So…do they stamp a symbol on the side of the cockpit for each one?

A while back, one of the assholes claimed that it was people like me and Ed Brayton who were dividing the atheist community — that we were creating deep rifts over irrelevant issues. Wait, scratch that…it wasn’t one of the assholes, but all of them. But what I’ve seen instead is that they are the people driving others out of the movement.

The latest? We’re losing Natalie Reed.

The reasons for this are complex and numerous, but most of them relate to feeling a lot of alienation from the Atheist Community, a lot of fear about the increasingly hostile attacks on women within that community, and the fact that my efforts to distance myself from all that while keeping my blog here haven’t really worked out. I’m still a target, and some of the stuff that Jen, Ophelia and Greta have had to deal with lately have been outright scary. Skepticism and Atheist just aren’t important enough to me to feel comfortable putting myself in the way of that for their sake.

I really can’t blame her, either. Why fight for a movement rife with people who despise your kind, and who are probably now capering with glee at having silenced one more woman?

The Hawkeye test

Jim Hines gets an article on BBC News. Hines is a 38-year-old male science fiction author with a weird hobby: he emulates the poses women are put into on science fiction and comic book covers, and takes pictures of himself. They look ridiculous. A lot of them also look extraordinarily painful.

It also mentions an interesting test:

The Hawkeye Initiative swaps male and female characters to challenge the portrayal of women in comics.

Started in December 2012, the project already has nearly 1,000 submissions from fans.

Most "redraws" cast the Avengers character Hawkeye in the same position as the female character in the original work.

Then, the Hawkeye Test is administered.

According to the site, if Hawkeye can replace the female character without "looking silly or stupid, then it’s acceptable and probably non-sexist. If [he] can’t, then just forget about it."

The conventions of SF and comic book art have a lot to answer for: even I, the homely old geezer with a ‘testosterone-damaged’ brain, find the hyper-sexualized and exaggerated contortions those imaginary women are put into horribly repellent. So why do artists keep painting this same crap over and over again?

Gallo thinks part of the problem is that male artists greatly outnumber female artists in the industry.

“You go to art school, and it’s 50-50,” Gallo said. “But professionally, it’s overwhelmingly male.

“This is an unfortunate fact of the industry. These artists grew up with comics and gaming, so it’s easy to perpetuate these things without thinking them through.”

Oh. Another glass ceiling effect. Women are just as interested in creating art as men, but somehow, they find themselves less employable. We see that in science, too. <sarcasm>But no, of course there is no discrimination or sexism</sarcasm>.

Oh, and before someone jumps in to evoke the magic invisible hand of the market…

Marketing strategies may also be responsible for sexist covers. But the mantra that sex sells may not be accurate.

According to 2012 data from publishing industry analysts Codex Group, less overtly explicit covers in fact have a wider appeal among general readers.

The con game

Aral Balkan writes about false dichotomies and diversity at conferences — at tech conferences. These issues come up in every field, and we atheists aren’t alone.

A person who calls for greater diversity is not necessarily advocating the implementation of a quota system — that’s a straw man fallacy. Similarly, having a diverse roster of speakers at a conference does not imply that those speakers were not chosen on merit. Diversity and a merit‐based selection process are not mutually exclusive. To state the contrary is a false dichotomy. And before assuming that a conference probably couldn’t find enough women because not enough women applied (blaming the victim), first find out whether or not the selection process actually included an open call for talks.

He covers the concerns well, but I want to add another point. Every time we discuss this stuff, there will be a number of people with sour grapes syndrome: they will say that conferences are too expensive (which is true), too difficult to get to (also true), and impossible to schedule for busy people with families (agreed). And then they will say they’re elitist and that they don’t need to go hear a bunch of jerks pontificate from a stage anyway, and that’s where they’re going wrong.

Every form of endeavor or interest that I’ve been associated with has conventions of some sort or another. When I was a software designer, we had cons. We even had in-house cons: the company I was affiliated with as an independent contractor, Axon Instruments, would bring us all in to learn about up-and-coming hardware and new programming techniques. I read science fiction; hoo boy, do they have cons everywhere. SF cons are all about bringing fans together to talk and brainstorm and have fun. And then of course, there’s science: every field has regular conventions on various scales, from local consortia to regional meetings to national events to international mega-conferences.

And here’s why equality is important: those meetings are essential stepping stones in career advancement. In my very first year as a grad student, I was trained and groomed to present my work at local meetings. Heck, when I was an undergraduate and had made it clear that I planned to pursue a research career, my professors took me to regional meetings. We all knew that this was how preliminary work was disseminated, that this was how you made connections with peers and leaders in the field, that this was how you linked your face and name in the community as a whole with a body of work.

It’s also where graduate students go to find post-doctoral positions, where post-docs go to find tenure-track jobs, where university departments send representatives to do preliminary interviews.

And of course the other important part of the meeting circuit is that that is where you get inspired and get new ideas. I have never gone to a science meeting but that I’ve come home afterwards fired up and excited about some line of research that I hadn’t known about before. It’s where I talk to new people and get new perspectives.

So don’t belittle cons if you can’t go. These events matter. It’s where community is built, where volunteers grow to play a bigger role in the progression of our goals, where everyone gets enthusiastic about some shiny new aspect of the subject.

And that’s absolutely why we have to do a better job of opening doors for everyone at these events. It’s the faces in the audience at the convention that will someday be leading the movement. It’s those faces that will go home afterwards and share the stories and get more people interested. And if we don’t make opportunities for participation by everyone, we will be limiting our growth.

So please, don’t complain. Your concerns are legitimate: a con may be too expensive, too far away, too inconvenient for you. You should instead try to think of ways to get one near you that you can afford and attend…and there are more and more of these things emerging all over the place.

What we should focus on is making them more accessible, more common, and more openly participatory.

NYT: Women cause rape by being too scarce

Hey, remember New York Times reporter John Eligon? The one who crafted this bit of drunk-shaming apologetic for a couple of alleged rapist NYPD officers? Eligon’s piece, which followed shortly on the heels of this notorious victim-blaming piece by James McKinley, Jr., helped reinforce the Times‘ reputation as a media bastion of rape culture.

And now he’s done it again, in his profile of rape and sexual assault in Williston, North Dakota:

The rich shale oil formation deep below the rolling pastures here has attracted droves of young men to work the labor-intensive jobs that get the wells flowing and often generate six-figure salaries. What the oil boom has not brought, however, are enough single women.

It turns out, according to Eligon, that scarcity economics applies to that commodity Amanda Marcotte refers to as “vaginal access” [content warning applies]:

[Read more…]

The delicate ego of Mr Michael Shermer

As you’ve probably already heard since Ophelia Benson has posted a few things about it, Michael Shermer has had another meltdown. To keep it short, Shermer said a stupid sexist thing on camera — about the skewed sex ratio among atheist/skeptical activists, he said “It’s who wants to stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, who’s intellectually active about it, you know, it’s more of a guy thing” — and Ophelia pointed out that that is exactly the kind of stereotyping of men’s and women’s roles that forms a self-fulfilling prophecy. She was right. He was wrong. It’s a fairly clear and simple case.

But apparently pointing out that Mr Michael Shermer said something that wasn’t very nice represents an all out assault on the man himself. His response was…well, unbelievable.

It involves a McCarthy-like witch hunt within secular communities to root out the last vestiges of sexism, racism, and bigotry of any kind, real or imagined. Although this unfortunate trend has produced a backlash against itself by purging from its ranks the likes of such prominent advocates as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris…

To date, I have stayed out of this witch hunt against our most prominent leaders, thinking that “this too shall pass.” Perhaps I should have said something earlier. As Martin Niemöller famously warned about the inactivity of German intellectuals during the rise of the Nazi party, “first they came for …” but “I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a….”

…

But perhaps I should have spoken out, because now the inquisition has been turned on me, by none other than one of the leading self-proclaimed secular feminists whose work has heretofore been important in the moral progress of our movement. I have already responded to this charge against me elsewhere,* so I will only briefly summarize it here. Instead of allowing my inquisitors to force me into the position of defending myself (I still believe in the judicial principle of innocence until proven guilty), I shall use this incident to make the case for moral progress.

Astonishing. Apparently, criticizing anything Mr Michael Shermer says is now a “McCarthy-like witch hunt”, an “inquisition” with the goal of “purging” Shermer from the ranks of…what? He’s a publisher and author. Is there a threat to take his word processor away?

But see, this is why the atheist movement can’t have leaders. The ones we’ve got, informally, all seem to think they’re like gods and popes, infallible and unquestionable, and that normal, healthy, productive criticism within the movement is all a conspiracy to dethrone them.

What’s particularly ironic here is that I’ve read his books and heard his talk on The Believing Brain and Why People Believe Weird Things — if anyone ought to be conscious of the way our brains make cognitive shortcuts and model the world with often-flawed assumptions, it’s Shermer, and he ought to know that calling attention to misconceptions that we all have is not an attempt to destroy a person. If that were the case, his books would have to be interpreted as incitements to mass genocide rather than reasonable discussions of how to recognize flaws in our thinking.

But then, Mr Michael Shermer doesn’t do self-awareness: one moment he’s critizing overwrought Nazi analogies, the next he’s comparing everyone who thought he misspoke to Nazis.

Similarly, he praises the great strides the movement has made in increasing diversity over the last decade, but doesn’t seem to be aware of how that happened. Let me tell you: it’s taken constant nagging from people like me, and Greta Christina, and Jen McCreight, and many others, to wake up the leaders of organizations and conferences from their complacency. It’s taken actions of organizations like the SSA and CFI to consciously reach out and broaden the scope of the movement, to open the doors to women, minorities, and young people. It’s taken the responsiveness of people like Dave Silverman and Ron Lindsay and yes, DJ Grothe, who, when we mentioned that their speaker lineups tended to skew a bit white and male, didn’t react by declaring their critics a Nazi inquisition out to purge the movement of white men. They weren’t dragged kicking and screaming into promoting equality — they were already thinking the same way themselves and were appreciative of reminders of the importance of being conscious of greater interests.

Shermer isn’t being purged at all. He’s being left behind if he thinks a skeptic shouldn’t be criticized. I’m hoping, though, that he’ll snap out of this and realize that he ought to be embarrassed by the laughable accusations he makes.

And Digital Cuttlefish cuts to the chase. Why is anyone satisfied with the “It’s a guy thing” answer?

Dating tips!

Rats, it’s too late. If only the girls had studied these dating tips back in the day, I might not have grown into the sullen, resentful, entitled git illustrated here.

dancing

driving

And my favorite…

deserve

There’s the root of the whole problem! Men deserve your complete and total attention at all times!

While we’re on the subject of how the wimminz ought to behave, I should mention the F00t’s new video, titled, “Do Hot Girls Have All the Advantages?” Yep, it’s about how women have an edge by just being pretty.

Let that sink in for a bit.

Oh, I wish I were pretty! Then there’s an interesting reply: Why Can’t Thunderf00t Be More Like Indiana Jones? Isn’t it interesting how we can overlook superficial attributes in a man, but they’re always prioritized in women? And how some people can look on this skewed perspective as advantageous for women?

Although, I have to say, I don’t expect the guy to look like Indiana Jones, but am just dismayed at how he’s looking more and more like Pat Robertson every day. Robertson recently fielded a question from a young viewer about how he was troubled that his father seemed to be growing more distant from his mother; his answer was basically that his mother just wasn’t pretty enough, which was why all the romance is leaving the marriage.

One more: misandric pants.

A petition is a kind of poll, isn’t it?

First, go read Amy Roth’s summary of the situation: there is a small group of Mabusesque obsessive haters who have been harassing a number of vocal atheists for the past few years. I know; I’m one of their targets, and I can tell you, these people are really screwed up and pathologically focused on hating anyone who dares to profess any support for feminism, or any kind of support for increasing the diversity of the movement. They’re loud, they’re persistent, and they’re an embarrassment to the community.

Now, once you’re in the right frame of mind to understand the context, go read Adam Lee’s petition to support feminism and diversity in the secular community.

You’ll know what to do.

How ’bout we stop this trend in its tracks?

Recently, there has been some complaining about those horrible, awful, draconian anti-harassment policies at conferences. In particular, the Skepticon policy was singled out as particularly wicked and counterproductive (by a certain individual whose nickname ends in “00t”), especially this clause:

Additionally, exhibitors in the expo hall, sponsor or vendor booths, or similar activities are also subject to the anti-harassment policy. Booth staff (including volunteers) should not use sexualized clothing/uniforms/costumes, or otherwise create a sexualized environment.

That seems eminently reasonable to me. It’s targeted specifically at ‘booth babe’ culture, where women are used as sexualized props to peddle commercial products. This trend is at its worst in the tech world, and the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas epitomizes the problem: a company put up an elaborate display featuring four women wearing nothing but body paint posing to draw in attention. (NSFW link, with photo of these women)

The women looked straight ahead with bored expressions, and were not allowed to interact with attendees. The company’s own Instagram feed described them as "fembots."

It was not immediately clear how this display was supposed to relate to the product in question, a hard drive.

It’s obvious! Men like to look at naked women, and only men ever buy or use hard drives. And when men are using their hard drives, they like naked women to plug them in. Duh. Just like only men are atheists and skeptics, and they like to imagine all their women naked and serving them little freshly peeled dollops of critical thinking.