Dawkins sounds off. Lots of atheists upset.

I know that I'm late to this party but...

Men like to hit on women shocker...

condra wrote: »

On principle, I would rather not see "harassment policies" put in place solely because an overwhelmingly friendly community is hijacked and held to ransom by a small band of corrupt, hypocritical, third rate bloggers.

This Years TAM had a harassment policy and they employed a specialist consultant to deal with security/harassment and all the volunteers were given specific training on how seriously to treat claims of harassment and the procedures to follow.

And yet the same group that's been screaming about this for a year still didn't feel safe at TAM. This isn't about sexual harassment let's call a spade a spade this is about power and control of the atheist/secular movement.

So if it's not a harassment policy what do they want - well here are the things they have called for publicly.

- To choose all male speakers at every conference
- Banning a conference speaker having sex with a conference attendee.
- Panels at every conference dealing with harassment/feminism ad nauseam
- A secret behind the scenes (cross conference) list of bad male behaviour - presumably maintained by FtB or such - conferences must agree to ban people on the basis of this list.
- Ban on "fake" jewellery
- Ban on statements opposed to their point of view - any disagreement with them (like a t-shirt that says "I feel safe") is automatically and by definition sexual harassment and hate speech.

But no - it's not about harassment policies.

bipedalhumanoid wrote: »

The T-Shirt in question had the following "hate speech" that made SurlyAmy cry and leave the conference early...

Phew I'm glad she cried and left, because if she had stayed people would have questioned whether she was really upset and offended, right?

Because people who are genuinely offended or feel harrassed leave and don't come back.

Except when they do. Then they're overreacting...

Kooli wrote: »

Phew I'm glad she cried and left, because if she had stayed people would have questioned whether she was really upset and offended, right?

Because people who are genuinely offended or feel harrassed leave and don't come back.

Except when they do. Then they're overreacting...

Someone being offended by something is not the same thing as them being discriminated against or harassed.

It can offend her, there is no reason to doubt that this Amy person was offended.

But her feeling offended does not mean she was discriminated against or harassed by the t-shirt or it's wearer, or the act of wearing a t-shirt.

robindch wrote: »

TReally? I'm asking because at last year's Atheist Conference here in Dublin, I bought one of those little metal-coated fish-shaped "Evolution" thingies -- a tatty piece of cheap junk if ever there was one -- and, rather with rather more pride than I should really have felt, stuck it on the back of my car. I'm 90% sure I bought it from Watson (I certainly did buy a tee-shirt and a couple of label badges from her). Unlike at previous conferences, Watson wasn't selling her knickers at this one, so no option there.

"We're not asking for anything crazy - just basic rules so that we can say the sort of thing like making fake jewelry and intentionally offending people is not okay nor is grabbing someone's ass. That's it, that's all we're asking for."
- Amy Roth

You know the sad thing is that this really all kicked off when Watson was meant to be giving a speech about "The Religious Right's war on women" and instead she used her keynote to attack female students in the audience who disagreed with her over elavatorgate - and this week, as everyone is probably aware this was said by Todd Atkin (Rep) who is running for a senate seat in Missouri.

"It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that's really rare," Akin replied. "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let's assume that maybe that didn't work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child."

So much time and effort wasted on nonsense.

Michael Nugent wrote: »

Again, putting aside the hyperbole of your question, the answer is to start by asking the people who are disproportionately underrepresented what they think we could do to make the community more inclusive and caring and supportive.

I am confused by the point you are trying to make here Michael so could I ask you to clarify two things a) what subset of people you are specifically referring to (disabled, women, LGBT etc.) and b) what you mean by disproportionately. It's just that the overall discussion in this thread has been about women in atheism, however the specific point you responded to was to do with wheelchair access at AI meetups.

As far as the overall discussion regarding women is concerned, I find it hard to understand how there is any significant gender imbalance.

For example, Census 2011 in Ireland found that the number of people responding No Religion was 269,811. The gender split of this was 157,219 men and 112,592 women or 58% and 42% respectively. Furthermore, the change from previous showed that more women than men are losing their religion with a +49% and +42% change respectively.

Also if we look at America, the Pew Forum on Religion in Public Life reports a similar finding among Unaffiliated (including atheists, agnostics etc.) with 59% and 41% respectively.

It is only when we narrow our focus to a particular medium, boards, for example, that we see a change.

The boards census here or here show that there is a significant disparity among boards users with a roughly 80:20 male/female split. Having said that though, the breakdown of A&A users is better than the general boards average with a 70:30 male/female split. I'm not sure exactly what you can read into this disparity between A&A and boards in general but on the face of it it seems as if A&A is a more welcoming place than the rest of boards.

It seems to me that this is not an "atheist community" problem. Its an internet problem. If we continue to couch it in those terms, then we're never going to make any substantial progress in reducing online harassment. We should making a consolidated effort across all boards, fora, blogs, social networking etc. to ensure that all of these are well-moderated and welcoming environments. Then again it maybe that the causal factors at the heart of this disparity may be entirely unconnected to any real or perceived harassment in the first place.

decimatio wrote: »

And what reasons are there? Honestly asking.

I don't know. As I have said, the first step is to start by asking the people who are disproportionately underrepresented what they think we could do to make the community more inclusive and caring and supportive.

decimatio wrote: »

I've heard the following;

-Certain groups are underrepresented because there aren't enough ethnic minority/female speakers.

If this is true than I don't want to associate with these people. People shouldn't care what race or gender a speaker is, they should care about the quality of that speaker...

I want to listen to the best speakers. I don't care what race or gender they are.

I don’t have time to go into detail on this now, but the short response is that, if there are not enough speakers from under-represented groups, then it is likely that you are not getting to hear the best speakers. You are just getting to hear the people who are currently most frequently invited to speak. When I have time I will elaborate on this, but in the meantime think it through for yourself and try to imagine why this might be the case.

decimatio wrote: »

- Women are underrepresented because of sexual harrassment.

Then that's a huge issue and needs to be dealt with. Harrassment of anyone should not be tolerated and should be dealt with swiftly and mercilessly.

I agree with you about this. I think it is a combination of unconscious passive sexism and various degrees of sexual harassment. But any amount is too much, and we should aim to eradicate it completely.

decimatio wrote: »

I think the problem is how people define harrassment.

For example Michael, what do you think of the nonsense regarding Paula Kirbys T-shirt?

I don’t think it is useful to examine harassment policies generally through the filter of just one incident, particularly as you have already prejudged that incident as nonsense, but since you ask I will give you my opinion about that incident.

By the way, it was Harriet Hall who wore the t-shirt saying she wasn’t a Skepchick. You may be confusing this incident with Paula Kirby writing an article labeling them as Feminazis.

I think that Amy is a decent, kind person who devotes much of her time and creativity to doing good things. She runs fundraisers and contributes money from her ceramics to provide grants for women going to TAM who otherwise could not afford to go. At the latest TAM, some people tried to make Amy personally feel unwelcome in various ways, including but not limited to designing imitations of her ceramics mocking her. Also, Harriet Hall wore a t-shirt mocking Skepchick generally but not specifically Amy. The combination of all of this caused Amy to feel upset, because she is a person with the same emotional vulnerabilities as most people, and she and her mother left the conference early.

I can’t speak for TAM, but if somebody like Amy had funded grants for people to attend an Atheist Ireland conference, and if some people were actively trying to make her feel unwelcome at the conference, I would be doing my best to ensure that she did feel welcome.

I’m not sure how incidents like this would be addressed by an anti-harassment policy, because I haven't fully thought through what an anti-harassment policy should include, but I know where my ethical priorities would lie, and that would be making the conference inclusive, caring and supportive of the people attending unless they were behaving in a way that required otherwise.

oldrnwisr wrote: »

I am confused by the point you are trying to make here Michael so could I ask you to clarify two things a) what subset of people you are specifically referring to (disabled, women, LGBT etc.) and b) what you mean by disproportionately. It's just that the overall discussion in this thread has been about women in atheism, however the specific point you responded to was to do with wheelchair access at AI meetups.

a) any group within society who are disproportionately underrepresented, including those you mention, and b) I don't know.

By the way, we are still looking for a suitable city-centre wheelchair-accessible venue in Dublin, so any suggestions are welcome.

oldrnwisr wrote: »

It seems to me that this is not an "atheist community" problem. Its an internet problem. If we continue to couch it in those terms, then we're never going to make any substantial progress in reducing online harassment. We should making a consolidated effort across all boards, fora, blogs, social networking etc. to ensure that all of these are well-moderated and welcoming environments. Then again it maybe that the causal factors at the heart of this disparity may be entirely unconnected to any real or perceived harassment in the first place.

I agree with this. I have never presented it as a specifically atheist community problem.

Although I don't think it is just an online problem. It is also a problem that manifests itself in many organizations, including voluntary and political and advocacy groups, in real life.

robindch wrote: »

The old comment that trying to gather atheists being like herding cats applies here: there is no single "atheist community".

I agree with this (at least in practical terms, though the term can be useful in philosophical discussions). I usually use "communities" as I think it is more accurate.

robindch wrote: »

Quite the contrary: there are simply individuals who share a common view about the existence of various supernatural beings and who may or may not share any other views.

I don't agree with this. There are many different communities who primarily self-identify as atheists, at least for the purpose of their involvement in activities organized by or for that community. One example is the members of this forum.

Dont know what to say about this. Sick of it