Clementine Ford has published a book, Fight Like A Girl, and has written a number of columns like this one, It’s time we demanded more from boys, for all our sakes, to promote her next one, Boys Will Be Boys, that universal phrase used to excuse vile behavior. In that essay, she writes about some high school football players who anally raped an intellectually disabled 17-year-old African American boy with a coathanger and made him sing a song about lynching black people, and who then got off with probation.
For orchestrating this crime, Howard was sentenced to three years’ probation and 300 hours of community service. In his sentencing remarks, district judge Randy J. Stoker stated the attack was not, in his opinion, racially or sexually motivated.
This is a real problem Ford is describing. The judge let them off, and citizens of the town excused their behavior. How can you excuse anal rape? That’s just what boys do.
They’re 15-, 16-, 17-year-old boys who are doing what boys do … I would guarantee that those boys had no criminal intent to do anything or any harm to anyone. Boys are boys and sometimes they get carried away.
I was once a 15-, 16-, 17-year-old boy. I was never even tempted to sexually assault other boys, black, handicapped, or not. I think I rather resent this idea that because of my sex, I am predisposed to viciously and violently carry out sexual attacks on others, and I think I’m going to have to side with Clementine Ford on the fact that this attitude does a disservice to boys.
But having that attitude is apparently beneficial to a lot of Australians, because they’re very upset that Ford is going to be a speaker at the Atheist Foundation of Australia‘s Global Atheist Convention in 2018. I’m glad she’s speaking there — atheists need that kind of wake-up call — but wow, you should see all the hatred for Ford sweeping out of Facebook and YouTube right now. How dare she confront male privilege and chastise not just bad actors, but also all the people who make excuses for them, people like…the people hating on Ford.
So, the anti-feminists have launched a campaign to boycott a bookstore stocking her book (they seem not to have decided to campaign against either atheism or Amazon, though), and are trying to fill the AFA’s facebook page with threats of violence.
Just on 10% of all comments (that have been also deleted) have included threats of physical violence by men against not just Clementine Ford but other women here. These have included suggestions of being raped and having throats slit, a women told to ‘sit on a knife’, called whores and sluts, retards and so on.
Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. But hey, as one person made note. The women here deserved the threats because they were feminists.
Wait, aren’t these the same people who usually howl about free speech and hate deplatforming and other such sins? Never mind…it’s OK, because they’re feminists.
The title of the 2018 Global Atheist Convention is “Reason to Hope”. I don’t see much reason to hope in the misogyny sector of atheism, but elsewhere I do — in particular, that the anti-feminists have become so cartoonishly villainous and stupid that maybe more people will understand why they are pariahs. The anti-feminist atheists were furious in their attacks on Atheism+, as they are now on Clementine Ford, but I think what they’ve accomplished is to drive much of mainstream atheism away and create little ghettos of hatred for themselves. Congratulations to them on successfully establishing Atheism–!
Responding to free speech with threats and insults is not free speech; it’s silencing.
I’m glad Ford is still speaking up.
That’s the kind of terrible shit that made me walk away from the whole thing.
So if I beat the judge over the head with a billy club, will I be OK if I say I didn’t mean to hurt him? Or is 27 too old to be a “boy”?
If they truly believe this, why not institute curfews exclusively for boys? Make it so boys can’t go outside without an adult chaperone! Force them to wear blinders in public! And no, fragile flowers of the Men’s Rights Movement, I’m not being serious. I don’t think boys should be restrained like that, because I DON’T believe that boys are incapable of stopping themselves from raping. I think they are fully capable of behaving like decent human beings…if they’re raised right, that is. But since you guys apparently do think boys are unable to control themselves, why aren’t YOU supporting those restrictions? If the boys are the ones who can’t control themselves, they’re the ones who should be restrained!
That “Global Atheist Convention” needs to be boycotted hard. As I understand it, only the masthead at Australia’s atheist foundation has changed, the misogynist dimwits who invited Jim Jefferies are still running the show. I assume they are missing their cash cow.
I would hope major players in atheism+ including Clem Ford could give this one a miss. Maybe a parallel convention that features progressive and multicultural voices, and emphasizes social justice could be organised. Not sure that Ford is aware of the history of these conventions.
If I’m wrong and the atheist foundation of Australia has been taken over by social justice advocates and feminists, ignore my comment.
Not if you’re white.
Even more remarkable is that a judge declared anal probing not sexual.
Fucking what. If you don’t have criminal intent, but you want to do something that is criminal, then in fact you have criminal intent. Oh how silly of me, I forgot these guys have the ultimate Get Out Of Jail free card: they are football players.
These are “boys” brought up in a toxic gender environment that encourages them to rape. To that extent they are “boys being boys”. Or more accurately “men being rapists”.
It’s great many men resist pervasive rape culture – there is no excuse for sexual violence and no fucking rewards for being “good”. But let’s not pretend these are simply innocents gone bad.
Huh. That’s interesting. Not really intending to be criminal, yeah? Okay. Tell you what, you wait there and I’ll go get some duct tape and a wire hangar. No, I don’t intend to do anything criminal. We’ll just hang out and have fun. Just… clear your schedule for a couple hours. Best make that a few hours. In case we have a little too much fun.
The above was sarcasm in case it wasn’t clear. I still can’t wrap my brain around the fundamental lack of self-consciousness it takes to do that “boys will be boys” thing. As best I can figure it’s only said by people who imagine that they will never, could never be victims themselves. I really wouldn’t wish that on them either. I just want them to be beaten mercilessly with clues until one sinks in.
Don’t overlook the fact that the victim was black. There is all sorts of wrong here.
5 rorshac
I have been pushing for several years to bring the new GAC about. I have also been helping at the Facebook page. Your unwarranted assertion is doing a great disservice to the women and men working behind the scenes to bring this all about.
And yes I openly call myself an SJW but you have no right to demand it.