So now it’s okay, even amusing, to resurrect sexist stereotypes

At the recommendation of more than one commenter here, I’m reading Susan J Douglas’s Enlightened Sexism. It explains a lot, and matches a lot.

The core idea is summed up on page 7:

…the media’s fantasies of power are also the product of another force that has gained considerable momentum since the early and mid-1990s: enlightened sexism. Enlightened sexism is a response, deliberate or not, to the perceieved threat of a new gender regime. It insists that women have made plenty of progress because of feminism – indeed, full equality has allegedly been achieved – so now it’s okay, even amusing, to resurrect sexist stereotypes of girls and women.

Long exhalation. Ohhhhhhh, so that’s what it is.

That would explain what I’m always fretfully wondering – why, when we learned that sexism was bad decades ago, are apparently reasonable people talking this shit? Why isn’t sexism taboo the way racism is taboo? Why do people who would never call someone a nigger in anger call women bitches, whores, cunts without hesitation?

If Douglas is right it’s because they think oh hai, feminism is over because women have all the things, so no problem calling them every degrading name that comes to mind, iz edgy and funny and cool to do that.

Strange thing to think, isn’t it, even if the premise were true, which of course it isn’t close to being. Now you have full equality, so we the rest of us can freely insult you, because that’s what equality is. Eh?

Ashley has a useful summary.

That’s not thunder, that’s a rattle

Wow. I’ve been ignoring Thunderf00t, because it’s all so obvious, and dumb, but brazen lying is one item too many. I saw a lot of hits via a post he did yesterday sneering and maligning Surly Amy, and I was curious enough to break the “ignore” policy. He calls her a girl. Is this the new hip post-feminism ironic sexism, or just plain sexism?

I don’t know, but anyway, the boy simply tells a big lie at the end of the post, where he links to Rebecca’s post on being burqa-wearing Nazis.

Great Amy, so on one hand you are reduced to tears because someone uses the name of the site you blog for, and on the other you have no problem with that same blog suggesting that someones reasoned argument is invalid because you (skepchick) claim they think you are nazis.  Wow a great double whammy there of professionally playing the victim and wholesale well poisoning.  That’s right, professional victim Rebecca ‘rape threat’ Watson leading the Skepchicks effort to ‘set an example of kind, productive, proactive behavior in hopes that more people will follow my lead than the those who want to mock and belittle.’ by suggesting that those who disagree with her think they are Totalitarian Nazi.  Damn not seen anyone so zealously eager to embrace victim-hood since dawahfilms.

Rebecca includes screenshots of Paula Kirby comparing us – Skepchicks, Pharyngula and B&W – to Nazis and the Stasi in the post. It’s right there. In the post. It’s not a mere “claim” – not even if you bold it.

That boy does not tell the truth.

Alexander Cockburn 1941-2012

James Fallows (as he points out himself, a blandly centrist journalist of a type that Cockburn despised) on Cockburn:

As Michael Tomasky points out in this appreciation, Alex Cockburn essentially pioneered the modern persona for which Christopher Hitchens became much better known: the fancily Oxford-educated leftie Brit litterateur/journalist who would say all the outrageous things his bland Yank counterparts lacked the wit, courage, erudition, or épater-spirit to utter on their own. As both Tomasky and James Wolcott make clear, Cockburn was far more committed and purposeful in his outrageousness. His own brutal obituary about Hitchens both explains and exemplifies the differences. Short version: Cockburn said that Hitchens always knew just how far he could go; Cockburn knew, and kept on going. His “Press Clips” column in the Village Voice genuinely revolutionized the way people talked and thought about the mainstream press.

Michael Tomasky:

It’s worth recalling that he was the first. Modern America’s first exposure to that literary, highly lapidary, polysyllabically festooned, and sometimes grotesquely overstated and unfair brand of polemicism that we now know so well. He blazed the trail that Hitchens and others followed. He was also America’s first modern press critic. A.J. Liebling, I would argue, did something a little different. The idea of weekly items critiquing the ideological presumptions of this particular Times article or that particular Washington Post column was invented by Alex.

It feels very end-of-an-era-like.

 

 

American Atheists stands by all its members, supporters, and allies

The minute I read Amy’s suggestion that it would help a lot if leaders of the movment spoke out against the threats and hate-mongering against women – the minute I read it, I say, I thought of Dave Silverman. Mr Atheist Pants is Mr Visible. It would be great if Dave stepped up, I thought. But that’s all I did. I’m passive that way.

But Amy did ask, and Dave did step up.

Yessssssssssssssssssssssssss.

As a Humanist, I see these threats as base and detestable. They have no redeeming value and will raise no awareness, solve no problems, and hurt those who should be friends. As a long term activist, I see hatred and threats of violence directed at our sisters-in-arms to be reprehensible, serving no purpose other than to hurt and intimidate valuable allies. As a white man, I know that so much of this hate comes from people who look like me — but they’re nothing like me where it counts. As the leader of a national atheist organization, I have implemented harassment policies to minimize such irrational, hateful, and counterproductive behavior wherever my authority allows. We have a war to win, and we won’t win until we can look forward, without watching our own backs. American Atheists stands by all its members, supporters, and allies, and we will not tolerate hate directed at any of us. Period.

~David Silverman

Suck on that, haters.

Amy says there will be more to come. Fasten your seatbelts, haters.

 

Thousands of British girls are the victims of wounding with intent

Nick Cohen notes that it’s progress when violence against women and girls is treated as such.

Odd though it may seem to older readers, the Crown Prosecution Service now regards itself as a liberal organ of the state. This week it is making a great play of its success in deterring violence against women. Its lawyers brought 91,000 domestic violence prosecutions last year and secured 67,000 convictions. As I have mentioned in this space before, many criminologists believe that the willingness, not just of prosecutors and the police but of wider society, to take violence against women and children seriously explains the welcome fall in homicide rate.

Well it would, wouldn’t it. If fewer women are killed then the homicide rate will fall, unless killers decide to kill more men to make up the numbers, which seems unlikely. Plus taking violence against women and children seriously has the added advantage of taking violence against women and children seriously. It’s quite a good idea to take violence against all kinds of people seriously, just in case no kinds of people actually deserve to be the object of violence.

But anyway, despite this one bright spot, all is not well.

But officialdom’s concern for abused women is strictly colour coded.  The CPS will defend women’s rights, but only the rights of white women. Girls with black or brown skins can go hang — or, rather go have their genitalia cut to pieces.

FGM, in other words. It’s not being seen as another form of violence against girls. [Read more…]

I vs. hymen – guest post by Evan Darraji

By Evan Darraji, Iraq

 

Scientific definition of Hymen: The thin membrane located inside the woman’s vagina, a few centimeters in depth, tearing after penetration either by sex or otherwise.

Is the Hymen a natural evolutionary requirement (according to Darwin) and not a moral requirement? Some animals also have hymens, such as the platypus, elephants, whales, llamas, sea cows, moles, chimpanzees, rats and lemurs.

Social definition of the hymen: a measure of honour on the basis of the girl’s chastity and virginity – no sex before marriage in Arab, Indian and some African countries!

Scientific definition of me as a woman: A live human being who has all the characteristics of other living things, such as breathing, needing nutrition, growing, reproducing, and who is characterized by thinking and production and development through thought and action.

Social definition of a woman: A human-being the oriental society puts under the category of ‘Woman’ – and I’m proud to be female but according to their concepts it means I am the weaker sex who is always ranked second after the Man under The Order of God, the tribe and the support and approval of laws is based on this.

I am a producer who has duties towards self, family and community more than Rights. Because I’m the plowed one, and odd if I reject sex with my husband, and ordered in the house of obedience, and dominated, and share a husband with two, three, or four others in accordance with the Quran. And I am to be withheld, transformed into a mummy by covering my neck in a hijab, hit and abandoned and punished and imprisoned or stoned to death, governed and controlled by the male parent (the Lord of the Family, no matter how old or young he is), cannot go out and get married, I am issued with a passport or identity card, cannot travel except with his consent; who is married even before reaching puberty. I cannot always win my freedom because the authorization for divorce is given by my husband only; am a governess, an obedient servant who has the largest share of hell and the torments of God to come later! [Read more…]

What Amy said

Amy talks about the haters and the hatred.

Yesterday included the “Would it be immoral to rape a Skepchick?” item. This morning it was a tweet (from “franc hoggle” of course) urging her to set herself on fire.

Just an average day for us. And this has been going on ever since Rebecca said, “…hey guys don’t do that.” For me, it has been getting worse over the past few months. I guess I became a direct target after Rebecca decided to stay home from TAM. I was more in the spotlight so the threats became more about me.

Been there. Am still there. Every day my stats show tens or even hundreds of hits from the hoggle gang, collecting stuff to translate into whatever shit they’re talking about me now. (No don’t tell me; I don’t want to know. I’ve never gone to that little outpost of hell and never will.) Every day I get a bunch from Thunderf00t’s video. Every day I get a bunch from a whole list of ranters. [Read more…]

Skeptically looking down

Leeds Skeptics in the Pub replaced Steven Moxon’s planned talk titled  “Why aren’t there more woman in the boardroom?” with an open debate on “How should Skeptics Deal with controversy?” Tom Williamson of Skeptic Canary reports.

After that, the debate moved onto the question of “are there any subjects which just cannot be discussed in skepticism?”. My answer was a strong and unequivocal “no”. Skepticism by its very nature is based on questioning. If someone puts up a barrier saying “you cannot question this” I find that to be an affront to skepticism. Also, I find that some people confuse the idea of questioning something with a desire to challenge and reject it. For example, if you asked the question “does 1 + 1 REALLY equal 2?”, that doesn’t immediately make you a maths denialist. So, if you asked a very controversial question like “are women REALLY equal to men?” that does not mean you are automatically a misogynist. I think we need to bear this in mind when asking tough questions, and skeptics should not feel like there are any questions that cannot be asked. [Read more…]

Is rape a good punishment for being so annoying?

There’s a forum called Rationalia. Already the warning lights start to blink – the forum seems to be a genre that attracts a lot of, hmm how to put it, a lot of mind-blind, entitled nastiness, aka sexism. A forum that calls itself Rationalia – that doesn’t bode well.

And so it came about. You have to register to read the particular item in question, so I’ll link to PZ’s report on it instead, in case like me you don’t want to register just to see some sexist crap in its native habitat.

Would it be immoral to rape a Skepchick?

Post by Pappa » Fri Jul 20, 2012 8:46 am

Not for sexual gratification or power or anything like that, just because they’re so annoying.

I’m really torn on this one. :dunno:

There were some angry comments at PZ’s (how astonishing, how wicked, how deepriftsian). “Pappa” replied.

by Pappa » Mon Jul 23, 2012 6:51 am

OK, sorry but this’ll have to be brief. I start a new job today so I don’t have much time.

1. PZ, why don’t you ever shut the fuck up and think before you engage your fingers? If you weren’t already a member here I’d call you an idiot, but you are and I don’t want to break the rules.

2. PZ, where to we purport to be rational? We’re two of Dawkins’ bastard children, hanging out here because it’s more fun and way less anal than most of the other places we could go. Besides, have you read some other irrational crap you’ve posted occasionally? You’re an intelligent and thoughtful guy, almost always worth reading. But sometimes you jump on some random banwagon without much rational thought at all.

3. PZ’s followers. You’re a bunch of retarded arse-lickers (not all of you, just the retarded ones who aren’t also members here). Seriously, are you not able to understand concepts like irony, hyperbole and irreverent humour?

So that’s how that went.

Stephanie has commentary. 

Update:

“Pappa” has commented again.

One

I suppose you’ve all heard the expression,”You’ve every right to be offended” before. It’s true, you do. You also have every right to rant about it online if that’s what floats your boat, but really many of you need to get some perspective and stop seeing the world in such black and white ways. If any one of you have ever laughed at a sick joke of any kind, then you’re hypocrites. If you really care about rape, stop posting shouty replies on some blog and go out and do something about it in the real world. Responding to blog posts and getting all worked up in the process is about as effective as praying.

I don’t know what’s wrong with the supposed “community” that spans a load of atheist/sceptic/rationalist sites, but you don’t half waste an absurd amount of time arguing amongst yourselves and getting really angry and self-righteous in the process. I like PZ and follow his blog from time to time, but even PZ seems to engage his fingers quite a lot without much rational thought… and I’ve seen Dawkins do the same quite a few times too. That’s pretty lame considering most of these people involved proclaim themselves to be rational minded people.

Before you turn that round to suggest I’m a hypocrite, “Rationalia” has never claimed to be a hub of reason and rationalism, as anyone who’s spent any time there can verify. It’s a hangout for (mostly) atheists/rationalist/sceptics who used to spend their free time in the Off Topic section of RDF, plus a load of fresh blood who just like the relaxed atmosphere.

Two

There are a huge amount of assumptions being made about me here. I am not misogynistic, sexist or woman-hating in any way. I support equality in all its forms and have done for my whole adult life. I have posted uncountable times online about my support for equality of sex, race and sexuality. Just a few days before the Skepchick thread I started I posted a “Stop Rape” poster on FB, I am vocally supportive of gay rights and gay marriage both online and off. At no point did I say I think Skepchicks should be raped, or that I wanted that to happen. I posted a ridiculous parody thread asking a “moral” question because I’ve been so sick of the ridiculous irrationally conducted “debate” ever since Elevatorgate I felt it should be ridiculed.

Something you all need to understand is that while I am 100% supportive of matters of equality, I also absolutely support the right of free speech, even when it is extremely distasteful.

I didn’t post that thread naively. On Rationalia in the past we’ve had long, heated discussions on the topic of offensive humour, stemming from unpleasant jokes made about disabled children, jokes that appeared right after Michael Jackson died, jokes about Madeline McCann, etc.. Some of which I found very distasteful, others I did not. I happen to have an irreverent sense of humour, and believe it or not but there are lots of other people who also have irreverent senses of humour who are fully capable of understanding the seriousness of the topics involved, people who are morally upstanding and who’s thoughts and actions are good. Honestly, I’m one of those people. I understand that many people are unable to see the funny side of humour that entails rape, death, baby eating, etc., but that doesn’t mean that anyone who does is ethically and morally corrupt. Plus, one thread of sarcastic ridicule is not all of who I am. Anyone who took the time to find out, rather than condemning me blindly on some blog would quickly realise.

Three

I am genuinely sorry that some people who have been affected by rape have been caused some further hurt by reading my thread. But I can’t renounce my joke for the simple reason that if rape jokes are verboten then by the same logic, so must dead baby jokes be so. Real people have had to live through the torment of a baby dying and must unfortunately also deal with the hurt of sometimes hearing or seeing dead baby jokes. People who have had children vanish without trace must unfortunately also deal with the hurt of sometimes hearing or seeing Madeline McCann jokes. People whose family have been murdered must unfortunately also deal with the hurt of sometimes hearing or seeing jokes about mass shootings or terrorism.

Women are told to sit in back

Theocrats at it again – in Williamsburg (Brooklyn) this time.

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish business owners are lashing out at customers at dozens of  stores in Williamsburg, trying to ban sleeveless tops and plunging necklines  from their aisles. It’s only the latest example of the Hasidic community trying  to enforce their strict religious laws for everyone who lives near their New  York enclave.

“No Shorts, No Barefoot, No Sleeveless, No Low Cut Neckline Allowed in the  Store,” declare the English/Spanish signs that appear in stores throughout the  Hasidic section of the hipster haven. The retailers do not just serve Jews — they include stores for hardware, clothes and electronics.

…

“We’re not concerned about the way women dress in Manhattan — but we are  concerned with bringing 42nd Street to this neighborhood,” said Mark Halpern,  who is Orthodox and lives in Williamsburg. [Read more…]