Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

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tsig said:
ETA: wait, wait I see if someone isn't as macho as you they don't deserve a voice.
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I know. It's sad the bloggers don't have a voice. Who will speak for them? It's too bad we don't have some kind of easily-accessible medium, which they could use in order to air their grievances publicly.
 
Kochanski said:
And it is still stupid troll comments online, sticks and stones time.

If women in the 60s and 70s responded the way these babies do to comments, this current generation would have a whole lot more to worry about than just being called names on the internet. The current generation would NOT be able to pursue the careers they pursue now.

Again, they need to grow up.
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Agreed. It's why all the gains their mothers made 30-40 years ago are under open attack now- abortion, single motherhood, women working, even women being educated. The women who should be fighting these things are distracted redefining terms and inventing new pronouns, feeling sorry for themselves, and spinning paranoid conspiracy theories to excuse their lack of action.
 
ShadowSot said:
If you say anything online, there are those that will attack you. It's not right that it's so, but it is so regardless.
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And moreover, they will tend to attack you in the way they think will cause the most damage, at what they think are your most vulnerable points. For feminists, that means rape threats and appearance insults. For African-Americans, it's threats about lynching and being dragged behind a truck. For Jews it's gas chamber comments. For atheists it's general torture and hastening their inevitable eternal damnation. All of those things are of course despicable. But a collection of anecdotes doesn't convince me that women as a group are targeted more often than any other group that gives psychos something to be psycho at.
 
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tsig said:
There's no snark there, Axiom Blade's post perfectly demonstrated what I had said.

When anything you post is going to be misinterpreted, twisted and ridiculed as you are doing with your strawman and snark accusations,it's the better part of wisdom to keep it short.
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Alright. My apologies, it was late and I was tired when posting that. In the light of day I realise that was obviously going to rub you the wrong way. It does come across to me like that though and I am a bit curious what's behind it.
 
tsig said:
Thanks for proving you approve of insulting women.
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Why should someone's gender determine whether it's ok to insult them?

Singling out women for protection from insult seems very traditional, almost say, patriarchal.
 
Quinn said:
And moreover, they will tend to attack you in the way they think will cause the most damage, at what they think are your most vulnerable points. For feminists, that means rape threats and appearance insults. For African-Americans, it's threats about lynching and being dragged behind a truck. For Jews it's gas chamber comments. For atheists it's general torture and hastening their inevitable eternal damnation. All of those things are of course despicable. But a collection of anecdotes doesn't convince me that women as a group are targeted more often any other group that gives psychos something to be psycho at.
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Good point.
 
I've caught up on the Ron Lindsay speech now and oh boy, did he ever put his foot in it!

While there's much in his speech that I agree with (and some I don't), he committed the ultimate faux pas. He went into a space for women and said people shouldn't use "SHUT UP AND LISTEN".

Given that this phrase is mainly used BY women and directed AT men (what man would dare to say that to a woman nowadays?), he was in effect telling the women there that they were doing it wrong. Worse yet, he was at the same time guilty of being white, middle-aged and male.

It's the ultimate offense: a white middle-aged man telling feminists off in THEIR space, dedicated to THEM. I'm not surprised at the flack he's getting for this. If anything, it seems mild as yet.

p.s. I agree that "SHUT UP AND LISTEN" is a stupid phrase and I've only seen it used to mean: listen and shut up until you agree with me.
 
theprestige said:
International A.N.S.W.E.R., the ALF, et al being iconic right wing nutcase organizations, of course.
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:rolleyes: Yes and in the UK groups like the BNP are classic left wing organisations because I said the bulk of the nutters there are left wingers.
 
Lorentz said:
Interesting. I wonder if there's any research to confirm or deny the impression given there, that women bloggers receive more and worse abuse than men. Without that, it's interesting, but still just someone's impression.
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They love to represent their opponents as a bunch of scary, rapey neanderthals, and use these threats as evidence. In fact, many of their most vehement critics are other women, and even other feminists. They don't like to talk about that, though.

Note that nobody ever talks about all of the threats Richard Dawkins gets, or how something must be done about it. Presumably, it's because he's male. If I'm a male blogger, and I write about controversial topics, and then talk about all of the threats I get...who's going to care? People will shrug and say, "Yeah, that's awful, but it comes with the territory." But when it happens to a woman...wow! Stop the presses! This is a big problem that must be solved! Lengthy diatribes are written about how the women must be protected from filthy language and bad words.

It's very simple. If you think the threat is credible, report it. If you don't, move on. I'm not defending being a jerk; but...the jerks we will always have with us.
 
Axiom_Blade said:
They love to represent their opponents as a bunch of scary, rapey neanderthals, and use these threats as evidence. In fact, many of their most vehement critics are other women, and even other feminists. They don't like to talk about that, though.

Note that nobody ever talks about all of the threats Richard Dawkins gets, or how something must be done about it. Presumably, it's because he's male. If I'm a male blogger, and I write about controversial topics, and then talk about all of the threats I get...who's going to care? People will shrug and say, "Yeah, that's awful, but it comes with the territory." But when it happens to a woman...wow! Stop the presses! This is a big problem that must be solved! Lengthy diatribes are written about how the women must be protected from filthy language and bad words.

It's very simple. If you think the threat is credible, report it. If you don't, move on. I'm not defending being a jerk; but...the jerks we will always have with us.
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Maybe, but lacking any kind of evidence beyond "lived experience", i.e. unverified anecdotes, I'm loath to even draw a tentative conclusion either way.

Do you have a way to KNOW that women on the Internet aren't subject to far more horrific abuse than men? I don't. It might be.

Edit: Come to think of it, there's some evidence I know of: the Skepchick "page of hate", which I found fairly weak. If that's the worst of their hate mail, they've not much to complain about. Then again, that's just Skepchick, I know nothing about what other female bloggers may receive by way of abuse.
 
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Lorentz said:
Edit: Come to think of it, there's some evidence I know of: the Skepchick "page of hate", which I found fairly weak. If that's the worst of their hate mail, they've not much to complain about. Then again, that's just Skepchick, I know nothing about what other female bloggers may receive by way of abuse.
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You'd have to compare it to the abuse male bloggers get. In any case, I'm not questioning that the volume is higher. What I'm questioning is why people get upset when women are threatened, but not men...even when the threat is highly unlikely to be a real one.

It's not simply a matter of volume, because if it were, atheists everywhere would be up in arms about the amount of threats Dawkins gets. Instead, nobody blinks. Dawkins' threats must be several orders of magnitude more than Rebecca Watson's. Yet, nobody talks about it. Watson's threats get discussed whenever she's mentioned. In fact, her career seems to revolve around it at this point.
 
Axiom_Blade said:
You'd have to compare it to the abuse male bloggers get.
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I think that would be qualified as a "what about teh menz?" response. ;)

Axiom_Blade said:
In any case, I'm not questioning that the volume is higher.
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I would question that as well, myself. I just don't have answers.

Axiom_Blade said:
What I'm questioning is why people get upset when women are threatened, but not men...even when the threat is highly unlikely to be a real one.
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I think that's the classic patriarchal response: protect women and children, never mind the men. Tsig's response along those lines above really nailed it for me. To paraphrase: women are being insulted? Outrageous! How can we allow this to happen?

Axiom_Blade said:
It's not simply a matter of volume, because if it were, atheists everywhere would be up in arms about the amount of threats Dawkins gets. Instead, nobody blinks. Dawkins' threats must be several orders of magnitude more than Rebecca Watson's. Yet, nobody talks about it. Watson's threats get discussed whenever she's mentioned. In fact, her career seems to revolve around it at this point.
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Again, I do think that's the patriarchal attitude talking. Men can take care of themselves and are privileged on top of that. Women are sensitive fragile creatures who must be protected at all cost. Also they're victims of patriarchy and we should listen to those among them who feel the most victimised. Don't listen to the ones who don't view themselves as victims or disagree about patriarchy; they just don't understand what it's like.

The above paragraph pretty much summarises my conclusions since I started digging into the subject two years ago. I may have it wrong and I'll continue listening, as I have been. I'm no longer doing much of the shutting up though. It doesn't seem to be helping.
 
Lorentz said:
Again, I do think that's the patriarchal attitude talking. Men can take care of themselves and are privileged on top of that. Women are sensitive fragile creatures who must be protected at all cost. Also they're victims of patriarchy and we should listen to those among them who feel the most victimised. Don't listen to the ones who don't view themselves as victims or disagree about patriarchy; they just don't understand what it's like.

The above paragraph pretty much summarises my conclusions since I started digging into the subject two years ago. I may have it wrong and I'll continue listening, as I have been. I'm no longer doing much of the shutting up though. It doesn't seem to be helping.
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Anyone who tells me I can't take care of myself will quickly discover otherwise ;)

And from an old school feminist, yes, I have a problem with the delicate flowers who want it both ways. If women in the 60s and 70s tried to float that one, the rights and privileges women expect now would not be what they are. I came in after that but was very much aware of the struggles of the women who broke ground for us. I remember the "A woman's place is in the house AND the senate" slogan, it had resonance then.
 
Lorentz said:
I think that would be qualified as a "what about teh menz?" response. ;)



I would question that as well, myself. I just don't have answers.



I think that's the classic patriarchal response: protect women and children, never mind the men. Tsig's response along those lines above really nailed it for me. To paraphrase: women are being insulted? Outrageous! How can we allow this to happen?



Again, I do think that's the patriarchal attitude talking. Men can take care of themselves and are privileged on top of that. Women are sensitive fragile creatures who must be protected at all cost. Also they're victims of patriarchy and we should listen to those among them who feel the most victimised. Don't listen to the ones who don't view themselves as victims or disagree about patriarchy; they just don't understand what it's like.

The above paragraph pretty much summarises my conclusions since I started digging into the subject two years ago. I may have it wrong and I'll continue listening, as I have been. I'm no longer doing much of the shutting up though. It doesn't seem to be helping.
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I agree. That's one of the big issues I have about these kind of feminists/SJWs. They seem to have a rather low opinion of women, that they're so delicate and tender, and if a man looks at them the wrong way they swoon, needing days to recover from the ordeal. Also, if it's pointed out that only a few men a rich/powerful/leading the patriarchy, and most of us aren't like that, and could use some help too, and don't like being stereotyped as terrible brutes, and use run-on sentences, we're told to check our privilege and stop mansplaining.
 
rustypouch said:
I agree. That's one of the big issues I have about these kind of feminists/SJWs. They seem to have a rather low opinion of women, that they're so delicate and tender, and if a man looks at them the wrong way they swoon, needing days to recover from the ordeal.
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Charlotte Perkins Gilman is rolling over in her grave; the feminists are walling themselves off in "safe spaces", presumably with yellow wallpaper.
 
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