Religion
Related: About this forumBrazen sexism is pushing women out of America’s atheism movement
WRITTEN BY Marcie Bianco
4 hours ago
I was eight years old when I decided that I didnt believe in God. The realization occurred to me after my Methodist pastor reduced my queries about God and the universe to the same kind of just because reasoning my mother used for questions like why I couldnt run around outside without a shirt on.
Since then, Ive been an atheist. I do not believe in a God, and I do not live by the dictates ascribed to any god figure. I do not need a paternal figure to tell me how to act like a moral human. Rather, I cultivate an ethics of interpersonal and community engagement with other people based on principles of civic-mindedness. In this way, my atheism directly informs my feminism. I reject societys demand that I submit to men. I reject the objectification of women. The ethics of choicea persons right to decide what they believe in and what they do with their bodyunites the two philosophies.
This correlation between atheism and feminism for me, and for many other women, is why we are so dismayed by the misogyny rampant in todays atheist movement. Writing in Salon, Katie Engelhart ascribes the misogyny in New Atheism to the movements exclusively male leadershipwho also happen to be men notorious for their sexism. Despite their supposed love of science and rationality, Amanda Marcotte agreed in a post for Alternet, many of them are nearly as quick as their religious counterparts to abandon reason in order to justify regressive views about women.
The latest high-profile example of this hypocrisy is Richard Dawkinss recent Twitter debacle, in which he tweeted a video mocking feminists and Muslims and then got called out by Lindy West. (Their beef goes back to 2012, when he referred to West as a remarkably stupid cunt.) Then there was neuroscientist and New Atheism leader Sam Harriss declaration back in 2014 that the movements supposedly hard-hitting, critical approach is to some degree intrinsically male, as if to confirm that atheism has always been a boys club.
http://qz.com/613270/brazen-sexism-is-pushing-women-out-of-americas-atheism-movement/
deathrind
(1,786 posts)Harris was making there was missed but most of his points get missed due to reflexive actions and it is Salon so...
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)And I doubt very much he's English. We don't use the c word to insult women. We use it to insult men.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)That's the way we use it. It's not a word that would ever be applied to a woman, not because we're better, we just don't use it that way. A twat means an idiot, both words mean vagina, but when used as an insult they take on a different meaning, like dick.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Just an observation.
I brought this up in reference to a Jim Jeffords comedy routine about guns, how the audience here seemed to enjoy it, despite using that word to describe a female teacher. He's Australian.
Similar dismissals of my concern were offered, but it rings hollow to me.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)If someone called Thatcher it, it wouldn't have been because she's a woman, but because of the sort of person she was. There's probably exceptions to every rule, but by and large it's not an insult levelled at women. Neither is dick for that matter.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)You sound a bit like an old Richard Pryor comedy routine.
He later stopped using the word, and made lasting impact on the field of stand-up.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)It's very simple. The c word is used in Britain primarily as an insult directed at men. It doesn't mean any implied femininity. If someone called Thatcher it, it wouldn't have been because she's a woman.
You're an American, you call a slapper a tramp, a tramp a bum, a bum a fanny and a fanny a puh-seh. No wonder you get confused.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)I don't believe you for one second. And nobody asked NYC_Skp if he was British before he was banned from this site for inferring it against Hillary Clinton for political reasons.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)If you want to kid yourself that you know more about English vernacular than someone who is English go ahead, but you're just upset that I dared to insult your pope.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)I see that I've made you uncomfortable for calling you out for your use of language.
Funny that you defend the principle, even though you were pissed at Dawkins, even though you were completely mistaken that he ever said it at all.
Good job.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)And you claim to know more about English vernacular than an Englishman. You can believe what you want, that we use words exactly the same as you do or you can realise there are differences.
If there wasn't the Gloucestershires wouldn't have been overrun during the Korean war.
And it's clear you didn't understand my sentence about Slappers, tramps, bums and fannies.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)1. It's a nickname I was given. Don't do the Starboard Tack thing. It leads you to places that have no purpose and no escape.
2. Never said that. Don't attribute shit to me I never said.
3. I fully understood your sentence about all those things you itemized. I don't even need to look them up. I know more about English than you suspect. I grew up spelling 'Tire' as 'Tyre'. Just a clue.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)What difference does that make? I have pointed out how the C word is used over here, it's not the same as over there. You refused to accept that for some reason or other. I don't know why, and I don't know why you think I'd want to make up some old pony about our vernacular. The only reason that makes any sense is that you're lary because I insulted your pope.
People wouldn't nickname you crusader without reason.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)Where did you get that from?
muriel_volestrangler
(101,361 posts)This is the first time anyone has accused Dawkins of saying it. In fact, the link in the qz.com article goes to a blog showing Jillette saying it, and the only mention of Dawkins on the page is a woman suggesting him as a good atheist role model, along with Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Molly Ivins.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)My opinion of him hasn't changed, but I did find it strange that a Briton would use that word to insult a woman.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)I don't dislike Dawkins because he's an atheist, I dislike him because he's preachy. I don't give a monkeys what someone believes or disbelieves just as long as they don't try to ram it down my throat. Dawkins does little else.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)speech as 'preachy'.
If you truly don't care 'what others believe so long as they don't try to ram it down your throat', then you've never for one second been Dawkins' target audience.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)And so are you if you need to call yourself a crusader. Dawkins is a total arsehole and he does try to ram his beliefs down people's throats whether they're his target audience or not.
The Channel 4 programme Inside Nature's Giants is a case in point. People watched that to understand more about the anatomy of large creatures not to hear Dawkins banging on about his own particular beliefs.
He's transphobic.
http://planettransgender.com/richard-dawkins-insults-transgender-community/
And he's a racist.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/richard-dawkins-compares-clock-boy-ahmed-mohamed-to-child-soldier-forced-by-isis-to-behead-victims-a6747811.html
Basically he's an all round shit, but there's no arguing would a religious fanatic like yourself.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)You assume a bit too much. You think I might take issue with your excusing and covering for the use of the 'c-word', and NOT take issue with Dawkins for his history of sexism and other cultural issues?
I don't cut him any more slack than I do... you.
katsy
(4,246 posts)right direction as women and as athiests. However, IMO, I'm more inclined to believe these atheist wars are manufactured as great traumatic chicken little type of media hype.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/07/22/the-women-of-new-atheism-are-all-around-us/
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)From the current Viz.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)It's from Viz. Viz is a British comic which is a parody of kid's comics from the 1970s. Most of its readership are middle aged men. It's a mixture of highbrow intellectualism and schoolboy lavatory humour. It's nothing like Hebdo.
rug
(82,333 posts)Thanks.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)This is a link to its website.
http://viz.co.uk/
rug
(82,333 posts)Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)On top of his real one.
Cartoonist
(7,323 posts)After tying a stuffed God to the line, the prof says, "Professor Dawkins will chase that irrational concept round and round in circles for hours!"
And later, referring to transubstantiation as "theological codswallop!"
The point here is that while fun is being made of Dawkins, God is being mocked.
On another note, I've been going through a lot of British comics and story papers from the 40's and 50's trying to find something to use in my RITC posts. I've found absolutely nothing so far.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)It's not meant to be taken seriously, it's just a bit of fun. I'm sorry I don't know what you mean by RITC. I do know a bit about British comics though, if you pm me and tell me what you're looking for I'll try to see if I can find anything.
Cartoonist
(7,323 posts)Some men are uncool.
The Big question is, is she going to go back to religion? At least Dawkins and Harris don't rape little boys, and neither tells women what to do with their bodies.
Male crudeness is universal. Ascribing it to atheism is wrong.
rug
(82,333 posts)LiberalAndProud
(12,799 posts)Actually, no, it's not.
I wonder how it is that women weren't pushed out of the Christian movement. Oh wait, they were. It's in the text.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)If only the people who follow sexist religious leaders and belong to sexist-led religions would be willing to do the same.
Right, rug?
rug
(82,333 posts)Maybe you should pay more attention to them.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)I'm married to a female atheist. Oddly enough we never ever talk about Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, or any other of our alleged leaders though. Must be something wrong with us?