But these stories keep coming, and I don’t understand it; there are these mobs of people constantly telling me that feminism is a sham, that True Skeptics™ would apply their critical faculties to it and see that sexism is not a real problem, and that it’s all just a bunch of hypersensitive weepy ladies with a victimhood mentality. So how do we explain what happened when a student created a feminist society at Altringham Girls Grammar School?
I decided to set up a feminist society at my school, which has previously been named one of "the best schools in the country", to try to tackle these issues. However, this was more difficult than I imagined as my all-girls school was hesitant to allow the society. After a year-long struggle, the feminist society was finally ratified.
What I hadn’t anticipated on setting up the feminist society was a massive backlash from the boys in my wider peer circle. They took to Twitter and started a campaign of abuse against me. I was called a "feminist bitch", accused of "feeding [girls] bullshit", and in a particularly racist comment was told "all this feminism bull won’t stop uncle Sanjit from marrying you when you leave school".
Our feminist society was derided with retorts such as, "FemSoc, is that for real? #DPMO" [don’t piss me off] and every attempt we made to start a serious debate was met with responses such as "feminism and rape are both ridiculously tiring".
If it’s so tiring, why is the sap behind that comment making the effort to respond?
OK, that’s just dumb people being mocking and dismissive. But then it took the usual turn, and the boys started judging everything on the young women’s sexual potential.
The situation recently reached a crescendo when our feminist society decided to take part in a national project called Who Needs Feminism. We took photos of girls standing with a whiteboard on which they completed the sentence “I need feminism because…”, often delving into painful personal experiences to articulate why feminism was important to them.
When we posted these pictures online we were subject to a torrent of degrading and explicitly sexual comments.
We were told that our “militant vaginas” were “as dry as the Sahara desert”, girls who complained of sexual objectification in their photos were given ratings out of 10, details of the sex lives of some of the girls were posted beside their photos, and others were sent threatening messages warning them that things would soon “get personal”.
Boys will be boys, right? And adults will be contemptible enablers of vicious behavior. Look how the administrators of the school responded:
We, a group of 16-, 17- and 18-year-old girls, have made ourselves vulnerable by talking about our experiences of sexual and gender oppression only to elicit the wrath of our male peer group. Instead of our school taking action against such intimidating behaviour, it insisted that we remove the pictures. Without the support from our school, girls who had participated in the campaign were isolated, facing a great deal of verbal abuse with the full knowledge that there would be no repercussions for the perpetrators.
Gosh. I guess we can’t sit back and relax, misogyny beheaded and mounted as a trophy on our wall, just yet.
Maybe next week, you think?
“girls who complained of sexual objectification in their photos were given ratings out of 10”
OK, so when the girls complain of sexual objectification, the boys try to counter that by giving them a rating on attractiveness? If this doesn’t prove their (the girls) point, I don’t know what does.
What an utter shame that school officials can’t be bothered to stand behind those girls. What a message… I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that this is still happening, 22 years after I graduated high school. I had hoped it would have worked out better, though, by now.
Those… cowards. What the fuck is wrong with those administrators – They’re placing dudes above their own fucking students solely because cock.
Whl cnnt cndn th bs ths yng lds rcvd t wld sm t m tht fmnsm – n sbvrtng trdtnl gndr rls nd rlgtng mn t mr bt prt rls – s lwys lkly t b ndrstd s smwht hstl nd mltnt by mls. Wmn hv th vt nd wmn d bttr n schl tc.
peterooke
What century are you commenting from?
Nononono!
You don’t hang conceptual zombie heads on the wall. They will regenerate.
Always blow off the head of inhuman concepts with a shotgun!
“relegating men to mere bit part roles”???? lolwut.
So…what? Is your sense of self-worth dependent upon having someone around who needs you to do things they can’t do? The idea of people treating each other as equals, and individuals of any gender being capable in their own right, that doesn’t work for you? WTF.
It’s not about countering their point. It’s about silencing them: The boys now know that’s bothering them, so OBJECTIFY AWAY.
Did any of this happen on the internet? Because if so, it’s OBVIOUSLY not real and people need to toughen up.
Oh and because it happened partially at a school, it OBVIOUSLY is just silly kids being kids.
And of course this only happened because those trouble making girls raised it in the first place, OBVIOUSLY.
[/snark and sarcasm. OBVIOUSLY]
Louis
@chg (残念ですね) nd @l trcts
wld smply sk y t cnsdr th d f cmplmntrnsm.
Y mght b srprsd t fnd t tht mst wmn d nt dsr t ‘wr th pnts n rltnshp’ (r trsrs f y r, lk m, n th K).
Who let Pete Rooke out of the dungeon?
You’ve got the gist of it, save one nagging detail: this is the type of thing which feminism strives against, not for. In fact, I’m pretty sure feminism does no such thing as it’s concerning the equality status of women. Any type of overarching indictment you wish to make upon it should be taken up with the individuals espousing the views which you object to, not the broader ideology.
Fuck off, for good measure.
….Feminism simply allows for non-traditional family arrangements.
I fail to see how that’s a bad thing.
A common undertone I see when people try to bring up issues of sexism or racism, in the sad but inevitable backlash, is this idea that we basically have equal rights under the law (in their mind) and you can’t outright refuse to serve or hire black people and women are allowed to go to school and get get jobs if they want – but you can’t make us like you or respect you! Because, honestly, we’re kind of getting to that point. Not a lot of laws to change – though there certainly are some – we’re getting to the point of how you treat people, do you respect them as an equal individual. And to too many of those people, they’ll tolerate the equal rights we’ve managed to win, but no way are they actually going to start respecting women as an equal human person.
So it seems to you that by identifying as feminist these schoolgirls had it coming? Amirite? Because now women have suffrage everything is just hunky dory.
@peterooke:
And not all men want to wear the pants in the relationship, either.
@Ls
d blv tht srs qstns nd t b skd bt why chldrn ths dys fl t ccptbl t pst pctrs wlly-nlly ll vr th ntrnt. n Fcbk, n Twttr, n Snpcht (whch s fr s cn tll s smply mdm fr sndng drty pctrs t thr tns!) … n ths spprt th schl.
Hahahahhahahahahah… Yes, if only you would just consider.
–
My spell checker does not recognize complemtarianism. Hah.
@nghtshdqn
nd fr th chldrn? Ds t gv thm chc?
Oh yes, and these straw feminists of yours are actually female supremacists who want men under the thumb. Amirite?
(1) Citation required for that claim. Otherwise this sounds like a man-in-a-pub handwaving assertion.
(2) Feminism doesn’t preclude women from choosing a dominant role, only that there be a choice.
Gee, Peterooke sure knows alot about where to find pictures of children.
Reminder: Pete Rooke is an incredibly creepy goddist who went on and on here about how criticizing religion was like someone making a book out of the skin of “a loved one who recently passed away.” He’s unhealthily interested in the length of miniskirts and whether or not they cover the “knee roll.”
A lot of research on your part?
I’m pretty damn sure the children never had a choice in being born in the first place.
@lbrmmcmb-wd
N, thnk y r bng nfr. T sy thy hd t cmng wld sm t sggst tht thy dsrvd t. Whl thnk n pstng th pctrs n Fcbk nd n thr plcs n th ntrnt thy wr lwys lkly t ncntr ths bsv rspns (whch s why spprt th schl’s ctns n wntng t prtct thm) crtnly d nt blv tht thy dsrvd t.
OK
*ponders*
That’s ridiculous.
peterooke @ 10
No one is said that women should “wear the pants in a relationship,” asshole.
I think if I ever hear someone say this non-sarcastically, I can accuse them of supporting delinquency.
peterooke:
Riiiiight. Because if the majority of a group prefers a certain thing, the minority has no right to object. Because we’re obligated to treat everyone in a group as having identical preferences by default instead of recognizing human diversity and choice as important factors.
Oh, and who says “wearing the pants” is necessary in a relationship? Not all relationships involve a dominant member. Some of us prefer egalitarian relationships where no one “wears the pants.”
Why? Should children have a choice of their parents’ roles? My child certainly doesn’t. Does yours? If so, that sounds rather creepy.
I’m sorry, but your feigned concern (“Oh, what about the children?”) suggests that non-normative relationships are beyond The Pale, or somehow damaging to the kids. I think you need to demonstrate that this is so.
“I have not personally witnessed the phenomenon you describe, therefore the phenomenon does not exist.”
This is the rationale employed by those that disagree with feminism, making them the creationists of scepticism.
@yzks
‘G, Ptrk sr knws lt bt whr t fnd pctrs f chldrn.’
Tht’s vry nknd nd btrys nsty snsblty. Jst s tht t s knwn, lrnd bt Snpcht ftr rdng bt t n-ln.
(while searching for ways to get pictures of children)
And yet again, the Rookie shows why he is held in the regard he finds himself in.
(Here is a clue, Rookie. Do not tell women that you understand the motivations of women better then they do.)
@lbrmmcmb-wd
d tnd t blv tht htrnrmtv rltnshps r bst fr chldrn nd blv th rsrch spprts ths. Fnny tht – rsrch tllng s wht mst hv lwys knw!
nstd f fmnst scty wld rthr thy nvstd thr tm nt smthng mr ffrmng nd cnstrctv. rts, sprts, msc, chrch tc.
Got it. Don’t post pictures of yourself on the internet, ever.
peterooke @ 30
I seriously doubt what you consider kind/unkind is a priority on anyone’s list but you own. It certainly isn’t on mine
peterooke, you are misinformed as to the research. Incredibly, toxically misinformed. You might want to remedy that before you ooze more bullshit onto the Internet.
but hell, what do I know. I’ve got a PhD in the area but I’m a woman wearing pants! Onoz!
I have a question. What’s wrong with that? Why should it not be acceptable? As long as the person in question is not doing something irresponsible or illegal, then what is the problem? Is is that they’re going to face abuse from someone about it? That can happen without pictures. And, of course, it’s victim-blaming.
In other words, “They had it coming,” which is rhetorically similar to “they deserved it,” but with less schadenfreude.
What I find interesting is that rather than blame the sexist toads who harass, your approach shifts the blame onto the girls. From our limited acquaintance I would opine that you are less interested in making the world a better place by fighting sexism and harassment and would prefer to keep the feminists in their place.
Come on, Rooke. Just one knee roll? For old times’ sake?
Which is more important than condemning the abuse they received for their choices.
Yeah, your concern for decorum over humanity is noted.
peterooke @ 33
Then cite your sources.
Yes, clearly instead of trying to effect positive social change, they should keep their heads down and make pretty pictures* or engage in pointless competition. Remind us again why you should not be in charge of this.
* Not trying to denigrate creative pursuits here, just guessing that the art and music that Rooke would rather girls invest their time in is probably pretty limited in scope.
What is most important, and what the school also recognizes as most important, is that the boat not be rocked.
Citation please, because there are experts here who say you are ill-informed about the research.
Because feminism is destructive and non-affirming. Amirite? In other news: slavery is freedom and war is peace.
Bye, Creepy Pete.
Aren’t you the very fucking soul of generosity.
Holy crap! Pete Rooke is one of my favourite clueless religionists ever! Josh may want him to talk about knee rolls, but I’d rather have him explain again how he would never “inflict” oral sex on a woman!
Damn it, he’s banned already?
Dammit.
Ah. Too late.
So long, Creepy Pete. I did not miss you the first time you were booted. I will not miss you now. You are mere one of many shitheads who demand that women be subservient to your desires.
(Were one gets done to it, what separates the Rookie from a Slymie? The fact that he does not like swearing?)
FTFY
Seriously, you’re deluded if you don’t see the problem here. Yeah, they should have expected abuse of that sort posting pics of themselves on Facebook. Because they’re female. That’s the problem.
Aw dangit. I figured he’d be more likely than Ann Jones to actually lay out what the specific parenting roles of the One Biological Father Man and One Biological Mother Woman are.
Considered, and discarded as self-serving bullshit. If complementarian systems did not routinely devalue women to their faces and behind their backs when those women were not asking for rights, I would at least have given it more than 10 seconds of thought, but they did, so complementarianism does not even warrant that much effort. It’s a clear and obvious way to say ‘god/nature meant for you to be oppressed, and to be happy with it, sucks to be you’.
Feminism is affirming and constructive by definition – “You have value as a person, and we need to help make society agree”.
Actually, not only is that untrue, but it’s hilarious that you think ‘research tells us what we always knew’. As a matter of fact, most of the things we ‘already knew’ become less and less true as we examine them scientifically.
That was fast, but appreciated.
The nonsense about children being harmed galls me. The whole idea of gender roles discourages children from exploring various roles and interests they might enjoy or be talented at because they’re “cross-gender” or whatever. It’s not much different than ideas that certain races are “meant” for certain jobs. To me, it’s like listening to a segregation era teacher telling a black student that he shouldn’t pursue his college dreams and settle for blue collar labor.
Treating children like individuals with neural plasticity and unknown potential is best because it lets them freely explore what they’re good at and what they like. This “complementarianism” idea, as I understand it, sets artificial boundaries and makes children with allegedly “cross-gender” skills and interests ashamed of their talents instead of letting them be proudly productive. It values purposeless conformity over individual merit.
Even if these alleged gender affinities exist on a genetic level instead of being cultural, it does no good to act as if there are no exceptions. It’s like a horrible misapplication of statistics, trying to force outlier individuals to conform to one-size-fits-all overall trends instead of accepting and encouraging human variation. It seeks to confine humanity to preconceived, pre-scientific limits instead of removing pointless, self-imposed barriers and finding out what we’re really capable of.
Awww… Why you take away our chew toy?
I’ve always thought that peterooke meant that he would never make a woman do oral sex to him.
I think he doesn’t know about cunnilingus.
I know, you were all looking forward to a rending good time, but the thought of Pete Rooke waxing eloquent on the subject of young children and sex…<shudder> No, I could not bear it.
*Please replace Were with When*
Fair do’s, PZ.
Aw. I missed a mini-party, and trying to read the disemvoweled posts isn’t helping my headache. Ah well. I’m pretty sure he addressed me at one point, but again, deciphering anything past “l trcts” hurt too much.
So um, not to prolong that distasteful subject, but what exactly is the “knee roll” in this context? According to the internet, it seems to be either an exercise or a part of a riding saddle. I’m thinking most of the Pete Rooke archives from Crackergate are probably lost to the mists of NatGeo.
Guys like peterooke are literally why we STILL need feminism – supporters of the patriarchy have always tried to dress up their domination in pretty, harmless language. “Traditional gender roles” is no different. It’s just Newspeak for “a woman’s place”.
Rey Fox, it has something to do with a skirt being long enough to cover the “knee roll”. From the same mind that came up with the book of philosophy bound by the skin of a loved one and the gum diseased milkman drinking from the milk bottles.
http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Pete_Rooke
It’s not Newspeak. Complementarianism was the term that 19th century dudes came up with for their totes fair and balanced system.
I certainly hope that the young women and their parents can take action to ensure that the creeps and thugs have criminal records to go with their rapey-threat behavior.
I know that, but what is the knee roll?
Rey Fox, I have no idea. Do you really want to understand the workings of the mind of the Rookie. It is full of shit even darker then what I find in my dark mind.
Creepy Pete wishes girls would play sports instead of engaging in feminism, but is seemingly oblivious to the fact that without feminism, there would be very few sports for girls to play. Why does this not surprise me.
Oh, I now see why the Pullet Patrol was singing “Bye-bye Rookie“.
As a slight tangent, I’ve always seen this phrase used in reference to things like young boys messing around, climbing trees, etc. Things that might not be perfect decorum, but are pretty harmless.
It wasn’t until I joined Pharyngula that I heard of people using it to excuse bullying, harrasment, sexual assault, etc.
Is this a difference between British and American use, or was I just lucky/privileged enough not to encounter people using it to justify actual harm?
Sorry gravityisjustatheory but I have heard “boys will be boys” being used to justify teasing, bullying and physical attacks for decades. (Just for your point of reference, I am from the state of Illinois, the midwest of the US.)
Pascale68 @ 1
It’s a great example of Lewis’ law.
Yeah, same here, it’s what I often heard when I complained about being verbally/physically attacked from the ages of 10-16.
In my very limited social circle in a more liberal part of the country, the phrase is used rarely but when it is, it is usually with bitter irony, most likely as an allusion to the usage you refer to. “Boys will be boys” seems to just an indirect way to say “kids can be so cruel”, a way to gently imply that the children and adolescents in question are raging douchebags.
(This particular sarcastic usage may be anomalous)
@6 Gnumann+,with no bloody irony at all (just an anti-essentialist feminist with a shotgun)
So; misogynists give head and are subsequently mounted ?
Verry interestink.
I usually only see PeteRooks blather once it’s been disemvowled, and as he’s such an ass I don’t bother trying to manually re-insert vowels.
Re: the OP : Apparently I am not a TruSkeptik or I would realize that we have long since transitioned beyond racism and sexism and become Truely Post-Racist, Post-Sexist. So it’s all right for me to casually refer to non-whites by racial slurs and call women “sluts” and “bitches”.
Uh huh. Right. Gotcha. Just like a TruSkeptik knows Global Warming is nonsense.
@36 neuroturtle
Standing there ? All bifurcated ? The horror ! It stops oi thinking !
Ooooh. Errrr. Missis.
it sez, and right above that this ad.
(p.s. hey! preview sort of worked this time!)
@46 Goodbye Enemy Janine
Oi missed that, thankee Miss Enemy.
But church is not constructive izzeet? Innit ?
(Y’all, I tend to see blog-convos as like plays, innit; except, the moving finger, having writ, is really gone.. ).Bless thee mine sistren, mine brethren. I’m really pissed, completly rat-arsed, on the good pink rosé of le pays d’Oc. It’s not an excuse, it’s falling off the the er, er, deux-chevaux.
Why does preview not work ?
I read it as ‘Peter Ooke’, and it all felt a bit hilariously Discworld for a minute.
@4 Reminds me of the famous Onion headline: “Clinton deploys vowels to Bosnia”
I’m glad that women in the skeptic community are starting to speak out; now for the rest of society
Thanks for removing Mr Peter Ooke, his name was a slander upon the Librarian
Tiny trivial point: it’s pronounced “Altringham”. The spelling, however, is “Altrincham”. It’s printed three times with the correct spelling on the end of the link, even though it’s the Grauniad.
Less trivial point: since I’ve not seen anyone comment on it, I’m assuming nobody’s seen it. The school have posted a response:
“Altrincham Grammar School for Girls has supported Jinan in setting up the society, providing administrative assistance, guidance and proactively suggesting opportunities to help members to explore this issue which they feel passionately about.
“We are committed to protecting the safety and welfare of our students, which extends to their safety online. We consider very carefully any societies that the school gives its name and support to.
“As such, we will take steps to recommend students remove words or images that they place online that could compromise their safety or that of other students at the school.” (my emphasis)
So as far as the school’s concerned, posting a photo of yourself with a placard saying why you need feminism “could compromise” your or another’s safety, and they “recommend” you don’t do that. They probably “recommend” you don’t wear a short skirt, too, because hey, asking for it, right?
To paraphrase Arthur Dent – I wish I had a daughter, so I could forbid her from going to that school.
Complementarianism sounds an awful lot like the gender-equivalent of “separate, but equal”, but fine, let’s consider it for a moment:
Simple fact is that, beyond a few obvious biological functions, women can do anything that men can do and vice versa. There’s not even strong tendencies in any particular direction. Even in those cases where we find tendencies, they’re usually mild with a huge zone of overlap, to the point where gender becomes essentially useless as a predictor of ability.
If you have to consider two people for a position, their gender will tell you exactly nothing about which one would do the best job. Individual variation far outweighs variation between genders, so there’s no (rational) reason to consider anything other than individual ability. Gender simply isn’t a reliable indicator of jack shit.
There is however a huge cultural influence, which massively affects how people of different genders act and are treated. This has been well established, along with the fact that such influences can be reversed if we work at it. Such reversible, cultural influences obviously are not arguments for essential, biological differences and are in fact a big part of what feminism is all about.
The idea that men and women fit different roles might sound appealing if you don’t think about it too much, but it’s just not supported by the facts. That’s not how reality works. Time and again people have made claims about essential qualities of gender, and time and again, they’ve been debunked. I think we’re at the point where the burden of proof is clearly on the person claiming an essential difference. Pony up some hard evidence or shut the fuck up.
So there: Considered, rejected, moving the fuck along.
@LykeX #87
*Applause*
Could someone tell me who this moron is who doesn’t use vowels? I really don’t like having to decipher all this.
forestdragon
PZ will disemvowel posts sometimes.