The following is a transcript from a Facebook post by sustainability organisation "Population Matters". I generally support their activities, but don't agree with them about absolutely everything, just so you know.
The post was entitled "What's so scary about smart girls?" and linked to a New York Times article.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/05/11/opinion/sunday/kristof-whats-so-scary-about-smart-girls.html?smid=fb-share&smv2&_r=0&referrer
It looks a good article to me. No major objections from me on first glance.
Strangely enough, a certain Men's Rights advocate took umbrage to this and the following conversation ensued. I think it's interesting because it serves as a pretty typical example of what I've started to term "MRA logic".
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"Population Matters" Population Matters' values guide us in all of our activities.
We support the individual right to make personal lifestyle choices whilst recognising the responsibility to consider the societal and environmental impact of those choices. We recognise that, whilst there are some societies where men and women have equal rights, there are many where that is not the case. We support human rights, particularly women’s equality and reproductive rights, and oppose all discrimination or coercion. We advocate a rights-based approach to family planning provision. Research shows that educated women tend to have fewer children.
Like · Reply · 1 · Yesterday at 10:46 · Edited
"Redacted" they don't like educated girls because they don't make good domestic slaves when they can count and write and answer back and demand their rights
Like · Reply · 19 hours ago
"Redacted" stick it to boko haram by giving a girl a student loan! http://www.kiva.org/lend...
Kiva - Loans that change lives
www.kiva.org
Like · Reply · Yesterday at 14:15
"MRA redacted" I wanna stick it to the part of Boko Haram that burned alive a school full of boys, and the part of the cultural consciousness that views the pain of humans with vaginas as more important than that of humans with penises.
Who do I educate to do that? Looks like I educate the New York Times...
Like · Reply · 13 May at 21:54
"Population Matters" The killing of boys and men has been well reported. Boko Haram is not known as a terrorist group just for kidnapping and enslaving girls.
Like · 13 May at 22:43
"MRA redacted" Not what Im talking about and you know it.
Like · 13 May at 22:51
"MRA redacted" You should get an award for your sensational ingenuineness. Why would I possibly object to the fact of people's tragedy being publicized?
Try being intellectually honest next time you reply. You know what I object to. Sexism.
Like · 1 · 13 May at 23:03
Population Matters Are you suggesting it's wrong for the international media to report on the fact that hundreds of girls are still alive and kept in enslavement by terrorists while their own country does nothing to recover them? Boko Haram has killed scores of of people - men and women. It has killed male students. Girls, it keeps for enslavement. There has been plenty of press coverage of Boko Haram's atrocities. Surely you appreciate that, unlike the victims of bomb attacks and school massacres, these girls can still be rescued.
Like · 4 · 13 May at 23:04
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Let's be clear, that article did not exhibit sexism. It called it out, and set out solutions for how it could be reduced. Just because one (possibly the best) solution to the Boko Haram problem (and as it happens, overpopulation) focuses on girls, this is because it gives the biggest result for the smallest investment. These results benefit men as well. This inability to recognise synergistic solutions which are "win-win" for both genders is a real blind spot for men's rights advocates. According to them, men's rights can only be advanced by actively infringing on women's. Because Gender Wars are what we need.
I could rant about how this is a clear example of how a patriarchal society harms men as well. I could rave and rant all day about how much I disagree with them, but instead it would be more productive to perform a couple of little thought experiments.
* Why might BH attack girl's schools and abduct / convert / enslave / sell / marry off all the students?
In patriarchal societies such as Islamic ones that BH promote, girls are possessions. Virginity is a commodity. The girls should only learn from holy books. Western education is verboten. These girls have been exposed to it, but that doesn't matter as they will have no power and can't do anything about it.
A girl is only good to be married off young to an older man where she must always remain in his service. She is allowed no freedom, but she has value in that she grants a man more status. Therefore the girls should not be wasted but traded or enslaved to men.
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* Why might BH attack boy's schools and kill all the students?
In patriarchal societies such as Islamic ones that BH promote, boys will become men, who are the rulers, the doers and the thinkers. But Western education is verboten. And these boys have been exposed to it. If we let them live, they may one day have the power to oppose us.
They are already becoming more aware that there is more to learn than contained in the holy books, and that maybe strict Islamic doctrine is not the only way. They will probably not agree with us or support us in our goals. They may even oppose the idea that women should be owned, and so not want to be part of our women-owning society, especially now that we've attacked their school. But men MUST own women. These "men" will have no status in our world. They will be worthless. If they doubt our doctrine, better to resolve this now while we still have the chance.
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I realise this is just a sketch of the types of idea that may occur to these terrorists, and I apologise if it appears a little shocking. But how else can I demonstrate this backward bronze-age thinking and its necessary corollaries? It is a perfect example of how such notions can harm men in different ways, that are on occasion no kinder than they treat women.
If the FB commenter above was hinting that the NYT are feminist stooges, this is a matter for NYT editors and it it's them he should be complaining to. Pressure groups and activists are always going to try and influence the media into covering stores that promote their ideas. The real damage come when the stories are factually incorrect or misleading, which doesn't seem to be the case here. It may just be that feminists have gotten pretty good at influencing people. This may be a point - but the answer is of course skepticism, not censure. Only if the story stands up to scrutiny should it be considered seriously.
It seems to me that the true root of all this MRA frustration is their lack of a cohesive and engaging, positive campaign for their own ideas. But instead of embracing feminism and using it to piggyback synergistic solutions, they are intent on fighting it. The problem is, I can't see how that will ever constitute a working model for the advancement of men's rights.
Oh, and by the way, for balance here's a link to an article describing one of the dreadful incidents where BH attacked and burned a boy's school:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-26338041
To me, the answer to the Boko Haram problem is to do away with its causes and enabling factors. BH's origins cannot be separated from religion. Of course there are socio-economic factors at play, (civil strife caused by high birth rates being one of them) but Islamism also performs a vital role in sustaining and driving further activities. Education is key, but not the only key. Of course we need to educate everyone, but it's been shown that well educated Muslim men can be amongst the most radical if left to stew in patriarchal ideas.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/274292.php
Whilst Muslim women can also be radical, in patriarchy they tend to not have the power to do anything about it. So education alone may not be the whole solution. A concerted effort is needed to fight radical political Islamism and the associated oppression of girls leading to early marriage and multiple births, thus cementing patriarchy. These noble empowering efforts, if successful, will surely lead to better lives for men and women alike in Africa and around the world.
Boko Haram (BH) are a militant Islamic and terrorist organisation operating in north-central Africa (e.g. Nigeria). Their name means "Western education (Boko) is forbidden (Haram)".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boko_Haram
Their most recent activity involves abducting an entire school of over 200 Nigerian girls, holding them and converting them to Islam against their will, and threatening to sell them into slavery and arranged marriages.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-27342757
Let's make it clear. This is a vile and disgusting act. But so, it seems, is everything that Boko Haram does, and all that it stands for.
Here I'm not tackling Boko Haram's obvious heinous crimes of murder, abduction, terrorism and kidnapping but just trying to get inside their mindset and see where the urge to end "western education" comes from. Even upon cursory examination, the assertion that "Western education is bad" faces a couple of significant challenges:
Firstly to define exactly what Western education is. Since, if you can't define it, you can't qualify it either way, good or bad. The problem is, it's almost impossible to come up with a model that exactly represents "Western" education. There are as many curricula in the Western world as there are Western countries and as many teaching styles as there are teachers.
Just in the UK alone, we have public schools, private schools, Church Of England (Anglican / Protestant) schools, Catholic schools, Muslim schools, and (unfortunately) faith schools, all with their own ideas of what to teach. There really seems to be little commonality between teaching methods or subjects and any approximation which may match certain types of education would be way off for others. Pupils even have some sort of choice of what to learn even at secondary school. And all this is before you even go into further education, which some choose to go into, whilst others do not. There is no "right answer" here - stopping education after secondary school is everyone's right and choice.
To claim that there is some sort of "standard" Western education is ridiculous - the whole experience very much depends on where you go and, as a pupil, how much effort, or not, you put in. It's clear as day - there is no such thing as "Western education" - it's just education full stop. Even in Japan (that country famed for being in the East) they teach their kids about literature, history and science you know. So we're left with the firm conclusion that in fact, what Boko Haram want is no education at all. But of course they like to give their cause legitimacy, by trotting out the lazy fallacy of "The West is bad". That tedious meme again.
Secondly, Boko Haram must explain what type of education they intend to replace it with, which is not "Haram". I assume this would Islamic studies. Reading the Koran and Hadith. This is about akin to using the Bible as your everyday guide to life. It's no solution.
The feelings that motivate Boko Haram are the same misplaced "anti-Western" sentiment as I described in a recent post. The Islamists are falling are falling into the trap of assuming "The West" is a single, homologous entity where all parties are aligned, all agree and there are no dissenting voices. However, nothing could be further from the truth.
In my view, Islamic apologists like Karen Armstrong (a "Westerner" to spite the logic that we're all united in anti-Islam) have something to answer for in providing legitimacy for Boko Haram. These apologists support the notion that Muhammad should be a role model (and he took Aisha as his bride when she was really young, like 9 I think). By extension, of course, it's OK to take little girls from school and sell them to bitter old men as toys, since we all need to be like Muhammad. Aisha didn't need an education, and so why should these girls be any better? In the book "Does God Hate Women?" Benson and Stangroom provide an effective remedy to Armstrong's all-too-friendly apologetics.
The very existence of leftist newspapers like The Guardian flies in the face of the "The West Is One" argument, as these journals and journalists clearly have no allegiance or love for their right-leaning government. The intra-national internal fight against the pro-right haters of "multiculturalism" is alive and well.
Some, mostly leaning toward the right, would say that certain non-Western countries need to get over their victimhood complexes, and start sorting out their governments and infrastructure.
Whilst I wouldn't go that far, it's clear there is a balance between national responsibility for building the country they want to live in, and Western aid in development. And before you jump the gun, remember that it's all too easy for leftists to accuse any notions of "on-site aid" as it were, of being "imperialistic" and "a return to colonialism". So this is not a problem with simple answers.
This is the "rock and the hard place" Africa seems stuck between - its own internal strife, no doubt with deep roots in the abuses of the past meted out by the West, and fear of asking for help from countries who can't entirely absolve themselves from responsibility for their current plight. When we are asked for help, we must oblige.
The next blog was originally planned for another section of this post but became so long that I decided to make it an entire separate post!
Wow, I have three posts in one day - so may not have another for a couple of weeks or more.
This isn't my usual subject, I'm not an economist or anything, but some things just seem wrong. So I'll be quick, honest...
I had the misfortune of becoming involved with some pesky financial matters - purchasing goods and services, and the like, in some form or other for some faceless corporate identity that shall remain unnamed.
This tongue-in-cheek post is a little insight into my thoughts surrounding that domain which were focused by a recent training session I attended.
Occasionally I must use the purchasing system to procure from a hitherto unused source, and this involves creating a new supplier on the system. According to the blurb from system administrators, "Supplier creation should not be an easy task". I let that sink in, and then thought, "Wait...what?!"
It's already more work than normal to buy from a non-existent supplier, so everyone has a motivation to use established suppliers whenever possible. That said, on the rare occasion that we really do need to create a new one, shouldn't the process be as smooth as possible? Do we really need to give ourselves more of a headache by making our jobs even more difficult than they already are?
Then came the give away line. It really is a bit of a shocker.
"Contractually engaging a new supplier exposes Company X (us) to legal, reputation and business risks".
Seriously? Does it expose you any more than, say, not paying your existing suppliers for 4 months after you take from them, and then getting put on hold because you're clearly taking advantage of the fact that it's a buyer's market and you have all the capital? You have the capital, but, apparently, aren't interested in using it in any sensible way.
Here I was thinking that the standard arrangement was that you actually pay for things you buy within a month of getting them. But no, we have our own standard, one that's somewhere between fair and not-paying-at-all-for-what-you-got, which I've heard is frowned on in some parts.
But, and this may be news to some people who thought they understood how fair trade worked, the bean counters always get their way. Because accounting chicanery is more important than exchange in good faith.
"Hey, we can make it look like we've got more money than we have, by not paying what we owe for an extra financial quarter!".
"But, we're not actually saving any money by doing this are we, I mean we still have to pay what we owe at the end of the day, right?"
"I guess, but when the accounting cycle comes around we can delay on asset expenditure and look really economically frugal to our bosses (who entirely got where they are without the financial acumen to see right through this clever ruse),"
"So, what you're saying is, basically, we can try and make ourselves look good for a while, by holding back on paying our loyal suppliers who are less financially advantaged than us? But in the end, we still have to pay them anyway"
"Yes".
"Riiiiiight. You don't sound like the B-movie bad guy then, at all".
This is an intended comment on Thomas Smith's website for his excellent podcast "Atheistically Speaking", which strangely enough would not allow me to post it, either in Chrome or IE.
http://atheisticallyspeaking.com/
It is concerning episode 28 discussing misogyny in the atheist community:
http://atheisticallyspeaking.com/as28-misogyny-atheism-greta-christina/
Well, here goes.
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Thomas, this comment is a bit long for Facebook so I posted it here. I hope you glean something useful although you may already be aware of much of this.
Now getting on to the discussion with Greta Christina, she made some important points about how serious the harassment and misogyny situation really is. I agree with her about most things, though not everything.
I plan to buy her first book and then depending on what I think maybe the new one, but they both sound very good.
The abuse some women receive in our community is dreadful, and I do feel ashamed sometimes. It's probably due to the time constraint, but one thing she didn't mention that would have been useful to emphasise is that, aside from the whole misogyny in atheism issue, there is a big divide in the feminist community about how to "do feminism".
Points of agreement: Harassment and abuse are totally unacceptable under any circumstances and can be called out freely. "Ignoring the trolls" has been shown to not always work. Also the act of calling out discriminatory words or actions is inherently less divisive than those discrimatory words or actions themselves.
Main issue: It is not always useful to talk of all feminists as having the same ideas or intentions, as clear schisms do exist in the community, and Christina's version of feminism is not shared by all women who claim to be feminists.
This is my attempt to provide a brief meta-overview of the situation as I see it. I'm not really totally clued up on these issues so please be forgiving - I am a man after all but I'm not trying to push any particular view here, so sorry if it doesn't come across that way.
We can broadly categorise feminism (and this is a big simplification for the purposes of this comment, but I'm not getting into the intricacies of the Fourth Wave here) between "radical" and "intersectional" aspects. This will become germane later, but not to try and strawman here, generally, the radical aspect focuses more on women's rights, and the intersectional form on any and all types of privilege / oppression dynamic (in other words, social justice). Christina didn't really emphasise it, but it would appear she subscribes to the latter.
I don't know if you've heard of "Atheism Plus" but it's a group of atheists formed to promote social justice . The formation of Atheism+ (along with the whole "Elevatorgate" scandal, if you've not heard about it, you've been warned, it's not much fun) seems to be a turning point in the whole saga of misogyny within our community: since Atheism+'s inception, quite a few people who thought the whole exercise was a bad idea, just won't let it go. Last time I checked, Atheism+ had gone off the rails a bit, possibly from a combination of internal rifts and outside attack. I'm not sure how strongly this holds, but the Freethought Blogs (FTB) community (and Christina) seems to be broadly aligned with, and connected to, Atheism+.
Hence the to and fro between them and their critics. These latter people are not entirely trolls. They seem to be a mishmash of obvious trolls (where most of the abuse comes from), and more genuine critics (including many women) who simply have a different idea of how feminist atheists should be represented. There are also of course some in-between people. Sometimes these individuals too take it too far which is where the problems start.
Thomas, I'm not sure if you got that point, as labelling critics of a particular type of feminist theory as "anti-feminists for want of a better term" as you seem to do in your introduction, may be somewhat dubious, as it pre-supposes that the "correct version" of feminism is being criticised. Whilst that may be true, from what I've seen the debate is still ongoing. A criticism of intersectional feminism is not necessarily a criticism of feminism as a whole.
There are legitimate philosophical issues with combining the two seemingly disparate notions: lack of belief in God (atheism) and desire to help, support and enable those less fortunate than yourself (social justice). It has been pointed out on many occasions that a large movement already exists for just this purpose: Secular Humanism. Although many atheists are also secular humanists, secular humanism as a whole does NOT require atheism, just a desire for social justice and separation of church and state. So I hope you can see that in this sense perhaps, atheism+ was almost a backward step. The reasons for atheism+ being created to be different-but-the-same from Secular Humanism were never really well understood, at least not by me. Of course, this could just be my problem, but it does seem to be quite widespread.
If I were to say that I was an atheist, that would be a separate part of my identity to the part that desires to support feminism or social justice. It just does not logically follow that atheists need to actively endorse feminism : believe it or not there are many atheists with conservative beliefs (particularly many reformed Christians) who, whilst they may have drifted away from directly opposing women's rights, don't yet feel ready to participate in supporting them. It is in this sense that ideas such as atheism+ can be divisive - if deconverts feel pressurised into accepting something hitherto alien to their way of thinking, on top of the rjeection of God, it may be just the excuse they need to pretend to stay a believer and stay out of our community. Just to provide a counterpoint to this argument (I am trying to be fair), I see no reason why we should favour this type of potential deconvert (typically white male) above someone who may be more encouraged by the Atheism+ approach (typically female and more likely to be non-white), especially if we are interested in fostering a diverse community.
Of course, some would like to say that the problems experienced by Atheism+ demonstrate that mixing social justice and atheism can't work at all. I know Christina would vehemently oppose that conclusion, and not without reason. But it does at least appear that "trying to please everyone", as it were, is very difficult indeed, perhaps even harder than we imagined. That's not to necessarily say that it can't or shouldn't be done. But we can at least see why certain objections may be raised, whilst remaining staunchly anti anti-feminist. If that makes sense.
As an aside, true anti-feminism is the domain of the irrational troll, the keyboard warrior who likes to call themselves a "real man" while hiding in Mama's basement; and who refuses to accept the notion of privilege at all; and views all women as somehow lesser, by fiat. They claim too be on the side of reason but their arguments are about on the level of meaningless pseudo-philosophies like "Never have I seen a wild thing complain about its place in the world" or some such tripe. Needless to say this is an utterly ridiculous attitude, that is inherently unreasonable and regressive, and yet, refuses to die. Just check out Reddit. I myself have been called "beyond contempt" simply for standing up for the right side of these issues.
This article (see further down: hint - it's our friend Pigliucci again), goes into more detail about the issue, and it's also an example of Christina herself showing a less-than-generous turn when it comes to responding to thoughtful criticism.
http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/david-silverman-and-scope-of-atheism_16.html
People who, don't agree with the FTB/Atheism+ version of feminism like to criticise it, and this has doubtless gone too far at times.Many critics of Christina and for example, Rebecca Watson, like to paint them as radical feminists who take offence at anything, but if you actually look at what's happening, that's not at all the case. They are intersectional, and years of harassment have thickened their hides to the torrent of ill-will. I myself am a big fan of both Christina and Watson. They are good speakers, writers, thinkers and skeptics. I never have, nor will, direct anything inappropriate towards them. But they're not perfect . One criticism that I do have, is that the much-lauded and so called "safe-spaces" such as the FTB forum can actually be unfriendly, even for people who have no ill intent. I've seen women with good intentions who have done no more than claimed to not feel underprivileged for being a woman, get attacked in quite nasty ways on social media, simply for "going against the grain".
It appears to be a problem because, in intersectional feminism at least, it is possible (although maybe unlikely) given all the other potential axes of oppression (race, class, gender identity, disabledness, sexual orientation etc.), for a woman to actually be quite privileged overall (in areas apart from gender). Seeing as there exist systems that attempt to weigh overall privilege in a quantitative manner (expressed as a simple number), such as http://privilegechecker.neocities.org/, we must conclude that in theory, a particular man in oppressed circumstances could overall be less privileged than say a rich, educated white woman. This is where radical feminism collides with intersectionality. Some feminists (even those who claim to be intersectional) seem to have a problem accepting this possibility and like to call out other women for saying it. For a group who claim to be inclusive, and skeptical, this would seem to be a significant issue.
I've nearly finished. If you want to look at some people on "the other side" as it were, I'd suggest Thunderf00t, or The Amazing Atheist (lo and behold, he is also on Patreon, though I'm not giving him any money). I have to say I don't really have much time for these people anymore (they were better when they concentrated on religion) and looking at their Youtube comments does get me mad, since they seem pretty focussed on dissing feminism, or at least the types or parts of it they don't like.
If you want a female perspective that may still critique the feminism as displayed by Freethought Blogs/Atheism+, look up Miranda Celeste Hale. She is very well spoken, intelligent and interesting, when I've read her writing and heard her on other podcasts.
Right I'll shut up now as I've gone on far too long!
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This post is ripe for future editing, by the way...
