[This article was first published on November 23, 2011] My partner, Kaylia, has many friends who are part of the transgender community. These are people who don’t fit the traditional gender roles in that they are living as members of the opposite sex, are undergoing medical procedures to change sex, don’t find themselves fitting into either male or female sex roles, or are biologically not clearly male or female to begin with.

[This article was originally posted on March 16, 2012] So, the Blunt Amendment (full text here) was voted down two weeks ago. The Blunt Amendment, for those not in the know, would have altered the requirements placed on employers that provide health insurance to their employees so that they would not be required to have insurance coverage that provided services that the employer or the insurance company finds morally objectionable. As spelled out in the amendment itself:

[This originally appeared on Anthroslug’s personal blog on April 2, 2012.] I loathe the term “the Friend Zone.” It is one of those terms that seems to get thrown around without much thought, generally by men as an excuse for why they have had little success with dating and/or sex. My dislike for this term comes from my often-stated dislike for sloppy thinking and irrational claims, and as such I am not going to get into a discussion of whether or not the idea of the Friend Zone is born out of issues pertaining to privilege or misogyny (besides, [more articulate individuals than myself have already done so]](https://morethanmen.

This weekend is a special weekend for me. On Saturday, I will celebrate 11 years of marriage with my brilliant, amazing, strong and determined wife, Elyse. And on Sunday, we will celebrate Elyse’s birthday, and Father’s Day. This weekend, in many ways, is a celebration of my life. The beauty of this weekend is I can share it with those I love most. And while the commercial world says I need to go out and buy something made of steel for our anniversary, and buy some trinket or some other gift for Elyse’s birthday.

What do the following 6 movies have in common? Group 1 Kick-Ass 2 Man of Steel Sharknado We’re the Millers The Wolverine World War Z What do the following 6 movies have in common? Group 2 21 Jump Street The Amazing Spider-Man 2 The Avengers Rush Star Trek Into the Darkness This is the End Both groups have been judged using a system called The Bechdel Test.

Being between jobs, I spend a lot of time trying to keep myself busy during the day. I tend to do a lot of chores and small projects that have gone neglected. Over the last 2 months, the small projects have led several afternoon shopping runs. During my shopping runs, I tend to swing through the toy section and see about something small for the kids. When I was a kid, Barbie dominated the toy section.

Dear Mr Zuckerberg, It must be pretty awesome to be a white dude with billions of dollars. It must be nice to be able to afford peace of mind. You do realize that not everyone is a billionaire right? Because when Facebook makes decisions to allow any timeline to be found by name alone that’s seriously messed up. Your suggestions to make things more secure are laughable: Share each post with the people you want to be able to see it.

To put it in skeptic terms, #ShutUpAndListen means “You lack evidence relevant to this problem, so learn from those who have it." So first off let’s address the elephant in the room. I simply cannot add anything to discussion of Ron Lindsay’s opening remarks that holds a candle to what’s been said by Secular Women, Dan Fincke, Adam Lee and a whole host of other people. I’m not even going to try because the more I think about it the more irritated I become about Dr.

A friend posted a link to this article on Slate about a married man with no kids who is a homemaker. I loved the article. Due, in no small part, to the fact that this very well could have been how my life ended up. At one point in my life I was a physics major dating a chemical engineer - pretty clear who was going to be earning the big bucks there.

As an organizer for my local Skeptic group, it was important to me to include an anti-harassment policy. My co-organizer and I very much wanted the gender ratio to be as close to 50/50 as it could be, for both speakers and attendees. To that end I wanted a good anti-harassment policy in place. I never imagined that it would be an issue. I guess at heart I’ve been far too much of an optimist.

Howdy There’s nothing to see here. MtM has been shelved for quite a while and I’m not putting any effort into it, but I may allow limited contributions in the future

[Sasha here. One of the main points of More Than Men is to get regular guys talking about why diversity matters to them. Here’s our first guest post making that happen.] In the recent past our society has been making incremental steps towards the universal acceptance of diversity and the equality of all flavours of humanity, whether it be gender, race, sexuality, blood type or the amount of hair on your knees.

[caption id=“attachment_978” align=“alignleft” width=“253” caption=“Avoiding messes makes you adorable."]In real life, I can be hot-headed. I can speak before thinking, and sometimes this involves a notable lack of decorum. That sometimes bleeds through onto my internet dealings, but I do make an effort to keep that to a minimum. I am also very intolerant of intolerance and bigotry — I really hope that fact bleeds through, because it’s pretty much at the core of my character.

I am also a white male. That’s right, I’m swinging pale pipe. This means I have at least two major positions of privilege over many of my compatriots in all of these various fights, and that my privilege causes my words to be amplified while others' meritorious positions are muted. In addition, I am cisgender, where my societally-expected gender comports with the physical sex I was born with; and my heterosexuality is likewise considered “the norm” in society, and I am therefore privileged by virtue of happening to be part of a majority where the minorities are often silenced, excluded or ignored, whether purposefully or not.

MISSING IMAGE The most insidious form of douchebag is the Misunderstood Douchebag. You know the type: he’s really not that bad, people just don’t understand his ways. If only people got that what he was doing was noble and not at all in the blind pursuit of getting into girls' pants, the world would be a much fairer place. The Misunderstood Douchebag is the genus of the species Nice GuyTM.

By now, everybody in the atheosphere is familiar with the Jessica Ahlquist story, and especially the latest development in the saga. The sheer amount of bigotry, hatred, and blind, unthinking idiocy on display by citizens of Cranston is astonishing, made no less so by their calls for religious tolerance. …wait for it…. “Religious tolerance?!” [caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“295” caption=“Now I know how Link felt every time he said this and forgive him his annoying catchphrase”]That’s right, kids.

Want to thank the people at More Than Men for having me. To start, I’d like to share a recent post from my own blog, then I’ll get to work on some original content. Enjoy! You know, I had other things to do. Better things to do. I really, really wanted to stop being a complete asshole and actually answer my email, because I love my friends and I have been an irresponsible ass about that.

While at Convergence/SkepchickCon 2012 this past weekend, I did a lot of things, but one of the most fruitful and important was to attend the “Don’t Feed the Trolls” panel on the second day of the Con. The panel consisted of a number of prominent female skeptics (Rebecca Watson, Cristina Rad, Stephanie Zvan, and Heina Dadabhoy) along with a couple of male colleagues (Greg Laden and Jason Thibeault) discussing the issues of gender attitudes, sexism, and misogyny in the skeptical movement.

I think by now you’d have to have been living in a rather deep, dark hole to not have heard at least something about the sad case of Trayvon Martin’s death at the hands of George Zimmerman. Rather than rehash a lot of what has been hashed out and speculated upon ad nauseam regarding the case, I would like to speak to what I see as some broader questions. First, I will say that the purpose of this blog post is not to make an argument for the guilt or innocence of George Zimmerman, nor will I speculate on whether or not Trayvon Martin instigated the encounter, nor will I go into the question of whether or not so-called “stand your ground” laws are a good idea.

Like many within the skeptical community, I have been reading with interest the recent discussion which has been waged (or, should I say, raged?) on the topic of diversity within the skeptical movement. Apparently, it all goes back to this article – Why White Men Should Refuse to be on Panels of All White Men – which led to this blog post over at Skepchick. It also seems that there is a bit of a “storm” of controversy swirling as a result of the discussion generated by these articles.

[NOTE: This was originally published in July 2011.] First, some background It seems the whole thing got started when Rebecca Watson of Skepchick wrote about an encounter she had with a man in an elevator in Dublin. Long story short: the guy propositioned her, and she said no; she also felt somewhat cornered seeing as how she was stuck, alone, in a metal cage with the guy. Apparently, there were a number of people who thought she handled the situation poorly (especially by blogging about it and noting the inappropriate behavior on the part of the man in question).

Person 1: You’re the one that has a problem w/ a safety tool available to women. Or are you one of the “teach men not to rape” girls?! Person 2: god forbid anyone teach men not to rape! 😐 Person 1: You truly believe #rape is taught/untaught?! It isn’t! That suggests EVERY man is a potential rapist! I saw the conversation to the left on Twitter tonight and it made me angry.

__** UPDATED 03/18/2014 8:18AM PDT **__ I thought that I had written all that needed to be said about the decietful, misogynist, forced-birth advocating, so called “secular pro life” movement two years ago. I didn’t realize then that the current mostly-male “leadership” of the secular movement was composed almost entirely of misogynists, abusers, liars, and morally-bankrupt cowards. Those who are not anti-woman seem to be so obsessed with courting “allies” that they have no problems throwing women under the bus to advance their petty agendas.

I have supported and also criticized American Atheists over the years. Today I’m frustrated and am offering some criticism. Criticism that I hope is listened too. I’m an atheist and I want atheist organizations to prosper, but I also want them to reflect my values. Today AA issues a new press release& announcing six new billboards. American Atheists launched six billboards on Monday in central New Jersey attacking the non-helpful responses by some religions to recent natural disasters.

There is an event happening in Ohio on November 2nd that might shock and surprise you for many reasons. It’s an event to celebrate& & Día de Muertos, the Mexican holiday to commemorate and celebrate reflect upon your dead ancestors and loved ones, with a BDSM play party. We’re grown ups and we know people have sex and even have kinky sex in groups. The part that may be a shock for some is that the organizer of the event is a self-described “diversity” educator.

[MISSING IMAGE] From one cis hetero white man to another: Shut the fuck up. I realize none of this is likely to make much of a difference to you, because you’re not about accountability or criticism. No, not you Hugo. But you’re hurting people. You are being an abuser. You are verbally abusing women of color, and then you apologize and cry about your mental illness and “go away”…but you come back.

Everyone is piling on Miley Cyrus for her performance at the Mtv VMAs last night. I’ve seen her called “skank”, “attention whore”, her body being criticized as unwomanly and undesireable, and even someone saying she “covered herself in STDs and crack”. Others have talked about Robin Thicke and criticized the appropriateness of a married 36 year old dancing in a sexually suggestive way with a 20 year old women. All of those are stupid things to talk about.

I have wanted to talk about something for years and I think maybe now is the right time to talk about it. I want to show my support for both Karen Stollznow* and Carrie Poppy by sharing my own rather unpleasant experiences with DJ Grothe. I want to show that their experiences are not isolated incidents. They are part of a larger picture and are important. It’s sort of known among certain people in the skepticoatheirationalist sphere that DJ Grothe is not terribly fond of me.

As an ally, my words are likely to be given more “weight” in a discussion by many people. There are a lot of reasons for this. The main reason is that I have a lot of social privilege as a straight, white, able-bodied, cis man. I’m someone who is at the top of a lot of oppression hierarchies. Another reason is that people have this idea of “objectivity” that is just plain wrong, because no one is objective.

I was at the Center for Inquiry’s second Women in Secularism conference last month. It was one of the best secular conferences I have ever attended and I hope there is another one next year. The staff, especially Melody Hensley did a remarkable job and I applaud them. There were two dark clouds at the conference that dampened many people’s enjoyment. One was a notorious part time “activist” and full time attention seeker who attended the conference in order to taunt feminists and report back to his vile, hateful, and dangerous friends at A Voice for Men.

But why don’t they turn on the barbarians and stop them? Yesterday Richard Dawkins continued his recent campaign of xenophobia on Twitter with the following: Of COURSE most Muslims are decent people. But why don’t they turn on the barbarians and stop them? — Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) March 10, 2013 It seems like such a simple question, doesn’t it? I assume Richard Dawkins thinks of himself as a decent person, as most atheists (OF COURSE) are, but why then does he not turn on the racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and ableist “barbarians” in our midst?

I’ve been running More Than Men for a year now (even longer if you count the pre-launch preparation we did) and I’m more proud than you can know of what I’ve done and the response we’ve generated – even the backlash from anti-feminists makes me proud. Unfortunately I need to step away for a few month to take care of some personal affairs. It breaks my heart to do so but I can’t keep doing this and also keep doing the things I need to do in my private life and be successful at either.

Over on Twitter the always fantastic Natalie Reed made a point about something that has been stewing in the back of my head for a while. Thanks to her I now know what to say. I made a handy Storify compilation for you to see what she had to say, below the cut. View the story “Lookism and the face of misogyny” on Storify See? That dude wasn’t really very creepy looking, was he?

I’ve written before about San Francisco’s wife-beating sheriff and his fight to stay in office despite being on probation and, you know, not exactly being someone I would trust to have the best interests of domestic violence victims at heart. Well, it turns out that 4 of the city supervisors thing it’s super cool to have an admitted domestic abuser serving as the city’s top law enforcement official…while on probation.

[I was recently tipped off to a wonderful post by Ana Mardoll over on her blog. It’s part of her excellent Deconstruction series and she was kind enough to let me re-post it here.] Content Note: Rape Culture Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of comments on the interwebs from genuinely nice guys who want to know how to be good feminist allies in this shitty rape culture world we live in.

Last night the Republican party was able to share with us all an important lesson: In the modern world alienating women, people with disabilities, and racial & sexual minorities is a losing proposition. Even Republicans are admitting that this is not our parents’ America. The Republican Rape Squad of Mourdock and Akin were resoundingly defeated, despite running in fairly conservative districts. Marriage equality won big. Women in elected office are now at historic highs in the face of sexist antagonism and antipathy from the Republican party.

It’s been a week since Justin Vacula resigned from his leadership position with the Secular Coalition for America, but people are still talking about it. I supported, and signed the petition asking for him to be removed. Vacula resigned without any need for the SCA to act. That’s not what I’m here for today. I’ve noticed a recurring meme from Vacula’s defenders and from those who are “trying to be neutral.

Juana Inés de la Cruz was a self-taught scholar , scientist, and poet - and later a nun - in Mexico during the 17th century. You’re learning about her because I recently read one of her poems that proves that Nice Guys and slut shaming are nothing new. si con ansia sin igual solicitáis su desdén, ¿por qué quereis que obren bien si las incitáis al mal? Combatís su resistencia y luego, con gravedad, decís que fue liviandad lo que hizo la diligencia.

This year I was really bummed to be unable to attend Melody Hensley’s fantastic, important, and much needed Women in Secularism conference. I was thrilled to learn that there would be a second one and even more thrilled when I saw the fantastic lineup of speakers Melody has recruited. I will be there in May 2013 and you should be, too – especially if you’re a dude. Religion and the cultural we share with the religious has a unique and problematic relationship with women.

(This post is actually part of my homework in Women’s Studies this week. I hope I get a good grade.) How to convince men to be allies to women is something I have been trying to master for more than a year now, most actively since I started my blogging project with the new year. It’s honestly not an easy task. The biggest response I get is a lot of apathy from other men, and then I get the occasional outright enmity from some die-hards I can only call misogynists.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes caring publicly about equality and making a point of being visibly not-horrible can sometimes be exhausting and demoralizing. The relentless and obsessive attacks on people, especially women, who speak out against misogyny and hate really fuck with my head. I’ve struggled with depression my whole life and it’s pretty triggering for me. Many is the evening or weekend I spend holed-up at home because I’m just sick of the world and everyone in it.

I’m borrowing my title from Joanna Russ’s 1982 skewering of the ways that women and minorities are prevented from having a written voice. In the book Russ examines 11 ways the writing of women is suppressed: Prohibitions Bad Faith Denial of Agency Pollution of Agency The Double Standard of Content False Categorizing Isolation Anomalousness Lack of Models Responses Aesthetics I’d like to propose a 12th method for our new internet age: Call her names and relentlessly stalk her online until she can’t take it any more.

Everyone’s talking about Atheism Plus, new-new-atheism, social justice atheism, whatever you feel like calling it. I already sharedthe thoughts I had been having along those lines, and now I want to really get in to where I stand on things. I support Atheism Plus, at least in so far as I support atheists caring about social justice and equality. If I could be said that I have any reservations or concerns about this new “movement” it is that apathy will eventually lead to it being a bunch of relatively privileged people paying lip service to social justice and equality, but not really doing much about it.

For some, skeptical atheism took a turn for the revolutionary this weekend. There’s a mood in the air that had me write an earlier draft of this post. Then Jen McCreight beat me to it with her brilliant post calling for a new wave of atheism. Ophelia Benson, Jason Thibaeult, and Greta Christina soon blogged their support. Jen followed up with a crowd sourced name for this new wave and a report that grassroots support is, at the moment, growing.

Coffee Loving Skeptic, who seems to want desperately to be Rebecca Watson’s bête noire posted this super hilarious(ly badly Photoshopped) image on his Facebook wall. What I find really interesting, and telling, and instructive here is that the picture is obviously intended to cause offense and outrage in the targeted people, Ms. Watson and PZ Myers. In the image, calculated for outrage, he accuses his victims of profitting from “manufactured outrage”.

As if creating the beloved and beautiful Surly-Ramics jewelry that has become one of the main social signifiers of the skeptic, atheist, nerd, and smartypants sets weren’t enough, Amy Davis Roth keeps bringing the awesome with her writing on Skepchick and at Mad Art Lab, plus her frequent appearances as a speaker and panelist. Then she goes and raises money to send women to the largest skeptic event on the planet as well as helping cure cancer.

Here in San Francisco domestic violence has been in the news for all of 2012. The abuser just happens to be our sheriff. I’m bringing it up because it’s a public case that documents many of the strategies employed by misogynist shitlords when they’re confronted by distaste from decent people. Ross Mirkarimi was elected sheriff of the city and county of San Francisco in November of 2011. Over New Year’s Mirkarimi and his wife Eliana Lopez got into an argument that became physical.

More The Men is not about me, it’s about all men speaking out in favor of diversity. Last week I asked people to comment here, email me, or link me to comments elsewhere where they, as ordinary guys, speak out against the recent campaign of misogynistic abuse directed at women in our communities. Many of you took a stand and told the haters that you are not on their side:

I’m 36 years old and I’ve never raped anyone. I recently spent almost a whole day reading that now infamous Reddit thread [serious trigger warnings for all sorts of awfulness] inviting sexual abusers and rapists to tell their side the story. I didn’t want to read it at first. I read the articles about it. I circled it…and then like probing an open wound I kept worrying at it. I wanted to understand why.

On Sunday Surly Amy answered a question from a reader about how to deal with all the vile hate being directed at outspoken women. She provided some examples of the stuff out there being directed at feminist women, and it’s pretty despicable. I’m sure most of you reading this have seen it’s like before and have asked yourself& “What can I do?” The answer is alarmingly simple. You can speak out.

Because of my name and the poor reading comprehension of most misogynists I’ve gotten one rape threat while writing about feminism. That’s nothing compared to what women get. The way society tries to silence women is appalling and well documented. It really turns the stomach of anyone with a trace of humanity. Society has other, gentler, ways of silencing and dismissing feminist men, though. I want to talk about those today, not to climb on a cross or to equate what male feminists like me experience to what women encounter, but to show men that they’re not alone when these things get hurled at them.

Since women in the industrialized world have things so good compared to women in countries run by brown religious people and should just STFU already about sexism in their lives, I have prepared a handy list of things you should stop talking about because there are so many worse things happening in the world. Stop writing about or investigating ghosts and cryptozoology at home. Don’t you know there are people being killed as witches in Africa?

I’m tired of calling the discussion about sexism within the skeptic and atheist movements a “controversy”. As I see it, what myself and others who talk about the fact that our communities are as subject to sexism (and racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc) as the rest of society are encountering is denialism. Look, we know that skeptics and atheists aren’t perfect. Aspiring to an ideal of rationality and fairness doesn’t make us perfect, it just means we’re trying to be better.

We all know about this latest Daniel Tosh thing. As Lindy West explains, you can make a rape joke if you’re doing comedy right. This got me thinking of what passes for “comedy” with most skeptics and atheists. It’s shit. Horrible, horrible shit. First you have the “science comedians” or “atheist comedians” who have tepid, hacky jokes pandering the the interests and opinions of skeptics and atheists. Here’s a made up example:

Their main argument, as far as I can tell in between the derailing, namecalling, Godwinning, and other extreme ridiculousness is that it’s unnecessary and punitive to have a freedom-crippling set of rules governing how people treat each other. They seem to be saying that decent people are decent and most people are decent and anyway those online rape threats are just weirdos who never go anywhere and anyway they never saw anyone being sexually harassed at a conference.

We atheists know that creationism relies on bad logic and laughable arguments. Here’s what’s super interesting (though not at all surprising): anti-feminist creationists and anti-feminist atheists use the same shitty logic and laughable arguments when it comes to crapping on women! Over the on Uncommon Descent - a site “serving the intelligent design community - someone going by “scordova” tries to beat up on Rebecca Watson using basically the same ridiculous nonsense reactionary and hateful atheists have been using to try and pillory her about being a woman for years.

MRAs, anti-feminists, and general dudebros are fond of responding to feminists and just-not-horrible people (especially women) by whining making strongly worded claims of misandry. Inspired by the amazing How To Be A Reverse-Racist: An Actual Step by Step List For Oppressing White People by A. D. Song and Mia McKenzie I’ve created this handy guide to using the inherently unfair (to men) system to create a gynocratic fempire that I would like to call Misandria.

Today I’m sharing a guest post from Huey P. Newton, one of the co-founders of the Black Panther Party. I love, love, love this piece because it represents exactly the kind of self-reflection that inspired me and that we hope to inspire here at More Than Men. This is the entire text of a speech Newton delivered on August 15, 1970. Enjoy. - Sasha During the past few years strong movements have developed among women and among homosexuals seeking their liberation.

Those of us who argue for diversity are prone to empathy. We not only see that our position is logical and reasonable, but we are passionate about it. We feel about these things very strongly. These issues matter to us very much. It’s why we’re so prone to burnout. We pour are hearts into this and it hurts us when we’re attacked about these things. Since More Than Men started at the beginning of the year I have felt used up and beat up and emotionally exhausted several times, and I don’t even get the worst sort of abuse.

Saladin Ahmed is a Muslim, Arab-American fantasy writer. (If you enjoy fantastic fiction, I recommend his novel [Throne of the Crescent Moon[(https://www.amazon.com/Throne-Crescent-Moon-Kingdoms/dp/0756407117/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1)].) As you’d expect he’s experienced some racism and religious bigotry directed at he and his family, especially since 2001. Last August he was asked if that hate was something he had experienced in the publishing trade, to which he replied: “…talking about this or that sector of society as being less or more racist is kind of like talking about this or that part of the ocean being less or more wet.

We’re still working on building our list of secular/skeptical/science events with harassment policies. It’s grown some since we started, but we need your help. Even if you don’t know about the policy, please comment here with the name of an event you attend or organize and, ideally, a link to their webpage. I’ll do the work of tracking down a policy they may have that we can’t find. I think this is a non-controversial but important step.

I’m a big fan of the Secular Student Alliance. For more than a decade they have been helping secular students organize for mutual support and activism. They provide resources to students, educators, and alumni to make schools safer and more welcoming for secularists. They are a true grass roots organization that is training and empowering the next generation of secular leaders and thinkers. They are also more diverse than most secular groups with older memberships.

As I wrote on Wednesday, I don’t see how there is anything controversial about events having or enforcing policies about harassment. We’ve even started building a list of existing harassment policies at conferences as a resource for event organizers, attendees, and speakers. Unfortunately it does seem like a lot of people do think these policies are a bad idea for our events. One reason I’ve seen given in opposition to harassment policies is that they are prudish and they inhibit the ability for adults to express their sexuality.

When asked what to do to make skeptic and atheist events feel more safe for women attendees and speakers, Stephanie Zvan blogged about a pretty simple thing to do: institute, publicize, and enforce anti-harassment policies. This is such an obvious step that I’m surprised every event doesn’t have a clear policy in place. While there are some wild-eyed contrarians (and possible assholes) who think that harassment policies are oppressive and horrible, most people seem to agree that they’re a good idea and Stephanie’s post is making some real progress.

In Wednesday’s post I implied that a lot of people think that combating sexism, homophobia, transphobia, racism, and ableism are too political and are not really something that skeptics should be worried about. Obviously I disagree but there are well known skeptic speakers who definitely think that those are not a part of “scientific skepticism” and we should instead only talk about ghost lights, psychics, and how stupid Catholics are. The idea seems to be that there was a “skeptical canon” established some time in the mid-20th century and that if we apply skepticism outside that we’re doing skepticism wrong or are “being political” and not rational.

[caption id=“attachment_961” align=“alignleft” width=“150” caption=“This is what misogynists think of men who support women. (Source: What Men Are Saying About Women)"]About a month ago, I was asked by an anti-feminist MRA on Twitter why I “believe in feminism”. I glibly replied that I am a feminist because I’m not a horrible person. The thing is, he’s not the only man who seems surprised by men who label themselves as a feminist and who work passionately toward equality for women.

Wednesday’s post only got one comment here on the site, but I’ve looked at the discussion elsewhere on the web. Some people have said that when I see warning signs for misogyny I’m really just being mean and hateful to people with old fashioned values. I would argue that in many cases “old fashioned values” are misogynist, racist, and homophobic, but apparently some disagree. What are some old fashioned values that are used to perpetuate and reinforce bigotry?

I’m a single guy who uses OkCupid to meet people, occasionally to hilarious effect. I also have a lot of women friends who date online and run in to guys who are pretty horrible. It also turns out that not everyone, male or female, is super skilled at spotting misogyny warning signs. That got me thinking ,which now got you this post. A lot of these might seem really obvious, but in my experience these red flags are sometimes missed because when we’re looking for romance or sex online we’re often trying to see the best in people because we know that expressing yourself through a profile can be hard.

On Wednesday I wrote about a man who was influential in my evolution from stupid and entitled to less stupid and less entitled. Often when I am together with pro-equality, feminist, or social justice peeps we talk about how often we’re disappointed by the prominent men in our communities. Lets be positive for a change. Who are your progressive male role models? Who has inspired you to be a better person?

I’m writing this after having learned of the unfortunate and tragically young death of Adam Yauch, better known as MCA of the Beastie Boys. He died on Friday, May 4, 2012 — only 47 years old — from causes related to the cancer he was diagnosed with in 2009. Though only 11 years older than I am, he was one of the men who helped me become a feminist, a progressive, and less horrible over all.

Not too long ago I tweeted a link to this video, because I liked it. Then someone replied that they’d like to see the video about things men actually say to men who say shit to women on the street. They had a real point. There’s a lot of silence from men and women both in response to street harassment. There’s a lot of silence about inappropriate behavior in public in general.

It’s often hard to keep promoting diversity in the world. The skeptic an atheist communities have a “big tent” that celebrates misogynists that deny the scientific facts of climate change and rewards misogynists that promote dangerous anti-vaccination nonsense but when we talk about how our movements can and should address and support issues unique to women, racial minorities, and the disabled, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans community we are told we’re reaching too far and are out of line.

 I almost never go to any programming.

[caption id=“attachment_858” align=“alignleft” width=“209” caption=“There aren’t many D&D characters who look like this."]Today I’m going to put on my nerd hat. I’m a tabletop roleplayer. I’ve been playing D&D and similar games since I was 12: 24 years. Over on Tor.com Mordicai Knode wrote a great editorial calling for a greater depiction of diversity in the human characters from the art directors of the upcoming new edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

There is a debate within feminism about men. That debate is whether a man can really call himself a feminist. Some argue that since men have privilege that women do not have we cannot really understand the lives of women and therefore can be pro-feminist nit not actually be called feminists. Others say that this is limiting and is in it’s own way sexist, creating a women-only club that needlessly excludes male allies.

[caption id=“attachment_841” align=“alignleft” width=“150” caption=““I just see…people.""]One thing that white men like myself really love to say is “I just see people.” This is super easy for us to do. It lets us tell the world “Hey, I totally don’t mind that you’re black/a woman/disabled/queer/trans” while also apparently letting us get out of actually acknowledging privilege and oppression. It also lets us change the subject so that we don’t have to keep listening to oppressed people’s feelings.

Good, it’s Friday. I’ve written before about microaggressions, those tiny, maybe apparently innocuous phrases, questions or comments that make us feel excluded, insulted, or objectified. I had one of those happened to me yesterday. Remember how Wednesday I wrote about my body and how my deviation from our cultural “norm” sometimes makes people feel entitled to treat me as an object? The very next day I was riding my train home from work.

[caption id=“attachment_818” align=“alignleft” width=“150” caption=“Your freakish author with Phil Plait, 2011 (Photo: Taylor Proctor)"]I’m a very large man. I’m 6'5” (~196 cm) tall and weigh in around 400 pounds (~181 kg). I started losing my hair when I was 16 years old. I wear glasses. Those are things I have little-to-no control over. I also have tattoos that are almost always visible and a beard ranging from goatee-and-mustache with stubble to full, depending on how ambitious I’ve been lately.

Whenever someone points out that someone, somewhere has said or done something sexist there’s a dude who chimes in with “But not all men are like that…” Then they or someone else gets angry and says that the person pointing out the sexism is a bigot or a misandrist or is making sloppy generalization because, you know, not all men are like that. (We’ll save for another time why so many male atheists think “not all Christians are like that” is silly but stick to their guns on this one.

After work today I’m heading to literary science fiction/fantasy convention. I’m pretty excited. It’s probably too late for you this year, but next year you should consider going to FOGcon here in the San Francisco Bay Area. I’ll buy you a drink. Anyhow, FOGcon has a clearly articulated and posted policy on harassment. This is something many conventions and conferences do. TAM has one as well, but there was a bit of a furor over it, including talk of boycotting the event.

[caption id=“attachment_795” align=“alignright” width=“200” caption=“Some men see this as a trophy holding a trophy."]Over on Cracked.com David Wong has a piece titled “5 Ways Modern Men Are Trained to Hate Women” that I though would be useful as a tool to explain the ways that the “But I’m an atheist…” argument doesn’t hold water. Just because you’re a skeptic or and atheist doesn’t mean that you’re not influenced by the society around you.

Yesterday Jason Thibeault, no stranger to these parts, wrote a great summary of the recent fight to get trans rights legislation passed in Canada. Basically, no one at all is taking the bill seriously. What’s interesting is that while the petition to get the MPs and media to take notice is languishing in obscurity there is another petition protesting a trans woman being kicked out of a beauty pageant. The petition to get trans people the rights they deserve and need is being mostly ignored while the petition to protest a cis-normative appearing trans woman being excluded from a venue for objectifying women is crazy popular, guys.

Blogs get a lot of searches in the form of questions. Occasionally I will be answering those questions. Sometimes I’ll answer a themed group, sometimes it will be a miscellaneous collection. [Even your grandma got called a slut.]###How do I know if I am a slut? The cynical answer is “Someone will tell you.” The truth is that “slut” is, as our friend Matt Gubser has pointed out, a stupid insult.

There seem to be a lot of men that enjoy gawking at hot chicks on the street. No matter how old the man is, whether he is married or single, he sees no problem with checking out all the women in sight. We are men after all, and we find women attractive, and have an urge to look at them. So, why not? It’s a powerful urge anyway. It’s almost impossible to resist.

Sunday at the American Atheists’ National Convention those of us paying attention heard of a new group: Secular ProLife, who tag themselves as “Pro-life for a reason.” They may be religious people in secularists’ clothing, trying to tap in to what they see as an anti-woman market for their ideas in the secular community. They may also be genuinely secular people who want to share their message with their fellow atheists.

I’ll give Rush Limbaugh one thing, he’s good at meme-generation. Though he says his friend at the Cato institute coined the word, “feminazi” sure has caught on over the last 20 years. “Feminazi” is, of course a ridiculous auto-Godwinning slur to throw around but it represents something much more widespread: the fact that the straw feminist is what so many people see as the “real” feminist. It’s an old joke that anything someone says that follows " I’m not a racist, but…" is always going to be horribly racist.

Sasha here. Of course. I’m going to be awfully busy for the next week because in addition to running MTM I work full time and am also recently returned to college. This week school is monopolizing my reading and writing time and I haven’t had a lot of guest submissions or anyone interested in being a staff writer. So, unless I get more time or we get some new submissions I expect this place to be quiet until next week.

Ouch. Yesterday Crommunist, who I admire and like, referred to my post about International Men’s Day as an example of “woefully ignorant, knee-jerk reactions to misogyny”. I’m not gonna argue with him, but instead see if we can talk about things. [Crommunist has clarified. He was referring to the “Why isn’t there an International Men’s Day” question – not my post in reply – as woefully ignorant and kneejerk. We are, and always have been, all good.

[caption id=“attachment_727” align=“alignleft” width=“210” caption=“I’m not the only one thinking of goatse, right?"]Today is International Women’s Day, which is awesome. If you don’t know much about the history of the day, I encourage you to look in to it. Pretty awesome stuff. But today I’m addressing the inevitable “What about the men??” cries that we always hear. Last month we heard people (like we do every year) ask why there’s no White History Month.

[Today’s guest post is from a teacher who would like us to examine our assumptions about people based on appearance.] Today I read an article about a 13-year-old student who said that the white teachers were not letting the minorities succeed. The student said the teacher just gave hand-outs that half of the students could not read. Later in the article it says that if there were more black teachers that the white teachers couldn’t hold the minorities back.

On Friday there was a bit of a kerfuffle about a new billboard from American Atheists, Inc. The billboard is a response to Pennsylvania’s stupid new “Year of the Bible” as designated by the state legislature. I think most atheists, non-believers, and secularists see the problem with the government decreeing any year a year for Biblical thinking and study - that pesky 1st Amendment we all love. The problem many people had is the imagery and message used in the ad.

Something that Natalie Reed touched on, is the fact that straight, white, cis men are seen as the “[default]“(https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MenAreGenericWomenAreSpecial). This cultural message leads some male skeptics, who should really know better, to have internalized an idea that minorities have biases (because, obviously, they’re different!) and they do not. I think this is the biggest factor leading to what’s come to be called “mansplaining“. (When you think about it, “[mansplaining]”(https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Mansplain) is not much different from what many skeptics and atheists do all the time when talk to theists, climate change deniers, creationists, anti-vaxers, etc.

[I asked Natalie Reed if I could publish this here because she makes a point I have been failing to make, and she makes it much better than I could have. It originally appeared on February 20, 2012. And yes, she’s our first non-white dude contributor, but we’re looking for more.] This post is not going to be another discussion of Loftus or his remarks. There’s not really any need to carry that any further, I feel comfortable with how this resolved and like there isn’t much left to be said.

Want the opportunity to share your cinematic vision with hundreds of other atheists, skeptics, and freethinkers on the big screen, and a chance to win $250? Every year, the Atheist Film Festival in San Francisco (AFF) features a selection of provocative, engaging, thought-provoking, and/or hilarious short films. _Whether you’re an amateur filmmaker, pro, semi-pro, or never operated a camera other than your smart phone, they want to see what you can come up with!

I despair and come close to just saying “fuck it” and abandoning my participation in the skeptic and atheist communities on at least a weekly basis because of how often I see unconscionable behavior not only happen but being defended by man, and in some cases at least tolerated by very prominent leaders in our community. Sam Harris has famously argued that “moderate”, liberal theists provide cover for religious extremists. I see the same thing happening here.

From the start there has been a lot of internal and external discussion of whether or not a project like More Than Men with it’s country-club style membership can really serve a purpose in the movement for greater equality and diversity. Obviously I think it can, if only because there are some people who are receptive to the message but because of how society trains them they have a harder time hearing and understanding a minority voice.

Not only will I be attending (though not speaking), but we’ve managed to get an even split between male and female speakers including our parent organization’s president, Elyse Anders of the Women Thinking Free Foundation. Tickets until April 1st are $50 ($35 for students) and $60 for everyone thereafter so, get your tickets soon and save yourself some money for the bar!

That’s just not true. I’m going to admit something right now. I’m a straight, white guy with a middle-class upbringing. I am also, irrevocably racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, and probably a host of other -ists and -phobics that you can toss at me. I’m like this because I’m a product of a society that is also racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, and all the others. I’ve been taught a certain view of normalcy, and as a result, I act with mannerisms that reflect this certain view.

Something lighter today. My good friend and my favorite comedian Matt Gubser gives his take on the questions I asked on Friday. This is him working on his bit before it’s completely finished, so he’s asked that you not judge him by it. I think it’s hilarious, though.(Video is NSFW due to some salty language.)

Don’t worry about having something “original” to say (lord knows I’m not very original), or for it being super-duper polished (you’ve read my work, right), just write a few hundred words, make a video, draw a picture…and send it to me! Tell us that diversity is important to you. Tell us what you’re doing to make things better. Also, still looking for a couple of staff writers who can post once or twice a week.

Bullshit. First off, we all have stories about that atheist who is not a critical thinker. My own is a guy who laughed at Christianity because their sole evidence was a book that is a few thousand years old. In the next breath he sang the praises of traditional Chinese magical ground-up penis herbal medicine, because it’s been practiced for thousands of years. In other words what was laughable as evidence for Christianity was compelling evidence for something that appealed to him.

Is there a difference, as some have told me there is, between saying a woman “dresses like a slut” and calling her a slut? Is there a difference between calling a man a whore and calling a woman a whore? Please explain why you think so. Are women responsible for the sexual behavior of men around them if they dress a certain way? Where does that line get drawn? What does that say about men and their agency as humans?

Here’s the thing: unless you start being an asshole I’m not trying to make you feel like a crappy person. We’re all forced into this system and we have to reason our way out of it. Just like many of us reject the “common sense” arguments for religious belief and then we ask questions and gather information and draw a conclusion. Your average theist isn’t stupid or evil, they just haven’t done the work or had that “deconversion” moment.

Lets look at some of these categories and some of the groups (western) society recognizes with them: ###Sex and Gender Male Female Intersex Transgender Cisgender ###Race Black White Latino Asian Native American ###Religious Belief Atheist Christian Jewish Muslim Hindu ###Ability Disabled Currently able-bodied ###Sexuality Heterosexual Homosexual Bisexual ###Class

A reader hipped me to a video recently. I watched it. I can see the appeal, since it’s a video all about being awesomer to people. Something about it didn’t sit right with me, though. Here, you watch and then we’ll get back together after the jump and compare notes. Okay, so, yes, it’s not nice to call people homophobic names. It also doesn’t make you more straight to do so.

_ [This article was originally posted on August 29th, 2011 at Skeptic Freethought.]_ [caption id=“attachment_596” align=“alignleft” width=“122” caption=“Hoping that I don’t sound like this."] “Feminist” is a polarizing word. You’ll generally see it used in one of two ways: as self-identification by people who consider themselves feminists, and as a pejorative by people who do not. It’s a word with an ugly connotation in many people’s minds, not unlike the word “atheist”; people hear the “-ist” suffix and infer an ideology that seeks feminine supremacy rather than gender equality, just as many see atheism as a rebellious denial of God rather than an affirmative acceptance of a godless universe.

[caption id=“attachment_580” align=“alignleft” width=“150” caption=“Unfit for civilization."] In the last day much has been said about “The Amazing Atheist”, most notably (from my chair) by Jen McCreight, Greg Laden, and PZ Myers. Until this morning I didn’t intend to address it in this space until reading the comment’s on PZ’s piece filled me with such a dark, bleak sense of despair about the state of humanity and the atheist/skeptical community. So, I’d like to start out by stating, very clearly, exactly how I feel about this “Amazing” guy and his defenders.

[This piece was originally published on January 30, 2012] “Why do you say ‘white people’ have privilege? Not every white person has racial issues! Shouldn’t you say some white people?” “Why do you say that men objectify and abuse women? Not every man does that! Shouldn’t you say some men?” “Why do you say that atheists have to be more welcoming to women? Some atheists are women! Shouldn’t you say some atheists?

In addition to seeking one-time contributions, we’re looking for one or two new staff bloggers. Please send me a message (sasha AT womenthinkingfree DOT org) with a little bit about yourself, a couple samples of your writing, and a drive to promote diversity in our communities. (You will have a salary of imaginary bacon, which is how we pay people around here. Yes, it’s vegan.) Thanks for an interesting month, and an upcoming interesting year,

Well, the truth is there is a long history of secularism and humanism in the African-American community and it’s long past time that the rest of us took notice. There’s also a way we can help the growing numbers of atheists and free-thinkers of color. It’s call the Day of Solidarity for Black Non-Believers and I encourage you to help spread the word. That last link was to a brand new site, African-Americans for Humanism, and it’s one I’m really excited about.

[caption id=“attachment_517” align=“alignleft” width=“200” caption=“The Friendzone (actual photo)"]A lot of guys, and all Nice Guys™, like to talk about the Friendzone, which is a desolate wasteland of no-sex that men are cast into by callous women who don’t want to fuck them. It works like this: Dude likes a lady. I mean he REALLY likes her. She likes him, but she doesn’t LIKE like him. He is banished to the Friendzone and his penis is dry forever after.

“Just read your guide to not being a misogynist. I’m very interested in your views on privilege from here in England. It’s interesting to see how hot you are at proclaiming white, male, heterosexual males to be privileged. “I agree to a certain extent, but domestically I feel that class, socio-economic, health and educational attainment are just as important. Therefore, in your mind I’m possibly one of those males who you may consider ‘just don’t get it’.

As we all know, the condition of one’s body has little bearing on their mind and what they can contribute to our communities. As someone who helps organize a skeptical conference in Northern California I found myself thinking how event organizers can take some extra steps to ensure that we don’t miss out on hearing any worthy voices in our cause. I asked for some input from skeptics and atheists with disabilities and have a few ideas myself.

We here at More Than Men love this guy, and hope he will soon contribute to the site directly.

[A slightly different version of this piece was posted on Sasha’s personal site. It is being reposted for this new audience.] Women are nice to look at. They’re quite often pretty, they have an appealing shape, and our sexuality drives us to want to copulate with them. 2. __Women who are intelligent and/or who agree with our world view are even nicer to look at. __I don’t know a single person in our communities who doesn’t say they are more attracted to other members of our community than they are to people with different views on science, rationalism, and religion.

[This article was originally posted on the author’s blog.] “A three-judge federal appeals panel ruled Friday that the state of Texas can move ahead with enforcement of a law requiring doctors to provide a sonogram to pregnant women before they get an abortion." “As written, the law would require women seeking an abortion in Texas to view a picture of the embryo or fetus and hear a description of its development before having the procedure.

[caption id=“attachment_469” align=“alignleft” width=“240” caption=“Diversity makes many things easier."] One of the most often cited ways to encourage diversity within our communities is to promote diversity amongst the speakers we feature at our events. There has been a lot of high-profile success in this - TAM has been approaching 50/50 gender representation, for instance - but there still seem to be a lot of mostly-white, mostly-male speaker rosters and panels. One way that has been proposed for speakers to take action is for white men to decline an invitation to speak at an event or on a panel that lacks diversity.

[caption id=“attachment_422” align=“alignright” width=“240” caption=“Photo: Andrew Becraft”] FOGcon is a feminist-friendly literary science fiction convention. And it’s happening in my back yard at the end of March. Feminist nerds, unite! The Good Men Project shared our critique of them with their readers. The commentors there when nuts. Sasha is now a hipster lady. And now you can share your awesomely stupid anti-diversity comments on a Tumblr! Shuffling feet: a black man’s view on Schroedinger’s Rapist.

Here’s the final part of the great video series from Greg Laden and friends. You can see part one here and part two here. (Greg is the submitter. Featured in this chapter are C. Anderson, Stephanie Zvan, Natalie Wagner, and Serena.) If you would like to contribute a video, blog post, or anything else, [check out how]. Editorial note: the link to the Contribute page is no longer active.

Here’s the second part of the great video series from Greg Laden and friends. You can see part one here. The final part will post tomorrow. (Like the last one, Greg organized this, the person in this part is Asha.) "More Than Men Part 2 If you would like to contribute a video, blog post, or anything else, check out how

Greg Laden has enlisted several people in making a series of three videos for the project. Many thanks to Greg and all his friends (credits in the final chapter). Here’s part one. Part two will be posted tomorrow, and part three on Friday. (Greg took it upon himself to organize this video, the people you see are Sheril Kirshenbaum, Desiree Schell, and Jafsica.) If you would like to contribute a video, blog post, or anything else, check out how.

Despite the annoying pop-over ads, I used to like The Good Men Project. It seemed to be a site for guys, mostly by guys, about not being horrible in the ways society tries to teach us to be. I mean, they had Amanda Marcotte write about MRAs, and that’s always good stuff. Then something happened. There’s still some good content there, sure, but it’s been infected by creepiness. You have articles about how stupid women don’t date Nice Guys because they’re brainwashed by rom-coms, creepy patriarchal pieces about sex trafficking where “your daughter” is equated with a drug, ridiculous straw-man replies to a woman who talks about rape culture, a decidedly mixed bag of whining and actually good stuff under the “presumption of guilt” tag, and then the infamous piece by a founder about how girls are just different from men and should stop being such nagging bitches.

[caption id=“attachment_353” align=“alignright” width=“150” caption=“Isn’t my cat adorable?"] The Canadian government says “Screw You” to married gays - Seriously dudes, the last thing equality (and your legacy) needs is an international, gay “Dred Scott” decision. Oh, you’re fixing it? You’re fucking with people’s rights. Not privileges, rights.[Looks like Canada “fixed” it, but why can something like this even happen? Oh, I know: hate + apathy.] There’s this Women in Secularism conference happening in May.

[caption id=“attachment_328” align=“alignleft” width=“133” caption=“The savior of men."]According to some dudes the whole “seduction community” is actually not, like you might at first think, a bunch of creepy not-technically-rapists - they’re really virtuous freedom fighters, saving men and women from the evils of female privilege. You see, men are horribly oppressed when it comes to sex and dating. They need sex so, so bad and stupid women just refuse to give it to them when they ask!

Noted anti-racist writer (and decidedly white white-guy) Tim Wise has an excellent piece about the myth of “reverse racism”, and I encourage you toread the whole thing. My favorite paragraph, though, is this one: Does making fun of anyone, ever, make you a great person? No. (And I don’t claim to be a great person. Comedy often hurts someone’s feelings.) But making fun of men, white people, able-bodied people, straight people, etc is simply not the same as someone from those groups making fun of a minority.

Like many people I was raised in a milieu with more than the usual amount of sexism and racism. I often say “I got better”, but the truth is, I’m getting better. I strive to learn more every day. To be empathic and listen to the experiences of people who are different with me. I work to be a better, more accepting and less horrible person. I’m an able-bodied, cisgendered, straight, white man.

Stephen Hawking is Mystified by Women. In related news we’re mystified by people who pay attention to experts talking out their asses about things outside their specialty. Y U Mad, Whiteboy? This is Sasha' new favorite non-naked Tumblr. Rick Santorum has something for you ladies. (While we’re on the topic of Tumblr memes.) The Invisible Backpack of Able-Bodied Privilege Checklist. Because privilege isn’t just about men and women, folks.

It’s come to our attention that there are some people who are a little confused by what the More Than Men project is all about. Perhaps because our original About was not as clear as it should have been, perhaps because a group of white guys gathering together for something that’s not horrible is such a novel concept, but somehow there are people who either have the wrong idea about us or who are skeptical about what we will actually be doing.

Greta Christina has written about the “Yes, but…" problem many of my fellow dudes have when listening to women talk about sexism and misogyny. I want to talk about a specific “Yes, but…” here: “Y_es, but that’s not sexist because he/I/they don’t hate all women, just that one!_” The argument is that since the person slinging gendered slurs doesn’t hate women as a class, they aren’t a misogynist, therefore they’re just a jerk and we we can shut up about this problem and go talk about how dumb Christians are again.

We live in a diverse world and I think we can all agree that any time a group’s makeup is less diverse than the world at large there are reasons for it. Here in the United States we have more diversity than most places, but when attending nerd events, atheist events, and skeptic events I keep finding myself in the majority. Why is that? I believe it is because something about those groups is making women and racial and sexual minorities feel like the group is Not For Them or are experiencing things that make them feel uncomfortable and unwelcome.

…to make a first impression. Typically we find this “gem” of advice applying to an individual’s approach to an important meeting of some sort or even daily life. However, as a “First TAMmer”, I had the opportunity to do a little role reversal and get a true first impression from the active skeptic community at TAM2012. I’ve been a skeptic for a long while, but never really considered seeking out or joining any skeptic community.

‘Diversity’ is one of those words that people can get tired of hearing very quickly: it makes them feel guilty and insensitive, and it almost always raises acrimonious discussion until it fizzles out, leaving bitter emotions in its wake. A quick perusal of comment threads (such as here, here, and here) might lead one to think that there is a small number of privileged minorities who have nothing better to do then to complain, insult, and derail conversations towards their pet project: complaining about a problem that was solved years ago.

Cassidy Lynn Campbell, the first openly transgender woman to be crowned prom queen, can’t have one day in her life to treasure. If she has to suffer this way, then you do too. Watch it and weep. AND THEN GET THE FUCK UP OFF YOUR ASS AND DO SOMETHING TO MAKE THE WORLD SAFE FOR TRANSGENDER PEOPLE.

“Do you remember what I did to you last night?” That’s what he asked when I woke, as if asking me to go to breakfast. I kind of remembered. Then I turned over and felt the pain. He got me drunk, he drugged me, and he fucked me up the ass. I went home with him willingly; I had the hots for him and hoped to play around. But I did-not-would-not-would-never consent to a virtual stranger fucking me.

[Updates below] If you didn’t already know,National Public Radio told the New York Times: National Public Radio will continue for now to refer to Private Manning as “he,” according to a spokeswoman, Anna Bross. “Until Bradley Manning’s desire to have his gender changed actually physically happens, we will be using male-related pronouns to identify him,” she said. So I told them this: Dear Vermont Public Radio, I hate having to write this letter.

There’s a special place in my imaginary hell for tepid bystanders who turn a blind eye to the suffering and targeting of someone more vulnerable. I hate them, and I hate them more than I hate the tormentors. Because they fly a false flag. They present themselves as friends but turn out to be collaborators at the most dire moments. Because they know better and they choose to do nothing. To do nothing in a way that magnifies the stage, and scope, and power of bullies.

So I just discovered there was a backlog of comments on the site (and pertaining to my post). I’m still learning the administration side, so I didn’t even see them before today. No censorship involved (although I totally will), so you’ll have to find something else to fap about.

It’s hard work bruising egos, even if you’re as professionally competent as Sasha and Carl. Sometimes you need a SpokesGay. That sometimes is now. Welcome, me! Now. Let’s get right to the pissing-off-of-gay-doodz. Mainly white gay doodz. Before you wrap your peaches in freezer paper, though, understand this: All the things I list below I’ve been guilty of. Every one of us ambles about in an oblivion bubble about something(s). It’s part of the human condition.

For those who have been fortunate enough to escape biotruth logic, I’ll start by giving a brief summation of the kinds of arguments that fall into that abyss. When it comes to discussions about gender, they take the following form explicitly, but there is always an implicit context to these arguments (which I will include in brackets as part of the quote): “Men are x, women are y. That’s just how humans are; it’s biology.

“Patriarchy” is a term that is often thrown around in feminist circles. Loosely speaking, it symbolizes the claim that we live in a male dominated society that condescends, controls, and diminishes women. This is a central tenet of feminism, but is a bit hard to swallow to the uninitiated because it makes it sound like there is some ominous, seemingly-conspiratorial group of men that sits in the upper echelons of society that enacts an anti-woman agenda.

When Elevatorgate blew up, I didn’t get it. It wasn’t that I was firmly in the camp of sexism deniers, but I argued a lot of irrelevent, tangential ideas and failed to understand the central objection that was being raised. I orbited around the issue for a long time before things really started to click into place, and even now I know I have some hard, mental work left to do.

I’m gonna let you guys in on a little secret today: science isn’t cheap. There’s a lot of fundraising that goes on to support the research which leads to the treatments that make life on planet earth longer and better. Unfortunately not everything gets the financial backing that it deserves. What causes do and don’t get funded? Well, it isn’t always as impartial as you’d hope. Helping men past their prime get it up obviously isn’t a very pressing concern, but the prevalence of 80 year olds with limp dicks and disposable income prompted the creation of Viagra over treatments for say… for Sickle Cell Anemia, which is actually life threatening (unlike erectile dysfunction) but tends to effect minority populations disproportionately.

###1) Make Skeptical Events Across the Country Less Alcohol Centric Imagine you’re a 20 year old who is passionately invested in skepticism. You really want to meet others who feel the same way you do and have enlightening conversations with them! You go online and do a quick look-up of skeptical events held in your area. “Oh hey, Skeptics in the Pub!” you exclaim to yourself. Then it hits you: in the pub… You’re not 21.

This is actually a PSA for guys in general, but it was heavily inspired by my reflections of Dragon*Con and things I observed there thus the title. It’s also inspired by other stories I’ve heard and read recently, like this one. I know the following is not meant for most of the people who read my blog (all 3 of you) or most people in general but I’ve recently observed this first hand and it made me angry, so I felt the need to write about it.

There’s been a lot of talk posted recently about sexual harassment policies, rape jokes, and the like. Somehow people have developed the idea that complaining about harassment is the root problem, and that it’s ok to make jokes about sexual assault. The handful of people who have spoken out against these ideas have been attacked and threatened online. Perhaps this is a general symptom of the internet’s distance and relative anonymity, but I see it as something far worse: a pervasive idea that sexual assault is a women’s problem, and they should deal with it silently and in private.

[MISSING IMAGE] It is often that I doubt whether or not I truly wish to spend four years of my life here at West Point. The reasons are varied, but the one constant motivator that I have to stay is so that I can be part of the solution to all the issues that I see here. Sasha has been kind enough to give me an avenue to speak out.

(More Than Men has addressed “the friendzone” before. Here’s a poem on a related topic by the Slam Master of Mill City Slam in Lowell, MA. – Sasha) I know that if anyone saves me in my hour of need it will be one of my ex-girlfriends. One ex-girlfriend got me a job when I was destitute. My ex Michele who is a nurse treated the cut on my arm when I didn’t have health insurance it would have gone septic she said if I’d waited any longer.