Stand up against sexism

Amanda Marcotte shares a success story in the struggle against casual sexism, and also plugs this great conference coming up this weekend.

I bring this up because I’m one of the speakers at Women in Secularism, which starts on Friday in D.C. (There’s still time to register, if you want to come!)  The very existence of this conference is threatening to a lot of people who either believe that women should remain a small minority in secular activism, that they should embrace the role of disempowered harassment objects, or that feminist ideas—i.e. the belief that women are equal human beings—have no place in secular spaces, despite the long history of secularism and feminism being intertwined. I’ve been made to understand that many of these folks have been upping their already obsessive levels of harassment and making threats of showing up simply to harass people for holding the offensive belief that women have something to contribute as people and not just as sex objects. So I wanted to remind people not to let those bastards get you down. They don’t speak for the majority. They exploit the anonymity of the internet to make themselves seem greater in number than they are, mainly by posting non-stop and having no life outside of being angry that feminists are engaged in secular activism. But as this story shows, the fuck-you-women-are-objects-n0t-people attitude is not inevitable, and conversations can actually be had and good faith does exist. So, a bit of optimism!

Oh, yeah, the other side is ramping up the freakout as the conference date comes ever closer. I expect the #wiscfi hashtag on twitter is going to become completely unusable and uninformative as the kooks become angrier and more obsessive about women talking about women’s issues (and generally human issues!) under the banner of secularism.

It’s going to be interesting as the rational side calmly and dispassionately watches the haters melt down.

I get email, gay marriage edition

The great news: Governor Dayton signed the same-sex marriage bill into law this afternoon. You may now cheer wildly.

The silly it-is-to-laugh news: the religious right is indignant. I got this email this afternoon:

I have been reading your blog entries regarding The Minnesota Legislature’s legalizing of gay marriage. In these entries, you seem to put the blame for the hold up on the passing of this legislation on Christians and organized religion, who oppose gay marriage as a tenet of their faith. That is fine on your part and does not bother me one iota. What I would like to do is to send you 77 NON-RELIGIOUS Reasons to Support Man/Woman Marriage. If you are open minded enough and don’t mind sending me your “snail mail” address, I will send you a copy of this pamphlet for your information. Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely Yours,

David W. Zeile

I told him to go ahead, but I took a wild guess at what these ‘reasons’ would be — I predict lots of repetition of the same few arguments with a few words twisted around, and much circling around the purpose of marriage being procreation and children needing a mommy and a daddy and how it’s so unfair for the law to force people to tolerate wicked gays. I figured I’d have fun ripping into it.

But I don’t have to! I searched on the title of the pamphlet and found that the Rational Wiki has already done the job, and done it well. Also, the content is exactly what I predicted.

Entirely on logical and rational reasons, the anti-gay bigots lose.

It’s inevitable now

The Minnesota Senate has approved gay marriage. It now goes to Governor Dayton, who has already said he’ll sign it, and then we’re at last edging our way into the 21st century.

Not everyone is happy about it.

"In my heart, I grieve on both sides. Because I know what it’s like to be alone and I know what it is like to have somebody close to you and love you. But I grieve inside because I feel we are opening the doors to Sodom and Gomorra. And in the end, God is going to be the judge," said Nelson, of Blaine, tears running down her cheeks.

I would bottle your tears and perhaps dot a little on my wrists every morning — Eau de Schadenfreude. Or perhaps I would drink them like a rich bitter wine, and laugh. Those aren’t tears of sorrow, but of nasty cruel bigotry — you didn’t get your way, you weren’t allowed to demean other citizens of this state in the way you wanted, and now you get to weep in frustration, while I have no sympathy.

And to compare the happy men and women who can now aspire to share equally in love and marriage with evil, wicked horrible people from your book of lies, to tell yourself they are damned and will be destroyed…well, I’ll dance an especially happy spiteful dance on your broken dreams of oppression, lady.

The twisted logic of the anti-gay marriage movement

The Minnesota senate will be debating our gay marriage bill this afternoon; if it passes there, we have a done deal, because our governor Dayton has promised to sign it into law as soon as it hits his desk. This has thrown the Christians into this state in a frenzy (and make no mistake, the opposition is zealously Christian — every argument calls on their god to justify their hatred), and we’re getting email and mailed flyers and phone calls at home all the time. They don’t seem to have very good organization, either. You think they’d learn from the contemptuous sneer and slammed phones they get from me that they should write me off as a lost cause.

But their arguments are just getting weirder and more desperate. Take this from @MnForMarriage:

Yesterday, millions of Minnesotans celebrated the Lord’s day. Today, should the gay “marriage” bill pass, those who believe in the Lord’s design for marriage will become “bigots” under our laws.

Yep, that’s their major argument right now. It’s OK to discriminate against gay people, but suggesting that people who want to deny others their civil rights are “bigots” is unfair and oppressive!

Don’t worry, @MnForMarriage, you’re already bigots, so the law will change nothing in that regard. It’ll just mean you don’t get to practice your bigotry against gay people under the cover of law. But I’m sure you’ll still be the same nasty, hateful, mean-spirited, narrow-minded jebus-shaggers you’ve always been.

Today is the day

Today, the Minnesota legislature is supposed to vote on gay marriage. I know because the pressure has been at fever pitch — I got three phone calls yesterday from advocacy organizations calling to get me to call my representative. I’ve told NOM to take a flying leap, but Minnesotans United, despite the annoying dunning, have my favor.

Apparently, my representative, Jay McNamar, is one of those dumbass undecideds. He’s been waffling over the issue, an uncertainty which doesn’t just leave me cold, it makes me actively dislike him. I’ve called him several times to tell him that this is the civil rights issue of our era, and if he can’t make up his goddamn mind about something as basic as human decency, he’s not on my side. If he votes against it, he’ll never have my vote ever again; if he can muster a little integrity and principle, maybe I’ll reluctantly put a mark next to his name on a ballot next time around.

But the word is that we’ll know today. Don’t disappoint me, Minnesota!

What point would a protest have if it didn’t piss someone off?

Amina-Tyler

This well-written article in The Atlantic remarks on a familiar tactic. It’s about the Femen, the topless jihad, and Amina, and the complaints an annoying number of stodgy critics have made. You know the ones: the people who demand that all arguments be respectful, and insist that there are proper channels for debate, and protests that actually rile the establishment are inappropriate.

With its topless jihad and Femen leader Inna Shevchenko’s subsequent incendiary blog post on the event, Femen was both defending one of its own and upholding a right to freedom of expression (to say nothing of life and liberty) flagrantly violated by Amina’s own family and by an angry, largely Muslim, community from which threats against Amina and Shevchenko continue to emanate. It’s worth pointing out that Femen’s critics, several of whom professed concern for Amina’s well-being, did not speak out in Amina’s defense before the jihad, but only post-factum and in passing, all the while pummeling the group standing up for her with stale, politically correct shibboleths and demands to stay out of what they perceived to be their own business.

We saw this in all the battles over accommodationism: there’s always someone on your side who offended that you have chosen to battle antagonistically or unconventionally against oppression and foolishness. I think their favorite word must be “hush” — don’t upset the status quo, even if it’s the status quo you’re trying to upset. And most importantly, they insist that you have to follow their tactics, and they get to tell everyone how to engage, even if their history is one of largely sitting on their thumbs and getting chummy with the enemy.

Guess what is often at the root of that reluctance to actually confront? Yeah, it’s the same old boogeyman everytime, conservative traditionalism in the guise of religion.

There is a problem, however. The media has long fostered the view that religion should be de facto exempt from the logical scrutiny applied to other subjects. I am not disputing the right to practice the religion of one’s choice, but rather the prevailing cultural rectitude that puts faith beyond the pale of commonsense review, and (in Amina’s case), characterizes as “Islamophobic” criticism of the criminal mistreatment of a young woman for daring to buck her society’s norms, or of Femen for attacking the forced wearing of the hijab.

We’re seeing a lot of that lately, but it’s been going on for a long, long time. Point out that transubstantiation is ridiculous, and that Catholics don’t get to tell you to honor a cracker, and Bill Donohue raves that you’re an anti-Catholic bigot; stand aghast at ultra-orthodox Jews spitting on little girls for “immodesty” and you’re an anti-semite; critize the deeply rooted misogyny in Islam, a misogyny that harms men and women in the faith, and you’re declared an Islamophobe.

Just because it’s cloaked in the self-declared mystery of religion doesn’t mean it’s exampt from scrutiny and rejection.

A monstrous regiment of Schlaflys

This sounds so damn familiar.

The problem with feminism, I think the principal problem, is the cultivation of an attitude of victimization. Feminism tries to make women believe they are victims of an oppressive, male-dominated, patriarchal society. They wake up in the morning with a chip on their shoulder.

Oh, right. I’ve heard it a thousand times from all the critics of Freethoughtblogs…a thousand Phyllis Schlafly clones. Every MRA. Every man and woman who thinks women have a place — on a pedestal, in the kitchen, in the bedroom, where ever — and they ought to stay there, where they belong.

You don’t have pockets?

OK, OK, OK…I’m oblivious, but I never realized this before, or thought about the consequences: a lot of women’s clothes don’t have pockets. That would be an intolerable state of affairs for me. Don’t most boys grow up like me with a bunch of pockets that they’re constantly stuffing things into? Candy bars, interesting rocks, pocket knives, frogs, earthworms…until they grow up and replace the cool stuff with boring junk like keys and loose change and wallets. Even now I like a suit jacket with a couple of outside pockets and four in the lining, and I usually come home from a trip with all six stuffed with something or other.

I actually appraise my apparel for the number of pockets it has in it. If I’m wearing a shirt that doesn’t have a breast pocket (which I consider an abomination and a crime against utility already), I pick a coat that has an extra pocket to compensate.

Ladies, doesn’t it warp your brain to have grown up without built in stashing places to nurture your natural acquisitiveness? I’m going to have to have a conversation with my wife about this. I’ve noticed that every time we leave the house together, she always ask me if I have my keys, and I always thought it weird. Of course I have my keys! I always keep my keys right there in my pocket, and the only way I’d leave the house without them is if I forgot to put my pants on.

But now it’s sinking in. She’d only have her keys if she brought her purse with her. Hmmm. Teeny-tiny light bulb flickers and begins to glow dimly in my cranium…

pocketses

For the doubters: this is a view of the inside lining of my suit coat, opened in classic flasher’s pose. The top pocket is big enough to stuff my whole hand in; it’s got a bunch of colored pens in there right now, but at meetings I’ll usually fold the program in half and put it in there, or when I’m traveling I’ll put my itinerary there. The bottom pocket is smaller, but still large enough for my cell phone and a bunch of business cards. And the right side lining has the same arrangement! Little do people realize as I stride through meetings that I’m like Batman, with all kinds of useful things tucked away in my clothing.