Secular Woman creates travel grant program to Skepticon 5!

July 13, 2012 Jason ThibeaultBrandi Braschler, feminism, Kim Rippere, Secular Woman, skepticism, Skepticon, travel grants for women, women

This is wonderful news. From a press release I received from SecularWoman.org:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information, please contact:

Brandi Braschler, VP of Programs: 404.669.6727, [email protected]

Kim Rippere, President: 404.669.6727, [email protected]

Atlanta, Georgia – July 12, 2012- On the eve of its two-week birthday, Secular Woman announced its first major conference travel grant initiative, pledging to help send at least 10 women to Skepticon 5 in Springfield, Missouri this November. Kim Rippere, president of the new national organization serving non-religious women, said, “Skepticon is a natural partner for Secular Woman’s first disbursement of travel grants. We’ll be able to help more women atheists and skeptics experience a major secular event, thanks to Skepticon’s free registration and its track record of high attendance and engaging speakers.”

Continue reading “Secular Woman creates travel grant program to Skepticon 5!” →

{advertisement}

People say nice things about FtB, mean things about Paula Kirby’s vitriol

July 6, 2012December 10, 2015 Jason Thibeaultanti-harassment policies, atheism, bullying, Freethought Blogs, Godwin's Law, harassment, Paula Kirby, skepticism80 Comments

I’m sure you’ve seen all the sturm und drang over Freethought Blogs being a cesspool of bullying and thought-policing hive-mindery. Despite this, a few people outside the network have voiced their support of people inside the network, and are picking off the worst lines of argumentation that people are using to try claim that we’re dogmatic bullies who do not tolerate dissent. What catalyzed this show of support? Why no less than Paula Kirby calling us all Feminazis and Femistasi (Ophelia’s take on that nonsense).

And where the hell is Orac to shout down this particular Godwinning?

Anyway.

It’s really great to know that some fantastic writers are not letting this slide, even though they’re not personally the ones being targeted. Several of them below the fold.
Continue reading “People say nice things about FtB, mean things about Paula Kirby’s vitriol” →

On harassment policies protecting religion

July 1, 2012 Jason Thibeaultanti-harassment policies, atheism, bullying, conferences, harassment, skepticism58 Comments

They don’t.

Continue reading “On harassment policies protecting religion” →

Mission Creep

June 27, 2012 Jason Thibeaultanti-harassment policies, atheism, bigotry, community, feminism, harassment, humanism, humanitarianism, intersectionality, religion, skepticism42 Comments

One of the main complaints we’ve seen recently about our ongoing conversation with regard to sexism in the skeptical and atheist communities, is one about mission creep — that we’re a community defined by our common ground, e.g. atheism/skepticism, and we shouldn’t try to hash out other differences about other things.

I couldn’t agree less.
Continue reading “Mission Creep” →

Safe

June 19, 2012 Jason Thibeaultanti-harassment policies, atheism, community, feminism, harassment, language, privilege, rant, safe space, skepticism, whargarbl71 Comments

There’s yet another misapprehension about language in the present ongoing discussion about sexism and harassment in our respective communities lately. I say yet another because they seem to comprise vast majority of the most jarring moments in these conversations — when people don’t understand one word or another, and fight for days about whether this parsing or another is more correct.

The entirety of the “witch-hunt” trolling that the pro-harassment-policies folks have endured stems from some misapprehension that the informal “watch out for this guy” network that Jen brought up in the original incident meant that there was actually a written list and that we were planning on trying to make conventions blackball these folks based on “rumors and innuendo”.

The “Taliban” accusations with regard to “dress codes” could be attributable to a perfectly honest misunderstanding about whether or not the proposed sample policy from the Geek Feminism wiki meant by the so-called “no booth babes” clauses. Of course, one would have to be quite charitable to presume the specific people initiating that meme had an honest misunderstanding, since they’ve done so much for so long to fight against the idea of feminism intersecting the skeptical or atheist movements. But one could attribute the meme’s spread to legitimate misunderstandings from people who weren’t skeptical enough to check the source materials and took the words of those authoritative voices.

And then there’s “safe spaces”.

Even DJ Grothe got that one wrong. Which, frankly, surprises the living hell out of me.
Continue reading “Safe” →

The FtB Conversation about TAM: Transcript Pt. 1

June 18, 2012 Jason Thibeaultanti-harassment policies, bullying, deep rifts, DJ Grothe, Freethought Blogs, harassment, hive mind, secularism, skepticism, TAM37 Comments

Here’s the first half hour of the transcript for the big FtB Conversation from yesterday, done once again by the indefatiguable Kate Donovan. She’s the poor soul who did the transcript for the “PenisGate Debate”, who volunteered for this as I guess a sort of palate-cleanser.

If you’re just joining in, read these two posts first:

In Medias Res: how to find the plot if you’re just tuning in
The harassment policy campaign timeline

Transcript below the fold. Part two as soon as she’s done.
Continue reading “The FtB Conversation about TAM: Transcript Pt. 1” →

Harassment policies campaign – timeline of major events

June 15, 2012December 10, 2015 Jason Thibeaultanti-harassment policies, atheism, blogosphere, community, conventions, feminism, harassment, privilege, secularism, skepticism, social justice138 Comments

This is a chronological timeline of major events in the campaign to get major secular and skeptical events to enact harassment policies, to protect convention-goers from needless harassment and encourage women who might otherwise avoid what they perceive as a gender-imbalanced chilly climate to join the community. It is presently a work-in-progress, and a living document. It could be edited at any time.

I’m beginning from an excellent blog comment by Pteryxx that tries to organize this timeline more contextually rather than purely chronologically, and pulls out blockquotes. I’m rearranging everything and summarizing the contents of the links. Please let me know if I’ve misinterpreted the contents or missed any notable events. This is meant to be a companion piece to the 101-level post In Media Res, where I opened the comments to general questions about this campaign. Please direct those questions there.
Continue reading “Harassment policies campaign – timeline of major events” →

In Medias Res: how to find the plot if you’re just tuning in

June 14, 2012 Jason Thibeault101, anti-harassment policies, atheism, community, conventions, deep rifts, feminism, harassment, intersectionality, skepticism46 Comments

Have you noticed that the people who tend to engender the most by-volume outrage about the feminist topics that have intersected with our skeptical and atheist communities lately aren’t actually the outright trolls or blatantly bigoted jerks? Okay, they get some ire, but are usually silenced in due course, and the rest of my statement is probably true of a lot of arguments. So I’m going to try to make this general, mostly, as a resource for future conversations, but include specific advice for this specific argument in the process.

The people who really seem to create the longest-term whargarbl — the peak burn for internet conflict — are almost always the folks who think they’re reasonable and just want to know what all the fuss is about, and make snap judgments about or unreasonable demands of the folks trying to drive the discussion — demands like “Explain everything that’s happened to lead up to this point in the conversation. And you both should calm down because both sides are being mean. Also, all those weird words that you’ve used up there, they mean something different in my mind and so you’re probably wrong unless you explain right now. ANNNNND GO.”

These people can very often be extremely well-placed in the community, and have a lot of fans and cause a lot of blowback and DEEEEEEP RIIIIIIFTS. The higher up the food chain a supporter or detractor is, the more likely they carry with them any number of adjuncts who will complain bitterly that they’re being “forced to choose sides” or otherwise buy into the slurs and mischaracterizations that their heroes proclaim. When someone near the top jumps in without doing the background research, the splash damage can be absolutely enormous.

Continue reading “In Medias Res: how to find the plot if you’re just tuning in” →

You Must Always Be Nice: why I’m not being nice to DJ Grothe

June 8, 2012 Jason Thibeaultasshats, community, introspection, privilege, skepticism, slurs, splash damage30 Comments

Women supporting harassment are told they're just recounting "locker room tales" and "sexual exploits"... BUT SOME GUY CALLED ME A DOUCHEBAG SO BOTH SIDES ARE EQUALLY BAD.

If I’ve learned anything over the last week, it’s that there are two opposing factions that slaver at the bit to attack us feminists for different kinds of slip-ups — or perceived slip-ups, rather. There’s the “free speech” crowd who think that freethought means you should be free to use whatever racial, sexual or other slurs you want while making your arguments, who will scream and yell and build controversy over your banning them as disingenuous asses. There is, at the same time, another faction who will taunt and misconstrue and manufacture controversy over any perceived instance of being “mean”.

People like me — people who both condemn folks for using sexist slurs repeatedly and with impunity, but at the same time are willing to call people names when I get emotional — are stuck in the middle of both groups. I look like a tasty target to both sets of people because I appear to be a hypocrite. And surely I am! I mean, how could I possibly advocate not using certain insulting words when I’m willing to use other insulting words?

It’s rather easy to sort this out, of course. Though it does take a bit of intellectual honesty. And probably more patience and empathy than a certain class of reader has to hir credit.
Continue reading “You Must Always Be Nice: why I’m not being nice to DJ Grothe” →

The GrotheBot 5000 meme

June 4, 2012 Jason Thibeaultcommunity, DJ Grothe, generator, GrotheBot5000, memes, skepticism130 Comments

So one of our commenters who shall not be named unless xe comes forward used memegenerator.net to create a meme generator to parody DJ Grothe’s latest bout of intractability.

It’s crude, it’s crass, it’s even gross mischaracterization in many cases, and I’m willing to admit that I’ve participated in creating at least one. I’m honestly hoping it’s enough of a slap in the face to wake DJ the hell up to the fact that he’s running around being a douchebag to those women who are identifying the problem and working to solve it, instead of actually fixing the problems people are having with harassment.

He can start by listening to the recommendations of the community and implementing a strong harassment policy that covers this year and all future years. Because there’s a lot of questions floating about regarding his, and JREF’s, willingness to do either. The fact that they haven’t yet is telling.

Update: Before you get all up in arms about “douchebag”, read this.

Lousy Canuck

… Because I don't watch enough hockey, drink enough beer, or eat enough bacon.

skepticism