Jen’s Note: I posted Sharon and Lyz’s original article not only because I personally trust them as individuals, but because they are professional atheist organizers with tons of experience in dealing with groups and inclusivity. After watching the video from the panel and hearing the audio of Sean’s talk, I find no evidence that they purposefully misrepresented content. I do, however, feel that there was a bit of communication failure between most of the parties involved, which is why I wanted to post their clarification here.
The following is a guest post by Lyz Liddell and Sharon Moss. These are the views of individuals and do not represent the views of the Secular Student Alliance or the Humanist Community of Central Ohio.
Hoo. Boy.
Well, when we first wrote the article “When Gender Goes Pear-Shaped,” we hoped it would get at least a little attention. But we weren’t expecting the crazy amount of attention, comments, and – unfortunately – misunderstandings that came out of it.
So we wanted to clear up a few things about our intentions and our goals in writing the article.
Our intention in writing this article was to shed light on an issue our entire movement struggles with. With the number of blogs, panels, questions, and articles out there discussing how to make our movement more welcoming to women, we clearly have some serious room for improvement. The good news is that it seems basically everyone in our movement is on board with the idea of welcoming women. The trickier issue is dealing with those unconscious behaviors that can still make women feel uncomfortable – even though they are not intended to do so. It’s a conversation that we need to have and keep having. That’s what we – organizers with years of experience working with grassroots groups – were trying to address in our post.
We did NOT mean to make it sound as though any one person, organization, event or organizer was at fault or the focus of this article. Here’s where our intentions were blocked by our inexperience in blogging – despite our best intentions, it did come across as though we were attacking the SERAM, American Atheists, the organizers, Sean Faircloth, and others. That was *never* our intent, and we want to apologize for not making that clear. We still think that the SERAM was a great event – in fact, we want to see more events like it! (Sold out, 200 attendees from all over, over a third women and almost half at their first event – awesome!) Likewise, American Atheists not only has a history and continuing practice of women in leadership positions, it is doing great work to improve our movement’s diversity (have doubts? check out the speaker lineup for their national convention!), focusing on its niche as an activist organization, and providing support for local groups. While the issue we’re discussing affects the entire freethought movement, we don’t want anyone to come away thinking of AA, SERAM or Sean Faircloth as the bad guys.
There have been some accusations that we misrepresented what happened at the Sunday morning panel (read: that we were lying). The video of the talk was posted here. We encourage people to watch that video. It demonstrates both that the panel wasn’t a terrible sexist monster, but also clearly shows the parts of the panel that concerned us – most notably, the handling of the audience member’s question and its aftermath. We realize that our article made it sound like Sharon was the only person to follow the young woman – she wasn’t the only one, but she was the first (and she couldn’t very well see that others behind her also moved to help). The point we wanted to make was that she wasn’t an event organizer but still wanted to help; not that the event organizers didn’t help or didn’t want to. (Unfortunately, the video of Sean Faircloth’s talk is not up yet, but the SERAM organizers are planning to make it available soon.)
There also seems to be some confusion about our views on the Million Dollar Challenge (MDC) and the “female” v. “woman” language question. None of us were arguing against the point the MDC illustrates; it’s perfectly true that in our society, women tend to be the gatekeepers of sexual activity. Our concerns were with the manner in which it was presented: encouraging the men in the room to look around at the women in the room and identify specific women they were sexually attracted to, then proceeding with the hypothetical challenge. Likewise, neither of us have a problem with the use of either “female” or “woman” when discussing gender issues. Our concern was with the way the woman asking the question was treated at the event. We are trying to make the point that if you’re making fellow supporters of our movement that uncomfortable, then you’re doing something wrong.
One last misunderstanding has come to our attention. There were several instances where we alluded to problems in the general movement that were taken as though they had happened at the SERAM. We didn’t mean to imply that the audience at the SERAM was continuously staring at our chests; that didn’t happen at this event. BUT, there have been numerous other events where it has happened and continues to happen, and we wanted to raise the issue. We also didn’t intend to imply that there were instances of racism or anti-parentism at the SERAM. In our years of leading freethought groups, we have seen both of these behaviors at other events at different times, and mentioned them since they tie into the issue of making our movement more comfortable to newcomers. Again, our blogging inexperience interfered with the points we were trying to make.
You might be asking why we chose to focus on the SERAM so specifically if it wasn’t itself the problem. Well, we chose to focus on these instances, at this event, for two reasons. First, they were recent and relevant – they were specific examples of specific behaviors that we have observed, time after time, that can and often do make women uncomfortable. Second, because we had to focus on something. If we had just posted an article about how “sometimes there’s some stuff that makes women feel uncomfortable in our movement,” our post would have been ignored, or readers would have demanded to see the evidence. So we provided recent, relevant, specific examples that illustrated our main point: that we should work to make women in our movement feel more comfortable. If nothing else, we have succeeded in making enough noise that lots of people are talking about the issue – and that is our goal.
There will be no apology for making it clear that women often feel uncomfortable in our movement. If you are a woman in this movement and you find yourself comfortable, that’s great! But just because you are comfortable doesn’t mean that everyone is – and since our movement is growing SO rapidly, we need to pay attention to those who might not be as outgoing or outspoken – whether they be women, people of any age, less-educated people, racial minorities, LGBTQs, etc. These people are on our side, and we should make our movement a safe landing place for them.
For all the bad feelings that have come up out of this article, we want to emphasize that there has been some very constructive communication to go along with it. In particular, we have had great conversations with the SERAM event coordinators Scott Savage and Christie Swords; David Silverman of American Atheists; and Sean Faircloth at the Secular Coalition for America. Furthermore, we have received several messages from local group leaders telling us how glad they were that the issue was raised, or that they’re planning to use our tips for improvement with their own groups. (Those tips are toward the bottom of the original article, if you only read the first part, the comments, a summary, etc.) We have also been thanked by lots of women (and men, too) who have felt uncomfortable in our movement but were too afraid to raise their voices.
It’s been a rough ride. We’re doing the best we can to make our movement a bigger, better, stronger one. We hope you’ll forgive us our miscommunication and keep working with us to build a world where freethinkers of all types and kinds can flourish!
This makes sense to me, and I agree with the general points here, with no reference to specific instances – if someone has a problem, listen to them; encouraging people to look around and assess sexual attractiveness is going to make people feel uncomfortable; a lot of these behaviours are subconscious or a result of failing to realise or notice the potential problem, rather than active intention.Regarding the Million Dollar Challenge, we still haven’t seen a video of the event, but I think I said in an earlier thread – the challenge itself is fine (although I can see how problematic corollaries could be drawn from it), but the alleged inclusion of “encouraging the men in the room to look around at the women in the room and identify specific women they were sexually attracted to”, nor does it seem necessary or even helpful (to me) as regards the described general content and point of the challenge. If visual aids are really necessary, or advantageous, they can be achieved without reference to women who are there, or even personally known to anyone present.
I think one thing that can be drawn from this is that it is VERY important to have a level head and try hard to communicate properly when writing things that can potentially be inflammatory from either side. I’m going to try to put things as delicately as I can, but to me this follow up post felt like a lot of backpeddling. The reason I say this is because the initial post read to me very much like Sharon and Lyz were writing in such a way as to emphasize issues by conveniently ignoring important details.Specific aspects that bothered me were the misleading notes about who did or did not go to comfort the woman bothered by the woman/female distinction and leaving half of the MDC off of the explanation. Regardless of intent, by not being fully honest about the context it makes it seem like they were being intentionally deceptive. Sure, Sharon might not have seen anyone get up to comfort the woman if she was the first person to get up and follow her, but she certainly would have noticed that they followed behind her at some point.The major problem here is everything being apologized for in this followup is exactly because the way it was written called all the events into question.TLDR; Yes, I believe this is a very serious issue in the atheist community, but not being completely honest about the context of events seriously hurts the cause. There are enough good examples of sexism that we don’t need to misrepresent things to point out problems.
“Our intention in writing this article was to shed light on an issue our entire movement struggles with.” – I’m part of the movement and I don’t struggle with this. Let’s avoid insulting men who act responsibly and treat women with respect. A systemic problem has been created; when in reality, specific instances have colored our lens. The plural of anecdote is not data, and in this situation, what we have here is a number of individual events which have been stretched and distorted in order to disparage men as a whole.
I guess the upside of being double-disappointed when atheists and free thinkers act terribly, is the fact that positive dialog often results from those failures.
I find it very unlikely that you (or I, or anyone really) never act on subconscious sexism.
Given their clarification that they did not intend to be misleading, is it worth considering that they were not completely clear, rather than not completely honest
I find it likely that I don’t, but I appreciate your arrogance and presumptuousness. I don’t know you, but what I do know is that we are swiftly moving in a direction where if you are a white male, you will be put through a McCarthyesque test in which you must swear to embrace all diversity as a means to seperate you from the “bad white guys”. This is its own type of sexism and discrimination. If men are labeled as all having some innate sexism, then they’ll need to constantly be apologizing for a personal attribute that has been assigned to them externally. I won’t apologize for someone’s mis-characterization of me and my thoughts.
As far as apologies go, this is pretty lame.
True, clear might have been a better word. I suspect my view is colored by my bafflement that “She got upset (and who wouldn’t be?) and left the room. I – a member of the audience, not one of the event organizers – went after her.” could be taken to mean anything other than “I was the only one that went to look after her” when the writer very distinctly knew that she wasn’t the only one that went after her. I will allow that she might not have known whether or not anyone else was an event organizer, but all this has been said elsewhere. I guess people either believe it or not.
Where did anyone say only men are part of the problem? Many of the problematic responses to this issue came from women, too.Just because you don’t personally see the problem doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Really? When I read it originally, I saw “I, (who was a member of the audience; I am not one of the organizers), went after her.”If she had written “I – a member of the audience, not A SINGLE ONE of the event organizers – went after her” then it would definitely be talking about the quantity of people who went in. Instead, it came across to me as a description and reminder of who she is.But recognizing that it could be taken in different ways, part of this post made an effort to clarify her intent. Seems reasonable.
What I’m saying is that everyone, black, white, male, female, whatever, has some degree of subconscious sexism from socialised assumptions – the same is true of racism and myriad other prejudices. The only way to deal with these things is to admit this – or at least the possibility of it (after all, I will admit that it’s theoretically possible that someone has conquered socialisation completely, just very unlikely) – and confront it. It’s a battle that may never be won, certainly not in our generation, but should definitely be fought.I don’t say that all men must apologise for sexism, but I do say that every man, and every person, should be aware of their own capacity for prejudice. It comes from not having the same experiences as those of the group in question, from societal assumptions socialised into us, and probably plenty of other sources.that I haven’t thought of.
Come now, Jen. Men are clearly implicated here. It’s about the clearest message that could possibly be gleaned from this. The rhetoric in the movement is always against the “white male”. There are much bigger problems in the atheist movement than diversity. What needs to be addressed is our complete lack of political influence. And now the one thing we’re supposed to take on faith is that there is a systemic lack of gender equity in the movement! Come on now. Just replace the word “problem” with “God”, and see how flawed that statement is.
Well, if “a member of the audience, not one of the event organisers” is taken as a whole to modify “I”, rather than as one part modifying “I” and one part as a separate bit of sentence, it can be saying nothing about any other person who went after her. Ambiguous, I’d say.
Yeah, that’s what I was just trying to say – you said it better.
Sorry, I can’t help but read that as “until we have political influence, who cares if we inadvertently cause women discomfort all over the place”… political influence may be a problem, but it’s not the only one, and more than one problem can be confronted at once.
If we address issues like this, the lack of political influence part will take care of itself.
“I’m part of the movement and I don’t struggle with this.”It seems to me, given the significant amount of people who by their own admission struggle with this, that either you do struggle with this or you are not part of the movement.
What, you wanted “mea maxima culpa!” and an admission that they were making stuff up or something? Admitting a lack of clarity and trying to clarify it seems appropriate.
I can parse it that way reading it a few more times. It just seems odd to remind people of not being an event organizer and then failing to mention anyone else going let alone the event organizer that did. But that gets back to what I was saying in my initial post that clarity of context (not honesty, thank you Sam) is important in situations like this. Something I don’t even get right sometimes :P
Recognizing issues we have with diversity will only make our movement stronger. I highly recommend you watch Greta Christina’s talk on what the atheist movement can learn from the GLBT movement – it’s wonderful and explains the situation much more eloquently that I can:
I repeatedly give ample evidence here on this blog that the atheist and skeptical movement both have a bit of a diversity issue. It’s not my problem if you systematically ignore all of that evidence, or somehow conclude that saying “Hey, I felt uncomfortable” is the same as saying “IT’S ALL MEN’S FAULT!!!”
“Men are clearly implicated here.”As are women.”The rhetoric in the movement is always against the “white male”.”No.”What needs to be addressed is our complete lack of political influence. “Yes. Also, everything else that is relevant. Don’t try to act like a catholic, please.
As a white male myself, I don’t feel like bringing women and minorities to my level socially is in any way an attack against me or other white males. If this feels like they are against you, then you perhaps should consider the position of privilege you are given by society for being a white male. If we want to think of the atheist movement as more enlightened than society as a whole, then it is in everyone’s best interests to make sure that everyone is given an equal standing in our ranks. Bringing women/minorities to the level of us white males doesn’t bring us down, it lifts everyone else up.
“Ron, you’re acting like a dick, you’re hurting my feelings!””What? How?””That! And that!””But what’s wrong with all that??””Well… maybe nothing… but it doesn’t change the general point! Some men act like dicks sometimes, and women’s feelings get hurt! We must raise the awareness of this! Wait, why are you getting so defensive now? What’s with all the negativity? I was just talking about my feelings! Is that wrong? Stop blaming the victim! Start reacting positively to criticism!”Ahem.“We are trying to make the point that if you’re making fellow supporters of our movement that uncomfortable, then you’re doing something wrong.”See, that’s exactly your problem. This is a fallacy! It implies that the person who felt uncomfortable is always right, and the one who made him uncomfortable is always wrong — and we can’t even begin to argue with this because that would be “blaming the victim”… That’s bullshit! And this bullshit was very well illustrated by your very example at SERAM: A woman asked a question. Three panelists calmly and politely disagreed with her (as did all the rest of the room, judging by the reactions). Apparently, this was too much for her to handle… Now, was there someone who acted wrongly in this situation? Hell, yes! THAT WOMAN, AND THAT WOMAN ALONE. Is that blaming the victim? Only if you call a “victim” someone who gets her feelings hurt as a result of people politely disagreeing with her (bullshit) claim. And you know what — in the atheist circles, we don’t usually call such people “victims”…And boy, don’t even get me started on the million dollar challenge…
Lame? This wasn’t an apology at all! Frankly, I didn’t even expect one from them… But I did expect it from Jen. Disapponting.
I’ll agree that the quoted bit doesn’t logically hold up. Perhaps “if you’re making fellow supporters of our movement that uncomfortable, then you should consider that it’s possible that you’re doing something wrong without realising it”. Or, “if you’re making fellow supporters of our movement that uncomfortable, and you don’t care that they’re uncomfortable, you’re doing something wrong”, although “doing something” is perhaps not the right phrase then.
True, it is more like horseshit than an apology. I was being charitable.
Did we watch the same video? The panelists were completely unprofessional, rude, and laughed at and humiliated someone who was brave enough to voice her concern in a room full of people that may not totally understand her. And her claim was certainly not bullshit – it’s actually a topic discussed since the 80s.Writing of her concerns in such an assholish way is precisely the problem.
“Three panelists calmly and politely disagreed with her”A sarcastic, rethoric question with a term loaded with historical demeaning connotations in it is not a calm and polite answer.- Blacks this, blacks that…- Dude, what’s with ‘blacks’ all the time?- What do you want me to call you guys? Niggers?- (*everyone else*) LOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Very polite indeed. No, wait. Actually the attitude was dismissive and self-righteous. Apparently, acting with self-righteous arrogance is okay if you think you’re right.
And here’s the “but what about the menz!!1!” post I was waiting for, right on time.
I think the attitude is that it’s okay to be self-righteous and arrogant if prevailing opinion says you’re right…
“Apparently, acting with self-righteous arrogance is okay if you think you’re right.”You mean like Jen has been doing?
If you’re so sure that you’re completely free of prejudice, I recommend taking one of the race- or gender-related versions of the Implicit Association Test:https://implicit.harvard.edu/i…and see how you fare.
“There are much bigger problems in the atheist movement than diversity. What needs to be addressed is our complete lack of political influence. “Perhaps one way to increase our political influence is to make a larger number of people feel comfortable about joining us.
“Apparently, this was too much for her to handle… Now, was there someone who acted wrongly in this situation? Hell, yes! THAT WOMAN, AND THAT WOMAN ALONE.”I’m sorry, just to clarify…. the woman who stood up and made a suggestion about terminology that was bothering her acted “wrongly” for suggesting that the terminology bothered her?I’m not speaking to the terminology itself right now… I’m speaking to the fact that you seem to think that someone speaking up because something bothered them is ACTING wrongly if the majority of other people in the room don’t agree with them… (by that strange logic someone standing up and voicing a protest to prayer before of a government meeting could be considered to be acting wrongly if most of the people present don’t agree, or Rosa Parks was in the wrong for peacefully refusing to go the the back of the bus). You don’t seem to show as much interest in any possible validity or invalidity of her claim so much as the fact that she spoke out…You call her claim bullshit in paranthesis… but spend the majority of your post to denounce the action of standing up and speaking it and choosing not to stay for the rest of a panel… so exersicing her right to a voice and her own choice to not remain in a situation that was making her uncomfortable was acting wrongly? It’s not like she threw a tantrum or started calling people names, or told everyone that they were always wrong or that they were imagining things, or being petty… she didn’t insult anyone, she didn’t try to silence them, she didn’t even make a claim that is particularly far-reaching and controversial… and yet you are vilifying her for actually stating how she felt out loud… that’s it that’s all she did…I don’t care what it is that someone has claimed as something that offends them, they have a right to voice it and/or leave rather than sit through more of it. Somebody denouncing them for making those choices seems to me to be acting a little bit petulantly…If you are reacting instead to things being overblown, that is up for debate etc… but vilifying the woman for speaking her mind and choosing not to remain… come on…
Oh, I thought we were talking about privileged people being inadvertently harmful to a cause they think they are for, that is, equality in the atheist movement.But we can talk about Jen if you want, althought I’m not really interested in Jen. I understand if you are.
What do they have to apologize about? “I’m sorry you assumed us pointing out a problem was meant as an attack on you?”
I just wanted to say that as a bearded white male I absolutely agree with Jen, Lyz Liddell and Sharon Moss. There is an absolute lack of diversity in the atheist movement as a whole (not necessarily at every local meeting) and it is something that we should address, discuss and hopefully remedy.
I am also baffled by this. The full quote was: I – a member of the audience, not one of the event organizers – went after her. While there were a few odd calls from the audience for the panelist to apologize, the moderator sort of awkwardly pushed the discussion on to a new topic, with an embarrassed air of “Sorry for the disturbance.” No apology, no discussing a better way it could have been handled. Not even a joking “This is how *not* to be welcoming” comment. Just “nothing to see here, move along.””Nothing to see here, moving along” != “And they sent an organizer to check that the woman was all right.”
After reading this defense of the original article, I’m a little disappointed that Jen did not indicate the lessons that I hope she’s learned from all of this; that being of course that she (or guest posters) will refrain from using such over-the-top inflammatory and aggressive language in the future. The original (unedited) blog post could only possibly be described as an attack upon the character of Sean Faircloth (the attack on him has been “temporarily” removed, but I doubt we’ll be seeing it again) as well as an assault upon the credibility of American Atheists. The authors had no problems describing an event where AA representative informed the women in the audience to tolerate being treated as “sex objects” and if the didn’t like it they should “STFU”. Fortunately a review of the video (as well as testimonials from numerous men and women who had also been in attendance) indicated that what was actually said was almost the exact opposite of what had been depicted by Sharron and Lzy. In reality, the male dominated communities were instructed to aim to do a better job of making women feel as comfortable as possible and one panel member had a piece of advice for men dealing with women in their free-thought communities: “don’t be a dick”. I will agree that the “joke” about referring to women as “the weaker sex” was IMHO neither funny nor in good taste, but that’s the sum of what I found accurate about Sharron and Lzy’s depiction of the event. Now, having said all of this, I actually agree that more needs to be done to make females…um women feel more included and comfortable in the typically male dominate world of atheism. Ultimately, my only point in writing this is that is to encourage Jen to not put this behind her without first having learned a thing or two…perhaps in the future, tone down the harsh rhetoric and get both sides of the story before clicking “post”.
There is another thing I find annoying about the response. She said the word used conveys connotations of animals, that it’s like they were talking about animals, not people. And they respond Animals? Of course, I am one. We are animals!Which is true, but it is also dishonest and equivocating, because even belonging to the kingdom Animalia, we don’t talk about the rest of that kingdom’s species the same way we talk about ourselves. A few examples: when the BBC announces a new documentary about “the animal world” everybody knows what the title means. When we talk about animal rights, they’re not the same as human rights. There is a biological nexus between us and the rest of life, but there is a social categorizing distinction between us and the rest of life that shapes our language, which is the reason why the vernacular definition is often different from the scientific definition (another example of this is ‘significant’ in the context of statistics). Talking about people the same way we talk about animals is not perfectly usual and normal, and it’s dishonest to pretend like it were.Now, let’s say all the above is completely wrong and can be dismissed. Doesn’t matter. The response is still dishonest and equivocating. When you hear her saying she feels like they’re talking about animals, if you have a brain that works you inmediately know what she means. She means treating women like a dog, like cattle, like, you know, animals-in the vernacular sense. She even says “because we’re humans, so…”, stating explicitly that distinction. They then consciously override the actual meaning of her message with the literal, biological definition of the word, and then they answer to their own re-definition.
This ‘clarification’ feels less-than honest. Some language from the original post: But did the panel address the question, perhaps looking for the point at which the discussion took on the word “female” so universally? Did they take the opportunity to discuss how things like language can make a group uncomfortable for women, and what we could do to make it better? No! The woman asking the question was viciously torn apart and ridiculed for even bringing it up.And now: It demonstrates both that the panel wasn’t a terrible sexist monster,A panel that leaves a woman ‘viscously torn apart and ridiculed’ for expressing herself is being sexist and monstrous and terrible. Who could possibly hold otherwise?If the panel was as described, then it seems pretty bad to say that no one is at fault. We definitely have some specific people to blame. And stepping back from that just abandons a victim.If the panel wasn’t as described, then a retraction is needed, not a clarification.
I suggest that you demonstrate that such a test actually measures what the makers claim it measures before you tell people to take it.
We might be humans, but that’s irrelevant. We treat the other animal species in the way we do because we have a priviliged position of power over them, not because we are fundamentally different than them.
And just because you personally see a problem doesn’t mean that it exists either.
An apology is not owed to us the Blaghag reader, but certainly Sean and AA are owed a sincere and clear apology. Of course Jen is in a difficult spot here, as the authors of the original post are personal friends of hers. Apologize and she ends up damaging a friendship that she probably values more than our readership.
Agreed. I’ve alwasy held that if you never make anyone feel uncomfortable or offended, then you’re probably doing something wrong.
“We are trying to make the point that if you’re making fellow supporters of our movement that uncomfortable, then you’re doing something wrong.”So an atheist who is anti-porn shouldn’t be made to feel uncomfortable? Why Jen, you’re clearly doing something wrong. How about an atheist who thinks that there’s such a thing as “dude science” and that men shouldn’t be allowed to study female sexuality? Wow Jen. You’re _really_ doing things wrong now.
First, I really want to thank Sharon, Lyz, and Jen for starting this conversation, because as angry as it seems to make so many people, it has, at least, gotten them to think about it, and maybe – JUST MAYBE (although I’m not holding my breath) – when it comes time to deal with a situation involving women or any other underrepresented group, either in the atheist movement or life in general, people might have had some subconscious part of their mind changed for the better. [End superlong run-on sentence.]A good portion of the voices I hear commenting on this issue, both here and at The Friendly Atheist, seem to be men, esp. white men, who are completely unaware of their privilege as such. Of course they don’t see anything wrong with the events of that night! Many of these commenters have no idea what it’s like to be dismissed so abruptly just because you’re expressing your feelings and those go against the group – I would have loved to have seen what would have happened had this been a man at the microphone. Would he have gotten more respect or consideration? While I certainly can’t be sure of anything, history has dictated time and again that men’s opinions in society mean a hell of a lot more than women’s do. Which is why it’s SO FUKKING IMPORTANT to have feminism. If we hadn’t fought for the right to be heard – whether in voting or in the right not to be raped – and if we don’t continue to fight for it, we’re not going to get anywhere. Because those in power rarely give up said power easily, whether they acknowledge that or not. I admire the woman who stood up and expressed her distaste for the word “female” – whether or not I agree with her opinion, she had one and she shared it and she got treated like crap for it, and that was wrong. But she still stood up, and that takes guts. Kudos to her. Another thing I’ve learned from this debacle is that, for as progressive as we try to be as a movement, we’re sure closed-minded. The comments sections of blog posts have been extremely hostile, and certainly not as conducive to open discussion, of which we profess to be proponents. ComradePhysioProf had a great blog entry back in December about this sort of thing – http://bit.ly/egt3BB. As he said, “All one needs to say–rather than getting defensive–is “Gee, I hadn’t seen it that way, but I will definitely think about it now that you point it out”.” Even if you disagree with the point a person’s trying to make, even if you think they’re full of shite, it doesn’t take a lot to take a moment to think about it. Worst thing you’ve done is spent a moment. TL;DR. Thanks, ladies, for starting the discussion!
Since there isn’t a “dislike” button…Dislike.
What is with the people tut-tutting at Jen for the apparently massive imperfection of allowing trusted friends to write a guest post on a topic of importance to her and them? That post was, unfortunately, unclear, and it inadvertently put undue emphasis on one event, simply because that event was recent and they could use it to point out specific examples rather than speaking in generalities. But there is some seriously unreasonable nastiness spewing forth in response! And this concern-trolling variety is almost worse, with the “Dear me, dear me, I’m just so terribly disappointed in Jen. It wounds me, here in my squishy heart-place!”Seriously, is the Epic Condescension really necessary?
Seriously. It’s really difficult to offend me over gender-related terminology, and I find things like the spelling “womyn” incredibly irritating and pointless. After all the hubbub around the original guest post, I was ready to assume that the video would demonstrate that the terminology thing was, in the end, a ridiculous over-reaction.That is the expectation that I went into the video with. That the “female” thing would seem perfectly reasonable in context and that the reaction was likely disproportionate.That is….not what happened in the video. I listened very, very carefully. I didn’t count specifically, but MANY times, “female(s)” was used in conjunction with “guy(s)” or “man/men,” NOT just in conjunction with “male(s).” Furthermore, in my estimation, the term “girl” was used more often than “woman,” though less often than “female.” This is potentially significant, given that “girl” implies youth, or frivolity. “Guy(s),” which is more age-neutral, and “man/men” were, I believe, used far more frequently than “male(s).”Yes, humans are animals. Yes, it is correct to refer to a woman as a female, or a man as a male. But when applied to human women, there is a distinct and documented history of the word “female” being used in a demeaning way – and when the non-human-specific gendered terms of “female” and “male” are being applied in a disproportionate way, it becomes significantly. Men were NOT referred to as “males” nearly as often as women were referred to as “females.”Furthermore, seriously – the way those panelists handled that woman’s concern was downright embarrassing. Even if it was a completely baseless concern, and they saw ZERO justification for her point, they still should have dealt with it like responsible adults, without making tasteless jokes and completely failing to deal with the actually substance of her concern.
It’s little wonder religion is so pervasive in this world when, on an atheist blog, at least 4 people thought this was a good argument.
“Oh, I thought we were talking about privileged people being inadvertently harmful to a cause they think they are for, that is, equality in the atheist movement.”Oh, so we’re both talking about Jen.
Methinks she values her pride above all.
I just took it. It seems designed to give the results that they want.
I have to side with Bayesian here. I understand that communicating over blogs and through print can be disjointed sometimes. When you read something back to yourself later sometimes you think ‘I didn’t want it to come across that way at all’. I really am sympathetic to this. However, I think that this ‘clarification’ is the equivalent of political spin. You sound like politicians going ‘well, you may have heard me say this, but what I really meant was this’, when they really just don’t want to own their words or be held accountable.
if you’re making fellow supporters of our movement that uncomfortable, then you’re doing something wrongI also don’t agree with this, for the reason Ola Rozenfeld stated:‘This is a fallacy! It implies that the person who felt uncomfortable is always right, and the one who made him uncomfortable is always wrong — and we can’t even begin to argue with this because that would be “blaming the victim”…’ I’m really sick of this ‘the offended person is always right’ culture. If you spend any time with the public you soon realise that people can be offended over the most stupid things – just because they are upset it doesn’t validate the logic or value of their point.
“Second, because we had to focus on something. If we had just posted an article about how “sometimes there’s some stuff that makes women feel uncomfortable in our movement,” our post would have been ignored, or readers would have demanded to see the evidence.”I’m wagering that this really means that they needed a good story to hook in their readers, so they exaggerated, misrepresented, twisted and invented the facts so they would have a shocking story demonstrating the horrid sexism that permeates the atheist community.In the process, they went about willy-nilly slandering a lot of good people.And, after they received a shitload of flack from the people they harmed, as well as those of us who care about honesty and decency, they post this joke of a clarification, which is filled with obstructifications, backpedaling, and more outright lies.Pathetic.
So are you saying we need more beards, or more clean-shaven people? And what about muttonchops? I haven’t seen a decent muttonchopped atheist since Isaac Asimov passed away.
Especially strange is that last sentence you quoted: “or readers would have demanded to see the evidence.”…and somehow this is a bad thing?
It’s a bad thing if the evidence is invented.[Edit – I misread your comment, I’m afraid. I thought you were asking if them giving their evidence was a bad thing. Considering how this whole affair started by some people writing before thinking clearly, I should have been more careful.BTW- good point.]
Admitting a lack of clarity when they actually made stuff up is not appropriate.
What, exactly, did they make up? Everything detailed so far has been explained reasonably, in my opinion, as difference of opinion/interpretation or as a lack of clarity (such as the accidental implication that no-one else followed the offended woman out of the room).Furthermore, do you have a problem with the attempts to focus on the more general issues? Setting aside the specific case serving as cue for debate, do you object to the suggestion that there are gender-related problems in the atheist movement?
True. Since we treat other animal species in the way we do, it’s not an honest answer saying that they’re referring to women with the same term they use to refer to animals because humans are animals.
I think they suffer from some of the same lack of clarity in the clarification as in the original post, which is unfortunate; for instance, “the panel wasn’t a terrible sexist monster” might be excusing the events as descried in your first quote, and disavowing it, or it might be trying to clarify that the original terminology issue was presumably inadvertent, and that it’s possible the poor reaction wasn’t a result of active sexism, but general poor handling of such situations. I do not suggest either is the case – I just mean to illustrate the ambiguity.
As for the question of gender related issues in the atheist movement, I do not know. Most of my information on that issue has come from this blog, which I no longer consider credible. It is certainly possible, but I need more data before I can form an opinion.As to what they made up, exaggerated and twisted, check here:http://johannthecabbie.blogspo…
You know, I think it might be a healthier option just to leave you chew that little obsession of yours about this particular person. It’s getting a little…weird.
Firstly, as to inaccurate words, they didn’t have the video when it was written, so it’s not surprising there are some paraphrased elements.Secondly, at least two people I’ve more reason to trust have said that there was no substantial difference (what is substantial is perhaps open to interpretation) after watching the video; I haen’t had time as yet,Thirdly, an awful lot of your critique has a distinct “what about the menz” feel. Now, I hate that phrase (something to do with the ‘z’, possibly), but it feels right in that case. This is not to suggest that you are sexist or misogynistic in general; I have no way of knowing. It may even be that you have a bit of a trigger for inaccurate reporting of events and that has coloured your response, which I would find perfectly understandable. It’s also possible that your reaction stems partly from privilege-denying. You’re the only person who can answer that accurately, and I simply suggest that you consider it.
Objective evidence of societal sexism can be difficult, as it’s not measurable in itself. Some of its effects are measurable, but other than that it has to be handled qualitatively. Personal perceptions, anecdotes even, are qualitative evidence (not the best sort, but they are), which leads me to think the hard-science dominated atheist community is contemptuous of qualitative methods.
Its a damn shame that society seems to give more weight to comments by the menfolk. A Damn Shame. You are quite right that there is an alternative to defensiveness and I think “Gee, I hadn’t seen it that way, but I will definitely think about it now that you point it out” is the actual golden skeleton key to open communication and positive change.Nice to know that my white-male opinions and comments are born of privilege. Makes them really easy to discard eh? Way to go! The end of your post puts a delicious spin on this concept. Any white male who objects, regardless of perspective, is being closed minded and defensive! Mushashi himself couldn’t have found a less assailable position.Or it could all be in my head. Either way, I love catharsis.
Yes; what it comes down to is that man/woman implies human, while male/female does not, leaving the possibility of not-human. When they are used contrastingly, as there has been a history of, the result is a dehumanising implication.The cultural evidence I like to cite is the way the Star Trek writers indicate Ferengi misogyny… the non-subtle elements are obvious, but more subtly (and very effectively), the Ferengi use the term ‘females’ almost exclusively.
If you haven’t watched the video, how can you honestly defend the post so strongly? Really, now. Watch the video, and compare it carefully to the original post.I do have an problem with inaccurate reporting and slander. That for me is the main issue with this entire affair. My complaints with the post have nothing to do with feminism, privilege denying or “what about the menz.”
“I’m sorry, just to clarify…. the woman who stood up and made a suggestion about terminology that was bothering her acted “wrongly” for suggesting that the terminology bothered her?”No. Absolutely not. That was her right, no question here.She acted wrongly in her reaction to the reaction of everybody else to her claim. (And I’m talking about the video now, not about the way Sharon and Liz described what happened. See for yourself.)
Sorry to nitpick, but I don’t see where it’s suggested that all white-male opinions are easy to discard and born of privilege. Skipping over the fact that some white men miss out on other privilege groups (handy example, I’m disabled), JustDucky commented “[a] good portion of the voices I hear commenting on this issue … seem to be men, esp. white men, who are completely unaware of their privilege as such” – this, to me, doesn’t say that all white are unaware of their privilege, rather that many commenters are white men who are unaware of their privilege.
Nitpicking builds social bonds in many primate cultures, and I have no problem with it! :) I think the problem I had was with the tone and potential implication of:”…Of course they don’t see anything wrong with the events of that night! Many of these commenters have no idea what it’s like to be dismissed so abruptly just because you’re expressing your feelings and those go against the group”Which sounds like the comments of white males are being dismissed (or are less valid, or can be discarded) because they have no idea what it feels like to have your comment dismissed. I agree with your last sentence. My assertion is that regardless of whether commenters are aware or unaware of privilege, any dissenting commenter can be labelled as “unaware of his privilege” and have his opinion discarded.I love the unaware-of-your-man-privileges concept, and have personally found it really helpful. However, I get a little brain-tic every time I hear a female talk about it, an identical tic to the one I experience when I hear a customer telling a shop assistant “The customer is always right”
After having read the original post, watched the video, and read this clarification it seems pretty straightforward and trivial that Jen, Lyz, and Sharon ought to apologize. Lyz and Sharon might not have been deliberately dishonest but they did make several factual claims about the talk in question, which are obviously false to anyone watching the video. This “clarification” doesn’t own up to the damage caused by those falsehoods. It doesn’t matter if the falsehoods were deliberate or not. Jen, Sharon, and Lyz ought to take responsibility for it and I have seen nothing to indicate any such intention on their part.
Maybe I’m missing something in the hustle and bustle of reading this and the other posts related and watching the video, but the speakers used “male” and “female”. So the two genders were being treated equally…right? I feel that perhaps the woman in question was being a bit overly sensitive. As for the response she got, several comments were made (other than the weaker sex one) that implied that her statement was a bit strange.
“Damage” might be overstating it. Personally I’m not all that into public apologies and the like, and it seems they did indeed acknowledge the facts of the events now.
I thought I might have misread, so I read it again (and almost killed my computer loading the comments), but no, what’s supposed to be meant as a comment on the goodness of Sharon following the lady despite having no obligation to do so definitely looks like a comment on the badness of the organisers not following the lady despite their obligation to do so.Meh, yeah there was a lot of miscommunications and people were upset. It’s not the end of the world if Sharon did mean to say that, even if it was inaccurate. But I don’t buy that she didn’t mean that. Which is of course not relevant to the bigger issues, I’m just bummed out about a harmless defensive deception à la “I never thought that”.
I don’t think that was framed as a bad thing. Looks to me like a “we were trying to put some evidence up in advance, because we knew it would be expected”.
I’m very upset over your usage of “just because X, it doesn’t Y” rather than “that X, doesn’t Y”.That they are upset doesn’t validate the logic et. c.
While we agree on some things, I think you’re being uncharitable. The whole thing seems more a product of cognitive bias than malice.Someone got offended. With hindsight bias, it’s trivial to jump from, “the panel’s tone did offend someone” to “the panel’s tone was inevitably going to offend someone.” And, given that belief, it would be fine to say, “the panel’s tone was sexist.”From there, we’ve got a negative halo effect. Our minds want to put bad things in groups. So, the other events got viewed in a minimally-charitable light. The authors might have perceived other events as mildly-sexist in isolation. But, with the right emotional feel, they became negative.Then, get a couple people of like mind together to write the article, and we’d get a feedback-loop. If everyone’s upset, no one would want to be the person nit-picking the claims and saying, “Sexism is a major problem. But are we correctly remembering this detail out of that example?” So, we get the original, very angry blog post.The trouble is that people have ‘sides’. If I’m focused on the narrative, “Sexism is a problem in our society” (Side1), then I’m interpreting huge parts of my world through that lens. It’s natural to want to back my ‘side’. So, arguments saying, “that particular event wasn’t so sexist” (Side2) are easy to take as, “Sexism is not a problem in our society.” To admit otherwise is to give ground to the enemy.I think this is where we got a lot of the anger, plus the follow up posts.And, this effect would kick in for the, “those facts are inaccurate” side, too. Posts that defended the existence of sexism-in-general generally were taken as supporting (what were perceived to be) libelous attacks against SERAM.The phrase I like for this halo-effect plus political-side-taking is “super-happy-death-spiral” http://lesswrong.com/lw/lo/unc…—And then the video came out. Several things would have happened. Emotional distance (plus disgust at the whole thing) would have blunted the halo effect. And the chance to watch the event in third person, multiple times on youtube could have lessened the hindsight bias.But, no one likes being wrong. And, it’s easy to mentally re-emphasize my own arguments so that I believe I really cared about the ones that make me look good.Plus, there’s still the ‘sides’. If they issued an apology for the specific misrepresentations, it could feel like they’re giving up ground for feminism generally.So we get the above non-apology.—-The reason I’m writing at such length is that I was originally sympathetic to your malice explanation. But, as I thought about it, flaws occurred. For one, who’d intentionally lie about something that they knew was videotaped? And, for another, why back down from an intentional lie? It would be more-effective to skip even this sort of apology. Also, your tone seems to ascribe some pretty Machiavellian Evil to some atheist organizers who otherwise seem reasonable. They could be going for some convoluted plot to cause havoc. But, it seems more likely that they’re 20-somethings who got caught up in some cognitive bias and aren’t a bit too embarrassed to give a proper apology.
Tearing people apart, unjustly or otherwise, doesn’t necessarily by itself indicate sexism. You’d have to exchange “for expressing herself” with something more sex-oriented.
Having personally been wrongly portrayed in the media almost more often than rightly – usually by Christian reporters seeking a laugh on behalf of atheists – I can attest to “damage” being no overstatement. It’s incredibly frustrating and psychologically taxing – not to mention the principled damage on truth. An abstract concept, yes, but if you don’t value truth, why are you an atheist?In any case I see no acknowledgement of the facts in subsequent posts on this blog. The general gist seems to be that what you feel the facts to be is more important than what the facts are and if you disagree on the latter it’s just because you have differing, but equally valid, feelings.
Sorry, when even Richard Dawkins is calling you out, there may have been some miscommunication that needs more substantive apology than this article provides.
Richard Dawkins isn’t infallible, you know. I have a whole post ready to explain how he missed the point, but I’m also ready for this whole drama to just die already. Don’t want to add fuel to the fire.
Is that your way of telling us to STFU?
Just because I didn’t write a book about my feelings didn’t mean I didn’t learn anything. Every additional post here or on other blogs has failed to produce any fruitful discussion, with people eventually devolving into name calling or angry debating about female vs woman or the Million Dollar Challenge, so I’m hesitant to draw it out any further.Furthermore, this post was approved by David Silverman (President of American Atheists) before it was posted. There is no bad blood between us, or us and Sean Faircloth for that matter – in fact, our bonds seem even stronger after this. Maybe the people screaming about lies and slander should actually talk to the parties involved instead of making assumptions.
We’ve been talking to Sean Faircloth and people from AA (including their president David Silverman) for over a week now. There is no bad blood between us – in fact, I’d say our connections are even stronger. Silverman even approved this post wholeheartedly before it went up, and thought it was a great clarification to this whole drama.
But the claims the were making were both objective AND subjective. I certainly buy that the subjective view of a few individuals is what they felt happened, but their objective claims were shown to be factually false. I’m just curious why we choose to separate ourselves from the religious folk if we are just going to go with what we feel in our guts over what we can prove.
Notice how I don’t bring these things up when I’m running my own group, or giving a talk at a conference, or speaking officially as a board member of the SSA. Context kind of matters.And if the topic of porn ever came up at a panel I was on, I certainly wouldn’t respond to concerns by laughing at that person’s face and making belittling remarks. I may disagree and provide *evidence* that supports my opinion, but I’m sensitive to people’s feelings.
I almost immediately regretted the above post. Moderators please remove it as it was in bad taste and I’m embarassed to have made it. I apologize. Ava, for what it’s worth I simply feel that Jen made a mistake of allowing the original blog post to have been posted in it’s current form. I too have made mistakes on a thousands of occasions. I still enjoy her work and think highly of here.
It would be great if we could have a substantive discussion without being derailed by bizarre focus on ‘female’ or what seem to me to have been rather cross-purposed discussions of the MDC.I just have no advice as to how that could be achieved.
As someone who wasn’t there, I can only guess – but I would guess that the woman who stood up and voiced a concern about the striking degree to which the panel was over-using the term “female” (often used opposite “man” or “guy,” not just in conjunction with “male”) probably wouldn’t have been as concerned, if the panel hadn’t been rather insensitive and non-constructive in other ways. Sometimes, the problem is larger, but people pick a specific instance to start with, because it’s something they can point to and they’re trying to be clear. It is too bad that so much of the discussion (when it’s even still discussion, rather than just nastiness) is stuck on the word choice issue – but it’s not actually insignificant, especially given the overall context.
If they did in fact send someone, officially, to check on that woman, good. But how they handled the situation publicly, as a panel, was also significant – and having watched the video, they did NOT handle it well. “Nothing to see here, moving along” seems a fairly apt descriptor.
For what it’s worth, it wasn’t my way of telling people to shut up. It was my way of saying, well, exactly what I said. By all means, voice opinions, but it just seems absurd and inappropriate, the way people are condescending to Jen, or generally having a cow. Even in cases of profound disagreement – there are other ways to disagree.
That’s an amazing analysis and as far as I can tell, you’re probably spot-on.Though, for my part, I think the above non-apology is also giving up ground for feminism generally, because if Jen, Sharon, or Lyz report about sexism in the future, why should we then trust them when they can’t even woman up to their mistakes?
Haha, amen to this shitstorm dying!
I agree with jose. Look at what you just said: “We treat the other animal species in the way we do because we have a priviliged position of power over them…”So for the woman to feel as though using “female” made them sound like animals is the same as saying she feels like men are abusing their privilege as power over women. The panel completely disregarded her real concern
“I’m a little disappointed that Jen did not indicate the lessons that I hope she’s learned from all of this; that being of course that she (or guest posters) will refrain from using such over-the-top inflammatory and aggressive language in the future.”The person that really needs that advise is JesusFetusFajitaFishticks (the lone woman panelist) after her way, way over the top screed post that followed Sharon/Lyz’s first guest post here. As a member of the panel, this is what she said about an audience member with whom she did not agree (the woman that objected to being called female):”If you can’t take that and want special treatment when you spew stupid shit from the hole in your face then I’m sorry you’ll never know equality.”I repeat, this came from a panelist and referred to an audience member. Sharon and Lyz’s post above is sufficient for me in addressing and apologizing for how their post was written and interpreted. Nobody seems interested in the fact that panelists feel like it’s perfectly acceptable to insult audience members with whom they disagree. If I could post on JFFF’s blog I’d remind her that atheist conventions are not blogs, and it would behoove atheists to bring professional decorum to their events, and keep rants about audience members out of their blogs. Rant all day long about female vs woman – but enough with the insults already.
“But, it seems more likely that they’re 20-somethings who got caught up in some cognitive bias and aren’t a bit too embarrassed to give a proper apology.”I agree with this except I feel that ‘cognitive bias’ is a bit too charitable. Though, please understand, I am also not accusing them of some kind of Machiavellian Evil. The truth lies somewhere in between, I suspect.
Now you bring white into it, which is completely irrelevent to the topic at hand. Agenda alert! Original assertion about disparaging men as a whole now lost.
That’s not how it works. You see, if Richard Dakwins says something, you must agree with him, or else you will break atheism.Jeez, why do we always have to explain everything to these females.
“I do have an problem with inaccurate reporting and slander. That for me is the main issue with this entire affair.”My particular issue with the entire affair is the professional misconduct of the panelists, so even though you and I might not agree, I empathize with you when people misinterpret your POV. Just to be fair on the inaccurate reporting though, JesusFishFajitaFishsticks (JFFF), who was the woman panelist, and has said that her main problem has been misrepresentation of the panelists and event, was doing some misrepresenting of her own. Here is how she describes the panelist reaction to the audience member’s request to stop using the word female:”There were two responses from the panel… one was from me after I recovered from shock… I merely said, “Aren’t these words interchangeable?” The other was from, my new friend, Heath who said, “Would you rather us call you the weaker sex?” If this runs you off then you’re taking yourself far too seriously.”What Heath actually said was, “From now on we’ll use the weaker sex.” The question overly defensive, but could also be used to begin a response that the panel disagrees with the audience member and will continue to use the word female. The statement is an insult to the audience member and women in general.She quoted Heath inaccurately a mere hour before she posted the video showing the actual quote. Had she seen it or was she going from memory? She has not posted a correction. I am unable to post on her blog for unkown reasons, or I’d have pointed it out there.Seems relevent here too though.
Appealing to Dave Silverman’s authority means nothing. He could very well have his own reasons for approval that have nothing to do with the dishonesty of the posts, such as wanting this entire affair to fade away as quickly as possible.
And what was wrong with her leaving after being laughed at and taunted by the panel (“From now on we’ll use the weaker sex.”)?
Hmm. I am sick too of the offended-always-right culture, but disagree with you and Ola on this one. She was crying in the bathroom. Do people really think she was crying because everyone kept using the word female? I think it much more likely she was crying because the panel responded to her request by laughing at her and flinging a mysoginist statement at her.I guess I would have worded it thusly: “Whether or not the offended party is right or wrong, if you’re making fellow supporters of our movement that uncomfortable,then you’re doing something wrong.”
I feel your pain. I saw his quote, agree that he missed the point and that coming from Dawkins, noting how the point was missed is substantial. But the drama is tiresome.
I’m basically ignoring all the commentary at this point, I’d love to hear your opinions, but I’m over everyone else’s.
Okay; here is an example of the same sarcasm as used by the man on the panel. Is everyone going to get mad and run out of the thread crying? (I like it and think it’s funny.)Yes, this comment is mean. But honestly, claiming that the woman’s reaction at SERAM was not an overreaction is just ridiculous.
oops, did I hurt your feelings? I apologize.
Thanks for pointing out the obvious, which apparently isn’t so obvious to most folks around here.
Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”Jesting aside, your step-by-step comparison of the original Lyz/Sharon post and the video was spot-on by the way. I’m glad someone took the time to be thorough.
Thanks.I’ll remember Hanlon’s Razor. Interesting.
Then you’re a bigger fool than I could have ever imagined. Belittling remarks are exactly what is needed, because all you can hope to accomplish is to ensure that people with offensive beliefs do not feel welcome at your gatherings. There’s absolutely no reason that everybody should feel welcome everywhere, and your enemies should not expect you to treat them with kindness.
But you were wrong about this. It doesn’t even make any sense in the context of the challenge – people aren’t being challenged to find someone they think is hot, they’re challenged to find any stranger who would sleep with them. And I find it likely, as one of the attendees said, that the men were really looking at the other men, to see who had the confidence to actually raise their hand.
I’d agree with that. (With the caveat that someone is always going to be offended by, well, anything. If an appreciable number of people are offended, then yes, something is wrong.)
“And her claim was certainly not bullshit – it’s actually a topic discussed since the 80s.”And homeopathy has been discussed since 1796. (I’m not suggesting her claim was bullshit. I’m just saying this is a completely illogical non-sequitur that you’ve added here, and you did the same at Friendly Atheist.)
If you go back to re-read the original comment “I – a member of the audience, not one of the event organizers – went after her.” I believe the intent is quite clear, given the separation of the entire clause by hyphens. Not really ambiguous in that regard, though the ambiguity is now whether or not anyone else went as well. Though the rest of the paragraph does make is seem as if few, if any, others joined
Anything that is not measurable does not exist. This is the basic empirical position that is used to show that there’s no reason to believe in gods. If you don’t subscribe to that, then why are you commenting on an atheist blog?And of course the atheist community is contemptuous of qualitative methods. The atheist community is primarily made up of scientists who almost universally recognize just how useless quantitative methods are.
You obviously don’t understand what I was saying, which is that the idea of human exceptionalism is bullshit. We are animals and the only difference between us and other species is that we are more intelligent. You only find using animal terminology to describe humans offensive because you mistakenly believe that humans are different from animals. And since that position is childish and immature, you should expect that some people (especially biologists) are going to mock you for having it. Remember that there’s no inherent value in inclusiveness.
Um, actually, Vanessa *is* a biologist, so you look like even more of a fool saying that.
I say that because people are assuming that *no one* has ever discussed this issue before, and that it’s something this woman just randomly pulled out of her ass for no reason, when that simply isn’t the case.
So do you subscribe to human exceptionalism? Do you find it offensive if all humans are considered to be no better than slightly more intelligent animals? Because if you do, then I’m really going to have to stop reading your blog since you’re obviously not competent.
Or that perhaps the panel did make sexist remarks and some gaffes, but that alone doesn’t make them terrible people. At the end of the day you don’t have to always be perfect to not ‘be a terrible sexist monster’, but you can still be called out on your bad behaviors
I’ll often defend that humans are just animals, and that we must remember we are also a product of evolution, that our emotions are really chemical reactions, etc etc… That we’re not superior or “more evolved” – hey, can you echolocate? But that the thing that makes us human is the ability to not be a slave to our biology – to have culture, and ethics, and society, etc.I’m sorry if that’s an inadequate answer, but it’s the best I could do briefly.
I…thought you said “e-chocolate” just there, and I was so confused.
Hahahaha, I totally read it as e-chocolate too, and I was like…. what?
What is the point of a panel discussion? Some type of education? Education of everyone involved, including the panelists? Even PZ, who can certainly be very belittling says he doesn’t intentionally belittle in the classroom, at least not if the person is saying something honest. (at least, thats how I am thinking I am remembering his characterization of his classroom teaching…..)The other thing, is it seems like you are suggesting that you find the preference of the term woman vs the term female as offensive to you. Is that correct? Find it silly, sure, but if you are offended by that you have no sense of perspective.
As someone pointed out earlier (well, it might have been after you posted this, but higher up in the comments) female was used more often than male. i.e. it was not male/female but sometimes men/female. I didn’t watch the video twice and count (and to be fair, I didn’t even watch the video in one straight sitting even though it was fairly short), so I am trusting that person. I guess I am uncomfortable with claiming over sensitivity. We don’t know what kind of real sexism this women faced. Maybe her complaint was academic and not based on personal experience, or maybe she has had the men/female distinction used to put her down in the past and it is a trigger for her. The women on the panel did respond initially with something along the lines of “aren’t they interchangeable?”. So my question would be, if you think they are interchangeable and you just had it pointed out to you that someone is bothered by one of them, how is it a big deal to accommodate them? We are not talking about the kind of accommodation that changes the meaning of what you are trying to say.
I finally got around to watching the video of the panel discussion tonight. The first thing I was struck by was the complete obliviousness of the entire panel to the discussion. They could have had a productive conversation, maybe talking about the nuances of some of the interactions between men and women at atheist events. To summarize what I heard was “boys will be boys….but if it becomes a real problem, it should be addressed” and “Since everyone there are atheists its a perfect place to meet people you might want to get romantically involved with”. The panel was completely ill equiped to have the discuss the particular topic they did in the video (it looks like more was discussed that didn’t make it to the video). They had 5 men and one married woman who said she didn’t have men hitting on her because he husband was around. From the first post by Sharon and Lyz and some of the comments, they started to hint at some of the nuances. Is, or should it be generally frowned upon to flirt/hit on people at atheist events. Of course not. But where the nuance comes in, is maybe discussing what is and is not ok. A panel composed of women who have experienced both appropriate and inappropriate advances would have been helpful. They could have discussed what was inappropriate and why. In the original post it was mentioned that it is inappropriate talk into a women’s chest. That is so obvious, but then there were comments like “well they were probably just glancing/noticing. Thats not so bad”. Thats not what was said. If when having a conversation with a woman you are staring at her chest instead of showing her the respect of looking her in the eyes, you are being inappropriate. Sorry, I just started carrying on, but I thought the panel discussion was very poor, before even addressing how the female/women comment was handled. And that was handled very poorly. The “Aren’t they interchangeable” comment was perfectly fine, although if I was bothered by the usages her tone probably wouldn’t have made me all that happy either. The “weaker sex” comment was incredibly stupid. I am sure it wasn’t meant to be cruel, but to think that saying something that stupid would do anything other than make the situation worse….I don’t even know what else to say besides its stupid. It certainly got a laugh out of the audience, but I am not convinced that everyone in the audience even found it funny. There did appear to be a lot of uncomfortable faces there. And I know my reaction to someone saying something that stupid involves uncomfortable laughter. I don’t think laughing is the best response, but it is my natural response. I am also reminded of the personal anecdotes from many gay people from before they came out that they laughed the hardest at homophobic jokes to try and prevent people from thinking they were gay.
In that you are dismissing pretty much the whole of modern social sciences; my own experience, as a ‘hard’ scientist who’s moved (partly) into social sciences, I believe the antipathy of many ‘hard’ scientists towards what are perfectly scientific ways of using qualitative methods is born of ignorance, and a simplistic understanding of those methods and their underlying epistemology. Of course, epistemological issues can’t be measured, so I guess they don’t exist…The positivist stance you take is perfectly valid for simple, cut-and-dried physical sciences. When you’re dealing with human and social issues, it tends not to work; it excludes consideration of fringe cases, which a just society shouldn’t; it denies the existence of the immeasurable – which would have to included sexism, as you can’t measure it (only some of its effects). It denies individual discomfort, I would argue that it denies emotion at all, in fact. Attempts to put such issues into a system of metrics, of whatever dimensionality, have always failed.As to the existence of God/gods, I deny that from the lack of empirical evidence, that’s all. There is no reasonable empirical evidence for the existence of God, be it qualitative or quantitative.Oh, and by the way, you claim that quantitative methods are useless at the end there…
The point is, imagine this was about attracting more african-americans into atheist conventions, and all the white members of the board kept referring to them as “blacks”, even they were being superficially concerned and understanding of african-americans needs and concerns. One such “black” gets up and say “why don’t you use some other term, like african-american or non-caucasian?”, and the answer would be, in the same jocuous tone, “would you rather we called you negro?! Ormaybe coon?!”. It wouldn’t really happen would it, and if it did, well, probably the black panthers would come back from the past and “kick the one who made that comment ass” and everyone would support them. The fact this attitude towards a woman is not getting universal condemnation says a lot about the general male chauvinism present in our society!
You are just being a troll and not contributing anything. Please stop.
I would like to point out that a lot of what’s going on here is a kind of misunderstanding in the atheist community. My father, for example, is an atheist. He wouldn’t necessarily describe himself in this way, but he has professed on several occasions the belief that there is NO God, and that when he dies, he’s just looking forward to a loooooong sleep. However, my father is a racist. He doesn’t do it intentionally, but he hate immigrants, particularly those of Polish descent. What I hope to point out here is that being atheist doesn’t necessarily make you open-minded. In terms of the SERAM conference, that means that being atheist doesn’t necessarily mean that a man/woman is well-educated in the idea of gender equality and the issues surrounding it.And all this uproar has surely just proved that point? That’s something to be addressed, surely.
The reason this attitude does not get universal condemnation is that for many people woman and female are synonymous. (Apparently there are technical differences between the two words which I was completely unaware of until this whole clusterfuck kicked off). I think that if a panelist at a talk which I was attending used the terms “blacks” prolificly then I myself would object long before The Time Travelling Black Panthers got involved because “Blacks” is well known as a perjorative term whereas female is not.I can imagine that if I was put on the spot by someone who was objecting to a problem with a word that prior to the objection no one had raised as an issue with me, I might try and joke it off. I like to think I would do it in a more sensitive manner though…Yes, the correct answer is “OK I never considered that. I’ll try to be more careful”, but be damn sure though, that this guy will be more careful in the future AND THIS IS THE POINT. It has been raised as a problem, put under the noses of many thousands of people and everyone in the blogosphere will now be aware that some women just dont like to be called females.
Jen, this is more in response to your Twitter feed than this post, but I don’t have a Twitter account. Some of us have been with you on this one from the start, I think more than it might seem from some of the comments. I’m not surprised PZ agrees with us. What I find amazing is the number of people who after the video was released immediately said that it confirmed that Lyz and Sharon misrepresented events. I had the exact opposite impression. The video entirely confirms their account. The first time I heard “female” in the video it rankled me, especially since it immediately followed males being called “guys”. Then the derisive jokes and laughter when the woman protested. Yeah, you, Lyz, Sharon, Ophelia (especially – man she nails it) and PZ are dead on.
I’m not sure. It seems like people were angry about what they perceived as libelous attacks against SERAM. The underlying debate over the ‘female/woman’ thing seemed secondary. Had the original post have been ‘clarified’ about “we don’t want anyone to come away thinking of AA, SERAM or Sean Faircloth as the bad guys”, the gender debate probably would have received minimal attention.
“Appealing to Dave Silverman’s authority means nothing.”And yet, that’s still more meaning than anything you’ve said here. Quite being such a whiny-ass baby and STFU. Seriously.
Do you think that everyone who disagrees with you is your enemy? Wow, your life must really suck.
From what I saw on that boring 12 minute video, that panel failed to ever truly address the topic (of making women feel more welcome), and it was just one big irritating fail.The panel starts with a few “My group isn’t part of the problem” comments, dodging blame or denying the problem. Either way they were providing no valuable ideas for improvements in the atheist community as a whole. More awkward blabbering until some joker asks whether flirting is sexist, or is it just NORMAL PENIS ACTIVITY????? wtf?????? (With just a dash more chauvinism, this easily could have led from “penis activity=biology”, to feminists just resist biology… you might as well jump straight to justifications for sexual assault… which some comment trolls nearly did.)It just goes more downhill with the weaker sex comment, which was a totally inappropriate way to treat one of the first comments from women in the audience, regardless of how abstract people felt her input was in this particular discussion. (In all reality, her comment wasn’t that far off-topic, since talking about “biology” was as focused as they had gotten in the discussion.) The way they responded just encouraged further mocking of and derailing from the real topic.I don’t specifically hold the men responsible though. The woman on the panel failed to give any strong input, even when her opinion (as the sole representative for women) was asked for. She even backs out of the penis activity question by saying that she can’t answer because she’s married. As if the time in her life when she wasn’t married has been completely erased and she’s never been inappropriately solicited since her wedding day.It should be recognized that it’s awesome that so many men are thinking about this issue. Sadly, that this panel was seemingly lacking in intelligent banter of any kind and generally unfocused. I like to think that most atheists (esp those that spend their wknds at conferences) are smarter than the average bear… Hopefully these threads influence others to recreate the discussion in a more positive and intellectual way.Equal representation needs to include equal opportunity to participate in a respectful environment.The video of the panel was weak, irritating, and you have the right to feel like you wasted your money. Please do not feel pressured to say that you wish to see more events like this, because if I had to based my opinion on that 12 minute video, it was a terrible.
You know? You could have simply apologized. A heartfelt, unadulterated apology for bringing a bit of a shadow to an otherwise wonderful event that was as devoid of sexism as any event possibly could be.This is just more backtracking. Boo, hiss, hiss.
Jen: You did nothing wrong, you are in the right, and you owe no one an apology. The way the panel behaved disgusts me.
I think the problem is that there are a lot of terms to use. Most could have some sort of loaded meaning that you don’t intend. I think using the term “Female” more than “Male” isn’t as significant as it might seem precisely because of the male privilege mentioned in the other posts. The terms for [male human beings] are easier to switch between because there aren’t many (any?) that would be offensive to most if not all men because none of them are derogatory. I think a case could very easily be made that the term Female was being used more often as an attempt to avoid using any of the other -and possibly more loaded- terms, because the topic of conversation was how to be more women friendly.I do agree that the joke about “the weaker sex” was crass and unnecessary, but I don’t think the intent was sexist. I saw it as more of a commentary on the semantic argument about what terms to use.
The panel should apologize for wasting everyone’s time. I’m sorry that those people are representing atheists. If that’s the best version of leadership we can offer, we’re in big trouble. I have better conversations about gender issues while playing MarioKart with my guy friends than that panel even attempted to make. What a joke. And you should be ashamed. Take off the blinders.
“We are trying to make the point that if you’re making fellow supporters of our movement that uncomfortable, then you’re doing something wrong.”I’m just going to put it out there that I disagree with this statement very much. For example, let’s say that I’m sitting down waiting for a conference to start and there are two empty seats next to me. A man walks up and asks if he can sit next to me. I am uncomfortable*. Has he done anything wrong? No.*I do not offer up this situation entirely hypothetically. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, men sometimes make me extremely uncomfortable for no good reason.Sometimes when you make someone uncomfortable, no one did anything wrong.That isn’t to say that the speakers didn’t do anything wrong. They may very well have, and I agree that when you make someone uncomfortable, you at least ought to be willing to listen to them with an open mind and do your best to compromise when it is reasonable to do so. But I dislike intensely this idea that if someone is offended, the speaker is automatically in the wrong.
Hello,A huge portion of the dispute that was reported on various atheist blogs appears in my opinion to be a result of group dynamics / group process issues at the conference itself.I’ve had over 11 years experiences as a sexuality education curriculum trainer working with groups in both secular and religious settings where we disccussed topics related to sexuality, diversity issues, values, etc. Topic like these can lead to emotionally charged discussions if not managed effectively.One of the most effective tools for working with groups is using a group contract that explicitly says how we will treat each other when working in a group.Here are a few of the guidelines that I’ve seen used in effective group contracts (with explanation provided after each bullet statement if needed):** No “put downs” (This is mostly self-explanatory — situations where group consensus doesn’t exist will be covered later on in the “oops / ouch” rule.)** Assume good will (Keep this as your default assumption in a conference or workshop setting until demonstrated otherwise.)** “Step up / step back” (Some women and men are introverted and quiet. Even though it may require extra effort on their part, they need to “step up” and speak their minds so the group can benefit from their insights. Some women and men are extroverted and will dominate the dicussion if allowed to. Even though it may require extra effort on their part, they need to “step back” and allow space in the conversation for for quieter folks. This all comes down to sharing.)** “Oops / ouch” rule (If you say something that you realize you shouldn’t have said as the words are leaving your lips like the “weaker sex” comment example, you can say “oops” and this lets the group know that you are acknowledging the mistake you just made and it may be OK to move on without further group process discussion. If you hear something that you find intentionally or unintentionally offensive, you can say “ouch” and this lets the group know that we need to stop and process the situation so it doesn’t fester and breed anger.)** Use “I” language (Speak from your personal experience. Do not speak on behalf of others. “I think that the usage of word ‘female’ was not offensive” would be an “I statement” because it’s a sharing of personal experience and it acknowledges that others may think differently. “The word ‘female’ wasn’t offensive” and “Nobody thinks the usage of the word ‘female was offensive” are not “I statements.” In these non-I statement examples, the speaker is assuming that his/her personal experience is a universal one shared by all participants.)** Start and end on time (If meals and bathroom breaks don’t happen on-time, people may get cranky.)** Have fun (Self-explanatory.)It’s good to have someone backing up the group moderator by observing group process and assisting where needed. For example, a person assisting the moderator might notice that a person in the back of the room is patiently waiting to participate and the moderator doesn’t see her waiting patiently.Another useful thing is having a dedicated process observer in any group discussion. At the end of a group discussion event, the process observer can report back on trends noted in the group — who speaks and who doesn’t. This feedback may help the group work together better and be more aware of who may feel marginalized in the workshop or conference setting.
I just re-read this after a good night of sleep. I cannot believe that I Caps-shouted AND THIS IS THE POINT about something which quite clearly is not the point. I am going to drink green tea instead of coffee today, and I am no longer going to read or post anything about this subject. Its making me crazy..
There was a time (in in many places outside the US, believe me, it still is!) in which “negro” was synonymous with “african-american”, and everybody thought it was natural (everybody who was white, that is!). Obviously, for many “people” (they will probably have a penis though), “woman” and “female” are the same, that was clearly stated by the people sitting at the table in the video (most of which, incidentally, have a penis) . But just see what happens when somebody dares to say that they are not (incidentally, someone without a penis), they get slammed with bad taste humor reminding them that they could actually do much worse. It’s like a man touches some random woman in the bosom, and she complains about it, and he makes a joke saying, “would you rather have me rape you?”. But I think you know that, and I think we agree on something fundamental. This discussion is a good thing because it helps at least some people to realize that they should be more careful about context and tone when making jokes about sexism, the same way people do today with making jokes about racism (and not just jokes by the way). Some people might think the original blog post was a little too militant, but so were the black panthers, but no one would deny their importance in fighting racism in the States.
Amazing what a difference green tea makes to my emotional and mental awareness. I wasnt planning on commenting any more on this, and this is a courtesy post to say “Yes indeed,” and “any objection’s I have to your words are cosmetic and trivial”.True story, recently in a pub, I saw a very similar scene to the bosom touching one you describe and it made me feel physically sick. Called the guy out on it loudly, exclaiming that it was far from cool and that he should go away and have a quiet word with himself. Did the trick. He apologised to her and actually thanked me for it! Reading this blog changed my life as I would never have done that before coming here (So thanks Jen!) and that trancends all issues of tone, semantics, and misunderstandings. Everytime an uncomfortable guy feels compelled to stand up because a girl is obviously uncomfortable is a stab in the neck for inequality. I will be joining xbox live later this month. I hear that ladies dont like to play because there are too many dicks in the world. Maybe I dont have to ignore that either.
Fair enough on the frustration. On the point of truth, I think they did get most of it this time. It’s a lot of text to go trough and keep in mind, so I could be forgetting something.I do think that this clarification was somewhat dishonest about the first post, and possibly the later exchange, but not about the event on site.
But in which countries outside of the USA? It wouldn’t happen to be the ones where “negro” is the common word for the colour black, would it?Though I also have a comment about Smoking Glacier’s post. I’ve honestly thought for years now that the americans preferred the term “black”. I know that has zigzagged back and forth in the past, but I hadn’t noticed it happening again. What are the better terms nowadays?
This could equally be applied to blog comments.
How so?
I’d like to add a clarification of my own as one of the panelists who, by association, are being belittled by Jen and many of the other commenter’s of this blog post. I’d also like to apologize in advance for the lengthy rant that follows. I didn’t mean to write a book here but since we are on the topic of clarification it would appear that had a lot I felt I needed to clarify. Keep in mind that this is not directed at anyone in particular despite that fact that I just mentioned Jen by name (you’ll see what I mean after you’ve read it). I just felt that I needed to post this for my own edification and self reflection and if anything here helps someone else to shed some light on the subject, that’s great too. I was tagged to be on this panel a few days before and had no prior knowledge of what topics were to be discussed. I also felt that the other panelists and I were not even remotely qualified to address this particular topic. The other topics discussed were actually quite relevant to the panel’s collective experiences and many good ideas and discussions came from them. To my knowledge though, the entire discussion panel video was never posted so I can’t expect everyone who was not there to know what transpired before and after this particular topic. Personally, I feel that this particular topic would have been better addressed by a panel of people who had at least some relevant experience on the issue. I have never personally seen this behavior in our group nor was I even aware that this was an issue with other groups until the question was posed. I felt like I was blindsided because I didn’t have a chance to review the topics beforehand. Had I been presented with this topic beforehand I would have at least had the opportunity to do some research and could have contributed something more substantial. Unfortunately, I was not afforded that opportunity and since I had no relevant experience to draw from, I tried to do the best I could with what I had to work with and approached the topic from the standpoint of what responsibilities a local leader has should this situation arise. My understanding of the question was; “What can local atheist groups do to attract more women.” What I can say about this topic is strictly from a local group leader standpoint, and what I so ineloquently tried to say on the video, is that the men in local atheist groups who are making women feel uncomfortable or unwelcome should be held accountable for their actions by the groups leadership. I am sure that this kind of thing happens and that some women feel objectified when they attend some local group functions but unless the inappropriate behavior is brought to the attention of the group’s leadership, the behavior is likely to continue. The respective leaderships of the local groups have the responsibility to intervene if they see members of their group behaving inappropriately or being offensive; however, if they don’t personally see it or are at least made aware of it, how are they supposed to act accordingly? The point I was trying to make in the video, (again, not my best day) was that if local groups want to attract more women, the behavior of the existing members in the group that is running them off needs to be addressed and corrected. My message to group members who would like to attract more women to their group is; “Don’t be an asshole” and more women will likely join your group. My message to the women who are being run off by members in a group is; “If you feel you are being objectified or made to feel uncomfortable by group members, you need to bring it to the attention of the group’s leadership immediately! They can’t act unless they know about it.”Personally, I haven’t had any experience with this happening in our group and if it has happened (and I’m sure it has), it was never brought to my attention. So, I’d like to reiterate, that although I understood the question that was being posed and realized it was an issue that needed to be discussed, I felt that because I haven’t personally dealt with this particular topic in the past, that I was unqualified to give a more substantial response. If there was anything I personally said that insulted or offended anyone, I offer my most heartfelt apologies as that was not my intent. As for my fellow panelists, I will not presume to put words in their mouths but I personally know two of them and all I can say is that I don’t believe it was their intent to insult or offend anyone either. Regardless of intent, the fact remains that some people were insulted or offended or both. To those people I offer my apologies for not stepping up and handling the situation as I felt it should have been handled then. I only ask that you keep in mind, as I have stated before, that I felt unqualified to act as someone of authority on that particular issue which is what I believe caused my hesitation to do so in the first place.With that said, I do realize that some people have a problem with some of the things that were said by some members of the panel and I’m fine with that. What I do have a problem with is when they imply that a comment made by one of the panelists represents a consensus of the entire panel. Contrary to what some people have said I’d like to state that the panel was not some kind of collective hive with an agenda to belittle audience members. It was most assuredly not in my agenda to belittle anyone nor do I believe that anything I said did. If something I said or did offended you then please call me on it and we can discuss it further (my email address is smoore@secularal.org). As I said before, this was a particular topic in which I felt neither qualified for nor prepared for to speak with any real authority so that is why I didn’t have that much to say. In addition, some of the statements made during this discussion topic I also found to be completely unprofessional and in bad taste so I would appreciate it in the future that references to ‘the panelists’ be referred to the particular individual on the panel and not the entire panel itself. Thanks!
I think I can sympathise with your position, and the fact you (personally and, by your description, collectively) were blindsided makes the events described and the ensuing kerfuffle more understandable.The one thing I would suggest, and I don’t mean it as a smear on you (I don’t know you) or anyone else – I merely mention it as a possibility people should be (and often aren’t) aware of; it’s a thought for everyone to consider – and for anyone who already does, I apologise for the egg-sucking lesson. This sort of thing can happen and go unnoticed by all but those who suffer from it. It takes a certain perception (and a certain amount of luck) to notice it, especially (in the case of sexism) for men, simply because we’ve had less experience that attunes us to it. However, admitting the possibility goes a big step towards noticing it.It might be that your group really has no such problems, and it might be that the problems have been subtle and rare. For example, some groups (not limited to atheism, which doesn’t get organised as much in the UK so I have little experience of groups for) go for some time with pretty much exclusively married women; they are less likely to be the target of some of the casually objectionable behaviour. Occaisionally a new single woman will turn up, and not come more than once or twice. To them, the behaviour might seem so flagrant that they can’t believe others haven’t noticed it – you can debate where the fault lies there until the cows come home, but that’s a situation I think I’ve seen, and I’ve certainly seen in other areas of discrimination.A point comes to mind from the meeting I was at this weekend. A friend who works in disability training and activism, mentioned one of the common things with poor disability awareness – people saying “we don’t need to make our premises wheelchair-accessible, it’s not a problem because no-one in a wheelchair comes to our meetings”. It’s far from a perfect parallel, but there are some similar aspects.If, however, you have a group with a decent representation of women in the population, with a range of situations and lifestyles, and everyone is generally comfortable, that’s a good sign there really are very few such problems in your group.The bottom line, one-line summary: not being aware of problems doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Agreed.
This “clarification” is still dishonest about the events inasmuch as it doesn’t acknowledge any falsehood in the first post. They maintain to have said nothing false. Overt falsehoods cannot be brushed off as being due to “inexperience in blogging,” “misunderstanding,” or “differing emotions.” As such this “clarification” neither clarifies nor acknowledges anything at all. It’s just a red herring to displace responsibility.
I wholeheartedly agree. From the first post I had no idea why that comment would be appropriate, but when I watched the video I felt my skin crawl at the usage.