A vaccination survey

The survey on vaccination that’s being held up by DJ Grothe is not out yet, but there’s a preliminary summary that was made available. I learned something from even that one page summary: most anti-vaxxers actually do recognize that vaccination is protective, and their opposition is based on widespread misconceptions about side-effects and the evilness of pharmaceutical corporations. There is even a hint about effective strategies to convince reluctant people to vaccinate.

The full results were supposed to be released a year ago. I wonder when we’ll finally get to see them?

Oh, those secular ethics

In case you’re interested, DJ Grothe will be speaking at the Midwest Philosophy Colloquium on the University of Minnesota Morris campus next week. I can’t attend; it’s scheduled at the same time as one of our HHMI student research events.

He’s speaking on secular ethics.

By the way, of no possible relevance at all, I’m sure, Grothe is threatening legal action against Women Thinking, Inc., and is holding up publication of a survey on vaccination outreach, because he doesn’t like that someone reported a bad joke that he made. Which he denies.

Secular ethics in action!

Man, am I glad I have a good excuse to not attend that talk. I’m going to enjoy celebrating students’ summer research instead.

Oh, yay! More examples of secular ethics!

Carrie Poppy tells all

I think the cork has been popped, and we can expect more stories to come flooding out now. Karen Stollznow spoke out, and now, Carrie Poppy has sent me her story. Carrie abruptly left the JREF a while back, and would not speak publicly about her reasons for leaving, but now, with Stollznow’s example, she tells all.

I do have her permission to publish this account.

Dear PZ,

Thanks for you recent coverage of Karen Stollznow’s ongoing harassment in her workplace and the assaults she says she endured at skeptical conferences. I have been in close contact with Dr. Stollznow in recent months, and have confirmed and clarified various details with her that I think you will find very relevant to your blog. Dr. Stollznow has given her blessing for me to send these details to you, as well. I am CCing Dr. Stollznow, too.

Most of these details have to do with my former employer, the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). I left the JREF in November 2012, after only six months there. I quit in protest of a number of ethical issues; foremost was what I perceived as the president, D.J. Grothe’s constant duplicity, dishonesty, and manipulation. I did not believe he had the best interests of the organization or community he “served” at heart. This was difficult for me, as Mr. Grothe and I had been friends prior to my joining the staff. Yet, it was very clear by the time I left that my continuing to work there was being complicit in unethical behavior, including the kind of behavior of which Dr. Stollznow is now on the receiving end. I have not spoken very publicly about my experience at the JREF, for various personal reasons, but one of them was cowardice. I simply didn’t want to have to defend myself, relive the six months of misery I’d already endured, or be branded as on one “side” or another of an ongoing debate. I simply wanted to move on. But as Dr. Stollznow’s story, and others, came to light, I knew I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. Dr. Stollznow’s experience is too much like so many women’s in skepticism.

Here are the most relevant facts:

1. Dr. Stollznow says that she was assaulted at the James Randi Educational Foundation’s (JREF) annual conference, The Amazing Meeting (TAM) on three separate occasions. Dr. Stollznow is a research fellow for the JREF, and is a respected speaker at TAM. The person who she says assaulted her is Ben Radford, another speaker at TAM and a long-time ally of the JREF’s. I am not speaking to the legal validity of these claims, as I have no legal expertise on the matter, but I believe Karen’s account, given the information she’s relayed to me in private, which I won’t recount here.

2. Dr. Stollznow says she made these alleged assaults known to JREF president D.J. Grothe several months ago, but according to Karen, he declined to do anything about the matter.

3. CFI told Dr. Stollznow that they would only be reprimanding their employee for his behavior. Dr. Stollznow let Mr. Grothe know that she felt her harassment and assault were being treated as nothing more than a grievance among friends, and Grothe responded, ” I am happy to learn from you that the CFI has responded to your complaints with the seriousness they deserve.” (see attachment 1).

4. Dr. Stollznow requested that Mr. Grothe assure her that her alleged assailant would not be at future JREF events, for her safety and the safety of others at future events. Mr. Grothe declined to ban the speaker, saying, “there are at present no such plans” to have Mr. Radford speak at a JREF event, more than a year before the next TAM, and well before speaking engagements are secured (see attachment 2).

5. Dr. Stollznow approached the JREF board, asking them to intervene in Mr. Grothe’s bizarre behavior, and make a commitment not to have the speaker in question at future JREF events. Their response: “JREF does not and will not have a blacklist” (see attachment 3).

I wish I could say that I found Dr. Stollznow’s story shocking or unprecedented, but I cannot. In my time at the JREF, I witnessed continuous unethical behavior, much of which I reported to the Board of Directors. I was assured on more than one occasion by James Randi that D.J. Grothe would be fired (I hear Randi denies this now, though he repeatedly promised it to another staff member as well, and that staff member and I represented the entirety of JREF full-time staff other than D.J. and his husband, Thomas), but after several months of waiting and being asked to wait, it became clear that D.J. was not going to be fired. The list of problems that I sent to the board was so long that my pasting it here would be comical at best, but it is relevant to note that although I didn’t list it, Mr. Grothe’s prejudice toward women was one undeniable factor. My predecessor, Sadie Crabtree, had warned me about D.J.’s misogyny and disrespect for women coworkers (she even advised me not to take the position, due to this issue), but I thought myself strong enough to endure it. I underestimated the degree to which such constant mistreatment can beat a person down. As I mentioned, I only lasted six months.

The final straw, for me, was that Mr. Grothe attempted to remove me as a speaker from the Women in Secularism 2 conference, going above my head (and Melody Hensley’s head) to her male boss, Ron Lindsay, and telling him that it would be bad for the JREF’s image if I attended a “feminist conference.” In defending his actions to me, D.J. told me he didn’t trust me to handle the event, saying I would be asked if he was a sexist (an unanswerable question in his mind, apparently) and that I might break down in tears crying about my own sexual assault, if the issue of rape arose. I was given no credit for the fact that I am a professional spokesperson with almost a decade of experience, that I have a successful skeptical podcast, am a published author, and that my personal assault experience makes my opinions on assault more relevant, not less. To him, I was a hysterical woman, nothing more.

I am not going to say more on this on public forums– No doubt, people will press me for evidence and take the side of the organization and individual in power. When it comes to institutional power, the leaders are innocent until proven guilty. What so few realize is the converse of this: the victims are guilty until proven innocent.

I don’t want to send this email. I don’t want to go public with my story. I don’t want to receive the emails or the tweets or the phone calls. But fuck it. It’s the right thing to do.

Thanks for taking the time to read about my experience. And please, let’s all stick by Karen and ask the JREF to (1) install new leadership, and (2) protect their attendees and respect their research fellow by not allowing her alleged assailant to attend future events.

Best,

Carrie

cc: Dr. Karen Stollznow

Attachment 1

From: D.J. Grothe
Date: Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 2:20 PM
Subject: Re: CFI Investigation
To: Karen Stollznow

Thank you Karen for informing me of this email, but you certainly were under no obligation to do so. I appreciate how difficult the situation must have been for you, and I am happy to learn from you that the CFI has responded to your complaints with the seriousness they deserve. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you personally, or the JREF might assist you in any way.

See you in less than a week in Vegas. And talk soon.. D.J.

On Jul 4, 2013, at 4:59 PM, Karen Stollznow wrote:
> Hi D.J.,
>
> I wanted to update you with the results of CFI’s investigation into my complaints regarding Ben Radford.
>
> Please see attached the letter they sent to me. I think they have trivialized and minimized my complaints and they have also made some factual errors. My complaints go back to 2009, not 2012, and I don’t know what Barry means by “retaliation”. They won’t give me a copy of the report. I will be taking this further.
>
> At any rate, they have admitted that Ben has behaved inappropriately at conferences and harassed me with unwanted correspondence. I think this is info you need to know.
> All the best,
>
> Karen.

Attachment 2

From: D.J. Grothe
Date: Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 3:27 PM
Subject: Re: CFI Investigation
To: Karen Stollznow

I did read your email carefully, Karen. And I do know that you were unhappy with aspects of CFI’s response, including the inaccuracy on time periods, etc. as you mentioned in your email to me.

And no, you were under no obligation to send me CFI’s letter that they sent to you. Reporting to me developments in general terms, without detailing specifics of CFI’s HR decisions regarding their employee, would have sufficed if you wanted to let me know if matter was resolving, developing, or changing, etc.. And I certainly don’t mind that you shared it, indeed, as I said, I do sincerely appreciate your letting me know of these developments. This is for a number of reasons not the least important of which is because as a conference organizer I certainly do not want to involve speakers who harass or otherwise abuse other speakers or attendees or who engage in other misconduct or disrespect of personal boundaries.

As for incidents happening TAM proper, I know that you never made specific complaints at those times, instead later focusing on seeking CFI action, for the understandable reasons you originally communicated; that CFI is his employer. And that you also discussed these matters regarding Ben Radford with our consultant and with me personally by email. And you did notify us clearly that if Ben Radford were to be on our program, that you would not. As you know, he is not on the program at TAM, and we are very happy that you are.

Actions JREF took after the phone meetings and emails with you include: keeping a detailed record of your communications and concerns on file for future reference (this is important not just in an HR sense, but also if there are other patterns of behavior that would need to be corroborated because of further developments), our consultant on HR matters having phone meetings and emails with you, and also that we clearly reiterated directly to Ben (as well as other past TAM speakers) JREF’s policies regarding misconduct at our public events. This is in addition to JREF’s internal HR policies for its employees that prohibit sexual harassment of any kind in the workplace.

Since Ben Radford is not an employee of the JREF, we cannot reprimand him like his employer could, but we have told him that on our watch he is to have no contact with you whatsoever, should he ever be involved with the JREF in the future (for the record there are at present no such plans). Obviously, this issue is moot as regards this year’s conference for reasons we have discussed a couple of times already.

Again, please let me know if there’s anything further I can do personally, or that JREF can do organizationally, to assist you, or to help you with CFI if you, or as you, pursue the matter further.

See you next week Karen. I really look forward to it. D.J.

Attachment 3

On Jul 5, 2013, at 1:41 PM, Karen Stollznow wrote:

Hey D.J., Of course I had an obligation to send you the letter – several incidents occurred at TAM. You had to be made aware of this so you can protect conference attendees in the future. Now we have a record that you know about this.

I don’t think you read my email carefully though because I’m not happy with CFI’s blase response. As I said, I’m taking this matter further with them.

Karen.



From: Chip Denman
Date: July 24, 2013, 5:17:19 PM MDT
To: Karen Stollznow
Subject: Re: A matter for the attention of the JREF Board

Dear Karen —

Thank you for contacting the board. We hope that Elliot has been helpful to you.

We have discussed the matter with DJ.

JREF does not and will not have a blacklist. Currently the foundation has no plan to invite Radford to TAM or any other JREF function.

We are unsure if you are asking for anything more than this. –Chip

On Sat, Jul 20, 2013 at 4:26 PM, Karen Stollznow wrote:

Dear Board members,

I am a Research Fellow of the JREF and I wish to bring to your attention a situation that reflects poorly on our organization.

In February of this year I drew D.J.’s attention to a very serious matter. At TAM 2010 I was sexually assaulted and harassed by another speaker by the name of Benjamin Radford. I was also sexually harassed by him at TAM 2012. I had attempted to handle this both privately and professionally so as to not embarass the organizations involved. When Mr. Radford’s behavior continued I was then forced to file a formal complaint with his employer (CFI/CSI) to resolve the issue. An investigation was performed and he has since been found guilty. (I can supply evidence to attest to this decision.) D.J. put me in communication with Eliott Canter who has continued to be my JREF contact for this matter. My complaint is that D.J. is well aware of this situation and its severity, yet he continues to demonstrate public support for Mr. Radford on social media. Furthermore, he proudly and publicly advertised taking Mr. Radford out to the “Magic Castle” last night during his visit to L.A.

My request to the Board is that the JREF fulfill the obligation of its anti-sexual harassment policy by making a firm commitment to not invite this predator to any future JREF function. I also ask that D.J. cease his public displays of support for Mr. Radford which act as an endorsement for this man who is currently being disciplined by his employer for his actions.

In light of recent controversies within the skepticism movement it’s important that the gravity of this matter is acknowledged by the Board. The JREF needs to lead by example.

Thank you for your support. Dr. Karen Stollznow.

By the way, you can listen to Carrie Poppy’s podcast, or follow her on twitter.

She also sent along the JREF’s 990 form, in case you’re wondering where your money goes.

I had a vision last night. A vision of a world without gods.

I went on a twitter rampage last night. It was just too much: a day of incessant bland dumb Mormon bleating at me, then the skeptics once again expressed their contempt for atheism (more about that later), followed by a parade of stereotypes about us awful atheists, who are unlike our skeptical brethren in hating our religious family members and coming to our conclusions by irrational means and being just generally dumb and average, they say. It was exceptionally irritating to once again see people who should be allies sweeping atheist concerns aside with an air of smug superiority.

Oh, gosh, so that’s what it feels like for women and minorities…

Anyway, the final straw was DJ Grothe, who, in replying to someone who said they wanted him to pay as much attention to atheist issues as he does gay issues (a point I definitely strongly disagree with: no one gets to dictate what matters to someone else), made the statement that gay concerns are very, very different than atheist concerns, and we shouldn’t conflate the two. Again, a point I agree with 100%.

But then he had to take a step too far and suggest that atheists don’t even have clearly definable goals. He asked, “What would winning look like?”, as if we lacked any kind of vision at all.

You know, all I have to do is look at all the aggravations, great and small, petty and significant, that are caused by the overwhelming privileges given to the religious in this country, and I can see clearly a lot of things that would improve if faith were kicked off its undeserved pedestal.

So I buried poor DJ for about an hour, just riffing on how life would be different if religion weren’t so oppressively dominant. I probably drove off a few twitter followers, but hey, it was so easy…and I could have kept going for a few more hours. You should feel free to add your own to this list.

  • You want a list?

  • Atheists could get elected to high office.

  • Piety wouldn’t be a qualification for high office.

  • Our kids wouldn’t be bullied because they don’t attend church.

  • Idiots wouldn’t be defining public policy by its conformity to the Bible.

  • Our schools wouldn’t be silent on “controversial” topics like evolution.

  • America wouldn’t be launching crusades against the foreign heathen.

  • Women could get abortions when they needed them.

  • There would be rational, evidence-based sex education in the schools, rather than religiously dictated abstinence only.

  • Nor did I say they would be. RT @DJGrothe: Wouldn’t be similar. Atheists not in a struggle for liberation equal to oppressed minorities

  • Huge chunks of every community’s tax base wouldn’t be stolen to support lies.

  • .@DJGrothe You asked what winning would look like for atheists. I’m telling you. I’m not saying it would be the same as gay rights.

  • My car wouldn’t be keyed if I had a darwin fish on the bumper.

  • Environmental policy wouldn’t be shaped by people who believe the world is going to end in their lifetimes.

  • Neither would foreign affairs or military policy.

  • Maybe the arts would be as well funded as religion.

  • I wouldn’t have public chimes installed down the street that blare hymns at me every 15 minutes.

  • And a city council that considers enforcing a noise ordinance sacrilegious.

  • The local high school would stop bringing in anti-gay, anti-drug, up-with-god groups for assemblies.

  • I agree it was false. You’ve said we can have different goals. I’m explaining them. RT @DJGrothe: I just pointed out the false equivalence

  • Women wouldn’t be forced to wear the burqa.

  • Women wouldn’t be executed for “immodesty”. Honor killings would end.

  • Condoms would be distributed in Africa. Everywhere, for that matter.

  • Victims of disease & accident would be seen as victims of chance, not stigmatized as sinners.

  • Churches would close. Not all of them, but enough to be replaced with *real* community services.

  • 46% of the American population wouldn’t believe the earth is less than 6000 years old.

  • No more war on Christmas! Secular holidays that prioritize families and people, not sterile rituals and dogma.

  • Institutions that shelter child rapists would be dismantled.

  • We could have death with dignity.

  • Puritans wouldn’t be dictating our sexual relationships.

  • A Baptist could marry a Lutheran or a Jew a Catholic, and their families wouldn’t freak out.

  • Children wouldn’t be labeled by their parent’s irrational beliefs. They wouldn’t be pigeonholed at birth.

  • The science section in your local bookstore might be as big as the faith and religion section.

  • I would stop getting email that contains litanies of my post-mortem torture.

  • Children wouldn’t die in agony because their parents believe in faith healing.

  • Scoundrels and charlatans would have a harder time fleecing their flocks without god’s imprimatur.

  • We’ll recognize that our fate is in our hands, not some invisible benign being’s.

  • We wouldn’t have to put up with football players claiming the Almighty Lord of the Universe helped them get that goal.

  • The Gideons would be handing out real literature rather than the same dumb book over and over. They’d promote literacy, not faith.

  • No more bible colleges. Liberty University would close. Young people would have to get real educations.

  • We’d see ourselves as one tiny fragile speck in a vast universe, rather than the privileged focus of all creation.

  • Humans would no longer see themselves as the only important organisms on the planet. We’d have to recognize our place in an ecosystem.

  • An end to god-soaked talk radio!

  • Imagine Republicans no longer able to swaddle themselves in God and Country…just Country.

  • We’d expand stem cell research — no more pretense that a blastocyst was a full human being…or had the same rights as a woman bearing it.

  • The God Particle would just be called the Higgs Boson.

  • Priests & other believers wouldn’t be haunting the sick & dying in our hospitals any more.

  • Theology would be as dead as alchemy. It would be replaced with history, anthropology, psychology, sociology…real disciplines.

  • We’d no longer pretend that memorizing the Bible was a fit qualification for counseling unhappy people.

  • Priests would finally be free of the need for pretense. They could be people again, and serve in secular ways.

  • Marriage wouldn’t be a prison, but a partnership that could be dissolved without guilt, or maintained by mutual respect and love.

  • We could question EVERYTHING. End religious shibboleths.

  • Religiosity would no longer be a shortcut to morality. People would actually have to BE good, to be regarded as good.

  • No more consoling the grieving by telling them lies. No more fear-mongering with stories of hell.

  • Donating money to a church would no longer be considered charity. How about donating to a real charity instead?

  • Mormons would have to wake up to the fact that their history is bullshit.

  • Goodbye, missionaries. Hello, secular aid.

  • Televangelists would be scorned as scoundrels.

  • All those poor sad priests would have their vows of celibacy lifted. And there will be rejoicing. By the priests, at least.

  • Pope: fired. Vatican: turned into a really great museum.

  • Islamists would stop killing apostates. Authors and comic artists could live free again.

  • Ultra-orthodox Jews would stop spitting on little girls. Liberal Jews would stop mutilating little boys’ penises (so would everyone else).

  • Religious butchers could stop torturing animals in the name of halal and kosher foods.

  • The ordination of women priests would become a moot point.

  • The ordination of gay priests would become a moot point.

  • The shortage of Catholic priests would no longer be of any concern.

  • We would at last recognize that Timothy Dolan has absolutely no qualifications to be consulted on matters of public policy.

  • Ditto, Rick Warren.

  • We could admire churches for their architecture, rather than deplore them as centers of oppression.

  • No more madrassas. No more replacing knowledge & understanding with rote memorization of dogma.

  • “Tradition” is no longer sufficient reason to keep doing stupid things.

  • No one sensible will try to claim the Ten Commandments are a fit foundation for jurisprudence.

  • Atheist organizations will shut down, their job done.

  • Writing lists of how good life would be without God will be as silly as writing lists of how good life would be without ghosts.

Small things, big things. It’s only when you stop for a moment to think about it that you realize how much faith-based noise we’re drowning in here in the US. I don’t have a god-shaped hole in my heart as much as I do a huge amount of Jesus-shaped deadweight piled on my shoulders.

A reply to Steven Novella

Steven Novella has written a post taking exception to some things I’ve said, specifically on the issue of the overlap of science, skepticism, and religion. I have to say, though, that what his post actually does is confirm my claim: that a lot of skeptics strain to delimit the scope of skepticism in ways that are not rational, but are entirely political and emotional.

But there’s also a lot I agree with. He has a lengthy introduction in which he lists many of the core elements of skepticism, including for example, promoting science and critical thinking, opposing pseudoscience, etc. (he also includes “methodological naturalism”, a claim I’ve grown disenchanted with…but that’s something for another day. Here’s something from Larry Moran for a contrary view.)

[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?

Skepticon success

Some bozo named @RichSandersen on Twitter asserted that

Skepticon att. dropped 1200 to 700. With @PZMyers and @RebeccaWatson there, no wonder people stayed away.

(It’s worth noting that in the twitter thread, DJ Grothe graciously wrote that he’d heard figures of 1600 attendees, and that it was a “great event.”)

Hmm. I was at both Skepticon IV and Skepticon V. @RichSandersen wasn’t. I can tell you that it was a big crowd at both, and the size was a little hard to judge, because this year it moved to a much larger venue, but I had the impression that it was even bigger this year than last — it’s growing steadily.

So I wrote to the organizers and asked them about the attendance figures. Here’s their reply.

Our estimates are 1400-1600 in meatspace. The reason for the variance is that while we know we got a bump in attendance from foot traffic from Meals a Million [a charity convention that was going on next door], but we didn’t have a good metric for tracking them. That said, the live stream was new exciting. We don’t know how many people signed on to it over the course of the event, but during Greta’s talk we had 1,100 people watching. That’s pretty cool.

So @RichSandersen believed that it must have been smaller, since Rebecca Watson and I are so odious, so he decided it was smaller this year, which means that Rebecca Watson and I really are awful horrible people. What a lovely example of confirmation bias!

Since we were going to be responsible if attendance had plummeted, I insist that we now get full credit for the increase in attendance this year. It would only be fair.

Around FtB

I scan the main page of Freethoughtblogs every day, and here are a few of the stories that caught my eye this time around.

An excellent plan

We’re going to distract all attention from our horrible #FTBullies status by a well-tested expedient: We’re going to blame Rebecca Watson for everything. At last, all Deep Rifts are healed!

I must highlight a comment from kosk11348 that encapsulates the whole recent mess.

The best analogy I’ve heard yet for understanding this situation is a fire evacuation plan. Fires are rare, yet it makes sense to have a plan in place. Continuing that analogy, here’s my rundown of the “conversation” thus far:

FTB: “Fire evacuation plans are a good idea. We recommend that all skeptical events have one.”

DJ Grothe: “All this talk of fires scares away attendees. Plus TAM has never, ever had a fire.”

Stephanie Zvan: “Actually, there have been a few small fires at TAM. Remember that trash can that caught on fire?”

DJ Grothe: “Yes, I put that fire out myself. At no time did anyone feel unsafe.”

FTB: “Ok, but you just said…never mind. The point is, because there was no policy in place, we now have no record of the fire, no investigation into the cause of the fire, and no reason to think another fire might happen again. Are you currently training your staff to know what to do in the event of a fire?”

DJ Grothe: “We have a robust fire evacuation plan printed in our literature. It reads: ‘TAM hates fires.'”

FTB: “But that’s not really a plan…”

Russell Blackford: “Is there any evidence that things burn?”

MRAs: “Look, it’s the fire department’s job to handle fires. If you are on fire, call them.”

FTB: “Huh? You’re saying it’s the victim’s responsibility to alert the fire department? What about the responsibility of the organizers…”

MRAs: “#FTB bullies say TAM is infested with arsonists!”

FTB: “What? Nobody is saying that! Arsonists do exist, sure. But we have no reason to think TAM is any worse than the general population in that respect. Look, it’s really simple…”

Ophelia Benson: “You know, I was schedule to speak at TAM, but I just got this really weird letter explaining in great detail about what to do when I find myself in a fire at TAM. Like, seriously detailed. It described the flames singing my hair, peeling my flesh…”

Russell Blackford: “Way to overreact to a helpful warning!”

Thunderf00t: “I will continue to offer to light friends’ cigarettes for them and you can’t stop me!”

Paula Kirby: “The firestasi see fires everywhere because they love to pretend they are all victims of fire, just like the Nazis.”

FTB: “Ok, now this is just getting bizarre…”

Harriet Hall’s T-shirt: “I feel safe from fires at TAM (even though it still doesn’t have a fire evacuation plan)”

FTB: *sigh*

We’re done now.

Misogynists can think women are tasty, while not recognizing that they are human beings

I see where Thunderf00t gets his name: he puts his foot in it hard. And that’s unfortunate, because before building up his credibility in in his new digs here at freethoughtblogs, he’s launched into an embarrassingly clueless defense of his privilege to chew on women’s legs.

I’m tempted to tear every sentence apart, but the structure of his post his so flimsy I’ll just knock out a few of the rickety bits.

Now first let me say from a strategically point of view sexual harassment at conferences really is a non-issue

And then he tells us the conference scene is unimportant because, for instance, the youtube and blog scene is much, much bigger.

He is incorrect. From Thunderf00t’s point of view it is a non-issue. From a strategic point of view, the position that we want the atheist/skeptic movement to grow and include more diversity, it’s a major problem that must be addressed.

This has never been about TAM, either. The argument encompasses meetings, but also the larger geek and atheist culture, which turns out to be pretty damned sexist. You do not correct the broader problem by turning a blind eye to the specifics; it doesn’t work to say that you reject misogyny, but oh, that meeting there? It’s OK if you hit on women there. It’s OK if you abuse women in a bar; bars are free-range markets for men to exercise their will.

Further a female friend of mine who repeatedly attends many such events has informed me that the most recent TAM was the best ever in this fashion.

I’m sorry, Thunderf00t, but with that you demonstrate that you’ve completely missed the point.

It’s an anecdote. So?

But also, it’s one that everyone involved in this fracas agrees with. This and many other blogs have enthusiastically supported TAM over the years, I have specifically pointed to TAM as a model conference for getting a more diverse audience, and Skepchick has been raising money to send more women to it. We’ve pointed to their anti-harassment policies last year as a good thing, we’ve applauded the balance of speakers, we’ve actually said nothing but good things about the meeting.

Until this year, when DJ Grothe screwed up bigtime. He announced that the attendance of women was down this year, and blamed it on individuals and blogs who had actively promoted the improvements in the conference. Then, denying that sexual harassment ever occurred at TAM (it has, as has been amply demonstrated) and dragging his feet over doing anything to continue the formerly good policies made it clear: he’s not interested in supporting women’s issues after all.

That’s what has people disgusted with the meeting this year: the management seems determined to unravel all the good will that has built up over the years, because rather than dealing with a common problem in this culture, they’ve decided to pretend the problem doesn’t exist. As Thunderf00t has.

The level of the warning suggests the issue is far more problematic than it is in reality.

Thunderf00t does not get to determine how other people respond to threats; only the threatened people get that option. And his solution, which is to ignore all threats except the ones where you get to bring in the FBI and have them arrest someone, is so laughably black-and-white that it suggests he is entirely oblivious to the situation.

For instance, I had multiple, daily death threats from a well-known internet troll, Dennis Markuze, for over a decade. The intensity of his obsession made it clear that there was a serious problem here, as did the escalating intensity of his behavior. I reported this guy to the local police, the FBI, the RCMP, and the Montreal city police…who did nothing. Nothing at all. It was only last year that his local police finally took him in for much needed treatment.

So often the FBI solution is no solution at all. And I’m saying that as a man — the first response women get when they try to bring in authorities to deal with harassment is doubt and denial.

But also, I know that Thunderf00t does not call the police every time someone says something rude, stupid, or threatening to him: there are other responses besides lying down and pretending it didn’t happen.

You can point and laugh.

You can block them, if it’s on the internet.

You can refuse to associate with them in real life.

You can ask friends to back you up.

If it’s a conference that you suspect will be full of assholes, you can turn down invitations to attend.

You can try to change the culture that tolerates such abuse, if you’re ambitious.

These are perfectly reasonable, rational responses. They are better responses than bluntly dichotomizing every situation into do-nothing vs. “drag their legally beaten carcass around the walls of Troy”.

The VAST majority of people at these conferences are civil, honest, respectable folks.

Nobody has said anything different, and in actual fact we’ve said that TAM tends to be better than your average crowd of random human beings.

But here’s the thing. The instances of harassment are rare and usually (not always) effectively dealt with…but there’s a massive culture of internet bravos who want to diminish and demean the concerns. There is an attitude that women are there not as colleagues and respected partners in the goals of the movement, but as eye candy and sex toys, so please please please don’t you dare suppress my right to hit on women all I want!

Unfortunately, Thunderf00t expresses that same sense of privilege.

Giving people a list of things they are and are not allowed to do in the bars in the evenings gives the impression that this is not a conference for grown-ups but an expensive and repressive day/night care where your every action will be vigilantly vetted for dis-approval by the conference organizers. Put simply this sort of thing is a killjoy for the civil, honest respectable majority. If I want to chew on some womans leg in a bar, I don’t want to have to consult the conference handbook to see if this classes as acceptable behavior!

The people who have been arguing for better harassment policies are not killjoys — you apparently don’t know Rebecca Watson or Greta Christina very well if you think that they aren’t enthusiastic participants in the bar and party scene.

If you want to chew on some woman’s leg, no, you don’t have to consult the conference handbook.

You have to fucking consult the woman.

That’s the message. Not that you will be policed by a mob of impersonal killjoys, but that you damn well better appreciate that that woman is a person who has just as much right to be there and to demand some respect for herself as you do. And that if you fondle someone because you think you have that right, there will be people who have the back of your target and who will tell you NO you don’t get to dictate to that person how she will participate in your games.

If she wants you to nibble on her leg, or she wants to nibble on yours, fine, have fun.

But let’s be clear on this: the women at a conference are not your buffet.

Cristina Rad does it right. She asks if something were an instance of sexual harassment. In this case, a companion was nagged with requests to participate in sexual activity until she felt she had to move away to escape it.

Yes, that is sexual harassment. Undeniably so.

But here’s the contrast with Thunderf00t’s argument. He seems to think it’s either something you ignore, or something you call the FBI to handle. I think every rational person would agree that no, you don’t call in the FBI or the local police to handle a nuisance hitting on you at a bar. But that doesn’t mean it’s something that should be encouraged or tolerated — no means no. It would be nice if conferences encouraged intermediate levels of reaction, somewhere between “Bye, I’m not attending this event” and “Boom, I’m calling in a swat team.”

This attitude that if a situation doesn’t require the police to beat on someone, it should be tolerated, is exactly the kind of position that creates a safe space for pick-up artists and their ilk — they’re given the latitude to push right up to the point the nightsticks are hauled out.