Here we go again

Mark Oppenheimer has published an article to blow open the sexism scandals — Will Misogyny Bring Down The Atheist Movement? And whoa, Michael Shermer does not come off well in it.

This bit is more than a little disturbing:

“Shermer has been a bad boy on occasion — I do know that,” Randi told me. “I have told him that if I get many more complaints from people I have reason to believe, that I am going to have to limit his attendance at the conference.

“His reply,” Randi continued, “is he had a bit too much to drink and he doesn’t remember. I don’t know — I’ve never been drunk in my life. It’s an unfortunate thing … I haven’t seen him doing that. But I get the word from people in the organization that he has to be under better control. If he had gotten violent, I’d have him out of there immediately. I’ve just heard that he misbehaved himself with the women, which I guess is what men do when they are drunk.”

I’m glad I’ll be off in Fargo this weekend when the howling mob descends.

That was really quick. Both Ashley Miller and Stephanie Zvan already have substantial comments on the article. (We obviously knew it was coming — we were interviewed for it — but didn’t know what the overall tenor of the story was going to be. I think they prepared ahead of time.)

After sleeping on it, one of the things I like about the article is that it quotes extensively from both sides: not just me and Alison and other people on the anti-misogyny side, but also Shermer himself and Jillette and Emery, and those apologists come across as slimy, dissembling assholes in their own words. It’s a bit like a television police procedural, where all the bad guys indict themselves with their inconsistencies as soon as they open their mouths.

I’m not a big fan of how it portrays Melody — she’s been stressed out, but functioning anyway. She’s organized a couple of major conferences in this time! It could have also spent more time presenting Alison’s story and evidence…but then, I understand that this was not a court case, but an opportunity to discuss the positions of both sides.

September Online Gender Workshop: Gender Attributions in Practice

After a long hiatus, I am attempting to rejuvenate the online gender workshop just in time for the US/Canadian school year.

In the past, we’ve focused on questions and reports back. Last time, we looked at some definitions. The initial exercises needed to be done in a state of gender naiveté. But more in depth exploration can only be done in the context of a common language and common intent. These are never naively assumed; they must be consciously adopted.

Now that we have these, let’s look at some aspects of gender in particular. Most educational focus is on gender identity and gender identification. But I find it more helpful to start with gender attribution. All of us attribute gender to others very frequently, but the process of attributing gender to ourselves is typically limited to childhood. Long before adulthood, cis* folks’ genders are assumptions living in the background of cis* lives. So let’s start by examining an activity with which we all have more practice and more familiarity: telling other people what there genders are. [Un/]Fortunately for you, I have a piece of creative writing that contains a number of good examples of gender attribution: how it happens, when it happens, and what it looks like. As a bonus which will help us segue into future discussions, it also touches on what it feels like when we are conscious of others’ efforts to attribute gender to us. This piece is called Stares. [Read more…]

Every time I’m sure they’ve sunk as low as they can get, they start drilling deeper

So some celebrities had their phones hacked and very personal and private photos stolen, which certain less savory and much more piggish individuals have been happily disseminating on the internet. There is the issue of the hypocrisy of people concerned about privacy celebrating this.

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I don’t agree with everything this guy says, either

Way too many clips of Thunderf00t mugging for the camera, and the conclusion staggers home with a feeble “I’m not that kind of feminist” disclaimer, but otherwise, it’s nice to see the Phil Mason School of Logical Fallacies exposed so well.

It seems strange to see people defending a game called “Hit Man”, though. You aren’t required to murder those strippers doesn’t exactly sound like an accolade — it’s still a game where you pretend to be a professional murderer.

Homosexuality and evolution

I made the mistake of reading some of the comments on those last youtube videos. There were some good ones, but they were also laced with the usual grunting assholes complaining about gays and “trannies” and quoting the Bible and making racist remarks about Africans. Let us pass over those contemptible arguments; there’s no dealing with them rationally. Spit and move on.

But there’s another flavor of argument that annoys me to no end: people who cite science and evolution to support their ignorant misconceptions about human nature. I want to address two, one anti-gay and the other pro-gay, both wrong.

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