We are all aware of the fact that repression of Americans of African heritage is not the same as repression of almost everyone else. This repression, also known as racism, has unique roots among all the repression syndromes and even racist syndromes known across the world. Those who assume that racism is innate in our species, and looks the same everywhere, are wrong, and that this is seen as a way to characterize racism is itself a form of latter pulling. The repression, also known as sexism and misogyny, of Americans of female identity, is not as unique because it is on a spectrum of bad male behavior found across the world, but it is, in this country, distinct and different from anti-Black racism, or Antisemitism, and the like. As long as we are on the subject of Antisemitism, well, that is also unique. And all the other things are unique in their own special unique way, almost. It is probably possible to characterize the serial sets of repressive behaviors against nineteenth and early twentieth century immigrants of European ancestry as more similar to each other, but that is probably an oversimplification.

One of the ways in which all these things are unique is the timing of the key events whereby society wakes up and goes, “holy crap, we are killing, hurting, robbing, sequestering, and otherwise messing with people with that characteristic? Why? Stop that.” And, the way that happens is unique as well, who says it, who fights, how the fighting happens.

And we haven’t even, yet, mentioned the intersectionality of it all. When all the repressive paradigms are divergent in the hows, when, whys, and whats, the intersection of any two or three can get really complicated and very intense.

This is all related to pulling up the ladder. For example, upper middle class or well to do gay men and women living in a woke community, like South Minneapolis or East Side Manhattan or whatever, have very little to worry about day to day, when it comes to acts of violence or disenfranchisement. The cultural ancestors of those exact people, one generation ago, may have been beaten, fired, set on fire, driven out, and otherwise treated very poorly, and their cultural cousins in other environments (like, possibly, almost all American middle schools) still are. But if you are a well-off public figure who can influence the world around you disproportionately, and a gay man, there is a good chance that you’ve already pulled up the ladder and will not be engaged in the process of helping others less fortunate. This is not a general rule or possibly even a majority characteristic. Lots and lots of senior gay men are exactly like George Takei and frequently engage in a positive public discourse about social justice, right? Except also note that Takei is intersectional, and engages in conversations about issues spinning off from his family history in American concentration camps. So maybe he’s not a good example.

I think I see a pattern. If you are in any repressed, currently repressed, group, you may notice that members of a previously repressed group, or perhaps a less-repressed-these-days group, seem to not care about you and your people. This may lead to resentment, and ladder-pushing. This is sort of the opposite of ladder pulling. Instead of being on top and raising the ladder quickly behind you, you are still on the bottom, actively, resentfully, kicking the ladder of the previously laddered-up folks. This is what straight black inappropriate humor about gay people feels like to me, as an example resonant with current news. There is a long history of black leaders, mainly religious, being very clear that gay rights are not actual rights.

On the other hand, if you are a member of such a group twice, i.e., if your experience is intersectional, you might be a lot more likely to be actively building ladders or ladder parts and handing them around freely. Some of the most intense, active, and energetic civil rights fighters are personally intersectional or are engaged in intersectional thinking. This conversation and this activism is all very fraught, very energetic, very likely to be the next wave. See the film The New Black by Yoruba Richen, go to a pride march, read a book, read the news.

So, that’s my clear as mud thinking on this issue. I’m disconcerted with the way we have come to treat allies lately, and I wonder if that strategically awful shift is a natural counterbalance to the way allies have treated those in need of allies, pulling up all the ladders and all. I wonder if we can have a conversation in which we cooperate to identify the causes of repression in our own previews, and work actively on them. For example, citizen or grassroots activists groups around the country, regardless of which cause or causes they focus on, should always speak out and act out when any identifiable repression happens in their local schools. The cost of a transgender high school student getting pried out of a bathroom stall like a criminalized oyster should be huge to the school in which such a thing happens, the cost should be huge for the school administrators, the cost should be huge for the school district, and the cost should be huge for the school board, the cost itself exacted, hugely, from all of the grassroots groups in the area working on gun violence, health care, climate change, and the rest of it. Everybody should have a ladder that we drop in place when needed, not a hand on a ladder ready to pull it up.

Are you a member of one or more activist groups? I know, we don’t want to be distracted from our missions, and we don’t want to muddle our messages. But there are probably ways we can retain our focus, keep our edge sharp, and at the same time, participate in the broader social and environmental justice movements. If that became normal and common, I imagine ladder pushing and pulling would be attenuated, and allies would grow stronger, more realistic, and more effective.

A single woman went to an atheist conference in a country she was not familiar with. While there, she spoke at this conference, about how she does not like to be sexualised out of context. Basically, her talk was about how to avoid making women feel uncomfortable, so as to create a more welcoming atmosphere and get more women to enter the atheist community…..

…and then…

Women’s Center In New Orleans Destroyed By Arson, Third Incident in the South

Thanks to the fast response of all of our supporters across the country, many of you have already heard that our office was broken into last night and set on fire. The worst damage was concentrated in our community organizing and outreach office where we store all of the resources we use to educate our community. We lost everything…

…and then...

Sex and the Keynote

Then, at the very end, when everyone was preparing to leave, and I was packing up the Hug Me table, answering questions, and generally socializing with other speakers and attendees, thinking about how fat my check is going to be from Big Pharma when one man and his wife, whom I’ve become vaguely acquainted with on Facebook in the last week, approached my table.

…and then…
Dirty Tricks In Wisconsin: Secret Group Shuts Down Phones Of Scott Walker’s Democratic Challenger With Spam Texts

One week before Wisconsinites vote on whether or not to recall Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), a conservative group is engaged in dirty tricks that have shut down the Democratic challenger’s campaign phones.
According to multiple reports, independently verified by ThinkProgress, the following spam text message is being blasted out to many Wisconsin cell phones:

…and then…

Details here.

I am not afraid of dogs, and most women are probably not “afraid of men.”

Except I’m actually afraid of dogs and most women are justifiably afraid of men. If you get what I’m saying so far, go away and do something useful because this post is not written for you. If you are puzzled, especially about the idea of women being afraid of men at all, then sit down, shut up, and allow me to slap you across the chops a couple of times with a little reality because that is what you need. Assuming you are a sentient adult and still have no clue.

Several people got really really mad at me because of that post … I literally lost a few friends … and they got even madder when I pointed out that getting mad at me for that post increased in my mind the chance that you are likely to be abusive to women. Holy crap. Anyway, it all relates to the whole Schrödinger’s Rapist thing. (See this recent post at Camels with Hammers for more on that)

Anyway, one of the responses to that post (and other conversations going on at the time) was to point out that a man saying that he recognized that women could be justifiably nervous about running across an unknown male on a lonely street at night was equivalent to saying that all black people are criminals. Or something like that.

Well, my bloggy friend Ian Cromwell who it turns out is a big scary black guy has addressed that issue, skillfully and engagingly, in a post called “Shuffling feet: a black man’s view on Schroedinger’s Rapist.” Go have a look.

Outrage as BBC chooses panda as 2011 female face

LONDON (Reuters) – The BBC has ignited its second sexism spat in the space of a month by choosing a panda as one of its 12 female faces of the year.

Last week, it was criticised for choosing its annual BBC Sports Personality of the Year from an entirely male shortlist.
The decision to include the face of Tian Tian (Sweetie), a female panda whose arrival at Edinburgh Zoo on loan from China generated huge publicity earlier this month, has provoked a storm of angry tweets, including one from former deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.

To me, this may depend on context and background to be found deeper in the article, so do have a look.

…a quarter of the female faces this year were chosen for their involvement in marriages.

They include Prince William’s new sister-in-law Pippa Middleton, South African Charlene Wittstock who married Prince Albert of Monaco and Spanish billionaire the Duchess of Alba, 85, who tied the knot with a civil servant 24 years her junior.

And the author of the piece noted: “I didn’t choose the BBC women faces of the year subjects — just wrote them. Two black eyes from wife though. Pandamonium!”

All I can say is that I hope Amanda does not catch me writing this blog post about Pandas!

And there’s more.

I know a bunch of women and I know a bunch of men and I can honestly say that in my own experience women are funnier than men. When I think about the funniest people I know, the specific things people have said that have made me laugh, or even, my expectations for when I am going to spend some time with someone for level of wit and all that. One of the funniest people I know is Julia. One of the other funniest people I know is her cousin, my niece, a girl a few years older. The other night I was at a dinner with about a dozen people, roughly half men half women, and a lot of funny things were said. By the women. And the men as well, but there was no clear sex bias in funniness at that particular event.

So maybe my impression that women are wittier and funnier than men is biased and incorrect. But clearly, the opposite is not true. No way.

Christopher Hitchens was a great man and everybody loves him and shit in part because of his accomplishments and in part because he is dead and stuff, but there are, or should I say were, a lot of things I never liked much about his positions on things, and in some cases, is arrogance. He thought he was smart enough to know things he really did not know much about. And in the following video we see him making two hugamoungous errors. One is to assume that because men are more accomplished numerically at a professional level than women, that there is an underlying difference between men and women (as opposed to the usual other reasons for this sort of thing which we all know about). The other is his rather pop-psychology and over-simplistic is-ought view of evolution (as well as the ontogeny of behavior) which is entirely wrong.

Not only are women at least as funny as men, but to get credit for being funny they have to do it backwards and in high heels. All Hitchens has to do for wit is to have a British accent.

I would like to thank JAF for showing me this video and AM for daring me to post it.

(Hey wait, is the joke on me????)

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.

It seems to me that there is a spectrum of sex positivity along which sex positive third wavers exist, and that not everyone is in the same place at the same time. The disturbed and disturbing universe of Elevator Gate seems to involve, to some extent, the pitting of people in one place against those in another. I’m seeing this mainly in places outside the immediate discussion of Elevator Guy and Rebecca’s talk, etc., but this does really seem to be happening. Have a look at this piece by Greta Christina. Greta discusses the potential outcomes when outspoken people are far from each other in their calibration of what is acceptable, what they expect of each other, and how they are willing to view other people.

It pisses me off that, in order to be taken seriously as a female intellectual voice, I have to hold back my sexuality. Especially since it’s such a no-win situation. Women who are too sexual aren’t taken seriously, and women who aren’t sexual enough aren’t taken seriously. Women who are conventionally attractive get valued solely for their sexual appeal; women who aren’t conventionally attractive get dismissed for their lack of it. Women who are conventionally attractive are assumed to be dumb bimbos; women who aren’t conventionally attractive are assumed to be either bitter or desperate. Women who are conventionally attractive get trivialized; women who aren’t conventionally attractive get treated with pity and contempt. We can’t win.

We could, if we want, stand on different parts of the multi-dimensional spectra of sex positivity and scream at each other for doing it wrong. Or, we could do what Third Wave Feminism is supposed to do: Recognize diversity and work with it, like it, love it, deal with it. And have those conversations.

And now, on to the next part in this series: Knowing when to shut up!

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!

The second WikiThink, the Godwin Effect, is, first of all, a joke and not a fallacy. I think it is very funny that many people don’t get that. But even if we want to take seriously for a moment that a discussion can be derailed by comparing your interlocutor to Hitler or comparing some bad thing or another to The Holocaust, I still don’t think this applies here. Rebecca Watson, Richard Dawkins, and a lot of other people including me and I’m guessing you are concerned about female genital mutilation, wartime rape cultures, and we are also concerned about lower level forms of misogyny and sexism. Is distraction by first world problems counterproductive? Is being dickish towards each other desensitizing and thus counterproductive?

The point is this: When we discuss the kinds of problems that range across spectra of severity (or likelihood or any other measure) it probably is a good idea to be sensitive to the effects of pooling different things together or even just mentioning them all in the same talk, and it is very important to keep track of what people are actually saying about which parts of the spectrum. Rebecca Watson said “guys, don’t do that” in a fairly off the cuff informal way about being clueless, not about wartime rape or female genital mutilation. I believe she speaks more severely about the latter. As we all do. It is respectful of the seriousness of some of these issues to keep that straight, and it is offensive and counterproductive to accidentally or, worse, willfully confound and conflate these things.

You must have seen both the slippery slope argument and the concern over Godwining used in inappropriate ways. Perhaps contributing, in the comments, an example or two will be helpful.

And now on to the next topic: Sex!

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.

On the other and, Rebecca certainly has not only a right, but in her role, a responsibility to speak out and she was in fact responding to public comments Stef had made.

There is an irony here which has been pointed out a few times: Rebecca was speaking as a leader in the skeptics community to other leaders or future leaders in the skeptics community. She was not speaking as a notable star before her fans, but rather, as an established representative among emerging representatives. Saying it yet another way, the Rebecca-Stef differential in power was surely less than some insisted it was, and was transient in any event.

And, all of this is significantly diminished in relative importance by the two or three remarks made on Pharyngula (PZ Myers’ blog) by Richard Dawkins. Whatever differential in bigness of voice may have existed between Rebecca and Stef is miniaturized by the colossal size gap between the voice of Richard Dawkins and pretty much everybody else.

I think it is perfectly reasonable, and actually rather important, to discuss this differential. The effects of different size voices in our variously overlapping communities are rather obvious and they matter. At no point should someone like Rebecca, in relation to Stef, be asked to quiet down, and at no point should Richard Dawkins be told to shut up either. The insistence that Rebecca was wrong to disagree with a mere little person is just another form of silencing and it should not be tolerated. But, having said that, we can all recognize the differences in strength and reach of voice and what effect that has on our overall goals and on functionality within the community.

Face it, there are big people and there are followers. Not everyone can be classified into either category (actually, most people probably can’t be) but there is enough of a fan-phenomenon that bigness of voice can have some fairly absurd effects. There are followers of various well read blogs who will pretty much go along with whatever Simon says (Simon is a variable, you fill in the name). I have seen Simon make a remark that is tongue in cheek, or simply mis-stated, or perhaps intentionally vague, only to have the followers embarrass themselves by going along with it or being confused about what was meant.

The bigness of the voice matters. I did not particularly feel that Rebecca crossed some boundary when she remarked on Stef’s remarks. I think the accusation that Rebecca had screwed this up was little more than post-hoc hate mongering. But, the problem referenced is real and worthy of discussion. How do people like Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, and Rebecca Watson mitigate against the negative effects of their bigness? How do they even identify it? How do we deal with this as a community? I assume this all falls in the category of basic privilege checking, which some people are already good at, others perhaps need to improve.

Well? How do we address this? (Place your answers in the comment section below.)

And now, on to the next issue…

When Elevatorgate happened, the ensuing Universe Known as Rebeccapocalypse was shaped and determined by a number of early events that have caused the final result … well, not the “final” result, but the result that we are stuck with as of this writing … but had those first few days of Internet activity been a little different things might have come out a different way.

Here I would like to do two things.

One is to suggest that the horrid stinking gaggle of frothing winged monkeys that get their marching orders from Franc Hoggle and a few others have a point … actually two or three points. The other is to explore five issues (including these points) that came up in the early days of the Rebeccapocalyptic Universe and that could have become nice, interesting little galaxies of conversation but instead became stinking useless black holes orbited by the aforementioned frothing gaggling winged monkeys.

Before I take a step further into this mess I want to be very clear about something: This is in no way an effort to reach a hand across any sort of chasm or to build any sort of bridge, and in no way should any of the things I say in this regard be interpreted as either a) even an iota of respect for the Hoggle gang and what they stand for and/or step in and/or eat for their stinking trollish breakfast; or b) even a tiny withdraw of allegiance to my esteemed and wonderful colleagues in the blogosphere (you’all know who you are) who are almost always right when everyone else is almost always wrong. This is not a reconciliation. This is, rather, an exploration of missed opportunities to have some important conversations, opportunities that were ruined by the middle-school level sniping and backbiting that ensued early on. This is not an attempt to invite the winged monkeys to the conversation. They are not welcome. If you are a winged monkey reading this now, please go away.

The issues I’d like to bring up are a little complicated, and while there is overlap, they are also fairly distinct. For this reason I want to address each one in a separate blog post in what I hope is not a futile effort to keep the conversations that might ensue each on their own track.

First, I’ll touch on the question of power and relative power (on the Internet, mainly) vis-a-vis the question of whether or not Rebecca Watson should have commented about Stef McGraw‘s comments. I don’t want to speak about that event so much as the overall question of how differential levels of fame, infamy, or exposure shape our conversations. Then I want to talk about the question of spectra. Dawkins berated Rebecca for addressing something other than female genital mutilation. People have berated Ana Miller and me for addressing something other than Carnage on the Highways in our Fukushima Updates. And, most interesting, Rebecca got into trouble for actually addressing things like female genital mutilation while at the same time addressing lesser crimes against humanity while at the same time addressing annoyances. It is as though we expect the peas to get into the mashed potatoes and at the same time know that if they do the dinner is ruined!

Third, I want to talk about calibrating and recalibrating things. Years ago, on the Internet, I used the word “bitch” (in reference to myself … I was feeling bitchy about something). I was taken to task for using a sexist word. Now, we have men using the words “cunt” and “twat” to insult and threaten women, and screaming about how the use of these words makes them feminists. Calibration? Probably not. More relevant to the present discussion is calibration of sex positiveness. Should there have been a skeptical nude calendar? What if that was attempted in, say, 1880 to support getting the women’s vote? What if women went into the street today and burned their bras? Would only the EPA notice? This is a touchy subject because I will actually be suggesting that people change over time, in part because of experience and in part because society changes. I would hope the Skeptics Movement has at least some degree of fluidity and evolvability and that skeptics can recognize and understand this.

Another issue I’d like to touch on is the ways people tell other people to shut up. For example, there is the method whereby you sigh and go “Oh, I’ve had enough. So everyone else must shut up now,” or some version of that. Or one can issue a call to not feed the trolls. I’ll probably talk about a few different ways to tell people to shut up or to otherwise hijack the conversation, and tie up a few other loose ends as well. Like for example, if it really was Richard Dawkins who used the term “Muslima” to tell Rebecca Watson to shut up. Or was it the Zombie Richard Dawkins who said that?

I’ve suggested this before, and it may be worth repeating: Imagine that Rebecca Watson, Stef McGraw, Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Barbara Drescher, Stephanie Zvan, All the Skepchicks, Me, all the other bloggers, and most of the commmenters on our blogs discussing Rebeccapocalypse all worked for the same big-giant company and this entire discussion happened at work. Imagine what the HR (Human Resources) department would be required to do, would want to do, would want to avoid. Imagine how they would handle the current discussion, and what they might do to avoid future difficulties like this from arising, by following best practices and following the law to the greatest degree possible.

Imagine that.

And now … “Power and Presence on the Internet and Elsewhere”