There’s more from the incompetent unresponsive unrepresentative “Global” Secular Council. I hope this will be my last post on the subject (of this particular quarrel, not the Council overall), but who knows – they keep adding to their CV.
Item: they apologized fulsomely to Rebecca Watson yesterday.
In itself, of course, that’s good – an apology was owed. But they refuse to apologize to me, so offering an energetic apology to someone else for a small part of the very thing they should apologize to me for…looks pointed.
Item: they still refuse to apologize to me.
The refusal is now taking the form of pretending not to know how to do it, not to know what they did that’s apology worthy, not to know how apologies work, not to know that they are an organization and thus responsible for what branches of their organization do. They are demanding that I write the apology for them.
Here is how our correspondence on that subject went:
To me:
Would the following Tweet meet your current request:
We are sorry we called @OpheliaBenson “Ofie”.
If so, I will have staff implement promptly.
My reply:
“We apologize” would be better than “We are sorry.”
For the rest, it’s a grudging ungenerous minimum, but if you want to look grudging and ungenerous, go ahead.
To me:
What else would you like me to have the account say?
My reply this morning some 14 hours later:
This is ridiculous. That’s a ridiculous question. It’s not a matter of “the account” – it is your organization. The account isn’t a separate thing; it speaks for your organization, and your organization is accountable for what it says. You’re the press contact person. If you can’t figure out how to apologize for grotesque rudeness, you have a problem.
There has been no response. The press contact person is probably extra busy dealing with the departure of Edwina Rogers, but there it is – the press contact person is hopelessly bad at her job.
Compare
We sincerely apologize, @rebeccawatson! We did not look closely and had no idea that a photo of you had been abusively doctored. Horrible.
with
We are sorry we called @OpheliaBenson “Ofie”.
It’s pretty staggeringly rude, isn’t it. You can almost see the sullen defiant child, delivering the forced apology as rudely as it dares and longing to blow a huge raspberry instead. And the press contact officer thought it a good idea to offer me that.
Item: they blocked @VitaBrevi too.
She was asking them questions, so they blocked her.
A shiny new secular organization that’s a subset of a less shiny less new secular organization is blocking people who ask it questions on Twitter.
How, exactly, are we supposed to go about asking them questions? Do we have to petition them? Go through channels? Pay a bribe? Disable the guards? What?
I’m serious here. They seem to think they don’t have to answer questions, so much so that they can malign and taunt and silence people who ask them questions. That is a very peculiar and sinister position for a secular non-profit to stake out.
Do those people do language?
I mean, seriously, they can’t figure out that as an official Twitter handle of an Organisation you have to use a professional tone and address people respectfully?
This Globular Secular Thingy’s approach reminds me of the Chinese government’s approach to free speech: “You can say of publish anthing you like provided it’s not unpopular or controversial; that includes criticism of us provided we think it’s reasonable.”
The first thing this brought to my mind was DJ Grothe’s apology to Rebecca Watson, only. (see: DJ apologizes to one woman)
…What the heck is going on? Do they really think everyone who criticizes are all one amorphous mass, so they only have to apologize to the one whose name they remember best and it’ll trickle down to appease everyone else? Is this part of CYA Messaging 101?
Oh, no, that’s not what they think. They’re explicitly not apologizing to me. It’s not a matter of omission; they’re refusing. No, we won’t. Like that.
ah, okay… so that’s why the ‘what do you want from us anyway?’ scuffling instead of just, y’know, APOLOGIZING already.
Well, what’s with that is apparently being as rude and sulky and passive-aggressive about it as possible. Why she thinks that’s a good approach is totally beyond me.
Gee Ophelia,
What part of privileged and entitled don’t you understand?
I didn’t see the pic they used of Rebecca or in what context, so I don’t know the story behind it. But, I am actually surprised they apologized to her. She’s a pretty easy target within their little circle. So, I guess I’ll take progress where I can get it.
Being grudging and ungenerous would be a step or two up from their present position.
@ #4 >> They’re explicitly not apologizing to me<< That's how I would read it. They really don't like you. In a different way than they "don't like" Rebecca Watson I think. Someone in the (wink, wink) SGC has to have taken exception to your past calling out, your tone, your … EXISTENCE. It's obvious. It's an obvious distinction being made. AFAIC they can continue to draw the lines. I'm happy to never spend money or materially support anything these folks are involved with. They're just not "my people". Much like Tom Cruise's time on Oprah's Couch, the Dear Muslima letter, Slyme Pitter tweets, and now (wink, wink) SGC tweets have opened my eyes and I'm just not interested in what I see.
Jesus Ophelia (and the rest),
If you’re worried about them apologizing to Watson and not you, don’t worry, they didn’t. Read the bloody tweet again, carefully this time.
Assuming the apology to Rebecca Watson was for thanking FuperSuck for supporting them, I’m afraid I don’t give them much credit even for that. Even a casual glance at FuperSuck’s tweets would have been enough for anyone to conclude they were an obvious troll and anti-feminist.
To focus so tightly on the use of a doctored photo of Rebecca (and that they hadn’t looked closely enough to notice it) only serves to highlight that they don’t think it’s necessary to apologise for anything else. So they either a) also failed to notice the aggressive mocking tone of his tweets, or b) have noticed it, but don’t think it’s a problem.
Is the message: “we welcome support from misogynist trolls…as long as they only express their disgust for women in words, not images.”?
I’m not worried about it. It makes them look like abusive creeps. That’s worrying for them, not for me.
I don’t understand why an organization that wants to be taken seriously would treat anybody like this publicly. Not just bad PR, really dumb PR.
Ophelia,
I’m not sure if this will be any help… I’m at the AHA national convention and there is a representative from SCA tabling here. I asked her if she had an opinion on what has been going on between you and this ‘Global Secular Council’, and while she told me she personally could not comment, she told me the person to contact would be the Director of Communications, Lauren Youngblood, email address lauren@secular.org (I’m not sure whether she’s the director of communications for SCA or GSC but I was given her information when asking about the GSC). I informed the representative I’d pass this along to you.
Thanks for holding their feet to the fire on this; I really don’t understand what they’re trying to do.
The GSC has religious faith in its own infallibility. They firmly believe they are higher beings with a divine purpose, unquestionable prophets meant to lead the peons to righteousness. Whether they believe in traditional gods or not, there is nothing the least bit secular about them.
@ 13, theoreticalgrrrl
I don’t know. At this point, it looks more like the organization is there simply to provide an argument from authority & popularity for the validity of saying stupid shit to people who question their very existence (for not doing anything their “platform” says they are about, or simply going public prematurely). It’s pretty circular, like one of those time-travel paradoxes.
I think what this person might be implying is that the apology to Watson wasn’t genuine (perhaps suggesting that someone would have to look closely to tell that the picture of her had been doctored or something). That would actually be more in keeping with the pattern of that Twitter account.
I’m bewildered. I looked at the bios of the communications people at the GSC and there’s nothing to lead you to expect that they would behave like this. The SCA is an established national organization, and several of their decisions of late have looked like self-sabotage. If I were thinking conspiratorially, I’d suspect there’s a Koch operative in there trying to destroy it from within or secretly take it over. It’s one thing to be clueless and arrogant, but this is an astounding level of stupidity and incompetence.
SC @17:
Indeed. The GSC twitter account could have apologized for endorsing a known harasser, but didn’t. Instead, they apologized for the “abusively doctored” photo. A photo done by someone else. It’s telling that the only people to have retweeted it are ‘Pitters, and one of them is even plain that it isn’t a genuine apology:
They get the joke. We don’t. Which I suppose lends more credence to my earlier hypothesis.
Thanks MC. I was thinking perhaps I should try Youngblood.
SC: I’m not familiar with the doctored picture in question, but the “abusively doctored! Horrible!” bit definitely reads as sarcasm to me. I think they’re mocking Rebecca in the form of a disingenuous apology, not apologising in any meaningful fashion.
I agree with mcbender at #20. That read as sarcasm to me. Who knows though.
The fact that they are leaving people wondering whether their apologies are sincere or sarcastic is also not a good thing. For them.
Yes, it seems to.
Oh, I get it.
sigh
It can be read as “we had no idea that wasn’t you because that’s what you look like hahahahahahachoke”.
Yay movement atheism. Yay.
Yes, I read it as a notapology too. Right in line with the tone of “Dear Muslima” .
Remember, we’re the ones who are divisive.
They’re taking a page out of the Skeptics playbook and making it them vs feminists. Look who’s on the board, Dawkins, Shermer, Kraus, and Harris. Not exactly supporters of the Women’s movement. The best you can get out of them is applause when somebody corrects a male specific pronoun with “or her”. The best we can do is mock them as people so sheltered and privlieged that they can form an association of nothing but North Americans and Europeans while still calling it “Global”.
Hj Hornbeck @ 18:
I never even saw the tweet to me by “Flying Arse” since they are at level 2 on the Block Bot, but that does explain it–and it drives the final nail into the coffin of GSC’s credibility.
Which also fits with the “apology” to Ophelia. It’s a little odd, when apologizing for saying something rude, to go out of your way to repeat the offensive thing.
For instance, the following apology seems a little insincere:
I apologize for calling the Global Secular Council a bunch of clueless jackasses who don’t appear capable of advising a lemonade stand, much less world leaders. It was wrong of me to call the GSC a bunch of clueless jackasses. You shouldn’t say that someone is a clueless jackass. And I shouldn’t have said they aren’t capable of advising a lemonade stand. They may well be capable of doing so. I should have first made further inquiry into their lemonade-management background.
“A shiny new secular organization that’s a subset of a less shiny less new secular organization is blocking people who ask it questions on Twitter.”
Please stop harassing them.
Here’s a comment from Skepchik’s “Objectivization” (or whatever) blog that I find completely apropos for here:
<blockquoteTom Foss February 4, 2013, 11:20 pm Log in to Reply
And obviously “real discrimination” is the kind of CommieNaziStasi witch-purging inquisition that Shermer faced at the hands of Ophelia “Torquemada” Benson, who held his feet to the implicit assumptions and assumed stereotypes, then shoved hot quotations under his fingernails while turning the screws on a single paragraph in a magazine article. As if crude photoshops and MS Paint drawings could possibly add up to such oppression!
(Is there an eye-rolling emoticon on here?)LOL!!
Ophelia @23
If I learned anything from reading twitter this evening it was that casual expressions of disapproval or exasperation with the atheist movement will earn you a vigorous tsk-tsking from Mr. Dillahunty which greatly resembles pedantry and tone policing, but is actually a quite rigorous concern for valid and sound arguments. *sigh*
Also, that the actions of the most highly visible people in the movement don’t reflect anything of significance upon the movement. Of course not, how silly. That’d be like saying US pols, athletes & actors provide a representation of Americans to those living abroad, or something similarly stupid.
Of course, the resemblance to pedantry will work in your favor, as you did *cheer* movement atheism…
Sheesh, what happened to Matt? I used to like him quite a bit before he went on this DON’T CRITICIZE YOUR ALLIES tear lately. Has he always been like this and I just didn’t notice until recently?
My take on Dillahunty et al is they’ve always been this way, it’s just being exposed now because they’re attempting to talk about things outside their wheelhouse, i.e. social justice issues. They’ve always nominally supported those things but now there’ s a real push to hold people accountable and their privilege blindness is showing.
And Dillahunty just told me I’m “off my rocker” so that’s another atheist “ally” who turns out to be a venomous shit.
I’m not all that shocked. I remember the first time I read about how women in the peace activist movements in the 60’s and 70’s were treated. Basically the same shit. Before reading about it from actual women in the movement, I assumed it was all pro-feminist and supportive – why wouldn’t it be? And then I remember reading about women in civil rights movement and how they were treated, including this public statement from a prominent civil rights leader: “The only position for women in the movement is ‘prone’”. And now the Occupy Wall Street movement, http://jezebel.com/5852066/occupy-baltimore-would-prefer-you-didnt-report-sex-crimes-to-the-police
The conversation with Matt was weird; and the weirdest bits were not by Matt at all.
He made some valid criticisms. Some people might feel they were a bit petty, I guess; but jeez… it sure went down hill after that — and I do not think you can lay that at Matt’s feet.
The counter-accusations being made against Matt were just silly. It culminated with an accusation that he was rage posting — which was obvious nonsense. That was when he responded “if you think that’s rage, you’re off your rocker”.
It would be more polite to say “you’re being silly”; the sense is perfectly correct. It WAS very silly to say Matt was rage posting.
The Global Secular Council has been a massive fail. The way they deal with legitimate criticism has been abysmal. There’s a certain irony in that for me, at the moment. Sigh.
I didn’t make any “accusation” that Matt was “rage posting.” I dislike that formula, because of the popularity of the stupid label “rageblogger” favored by Team Harassment. What I said was: “you could respond with a few degrees less rage.” That’s not quite the same thing.
Matt’s criticisms were more than just petty; they were angry and (at least) bossy.
You see it the way you see it, but your way of seeing it is not just The Facts. It’s not just a fact that the responses to Matt “were just silly.”
I didn’t say that. You can capitalize “was” all you like, but I still didn’t say that.
And I know when he told me I was off my rocker, thanks, I don’t need you to explain that. And I’m done with him.
Another atheist icon with feet of clay.
It’s always interesting how people think they’re just going to show up and assert that X person’s “point” was valid, Y person’s “accusations” were silly, Z thing that happened wasn’t X person’s fault as if that settles the matter. It’s also funny how Matt was making points but others were making accusations.
OK… you didn’t say he was rageblogging, but you did use the word rage which is way too strong a word in that context. It just didn’t fit at all. And likewise: Matt didn’t say you were off your rocker; he said IF you thought that was rage THEN you were off your rocker. So yeah, Matt could have phrased more gently (is that tone trolling BTW) and you could have clarified that you didn’t actually think it was rage (which would have negated the conditional WRT being off your rocker). Anyhow, I’ve said my piece on the whole shoddy exchange.
But there’s another more interesting thing which struck me; and is probably more important.
It relates to privilege, and tone.
Matt seemed totally unaware of the implications of his being critical of someone — especially a female — on twitter. He has thousands of followers, and many of them represent a really awful side of online skepticism/atheism. Matt isn’t that himself; but he enabled it simply by making a strong response which would be seen by his thousands of followers.
It was not his intent to direct a flood of abuse at Vita, but it was his effect. He expressed surprise and doubt that this would follow from his remarks; but it did nevertheless. That’s an example of privilege; he was blind to the consequences of his criticism and it is not something that I’d be inclined to think of either. Matt (and I) were just unaware of the difference between his making a criticism of Vita, and Vita making a criticism of him.
It would be nice to live in a world were people could simply make criticisms of other public statements on their merits; and if disputes could be engaged with a focus on actual substance of criticism and not about whether the tone was right.
That was my initial concern as well — I wasn’t remotely interested in tone, or tone trolling; simply the merits of criticisms and the validity or responses.
But perhaps we should be. I (or Matt, perhaps) was implicitly accused of tone trolling as part of the exchange, whereas in fact the issues with tone were being raised by others.
I *should* have considered more about tone. Being able to ignore tone as unimportant is a privilege; but some folks do have to wear the fallout of other people’s tone. Matt ended up directing a flood of online abuse at Vita, simply by speaking strongly in public. I don’t know if he’s noticed and taken on board this consequence of his criticisms. But I noticed, and will bear it in mind for the future.
Cheers — Chris
chrisho-stuart,
Matt D is a man of considerable intelligence whom, up to now, I have admired.
You do no good to his reputation by suggesting that he could not have grasped that a torrent of abuse was being released and either stopped himself before it happened or clearly and firmly pulled back, done his best to stop it.
He has been on this planet for the last few years. He has been in regular contact with key actors on all sides of several arguments. And you think you are doing him a favour by suggesting he’s too thick to see whats happening. No, chris, it wasn’t that!
While we are at it, do you think you could manage to stop referring to us as “females” in future? The word is woman, plural women. Using female of humans is dodgy anyway. In the course of an argument with a woman it is demeaning, patronising, othering.
I know for a fact that women have been pointing out the misuse of this word for decades. May I conclude that you, also, are too thick to realise what is happening all around you?
Apropos of that, @BhasChat on twitter made a simple tweet that “Referring to women as “females” is degrading, dehumanizing, cissexist”” a few days ago and literally hundreds of men flooded her mentions with rage, and they’re still at it, but she’s tirelessly retweeting them. Those retweets should be an enlightening experience for anyone who still thinks that referring to a woman as “a female” is okay, but is open to discovering why it is not.
On the subject of “female” and why it’s frowned upon: try to pay attention to how often you see “female” used as a noun compared to “male.” You’ll find that “male” as a noun is nearly non-existent outside of the medical or law enforcement professions. Pay attention to how often you see “men” paired with “female.” The same thing happens with “girl” though you never see anyone refer to men as “boys” except possibly by men in reference to their friends.
So it’s like “adult male human” vs. “female [unspecified]” or “adult male human” vs. “juvenile female human.” Men are always adults and always human, women are often children or an unspecified species.
Maureen Brian says: to me “You do no good to his reputation by suggesting that he could not have grasped that a torrent of abuse was being released and either stopped himself before it happened or clearly and firmly pulled back, done his best to stop it. ”
Absolutely; of course. You are exactly right — I wasn’t defending his reputation with that observation, but pointing out a massive blind spot he has.
Maureen adds: “And you think you are doing him a favour by suggesting he’s too thick to see whats happening.”
No, I didn’t think that at all. I knew I was making a criticism of Matt with that second observation, and pointing out a massive blind spot. I was also observing that I have it too… it just isn’t an aspect I considered until I looked and saw what happened. It was utterly predictable, and yet I missed it at first until it was pointed out.
Maureen adds: “While we are at it, do you think you could manage to stop referring to us as “females” in future?”
Sure. I wasn’t even aware this was an issue for people, but I shall take it on board. I can tell you in this instance I started with the word “feminist”, but rephrased because I know it isn’t just feminist women who cop the abuse; the key point was being a women, not being a feminist. I’d also been speaking of “male privilege”, but opted simply for “privilege” as it was also about the privilege of being a well known public writer with thousands of followers. But I live and learn; I’ll opt for woman next time. Thanks for the heads up.
“Using female of humans is dodgy anyway. In the course of an argument with a woman it is demeaning, patronising, othering.”
Maureen, please speak for yourself. I think it is ridiculous to say “female” is “demeaning” and all the rest. I don’t even understand where you come up with this nonsense.
@MrFancyPants
(Most) People are reacting that way because it’s an inoffensive word, and telling people that it’s offensive is going to get a reaction. Getting flooded with objections doesn’t prove you’re right. I’m sure there are assholes who are reacting too, but that doesn’t make the original point true.
Well I understand perfectly well what Maureen means, and I don’t consider it “nonsense.” I think it’s a little more ambiguous than Maureen seems to; I think the word is sometimes just a variant, without any pejorative overtones. But used a lot? Then it gets…at least somewhat dubious.
MrFancyPants said it was men who flooded BhasChat with rage. Is there a reason you changed that to “people” theoreticalgrrrl?
Also, I don’t see why you told Maureen to speak for herself. What else was she doing? I don’t see that she generalized any more than you just did in responding to her.
It was just men? I said people because I disagree and I am a woman, so I can’t imagine all women are on board with her opinion.
Maureen said, “In the course of an argument with a woman it is demeaning, patronising, othering.” She presents it as fact and not opinion.
Please show me facts that prove the word “female” is a slur. It isn’t. Unless you believe that human beings are God’s special snowflakes, and animals are inferior and degraded with no inner life or personality, which is what I was taught growing up Orthodox Christian.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female
Female comes from the Latin word for WOMAN. Yes, very degrading.
I don’t know if it was just men or not, but it is “men” that MrFP said. Nobody anywhere said “all women are on board with her opinion” but it’s verbal sleight of hand to change “men” to “people” in order to shore up your claim.
I’m pretty sure we all know where “female” comes from. That’s thoroughly beside the point.
Just simmer down.
Has Matt ever been an ally?
Because I recall that he’s told the wimminz to pipe down and be nicer and more charitable to misogynists several times now.
Remember the A+ debacle where he showed his ass?
Remember his admonishments to hear the sexist douchebros out respectfully?
He was all about defending Thunderfoot for a while, wasn’t he?
How many times is he going to pull this before we get the message?
He’s not an ally.
At best he’s given lip service to being an ally.
He’s never walked the walk.
He’s all about the status quo.
This movement is a joke and he’s one of the folks making sure it stays that way.
Write him off. He’s not going to come around. He’s not confused or uninformed. He just doesn’t give two shits about fixing the problems because as a white dude, they are not his problems.
Yes, it is demeaning to call women “females”.
theoretical girl, no one here has to explain it to you. You are not new. You know how to use a search engine. This is 101 level stuff. Pretending that there is no context behind why you should not refer to women as if they are animals is ludicrous.
theoreticalgirl,
Some women have told us that no slurs are demeaning to women, because they personally don’t mind them. I cannot believe you tried to pull that here.
I wasn’t using “sleight of hand tricks” to shore my claim by using the word ‘people.’ That’s your bullshit projection. Don’t accuse me of being dishonest or underhanded.
And I’m not simmering, so I don’t need to “simmer down”. Nice tone-trolling.
I don’t have access to Twitter, so I can’t go check out the ratio of men to women, or if it’s 100% men complaining. Even if it were all men, who are people too last time I checked, that doesn’t lend any more credence to “‘female’ is degrading, patronizing and othering.”
Please stop attributing dishonest motives to me just because I think it’s ridiculous to be offended by the word female.
sigh. I didn’t say it was “sleight of hand tricks” – I said it was “verbal sleight of hand”. You seem to be really bad at quoting the exact wording. Use copy-paste.
It’s not my projection that you changed the wording.
Ok, you’re not simmering; then you were just rude to Maureen; is that better?
This is my blog, which I attempt to moderate in such a way that it won’t get unpleasant for all concerned.
I hope all that is clear.
theoreticalgrrrl:
You have a certain knack for twisting arguments. Nowhere did I (or anyone else, as far as I can see) say that the word “female” is offensive or degrading in and of itself. Many people, myself included, find its use as a noun when referring to women to be offensive and othering. Please stop distorting that point.
WRT BhasChat, Ophelia is exactly right: I said that it was men who flooded her TL with rage. A few women chimed in to disagree with her (well, two, at least, out of the hundreds of replies that I’ve seen so far, but I assume I could have missed some, so I’ll broaden that to “a few”), but it was men by the hundreds reacting with rage: calling her bitch/hoe/etc., demanding that she shut up, making crude comments about her appearance & “fuckability”, calling her a “fucking idiot” and so on. That’s not measured objection, that’s unfiltered misogyny that proves the original point.
@53 would that apply to ‘male’ too? Terms like ‘male privilege’, is that dehumanizing, turning men into inferior beasts? No, I’m not new, and I’ve had this argument before. I don’t believe in the inferiority of animals. Maybe if we didn’t degrade animals, we couldn’t degrade people by saying they are just animals. But that’s not even the point, female is a perfectly fine term for human (and other species of) mammals.
@54
“Some women have told us that no slurs are demeaning to women, because they personally don’t mind them. I cannot believe you tried to pull that here.”
That has NOTHING to do with what I’m saying! How dare you lump me into that group of women? Jesus Christ, I’m not trying to “pull” anything. I’m not saying ‘no slurs are demeaning to women,’ I’m saying female is not a slur, it’s a harmless word to describe someone’s sex. Fucking hell.
(Yeah, I used some exclamation points and all caps, deal with it.)
“but it was men by the hundreds reacting with rage: calling her bitch/hoe/etc., demanding that she shut up, making crude comments about her appearance & “fuckability”, calling her a “fucking idiot” and so on. That’s not measured objection, that’s unfiltered misogyny that proves the original point.”
If there were misogynist assholes complaining and verbally abusing her, that’s on them. They are idiots. But it doesn’t prove the original point that female is a slur.
“verbal sleight of hand”? Yes, that totally makes it better Ophelia. You are accusing me of being dishonest.
“Many people, myself included, find its use as a noun when referring to women to be offensive and othering.”
So then, I wasn’t “twisting” your words. I was spot on, Mr.FancyPants.
That phrases uses “male” as an adjective, so no, it’s not offensive. If you can’t understand this fundamental difference which is the basis of the entire debate, then I don’t know how else to try to enlighten you.
You don’t get to decide what other people find offensive.
If the shoe fits…
It is intellectually dishonest to leave out the sentence that preceeded that quote. As such, I am through engaging you.
Oh, fuck off Mr.FancyPants. It’s not a slur when used as an adjective or a noun.
You don’t get to decide what words women should be offended by.
But fine, be offended by words that accurately describe people, and translate from the Latin word , in noun form, for “woman.”
Knock yourselves out.
“If the shoe fits…”
FUCK YOU.
Fine Mr.FancyPants:
‘Nowhere did I (or anyone else, as far as I can see) say that the word “female” is offensive or degrading in and of itself. Many people, myself included, find its use as a noun when referring to women to be offensive and othering.”
It’s not a fucking slur when used as a noun either. But keep trying to paint me as some horrible, dishonest person.
It’s totally fine with you Ophelia, when people are being rude to me by calling me dishonest, with zingers like, “if the shoe fits”. But disagreeing with Maureen makes me a horrible rude person. Fine, I’m gone, I won’t sully your blog with my evil, lying presence. You don’t even have to ban me. I’ll leave willingly and gladly.
Well, then.
He liked anal?
Ophelia, so you deliberately delete my comments where I clarify that I said the word isn’t offensive as a noun either. Luckily part of my comment is still in MrFancyPants quote:
“Many people, myself included, find its use as a noun when referring to women to be offensive and othering.”
So then, I wasn’t “twisting” your words. I was spot on, Mr.FancyPants.
So not only no apology from you,
you think YOU are above questioning and you dishonestly, manipulate the comments to make it look like I didn’t clarify my position by DELETING my comments.
Pretty disgusting You are a complete hypocrite.
I really didn’t think you could sink that low. Complain all you like about the
Complain all you like about the Global Secular Council,
You aren’t any better.
#58 also has bits of my deleted comments.
Screenshot this in case you delete all comments that show your hypocrisy and dishonesty.
Jackie @ 52
Re: Matt
He also went to bat for JT Eberhard during the Bria Crutchfield fiasco last year. That was racism but it was the same kind of shit.
But yeah I’ve been over Matt since the whole A+ thing. I was modding there at the time and we ended up betraying the trust of a lot of the membership because we tried to give Matt Fucking Dillahunty the benefit of the doubt. He can fuck right off.
Seems like no comments got deleted. Probably Ophelia put your comments in moderation for later approval, Theoreticalgrrl.
You look like a fool now, oh well.
You’re still wrong: “female” used as a noun, outside of medical texts and the like, is othering and dehumanizing. It’s dehumanizing in a very literal way: “female” as a noun could refer to adult or juvenile animals of any phylum or kingdom. Whenever people refer to “females” as a noun, I always ask them: “Did you have a particular type of female in mind? Female ferns? Fish? Cows? Perhaps you’re talking about electrical sockets?”
That it doesn’t bother you doesn’t mean that it isn’t othering and dehumanizing.
No I did delete her last few comments from the post, but I hadn’t yet permanently deleted them, so I was able to restore them.
Ah yes. I see. Well, the thread makes about the same amount of sense with or without them.