When I first got involved with the skeptics, I thought I had found my people—a community that enjoyed educating the public about science and critical thinking. The sense of belonging I felt was akin, I imagine, to what other people feel at church. (I wouldn’t exactly know—like most skeptics, I’m an atheist.) I felt we were doing important work: making a better, more rational world and protecting people from being taken advantage of. At conventions, skeptic speakers and the audience were mostly male, but I figured that was something we could balance out with a bit of hard work and good PR.
Then women started telling me stories about sexism at skeptic events, experiences that made them uncomfortable enough to never return. At first, I wasn’t able to fully understand their feelings as I had never had a problem existing in male-dominated spaces. But after a few years of blogging, podcasting, and speaking at skeptics’ conferences, I began to get emails from strangers who detailed their sexual fantasies about me. I was occasionally grabbed and groped without consent at events. And then I made the grave mistake of responding to a fellow skeptic’s YouTube video in which he stated that male circumcision was just as harmful as female genital mutilation (FGM). I replied to say that while I personally am opposed to any non-medical genital mutilation, FGM is often much, much more damaging than male circumcision.
The response from male atheists was overwhelming.
Read on: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/10/sexism_in_the_skeptic_community_i_spoke_out_then_came_the_rape_threats.html
Let me introduce you to Atheism+, the nascent movement that might be the most exciting thing to hit the world of unbelief since Richard Dawkins teamed up with Christopher Hitchens to tell the world that God was a Delusion and, worse than that, Not Great.
Less than a week old in its current form, Atheism+ is the brainchild of Jen McCreight, a Seattle-based biology postgrad and blogger at the secularist Freethought network. She has called for a “new wave” of atheism on that “cares about how religion affects everyone and that applies skepticism to everything, including social issues like sexism, racism, politics, poverty, and crime.” ……
Glad to see that A+ is getting attention.
i was just going to make a post asking WTF atheism+ is, so thank you for this! :)
(Source: andigreyscale)
I am in awe of this flawless human being.
Seriously one of the best things I’ve read in a while.
Reasons to be Cheerful: Street-Corner Science
via jtotheizzoe:
People are still fighting wars, they’re still arguing whether evolution is real and whether we naked apes are burning enough dinosaur leftovers to cook the planet. If you’re a cynic, there’s plenty of reasons to be unhappy.
But the fact that we live in a world where a Nobel prize-winning physicist like Leon Lederman will sit down on a street corner and answer physics questions from passers-by? That makes me feel good.
(via Boing Boing)
ScienCentral takes science to the people… literally, with its first installment of “Street Corner Science”: a radical yet simple concept in which a film crew and a renowned scientist are plunked down on a busy city street corner, and an impromptu question/answer session with the public ensues.
http://www.sciencentral.com/video/
Pedestrians are given the chance to sit down with a world-class scientist and ask him/her any question they like about science, life, the universe, or anything else on their minds. In this episode, Nobel-Prize-winning Physicist Dr. Leon Lederman graciously answers a varied and surprisingly astute array of questions from some lucky passersby. This video is part 1 of 2 “Street corner Science with Dr. Lederman”, so be sure to check back with ScienCentral for more.
Only forty-four percent of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in “the church or organized religion” today, just below the low points Gallup has found in recent years, including 45% in 2002 and 46% in 2007. This follows a long-term decline in Americans’ confidence in religion since the 1970s.
Hope?
(Source: gallup.com)
I’m sure that at least the Mormons would love to move their religion to one of their ancestor’s planets.
(Source: atheistcunt)
Are there men who demand that their women wear a hijab? I am sure there are; just as there are men that demand their wife or girlfriend parade at their side in high heels and a sexy dress. The power play between genders is not exclusive to one religion or culture; it happens on an individual level.
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Inge Rombaut in an IPS News interview about the Muslim headscarf.
(via abudai)
(Source: ipsnews.com)
I haven’t heard women referred to as “chicks” since I was in fifth grade. On another note, he’s implying that Christians only participated in a debate because they want sex.
About Feminism & Atheism
