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Old 09-15-2014, 10:50 PM
 
888 posts, read 452,458 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post
Well, there is no word in the English language that represents both genders at the same time except for plurals. I just capitalize the word Man or Mankind whenever I use that term to describe all of humanity.
I think there are alternative to using Man and Mankind. I know that Humans and Humankind sound funny to some, but think they're worth getting used to. They're not the only words that can be used to get around the use of man and mankind.

A long time ago, I remember reading a study about how children viewed the terms he/man/men/mankind. School age children were given assignments that required cutting out pictures from magazines. One group was given instructions using male terminology that was meant to include both genders. The other group was given language that did not rely on the person reading it to interpret it as including both genders. The group with the language using male words to mean everyone brought in pictures with significantly more men and boys, and the other group brought in pictures that were significantly more balanced between the two genders. So, I say it matters.
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Old 09-16-2014, 01:04 AM
 
7,801 posts, read 6,354,824 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lilac110 View Post
Will misogyny bring down the atheist movement?
An issue with your question is that it assumes an explanation from the outset. It also makes some assumptions about what is being explained.

There is indeed an anecdotal and likely correct assumption that there is a disparity in the ratios between men and women in the ACTIVE atheist movement. That is, in the people attending conferences, using Twitter and forums, and subscribing for membership to organisations such as my own: Atheist Ireland.

But can we extrapolate from this that the movement as a whole, or the number of non believers as a whole, shares equal disparity, or any disparity at all? I would merely urge waiting for actual numbers and studies to show this before we comment. Certainly the Census in my own country seems to suggest no such thing.

Further why assume.... even GIVEN the assumption the disparity actually does exist...... that "misogyny" is the explanation for it. This assumption seems to me to be baseless and corrosive to discourse as it STARTS the conversation on the perceived disparity off on an emotive and accusatory foot.

The "Skepchick" movement for example has managed to massively reduce the disparity in conference attendance by merely moving to address the same disparity in the number of women on the stage. They did this not ONLY by motivating organizers of such conferences to have more women on the stage.... but working on motivating female speakers to WANT to speak on stage. And BOTH avenues of progress are equally important to my mind.

So while I am not willing to make too egregious a set of assumptions about the community in general I am certainly not willing to make fantastical assumptions about misogyny either.

I also entirely doubt that our "movement" is any more, or less, prone to these problems. Atheism is not Unique here. I attend, and even speak at, conferences on science, politics, local community issues, education and much more and I perceive the same "disparity" in attendances at those too. Again I do not extrapolate the disparity in activists to a disparity in people interested in these topics as a whole..... nor do I assume these movements and forums are permeated by misogyny.

So.... bring down the atheist movement? No. Not a bit of it. In fact given how emotive and immature the conversation on male-female issues CAN be.... I see this as an opportunity for our community to stand up and HAVE such conversations and be a leading light in attempting to have them maturely and usefully. This is not something we have done yet, such conversations in any realm of discourse descend into pointless tribalism too quickly and detrimentally, but it is certainly an opportunity to do so and I would be delighted to see us achieve it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post
I dunno ... where is all of this sexism coming from?
A few isolated cases it seems which, in our community, get discussed often, heavily and vocally. And such discussion can give a disproportionate impression on how big the problem is within that community?

Is there such a problem? Yes! But not in the atheism community per se. But in HUMANITY. And it is therefore no more, or less, prevalent in the atheist community. Actually, if it is anything it is less, IF it is anything I mean. Big IF. But we do not have atheist doctrines telling us to put women in cloth bags or suggesting women are chattel or somehow worth less than men.

I had, for example, a recent experience of being told by a poster on the forum that his god created man, but then created woman merely as "his helper".

We as a society and a species should address sexism, in BOTH directions, as and when and where we find it. Atheists have no special call to duty in this than anyone else does not have also. It is a human issue, not a theological one.
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Old 09-17-2014, 08:09 AM
 
Location: "Arlen" Texas
11,780 posts, read 2,930,612 times
Reputation: 14465
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant View Post
I heard of her and remember her as she was ascendant during my childhood. I'm sure she took her share of flack that's normally directed at atheists, women, and of course woman atheists. But a lot of it was self inflicted, particularly toward the end. She had become paranoid, unstable, and vulnerable to scam artists, and it was her undoing.

Of course the question was rhetorical, though I failed to put a question mark behind it. Agreed, O'Hair had an unpleasant end, but worse has happened to true believers. Whatever her problems were they had nothing to do with her atheism. I can't say I'm a fan of hers, but if we're going to be honest she did a lot to confirm the separation of church and state in this country and at a time it was much more difficult socially for one person to file suits to do so. She did so.
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Old 09-17-2014, 08:30 AM
 
12,535 posts, read 15,173,486 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo View Post
An issue with your question is that it assumes an explanation from the outset. It also makes some assumptions about what is being explained.
Actually, that was the title of the article, not a question of mine in particular. I happen to think that modern women as well as men like PZ Myers are much too strong to let something like that happen in the end.

I understand why the numbers are historically skewed toward men, and why that is changing. I'm just not sure that people like Shermer should be held up as leaders, representative of atheists, or somehow the voice of atheists. Atheism has enough of a public relations problem as it is. We don't need our gatherings to turn into, or be portrayed as, Tailhook scandals.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo View Post
So.... bring down the atheist movement? No. Not a bit of it. In fact given how emotive and immature the conversation on male-female issues CAN be.... I see this as an opportunity for our community to stand up and HAVE such conversations and be a leading light in attempting to have them maturely and usefully. This is not something we have done yet, such conversations in any realm of discourse descend into pointless tribalism too quickly and detrimentally, but it is certainly an opportunity to do so and I would be delighted to see us achieve it.
I'll say. If you've been following GamerGate, you're familiar with how far the discussion can devolve.

Quote:
Originally Posted by PegE View Post
But has anyone heard of Madalyn Murray O'Hair. And look how she was villified for her work. There are other women who speak out as atheists. They are just not as well known. This will likely change some as time goes on.
I remember her because I went to Catholic grade school. We had letter-writing campaigns against her in third grade.
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Old 09-17-2014, 09:11 AM
 
Location: The land where cats rule
10,908 posts, read 9,536,708 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lilac110 View Post
I wouldn't call any of this whiny. I do, however, find behavior like Shermer's and speech like Gillette's disapppointing. I realize there are sexist slobs everywhere. Hey, Kirsten Gillibrand just came out not long ago about dealing with it in the Senate. But there being sexist slobs everywhere doesn't make it right. There are also racist slobs everywhere, too, but when they behave in odious ways, they are called to the carpet for it. So it should be with these guys.



Yep, like Arjay here refuses to acknowledge it.



Do you have anything worthwhile to add to this discussion? Or are you just going to toss out the attitude of "there, there li'l woman?"
The attitude you accuse me of having is strictly in your own mind and says a lot about the victim mentality you display. Makes me repeat my previous post. Although I do agree that there are sexist slobs everywhere, just not all of them are men (hint, hint).
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Old 09-17-2014, 09:21 AM
 
6,324 posts, read 4,307,929 times
Reputation: 4333
Quote:
Originally Posted by October_Pumpkin View Post
I've never understood this phrase. Of course I'm gonna eat cake. What else do you do with cake?
It means you can't keep the cake and eat it at the same time. If you eat it, it's gone and thus you can't keep it. If you keep it, then you can't eat it. Perhaps saying "keep" instead of "have" might have been more clear, but alas, I wasn't elected to the committee that writes old adages.

Last edited by Shirina; 09-17-2014 at 09:22 AM.. Reason: I couldn't have my post and delete it, too.
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Old 09-17-2014, 09:45 AM
 
6,324 posts, read 4,307,929 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lilac110 View Post
Yep. "Man-made" irritates me. "Artificial" is such an easy edit.
Honestly I just don't know why some women get so angry at the language. The words have been around long enough that we know what they mean - I don't immediately think of sexism when I see the word "man."

I am all too painfully aware that one of the big reversals of feminism occurred when there was a persistent push to start changing the language, often making words clumsy and unwieldy in order to remove the word "man" from any reference not directly referring to the male gender specifically.

A lot of people, some women included, saw feminism going off the deep end when they started talking about changing the word "manhole" to "personhole" and changing "cockpit" to "flight deck." I had a field day with that one ... I remember saying, "Well, if we have to change the word "cockpit" then I guess we'll have to change "pussycat" to feline cat or some such. You know, equality and whatnot."

Another irksome one was when feminists started complaining about the word "history" claiming it was "his story." Grrrr ... no, it would be "his tory." So are we talking about men who own British conservatives? Or perhaps men who own Americans loyal to Britain during the Revolutionary War. I dunno, but history does NOT break down to "his story" unless it's spelled hisstory ... which sounds like something a talking snake would say.

Don't get me wrong, I know where you're coming from (although I yukked it up about changing the word "manager" to "personager") but like with a lot of good causes, sometimes they can hurl themselves off the deep end in a big hurry. The "Mankind" thing I can get ... but personhole covers? Eh, no.
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Old 09-17-2014, 09:52 AM
 
12,535 posts, read 15,173,486 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Arjay51 View Post
The attitude you accuse me of having is strictly in your own mind and says a lot about the victim mentality you display. Makes me repeat my previous post. Although I do agree that there are sexist slobs everywhere, just not all of them are men (hint, hint).
No victim here. My point is that you don't seem to have one, and your current response just proves me right.
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Old 09-17-2014, 09:57 AM
 
Location: Northeastern US
19,825 posts, read 13,361,179 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post
Another irksome one was when feminists started complaining about the word "history" claiming it was "his story."
As far as I know, the chestnut "History is His story" is wordplay of evangelical origin which sees the playing out of the drama of human redemption in history -- "His" is in reference to god or Jesus.

Or maybe this is an older saying and something else that Christianity claims to have invented. Offhand I don't see any evidence of that. Here's the evangelical perspective, along with some interesting guidance on how Christian teachers should handle fact when it conflicts with scripture:

History is His Story - ChristianTeacher.org - Articles

As you can see, part of the conceit of "his story" has to do with how our calendar just happens to be divided between BC and AD (or BCE and CE if you prefer -- and Christians most definitely don't). As if that proves anything other than that the Gregorian calendar was established arbitrarily on that basis by a Christian who, like all victors of the moment, wanted history defined and written in his own terms.
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Old 09-17-2014, 10:04 AM
 
12,535 posts, read 15,173,486 times
Reputation: 29088
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post
Honestly I just don't know why some women get so angry at the language.
Who's angry here? Irritation is not anger. At any rate, as a writer and editor, I will strike "man-made" and replace it with "artificial" unless something was made solely by men. The rest--"personager," etc.-- is silly and nothing of mine.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post
Well, there is no word in the English language that represents both genders at the same time except for plurals. I just capitalize the word Man or Mankind whenever I use that term to describe all of humanity.
I use "humanity" to describe humanity. Works for me!
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