It’s a new blog or website or both (a blog is always a website but a website isn’t always a blog). Tell all your friends.
Jadehawk argues that feminism, secularism and skepticism all need each other.
Skepticism and secularism need feminism; feminism needs secularism and skepticism. The reason for this is that all three deal with removing or restricting the harmful influence of untrue ideas on people’s lives, even if each does so from a different perspective and with a different focus. And in many cases, the different perspectives can work together to achieve the specific goals of each movement better than they would be able in isolation from each other.
I would put that a little bit differently – I would say they can help or benefit each other, as opposed to needing each other. There’s less to defend that way. Since this subject is a hot button one right now, it’s good not to have too much to defend.
I’m angry, you see, angry that feminists are being excluded from organized skepticism and the secular movement. There have been many events leading up to this, but the latest slap to the face came from Ron Lindsay of CFI at the Women in Secularism conference. Feel free to read his own words on the matter or Rebecca Watson’s reaction or the tl;dr version: OMFG MEN ARE BEINGSILENCED!
I decided that I needed to stop waiting for someone else to give me a platform and that I can’t trust anyone else to have my own best interests at heart. So I asked some (wonderfully brilliant) friends of mine if they’d be willing to contribute to a blog project that has one goal: give godless feminists a place to freely discuss what they want.
Ah, there you go, it is a blog!
Bienvenu.
Thank you!
Thanks for sharing. I will check that out.
I think Jadehawk phrased it very well. Feminism is a skeptical reaction to the idea that women are inferior to men, and that their historical and systematic oppression is some kind of “natural order.” And given that many religions are practically founded upon institutionalized misogyny, secularism is a tempering force that can reduce the amount of harm religions can inflict upon women. Feminism is a diverse movement, but I don’t see it achieving as much, as quickly, without these complementary movements.
given the clusterfucks I’ve seen in “unskeptical” feminism and non- or anti-feminist skepticism, I’m gonna stand by my claim that they need each other to de-clusterfuck each other. Not for survival; clusterfucks can thrive, of course. But they’ll still be clusterfucks, and I don’t want that for my movement(s). Hence the “need”.
Good stuff. Bookmarked.
I would put that a little bit differently – I would say they can help or benefit each other, as opposed to needing each other.
Given the current state of some atheists perhaps “need” is appropriate.
Re: the whole project of intersectionality, at the risk of beating a dead horse and preaching to the choir:
I just do not, straight up do not believe that the majority of people saying “let skepticism be skepticism don’t bring other stuff into it” actually would be part of the movement for only skepticism’s sake. Maybe some tiny few believe that, but I’d bet anything the vast majority are there because they care deeply about one or more issues connected with skepticism: health care fraudsters or psychic fraudsters bilking people out of money and preventing them from getting real help, groups claiming religious authority to force their beliefs on others, climate deniers fighting for further destruction of our habitat. Something. Something concrete. Something meaningful, and real. There’s a reason there aren’t movement grammarians on this kind of scale.
The pushes to keep atheism and feminism out of movement skepticism (or feminism out of movement atheism) have nothing to do with the purity of skepticism, and everything to do with those trying to push them out just not caring about those particular issues. Every movement atheist is an “atheism+” atheist. They just each have different pluses.
All right. Dead horse beaten.
Thanks for the link, Ophelia. Looks like an interesting project.
“I would say they can help or benefit each other, as opposed to needing each other. There’s less to defend that way.”
Complement each other? They are all critiques of unearned authority.
I assume the site’s name is an ironic reference to a certain recent meme, and by implication a poke in the eye to certain parties. Much though I’m in favour of (metaphorically!) poking certain eyes, I’m not sure the name is such a wise choice. Too many people just don’t get irony (in some cases, deliberately).
Or caring about those issues, just from the opposite side.
I mean, for instance, I don’t see any close connection between skepticism and the issue of misogyny in the world of comedy. And yet here’s our old “friend” ElevatorGATE showing up in a list of harassing tweets that Lindy West has received on the subject.
Looks like a YouTube comment, actually. But yeah. It seems like there’s some spillover between the online anti-feminist atheist community and the general anti-feminist/MRA online community. Surprise surprise.