Reasoned arguments against the basic tenets

I’m re-reading Professing Feminism, by Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge. It’s become a new talking point and favorite with the anti-feminism crowd, which makes me laugh a little. I first read it years ago, in the ’90s. It was part of the foundation for my involvement with the original Butterflies and Wheels. I’m friends with Daphne Patai.

It’s not an attack on feminism. It’s about women’s studies programs, not feminism as such. The two are not identical, to put it mildly. There is (ironically) a lot of anti-intellectualism in women’s studies programs, and that’s what the book is about.

One sentence raised a question I often think about, and suggested a new (to me) way of framing it.

What needs to be investigated is whether students are at all receptive to reasoned arguments against the basic tenets of their own framework or, to the contrary, have learned to deploy various criticism-deflecting strategies in an effort to keep their acquired ideas inviolate. [p 176] [Read more…]

The bus got stuck in traffic

I’ve been watching the video of the Pharyngula hangout yesterday. I’ve paused it at 38:45; so far it’s been all about Women in Secularism 2 and a little bit about the upcoming Dublin Empowering Women Through Secularism conference. Interesting conversation, and frustrating to watch, because I intended to participate but first there was a glitch with Google+ and then a Windows update crashed my computer twice so I had to do a restore, which took forever, so I never got there.

Nick Gotts is going to the Dublin conference. That’s good!

There’s a lot of discussion of how very unfortunate it is that the (huge amount of exceptionally) good stuff about the conference has been totally swamped by talk about the one bad part. [Read more…]

Not educators who hope to foster critical thinking

I’ve liked a lot of Wendy Kaminer’s writing. I’m Ok You’re Codependent is very sharp and amusing. Sleeping With Extraterrestrials was disapponting, I thought, because it was way too cautious and apologetic, but still it was of value.

I don’t like her new piece in the Atlantic on sexual harassment though. She’s very libertarian, so it’s predictable, but…I don’t like it. I don’t like the way it dismisses harassment that’s not violent. [Read more…]

Desperation

There was one bit late in the Fincke-Vacula conversation, toward the end, when Vacula got desperate to find diversity issues that his enemies had neglected, in order to demonstrate that…I don’t know what. It’s all just bullshit, because they forgot one? They’re just showing off and don’t actually mean a word of it? They say one thing but do another? I don’t know. Anyway he flailed around and then oh hai he found one. “Asians!” he exclaimed.

Asians?

Oh really? [Read more…]

No god to hate women

Thelma Louise at Canadian Atheist discusses Dan Fincke’s attempt to discuss feminism and atheism with Vacula yesterday. I caught most of it; it was pretty interesting. Vacula still completely misunderstood the phrase “consistent with,” which seems odd – it’s not technical jargon, it’s an everyday phrase that is widely used. He still insisted that Amanda Marcotte’s claim that atheism is consistent with feminism is “a bunch of claptrap.” Of course it’s not. There is no contradiction in being both an atheist and a feminist. Dan patiently explained this, like the experienced teacher he is.

At 8:57 Valcula reads more from Marcott, “ if followed to its logical conclusion, atheism means abandoning the belief that women exist to serve men.” Then my favorite part of this debate, Vacula continues with, “I don’t get that.” So the one piece of literature that Vacula brought to this debate to reference, on his main point of argument about consistency in atheism, he. . . doesn’t get. Fincke put up with a lot from Vacula but managed to stand his ground and restate or modify his questions in order to try and pin Vacula down into giving a response. [Read more…]