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You call it a controversy, I call it denialism.
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.
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isogyny in the Skeptical Movement: "Don't Feed the Trolls" Panel from SkepchickCon 2012
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.
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Skeptics and atheists are mostly horrible at comedy.
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:
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I think I understand where the antis are coming from on harassment.
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.
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Creationists and anti-feminist atheists have a lot in common.
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.
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Misandry: A Step by Step Guide
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.
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Huey P. Newton on gay and women's liberation.
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.
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The Killer Messenger
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.
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Respect as it applies to anti-harassment policies
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.
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We all live in an ocean of irrational prejudice.
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.