Adam Lee reads things so you don’t have to

That poor fellow. He’s reading Atlas Shrugged, which is awful enough, but now he’s also reading homophobic literature about The Harms of Same-Sex Marriage. Massachusetts has had same-sex marriage for a decade, so you’d think we’d now have some solid data on the ghastly consequences … so I appreciate the anti-gay-marriage groups now taking their very best shot with real information.

Their list of terrible outcomes is simply pathetic.

Children are being told that families with same-sex parents are just another kind of family! Lawyers have to learn about marriage law that includes gay people! Homosexuals are allowed to adopt children! Gay people are criticizing ex-gay therapy!

If that’s the worst stuff that can happen if we allow gays to marry, I say bring it on.

No, no, no…not philosophers too!

You’d think if there was any area of human endeavor that was least likely to be full of absurd sexual drama and thoughtless harassment, it would be philosophy. Don’t those people sit around thinking ponderously about ethics and moral behavior and living the life of the mind all the time?* But no, it’s all booze and animal lusts for them, too, just like the rest of us.

The crux of this story is that Colin McGinn, a very well known philosopher, was sliming one of his own graduate students with salacious email (pdf), making remarks about masturbating while thinking about her, etc. McGinn’s own defense does him no favors; and now he’s claiming that women support him in email, because they’re so much more sensitive than men. Advances towards a student are simply unacceptable, no matter how much McGinn wants to pretend it was simply friendly banter. McGinn’s own defenders aren’t helping, either.

Professor Erwin goes on:

“There was some sexual talk, banter, puns, and jokes made between the two,”  Mr. Erwin said. “The written records, I believe, show that this was an entirely consensual relationship.” 

No, no. That is not how it works. It is remarkable how profoundly this misunderstands the student/professor relationship. A professor’s relationships with his or her students are not “entirely consensual” like that. Student/professor relationships inherently have a highly unequal balance of power. That includes students in one’s undergraduate and graduate classes, obviously, but it also includes teaching- and research assistants; academic advisees; people whose thesis or dissertation committees one sits on; exam proctors; everyone. Everyone. Anything a student says or writes to a professor has to be seen in that light. Suppose the professor engages in sexual banter and the student banters back. Maybe that’s because she consented and wanted to banter, but maybe it’s because the power differential inherent in the relationship placed her in a position of duress, in which she felt like she had to banter or face unpleasant consequences. If the return banter was performed unwillingly or under duress, there is no reason to think that the written records will reveal it.

But wait, that isn’t the worst of it. On blogs and on twitter, all over the place, bad philosophy is being done.

I take it as a mark of how deeply messed up the moral compass of professional philosophy is that there are commenters at some of the blogs linked above who seem willing to go to the mat to argue that there may be conditions in which it is acceptable to email your RA you that were thinking about her during your hand-job. Because personal interactions are hard, y’all! And power-gradients in graduate programs that are at once educational environments and workplaces are really very insignificant compared to what the flesh wants! Or something.

Read some of the dumbest things clueless people are uttering in McGinn’s defense.

OK, the communities of atheists, science-fiction writers, gamers, scholars of literature, skepticism, politics, and philosophers are rife with sexist scumbags. Is there any small part of the human community that is untainted? Do I need to start hanging out with polyamorous left-handed fly-tying hobbyists or something?

*The pdf linked above also cites something I did not know.

Complaints of sexist remarks and behavior have long plagued the field of philosophy, which has been dominated by men for years. More than 80 percent of full-time faculty members in philosophy are male, compared with just 60 percent for the professoriate as a whole, according to 2003 data compiled by the U.S. Education Department, the latest available.

Dealing with the ten percent

NK Jemisin is an American writer who was in Australia to give a speech. The context: she’s a black American woman in Australia with some trepidation — Australia has a bit of a reputation for racism, I’m sorry to say. Even when I visited the place, there were a couple of instances of casual racism as we were touring the cities (not within the atheist convention I was attending, I am quick to add) that left me a bit gobsmacked, and I’m your standard oblivious white man. But before you think this is an Australia-bashing occasion, read the speech.

Now. Before you tar and feather me, let me tell you something else I’ve come to understand in the past three days. Australia may not be the safest place for someone who looks like me… but it’s trying to become safer. And Australia may have classified the peoples of the Koorie and other nations as “fauna” until very recently, but Australia has also made tremendous strides lately in rectifying this error. I’ve listened in fascination to the Acknowledgements of Country made at nearly every public event I’ve attended since I’ve been here. I’ve marveled that indigenous languages are offered as courses for study at some local universities. I am awed that you don’t shove all of your indigenous history into a single museum, where it’s easy for people not of that culture to avoid or ignore, because that’s what happens in the US. So as horrified as I am by the nastier details of Australian history… I am also heartened, astonished, inspired, by the Australian present. You’ve still got a long way to go before Reconciliation is complete, but then again, you’ve started down that path. You’re trying.

I want you to understand: what you’ve done? It will never happen in my country. Not in my lifetime, at least. Right now American politicians are doing their best to roll back voting rights won during our own Civil Rights movement. They are putting in place educational “reforms” which disproportionately have a negative impact on black and brown and poor white kids, and will essentially help to solidify a permanent underclass. Right now there are laws in places like Florida and Texas which are intended to make it essentially legal for white people to just shoot people like me, without consequence, as long as they feel threatened by my presence. So: admitting that the land we live on was stolen from hundreds of other nations and peoples? Acknowledging that the prosperity the United States enjoys was bought with blood? That’s a pipe dream.

Ouch. It’s true: Americans can be masters of denial. Didn’t we fix all the racism with the Civil War? Or was it the Reconstruction? Or maybe the Civil Rights Movement. Anyway, it’s not a problem anymore. The Republican Party isn’t profoundly racist at all, nor is the rest of the country. I can’t see any problems with my eyes closed, anyway.

She’s not done. She then proceeds to chastise science fiction fans.

For the past few days I’ve also been observing a “kerfuffle”, as some call it, in reaction to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ of America’s latest professional journal, the Bulletin. Some of you may also have been following the discussion; hopefully not all of you. To summarize: two of the genre’s most venerable white male writers made some comments in a series of recent articles which have been decried as sexist and racist by most of the organization’s membership. Now, to put this in context: the membership of SFWA also recently voted in a new president. There were two candidates — one of whom was a self-described misogynist, racist, anti-Semite, and a few other flavors of asshole. In this election he lost by a landslide… but he still earned ten percent of the vote. SFWA is small; only about 500 people voted in total, so we’re talking less than 50 people. But scale up again. Imagine if ten percent of this country’s population was busy making active efforts to take away not mere privileges, not even dignity, but your most basic rights. Imagine if ten percent of the people you interacted with, on a daily basis, did not regard you as human.

Just ten percent. But such a ten percent.

And beyond that ten percent are the silent majority — the great unmeasured mass of enablers. These are the folks who don’t object to the treatment of women as human beings, and who may even have the odd black or gay friend that they genuinely like. However, when the ten percent starts up in their frothing rage, these are the people who say nothing in response. When women and other marginalized groups respond with anger to the hatred of the ten percent, these are the people who do not support them, and in fact suggest that maybe they’re overreacting. When they read a novel set in a human society which contains only one or two female characters, these are the people who don’t decry this as implausible. Or worse, they simply don’t notice. These are the people who successfully campaigned for Star Trek to return to television after 25 years, but have no intention of campaigning for Roddenberry’s vision to be complete, with gay characters joining the rainbow brigade on the bridge. These are the people who gleefully nitpick the scientific plausibility of stopping a volcano with “cold fusion”, yet who fail to notice that an author has written a future earth in which somehow seventeen percent of the human race dominates ninety percent of the characterization.

That ten percent seems to be a problem everywhere: politics, religion, science fiction, atheism.

Mattering is a two-edged sword

A lot of people were impressed by Rebecca Goldstein’s talk at Women in Secularism 2 on the importance of mattering for human happiness, it was a real light-bulb moment for many people, I think. We’d like to believe it’s a concept that can be used as incentive for humanist goals, but as Vyckie Garrison points out, it can be used to motivate other purposes, too.

The reason Quiverfull is gaining ground is because it puts a female individual in the position of mattering – of mattering A LOT – to a collective.

If you really want someone to care about you more than anyone – all you need to do is give birth to them. Being a mother guarantees that you will matter – for good or for evil – your child’s life will be intimately wrapped up in yours, even despite the best efforts of a brilliant therapist later in life. (I say this only half-jokingly. We all love our mothers, BUT …)

Nice concept, that ‘mattering’, but as this illustrates, every idea needs a good follow-through as well. What is secularism going to do to allow women to matter?

My poor children didn’t reap the benefits of gay marriage

An Australian survey of the children of same-sex couples has some shocking news: gay marriage may be better for children.

An interim report found there was no statistical difference between children of same-sex couples and the rest of the population on indicators including self-esteem, emotional behaviour and the amount of time spent with parents.

However, children of same-sex couples scored higher than the national average for overall health and family cohesion, measuring how well the family members get along.

But actually, the current hypothesis isn’t that gay marriage is better for you, it’s that people open to gay marriage are more tolerant and make for better parents.

”Because of the situation that same-sex families find themselves in, they are generally more willing to communicate and approach the issues that any child may face at school, like teasing or bullying,” lead researcher Dr Simon Crouch said.

”This fosters openness and means children tend to be more resilient. That would be our hypothesis.”

Mother of three Kate Coghlan concurred. ”We talk about everything: from how they were conceived to the different relationships that people have,” the 39-year-old said. ”They are very accepting and more tolerating of diversity.”

So don’t weep, heterosexual couples, there’s nothing wrong with your relationship, and your children have every hope of being just as happy as children of gay parents. There are these things even we straight people can do, like talking and sharing and helping our children. So do it more.

The SFWA forms a committee

In the wake of recent raging sexism in the science-fiction writers community, the SFWA has convened a task force to address the issues. It has the potential to be a good response, or a strategy for procrastination…we’ll just have to wait and see. It looks like some good progressive people on the committee, at least. John Scalzi has stepped up and accepted responsibility, which is also encouraging.

Meanwhile, the response is getting hot. Rachael Acks unleashes the fury, and so does SL Huang. That last post includes complete scans of the 6-page dialog from Resnick and Malzberg that elicited the anger. It’s an amazing piece of work: Resnick/Malzberg first brag about the sexist work that they’ve done in the past with no complaints (from women editors, even) and then whine at length about how they’re being censored and crucified by liberal fascists (Malzberg favorably cites talk radio and Sean Hannity for that one). It’s a pathetic spectacle.

They aren’t being censored. They’re being criticized for saying stupid things.

Does this sound familiar? What is it with old white guys who get all this respect and recognition as leaders in their fields, who then wilt into self-pitying whines of “witchhunt!” at any bad press, no matter how mild?