Guest post by Daniel Fincke of Camels With Hammers, replying to a comment on It was a joke, huh huh huh.

May 30, 2012 at 6:49 am  (Edit)

1. It’s not okay to assume that any woman (or non-woman) is at a conference to be your plaything.

(I fail to see such an assumption)

First: this is a general principle Ophelia is laying down. Do you at least agree with the principle?

Second, let’s not get distracted by the semantics of whether literally the couple just looked at Elyse and said, “wow, is that a talking sex doll here at the conference simply for our amusement?? Holy crap, I think it is! Let’s go give her our card … Read the rest

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

Mariz Tadros gives a vastly depressing account of life for women in Egypt.

…on the streets of Egypt, inch by inch, bit by bit, women’s rights are shrinking. Women, Muslim and Christian, who do not cover their hair or who wear mid-sleeved clothing are met with insults, spitting and in some cases physical abuse. In the urban squatter settlement of Mouasset el Zakat, in Al Marg, Greater Cairo, women told me that they hated walking in the streets now. Thanks to the lax security situation, they have restricted their mobility to all but the most essential of errands. Whereas a couple of years ago they could just inform their husbands where they were going (visiting parents, friends or going

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

Elyse Anders was the keynote speaker at Skepticamp Ohio last weekend, and had an unpleasant experience at the end.

Then, at the very end, when everyone was preparing to leave, and I was packing up the Hug Me table, answering questions, and generally socializing with other speakers and attendees, thinking about how fat my check is going to be from Big Pharma when one man and his wife, whom I’ve become vaguely acquainted with on Facebook in the last week, approached my table. He said, “Here’s a little something to remember us by” and handed me an upside-down card. I turned it halfway over, glanced at it peripherally, then thanked them.

A minute or so later, I had a “wait…

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

‘Ere we go ‘ere we go ‘ere we go – the “Taliban” thing is becoming the latest casus belli for the you know whos. I’ve got one of them right here playing musical IP addresses and calling me every name in the book. Misogyny lives!

Jason has a good post on the subject.

The repeated comparison of this harassment policy to Taliban-like laws, is entirely about the “sexualized clothing” bit. Apparently all the rest of the proposed policy is perfectly fine to these people, and anyone pushing back against the meme is just strawmanning. Never mind all the myriad other ways the comparison to the Taliban doesn’t fit — like the actual protection of women, rather than slut-shaming and

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