site’s move came as a female MP called in police over rape threats she received via Twitter and detectives continued to investigate similar highly offensive messages sent to a feminist campaigner.
Caroline Criado-Perez, a writer, faced a deluge of online vitriol, including warnings that she would be killed, after she successfully lobbied for a woman to appear on a British banknote.
The trolls also targeted Stella Creasey, the Labour MP for Walthamstow in east London, for speaking out in support of Miss Criado-Perez.
Miss Creasey said she was “frankly incandescent” at Twitter’s response to the vile abuse she suffered over a 24-hour period.
One user threatened to rape her and “put the
…
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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Twitter sexism
Jul 29th, 2013 2:21 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
It will add a report abuse button.
Twitter today said it had introduced a button for reporting abuse on its latest iPhone app and is now looking to expand this function.
A spokesman said: “The ability to report individual Tweets for abuse is currently available on Twitter for iPhone, and we plan to bring this functionality to other platforms, including Android and the web.
“We don’t comment on individual accounts. However, we have rules which people agree to abide by when they sign up to Twitter.
“We will suspend accounts that once reported to us, are found to be in breach of our rules. We encourage users to report an account for violation of the Twitter rules by using one
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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Jul 29th, 2013 1:54 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Emma Barnett gets lots of sexist abuse online, and she got a couple of sexist online abusers to call in to her weekly radio program to explain why sexist abuse is a good thing.
First troll up was Peter from Whitechapel. He was quick to deliver some clichés – such as if Criado-Perez can’t stand the heat on Twitter, then she should get out of the kitchen.
But not content with his trite and quite frankly misplaced advice, I pushed harder and whoah – then the real Peter emerged.
“She was asking for it,” he told me. According to this nitwit, if you campaign about issues such as keeping a woman on English banknotes, you should “expect to receive rape
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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Sexism
Jul 29th, 2013 11:21 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Eric Schliesser at NewApps took a look at the “Genius Project” excuse and found it well and truly creepy.
2. There is as Jonathan Kramnick pointed out to me on Facebook, something decidedly creepy (in a Frankenstein sense) in the very idea of Genius-Development.
3. McGinn admits to deliberately erasing the lines between the professional and the personal. This is not unique to McGinn in the discipline. As Jason Stanley noted “there is an overly personal and unprofessional aspect to the friendship and socializing in the profession.” (This feature of Stanley’s comments got lost in subsequent discussion over his views about the prevalence of assortative mating in philosophy.) We are dealing here with a phenomenon that is at the
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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Colin McGinn, FTB
Jul 28th, 2013 6:01 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
And then there’s McGinn’s Plea for Calm with its paean to epistemic virtue.
Shouldn’t we philosophers be setting a good example of epistemic virtue? We are supposed to be rational, judicious, calm, impartial, non-ideological, just, fair, balanced, careful, scrupulous, accurate, above-the-fray. But such virtues have not been evident recently. Instead we have seen hysteria, presumption of guilt, ignoring of evidence, ignoring of due process and procedural justice, sloppiness, inaccuracy, ideology, vindictiveness, lack of reflection, simple stupidity, ideological fervor, ad hominem invective, and so on and on. This has been sickening to behold and shameful to the values we as philosophers are supposed to live by.
It is true that many people have not been guilty of these vices and failings.
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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Colin McGinn, FTB
Jul 28th, 2013 5:37 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
From What is it like to be a woman in philosophy – some commentary.
How can we know who the predators are?
On a day when the profession is all abuzz about the resignation of a senior philosopher due to allegations of sexual harassment, I find myself wondering about all the women who have been suffering in silence. Many commentators on this issue add remarks along the lines that they know of much worse cases where nothing has been done. So how are we supposed to feel safe in our professional community? I’m left with a sense of depression and dread at that the thought that there are serial sexual harassers in our midst, walking around us anonymously, ready to
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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Jul 28th, 2013 5:05 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The secret of why Twitter is so bad at doing anything about sexist abuse on Twitter is no longer a secret. All is explained.
The rules are off. They’re no good. As rules, they are inadequate to the task. If the rules don’t say that tweeting ”I will rape you when I get the chance” is not allowable when the recipient objects to it and reports it, then the rules are kakk.… Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Jul 28th, 2013 3:59 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
I haven’t found a grab of those posts of Colin McGinn’s but he didn’t take all the posts down, and there is plenty of intolerable smugness and self-admiration still on display.
(Honestly – I’ve read other people who write this way – this horribly arch, self-conscious, pseudo-Wildean, labored, unamusing way – can’t they see how awful it is? Clearly not, but then – why not?)
The real biscuit-taker among the surviving posts is perhaps the one titled “Epater les bourgeios” [yes, sic]. You know what it’s going to be before you read more – he’s a flouter of convention, a wit, a challenger of pieties, and all these peasants have misunderstood. Yawwwwwwwwwwwn – never heard that one before.… Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Colin McGinn, FTB
Jul 28th, 2013 12:47 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
It gets worse.
There was a second post from McGinn, explaining and self-defending some more. It too is now unfindable, but Bill Benzon at Crooked Timber quotes enough to get the astonishing drift.
From McGinn’s post on The Genius Project:
The student (hereafter NN) and I were engaged on what we called “the Genius Project”. The purpose of the genius project was to make NN into a truly original and outstanding young philosopher (one who could expect to find an attractive job later). Part of this project involved techniques for encouraging unconventional thinking, and the concept of “taboo-busting” was deemed helpful towards this end.
Toward the end:
Most of the genius project took a more conventional form, but it
…
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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Colin McGinn, FTB
Jul 28th, 2013 11:54 am |
By Ophelia Benson
A guy has been arrested over the deluge of threats aimed at Caroline Criado-Perez on Twitter.
The 21-year-old was detained earlier in the Manchester area on suspicion of
harassment offences.
Oh yes? Interesting.
Via her Twitter page on Sunday evening she said she was at a police station making a statement and that there were “many more threats to report”.
The Metropolitan Police said an allegation of “malicious communications” had been made to officers in Camden on Thursday.
An online petition set-up in response to the abuse called on Twitter to introduce a “report abuse” button and received thousands of signatures.
Labour said on Sunday that it had written to Twitter complaining that it had been “weak” to tell Ms
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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Twitter sexism
Jul 28th, 2013 11:21 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Let’s go back in time a couple of months, to early June, to June 4th to be precise, when the story about Colin McGinn broke. What story, and who? The story that McGinn is leaving the University of Miami because of allegedly sexually harassing emails; McGinn is a fairly prominent (for a philosopher) philosopher.
I saw a lot of mentions at the time but didn’t follow them up, I forget why…But I should have, because the story and the meta-story and the meta-meta are all highly relevant. (Relevant to what? To issues I’ve been talking about 1) as long as I’ve been talking at all, and as long as I’ve been blogging 2) more than before over the past … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Colin McGinn, FTB, Sexism
Jul 27th, 2013 6:17 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Wuhay – Stephen Fry is on board.
Hurry up @twitter @biz and you in charge. Shouldn’t be hard http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23477130 …
From that BBC article -
A petition calling on Twitter to add a “report abuse” button has received thousands of signatures.
It follows a deluge of abuse and rape threats received by Caroline Criado-Perez, who successfully campaigned for women to be included on UK banknotes.
MP Stella Creasy told the BBC she was “furious” Twitter had yet to do anything about Ms Criado-Perez’s abuse.
It’s completely typical of Twitter though. Also Facebook.
Ms Criado-Perez’s cause has been supported by other prominent tweeters, including the journalists Caitlin Moran and Suzanne Moore and Independent columnist Owen Jones.
Ms Moran has called for
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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Twitter sexism
Jul 27th, 2013 12:03 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The Independent reports that Twitter is facing a major backlash for not responding to abuse. I am pleased to hear that – Twitter has been crappy about dealing with one kind of abuse I get there, and it’s so crappy about offering ways to deal with other kinds that I didn’t even try.
A host of MPs and other leading public figures have threatened a boycott after a feminist campaigner highlighted numerous threats of rape and other violent acts being sent to her on Twitter. Caroline Criado-Perez, who finally won her fight to have prominent women represented on Britain’s bank notes this week, claimed that her complaints to the site have been ignored.
A petition was soon set up
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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Sexism, Twitter sexism
Jul 27th, 2013 11:49 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Criado-Perez wrote a piece for the New Statesman on the rape-threats campaign.
On Wednesday the 24 July, the Bank of England made the historic announcement that, in response to over 35,000 people signing a petition, they were confirming Jane Austen as the next historical figure on banknotes.
“this Perez one just needs a good smashing up the arse and she’ll be fine”
Even better from my perspective, the Bank of England also agreed to institute a review of its criteria and procedures, admitting that its current processes were inadequate if they wanted to live up to promote equality.
“Everyone jump on the rape train > @CCriadoPerez is conductor”; “Ain’t no brakes where we’re going”
The day was overwhelming.
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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Sexism
Jul 27th, 2013 11:29 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Jane Austen on £10 banknotes? Good idea. Caroline Criado-Perez’s campaign to make that happen? Good idea. Twitter campaign to bombard her with rape threats? Not a good idea. Bad idea. Shitty idea. Horrendous, terrible, stinking, crap idea.
Women ought to be able to show their heads above the parapet without being punished for it by Twitter campaigns to bombard them with rape threats. It’s that simple.
The feminist campaigner who ran the successful bid to get a woman on British banknotes has revealed she has got “up to 50 rape threats an hour” on Twitter.
And prominent journalists, showbiz stars and politicians are rallying to support Caroline Criado-Perez, who runs the Women’s Room, threatening to quit the site if
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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
