There are several very basic misunderstandings of how things work when it come to engendering and encouraging diversity, and I’d like to make a few comments with the aim of clearing them up, at least partially. One example of a misunderstanding came up a while back when some of us were complaining about the number of Y-chromosomes represented in Richard Dawkins’ otherwise excellent science anthology, and I have been reminded of it more recently by the inexplicable blogarrhea coming from the general direction of the former John Loftus, who can’t stop complaining about (… oh never mind, it does not matter). In the end, it is all about how we make selections, which are samples of a larger population, and we make selections quite often.
Continue reading How To Make Diversity Happen
Tag Archives: Feminism
Women of Color Feminists
Hat Tip Lisa Factora-Borchers
Women In Uniform Should Expect To Get Raped?
Raped too much? Is there a good amount of being raped? They want to be victims? WTF?
There is a petition you can sign to urge Fox News to fire Liz Trotta.
Virginia Legislature Passes Abusive Anti-Abortion Law
From Slate:
This week, the Virginia state Legislature passed a bill that would require women to have an ultrasound before they may have an abortion.
Since the vast majority of abortions happen early in pregnancy, the procedure will usually require vaginal penetration with a machine, as opposed to the nice non-invasive goop-on-the-stomach method of ultrasound.
What’s more, a provision of the law that has received almost no media attention would ensure that a certification by the doctor that the patient either did or didn’t “avail herself of the opportunity” to view the ultrasound or listen to the fetal heartbeat will go into the woman’s medical record. Whether she wants it there or not. I guess they were all out of scarlet letters in Richmond.
Continue reading Virginia Legislature Passes Abusive Anti-Abortion Law
Please Join One Million Strong for Women
Click here to put your name on the line to support Dems in the Senate in their efforts to battle the right wing fundie yahoos:
Time and again, our opponents have come after women — women’s rights, women’s health, women’s economic security.
They tried to defund Planned Parenthood through the budget process. They tried to restrict women’s health care through Medicare and Medicaid. This time, they tried to get Komen to cut off support for Planned Parenthood.
Enough is enough. We may have won this latest round, but our opponents aren’t going away. They’re launching endless attacks against women every single day, and we need to rise to the challenge.
We’ve got to build a grassroots force that’s ready to take them on whenever and wherever they attack women’s rights and women’s health.
And we’ll do it by coming together. Join us.
One million strong for women — add your name, your voice, and your support now.
Click –> HERE
Oklahoma Senator Tries Out Reductio Curse
Constance Johnson is a member of the Oklahoma Senate, where there is currently debate over a personhood bill, and she is also a Wizard. You can imagine what the personhood bill is all about. The Senate bill 1433 would legally define a person as a single egg cell fertilized by a sperm, and of course, the two cells that divides into would also be a person. And the four cells that divides into as well, and so on and so forth. You can see the flaw, of course; What happens when the dividing cells become twins? Does that make the twins one person? Can they split their tax liability evenly down the middle? Can they marry separate individuals later in life or not? Have they even thought of these things?
Anyway, Constance Johnson understands this bill better than the people who introduced it, and applying the fierce logic of reductio ad absurdum (which is a spell learned in Wizard school) to add the amendment to the bill depicted in the photograph provided here.
It inserts the phrase “provided, however, any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.”
Obviously this is a first draft of the amendment because it is impossible for a man to deposit one sperm at a time. The amendment must be rewritten to read: “provided, however, any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against a whole bunch of unborn children.”
This is not the first time we’ve seen the Reductio Curse used against a Republican bill (something similar happened recently in Indiana with a Creationist bill). And I hope it is not the last.
Stop Giving Money to Susah G. Komen for the Cure, and tell everyone else you know to do the same.
Komen collects donations and uses the money to help with cancer. In the past, huge chunks of money were donated to Planned Parenthood to help pay for breast exams and other breast cancer related services at Planned Parenthood facilities.
Then, Republican Cliff Stearns, a Congressional representative from Florida, launched an inquirey against Planned Parenthood. This investigation is widely regarded as a senseless political move, a mean spirited attack on women and women’s health, and a bunch of crap.
Apparently, and the details are largely secret at this time, various Right Wing Christian forces went to work to pressure Koman into dropping its funding for Planned Parenthood, and Komen dutifully caved. They either made up or pulled out of their non-profit asses a rule that said that they can’t fund agencies that are under investigation by local, state, or federal agencies. Then, they interpreted this sham inquirey in Congress as an “investigation by a federal agency” which it is not.
And, thus, under the guise of following their sanctimonious rule, Komen stopped funding help for cancer screening and other breast cancer related services to countless poor and underprivileged women.
What can you do?
- Visit Planned Parenthood’s Facebook page and say something nice.
- Then go to any one of the countless Komen facebook pages (like this one or this one) and let them know what you think. Normally I would say “respectfully” but I think I won’t.
Then, after you’ve made yourself feel all good and like you’ve done something, actually DO SOMETHING:
- Go here and make an emergency donation to Planned Parenthood to make up the shortfall.
- Use the share buttons down below or any other means you’d like to let everyone you know that Komen has jumped the shark and will no longer be regarded as a valid charity by anyone who does not hate women.
What are you sitting there staring at this blog post for? GET MOVING ON THIS! NAO!!!11!!
More Than Men
The More than Men Project is an effort initiated by the Women Thinking Free Foundation to develop a space where men, often white and/or straight and/or Of Priv, could spend a little time and energy telling their fellow Hetero-occidentaloid-Y-chromosomists something useful or interesting about diversity, and to encourage the promotion of said diversity.
When I was asked to contribute to this project (which was being cooked up last July) I had some concerns. I wasn’t sure if I needed a space to do this, since I have a widely read blog in which I am constantly telling my fellow Hetero-occidentaloid-Y-chromosomists how to behave, and they pretty much do whatever I tell them to do. Hetero-occidentaloid-Y-chromosomists are so compliant and all. Since then, I’ve gotten Yet Another Blog where I can do even more of this behavioral mentoring, so, I thought, why should I bother with another effort like this. Just let the other guys have a space.
But then I decided to take advantage of the offer to try something entirely different. The project is self-explanatory, but since you may need some encouragement to pay attention to it, here are the opening sentences in the first of three videos I made for More than Men:
The More Than Men Project is a campaign by the Women Thinking Free Foundation. This is for white men (usually straight , often privileged, etc.) to take an active role in diversity advocacy. This is my chance to tell my fellow white guys what I think about what they should be thinking.
But I get to do that all the time. So, I thought I’d ignore the instructions and try something a little different.
A short memo …. with attachments. It is the attachments that matter.
Dear Straight White Male with Privilege:
This is not hard.
You just need to pay attention to the voices in your head. You supply the head. Attached, please find the voices, in three parts, which I call Part I, Part II, and Part III.
Part I: Sheril Kirshenbaum, Desiree Schell, and Jafsica.
Part III: C. Anderson, Stephanie Zvan, Natalie Wagner, Serena
I would appreciate it if you’all would consider self censoring your comments, and trying to put encouraging or positive comments on the More than Men site posts, the YouTube videos, or below, and if you have criticisms or can’t stop yourself from being a dick, put those comments on the X Blog version of this post (which you will find here). Thank you in advance for that.
The More Than Men Project
The More than Men Project is an effort initiated by the Women Thinking Free Foundation to develop a space where men, often white and/or straight and/or Of Priv, could spend a little time and energy telling their fellow Hetero-occidentaloid-Y-chromosomists something useful or interesting about diversity, and to encourage the promotion of said diversity.
When I was asked to contribute to this project (which was being cooked up last July) I had some concerns. I wasn’t sure if I needed a space to do this, since I have a widely read blog in which I am constantly telling my fellow Hetero-occidentaloid-Y-chromosomists how to behave, and they pretty much do whatever I tell them to do. Hetero-occidentaloid-Y-chromosomists are so compliant and all. Since then, I’ve gotten Yet Another Blog where I can do even more of this behavioral mentoring, so, I thought, why should I bother with another effort like this. Just let the other guys have a space.
But then I decided to take advantage of the offer to try something entirely different. The project is self explanatory, but since you may need some encouragement to pay attention to it, here are the opening sentences in the first of three videos I made for More than Men:
The More Than Men Project is a campaign by the Women Thinking Free Foundation. This is for white men (usually straight , often privileged, etc.) to take an active role in diversity advocacy. This is my chance to tell my fellow white guys what I think about what they should be thinking.
But I get to do that all the time. So, I thought I’d ignore the instructions and try something a little different.
A short memo …. with attachments. It is the attachments that matter.
Dear Straight White Male with Privilege:
This is not hard.
You just need to pay attention to the voices in your head. You supply the head. Attached, please find the voices, in three parts, which I call Part I, Part II, and Part III.
Part I: Sheril Kirshenbaum, Desiree Schell, and Jafsica.
Part III: C. Anderson, Stephanie Zvan, Natalie Wagner, Serena
I would appreciate it if you’all would consider self censoring your comments, and trying to put encouraging or positive comments on the More than Men site posts, the YouTube videos, or my Scienceblogs copy of this post, and if you have criticisms or can’t stop yourself from being a dick, put those comments below, on this version of this post. Thank you in advance for that.
Women in Secularism …
… is a conference planned by the Center for Inquiry.
FEMINISM AND SECULARISM.
Given the role religion has played in the repression of women, they would seem to be natural allies, and, indeed, many feminists have been outspoken and influential secularists. However, the relationship between secularism and women’s issues remains largely unexamined.UNTIL NOW.
Join us on May 18-20, 2012, for the “Women in Secularism” conference, sponsored by the Center for Inquiry. This historic conference will discuss and celebrate the many contributions women have made to the secular movement, while critically examining both the successes and failures of secularism in addressing women’s concerns.
“The girls of Egypt are here”
Thousands of Egyptian women marched in Cairo last night in protest of treatment of female demonstrators in Tahrir Square.
Their chant was: “Drag me, strip me, my brothers’ blood will cover me! Where is the field marshal? The girls of Egypt are here.”
(The reference to “Field Marshal” ist ot FM Mohamed Hussein Tantawi.)
This is the lasrgest and most significant demonstration by women in Egypt in modern times, by a large margin. Continue reading “The girls of Egypt are here”
We’ve Talked About This Enough, We Can Shut Up Now (Or, Don’t Feed the Trolls)
Continuing from the previous conversation …
I’ve written about this before (Shut up about everything all the time unless what you have to say is HITLER!!!!) and it relates to the previously discussed topic, as Godwin-Scaping is a way to tell someone to stop talking. Richard Dawkins told Rebecca Watson that her comments were not about the repression of women by Islam, therefore she should shut up. Numerous Nuclear Power Apologists have told Ana Miller and me to Shut Up about Fukushima because more people die in automobile accidents world wide every day than were killed by radiation at that power plant. Recently, Rebecca Watson wrote about how being told to “not feed the trolls” might sound like friendly and helpful advice (and may even be meant that way sometimes) but it is actually just another way to tell people to shut up. Continue reading We’ve Talked About This Enough, We Can Shut Up Now (Or, Don’t Feed the Trolls)
Calibrating and Recalibrating Sex Positiveness
Continuing our discussion (see Making sense of our fights on the Internet, Power and Presence on the Internet and Elsewhere, and A Spectrum as a Slippery Slope and OMG Hitler is a Nazi!!!!) …
I was at a local event recently where a group of sex-positive third-wave feminist women had traditionally used a certain amount of overt sexuality to raise some money. They had been doing it for a few years and had gained a certain reputation and a certain following. A friend of mine who knew of their work but did not know them personally joined in during this most recent event and volunteered to work the door, as it were, to help to relieve some of the visitors and participants of a little cash (this was a fundraiser). I was not present for that part of the event but some of the people involved, who had been involved for several years, later said to me that they felt my friend had gone a bit over the top in her performance. I asked for a description of what concerned them, and when I heard it I had to laugh a little. You see, over the years, these women have changed their own act from a more to a less sexy parody version of themselves, toning it down and calibrating, for a number of different reasons. The young woman who joined them this year had calibrated her own approach to their reputation and not to their current approach. She was a blast, as it were, from the past, and that was a little shocking. Continue reading Calibrating and Recalibrating Sex Positiveness
A Spectrum as a Slippery Slope and OMG Hitler is a Nazi!!!!
… Continuing with our discussion …
When Rebecca discussed a range of topics from being bothered by clueless gents to sexual abuse to rape, some of her critics scolded her for linking these different things together, and insisted that when she mentioned something about a guy asking her over at 4 AM for coffee being clueless that she was accusing him of rape. Even Richard Dawkins got that wrong and he is known for being smart and stuff.
This is one of those things where WikiThinking can muddy the waters. There are two named fallacies of argument discussed in The Wikipedia that people will refer to when someone discusses a range, or spectrum, of behaviors. One is the Slippery Slope argument. The other is the Godwin Principle. The former is only sometimes a fallacy … there are slippery slopes and there are times when people worry about slippery slopes that are not real. Either way, it does not matter. The spectrum of behavior exists, and it is a matter of discussion as to whether being fast and lose at one end of the spectrum makes it harder for society or individuals or whomever to deal with the other end of the spectrum. It is worth discussing. Presuming that because one senses that there is a slope that therefore there must be a slippery slope fallacy is sloppy thinking.
And you know what sloppy thinking can lead to if you are not careful. It can lead to a very slippery slope indeed! Down which we will surely slip! Continue reading A Spectrum as a Slippery Slope and OMG Hitler is a Nazi!!!!
Power and Presence on the Internet and Elsewhere
When Rebecca commented about Stef McGraw’s commentary in her talk at a the CFI Student Leadership Conference, at which Stef was in attendance as a student leader, there were those who complained that this was unfair; Rebecca has a big presence and a resounding voice on the Internet and in the Skeptics and Atheists communities, and for good reason. Therefore, when she speaks critically of a person or a person’s ideas, where that person has less of a voice, who is less well known or less well established, that could be seen as somehow unfair, or at least, uneven. Continue reading Power and Presence on the Internet and Elsewhere