Paycheck Fairness Act Blocked By Senate Republicans

What does this have to do with atheism?

It’s almost not even worth the trouble to point out, again, the number of ways in which the 77 cents figure is inaccurate, but the curious can start here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-white-houses-use-of-data-on-the-gender-wage-gap/2012/06/04/gJQAYH6nEV_blog.html.

Hemant can publish on his blog whatever he chooses, but one would hope it would be better than tired — and misleading — talking points.

It’s relevant because the same traditional cultural forces that are used to persecute women are used to persecute atheists. 

The feminists who object to some of the comments here do not come out of nowhere, they are regular readers of this blog, just like you.

They’re not objecting to questioning, they’re objecting to the manner in which it’s done, with bigoted, hateful language and the accusations people are using to characterize women and feminists.

If you’ve spent any time poking around the atheism/skepticism blogosphere you’ll notice that there is a really big problem with hatred, sexual harassment, and demeaning attitudes toward women in these circles. Prevalent enough that it’s chased me away from these blogs many times.

Your own post demonstrates the antipathy toward women that’s so common here, and it’s great that the women here are standing up to it instead of being bullied into silence. The atheism/skepticism community really needs to address this headlong, because it’s only hurting us to let it continue.

A better way to look at this issue: Republicans are protecting women by stopping the passage of a bill that would have the primary effect of making employers extremely reluctant to hire women.  Other commenters have challenged the accuracy of the statistics here; I don’t know if they’re correct, but it’s irrelevant either way.  The bigger point is that thinking that a bill like this could solve the problem (if it exists) is pure magical thinking.  The connection to atheism is that supporters of bills like this defend it using language that’s exactly parallel to the language of religious zealots, but with the word “god” replaced with the word “government.”

In the end, she noted, all of the data showed “indisputable, major discrimination,” with women shorted at all educational levels and in most jobs.

As much as this is an injustice and as much as I revile a lot of what the modern Republican party are up to, I have to ask..

What as this got to do with Atheism?

Or did I visit Friendlyfeminist.com by accident?

 So if employers can’t pay women less, they’ll be reluctant to hire them? Why?

The fact that women are shorted at all educational levels and in most jobs is evidence of discrimination.  How strong you think that evidence is is another matter. 

I’m sure a lot of things contribute to the wage gap.  But since there are very few legitimate reasons for two people to earn different amounts for the same job, I think saying “there’s no evidence!” is kind of like playing the “not touching!” game.

First, women are not shorted at all educatinal levels at all. And the report she cited does not indicate that this either.

Second, even if they where being shorted, that does not mean women are being shorted just because they are women (IE discrimination).

“But since there are very few legitimate reasons for two people to earn
different amounts for the same job, I think saying “there’s no
evidence!” is kind of like playing the “not touching!” game.”

There are dozens of legitimate reasons for two people earning different amounts for the same job. To name a few, original bargaining over pay, education, the amount of time worked, the attitude and effectiveness of the employee, previous job experince, disiplinary action, so on and so on.

It is intellectually dishonest to attribute the wage gap between men and women to systemic discrimination just because you cant figure out any other explanation.  Especially when other explanations are abundant.
‘

(Disclaimer: I’m not a statistician, but I play an armchair philosopher on TV.)

No offense intended, but I can’t necessarily say I agree with this.

Looking at it from a cause-and-effect standpoint, you’d have to examine what the groups (male people and female people) have in common amongst themselves to determine the cause of the wage disparity.

If you’re saying that there’s nothing wrong with women –as a whole– earning less than men –as a whole–, then we’d have to examine what all women have in common with one another.  They’re obviously not all caucasian, Hispanic, black, Asian, middle-eastern, etc.  They’re obviously not all the same age.  They’re not all family, not all sisters, mothers, daughters, wives, nieces, and so on.  Country of origin, religion, political ideology, educational background, these things all vary within even small populations.  Given that we’re considering half the human race – some 4 billion people – the only factor that all women in the world have in common is that they are women.  The sample size is too big to assign any other guaranteed common characteristic.

Assuming this, we can rule out “slacking on the job” (because some but not all women are slackers, and it would have to be all, or at least a statistical majority, to be valid), “lesser qualifications” (because some but not all women are less-qualified, and it would have to be all, or at least a statistical majority, to be valid), “it’s the economy, stupid” (because the economy affects different employers in different ways so not all would be forced to cut pay, and that entirely ignores gender), etc.  Once again, the only universally-met criterion is “chromosomally XX.”

I certainly don’t pretend to have a complete grasp of all the details of the pay policies of all the employers in the world (or even one country) but from where I’m sitting, it looks very difficult to attribute the pay disparity between men and women to anything other than the sex of the employee.

As a gender egalitarian who strives toward the erasure of all differences in perception of people of different sexes (aside from the unavoidable biological facts), this is utterly unacceptable to me.  Equal means equal, and paying people differently based on their being chromosomally XX or XY is a textbook example of inequality.

A hundred times over: THIS! ^^^

I have to agree with this.

I have no problem at all with the large number of posts about people harassing people at skeptic/atheist/freethought conventions; this is because those are relevant in that they are concerned with keeping such conferences well-populated and productive.  If one subset of the skeptic community is making another subset feel unwelcome, ostracized, put upon, or otherwise uncomfortable with being a part of the community or community functions, then the problem needs to be addressed in an expedient, rational, and effective manner.  Those posts are, as I see them, part of a discussion on how to address the problem.

However, this topic is only tangentially related to atheism which, to my knowledge, is still the focus of this website.  I understand that there is overlap between atheism and political progressivism, and that’s completely fine.  However, this isn’t a general cultural/political progressivism blog (again, as far as I’m aware).  It is specifically an atheist one.

The fact that politicians are impeding the right of some people to earn
pay equal to some other people when the pay disparity has nothing to do
with qualification or job performance is simply unacceptable.  Please do
not misinterpret my objection to this article as endorsement of the
actions of the elected officials in question.  However, it seems to me that apart from the interest overlap between progressive politics and rationalism, there’s no direct link between pay equality and atheist news.

“Looking at it from a cause-and-effect standpoint, you’d have to
examine what the groups (male people and female people) have in common
amongst themselves to determine the cause of the wage disparity.”
I dont think a cause and effect standpoint is the best way to go about this, case by case makes more sense to me.

“If you’re saying that there’s nothing wrong with women –as a whole–
earning less than men –as a whole–, then we’d have to examine what all
women have in common with one another.  They’re obviously not all
caucasian, Hispanic, black, Asian, middle-eastern, etc.  They’re
obviously not all the same age.  They’re not all family, not all
sisters, mothers, daughters, wives, nieces, and so on.  Country of
origin, religion, political ideology, educational background, these
things all vary within even small populations.  Given that we’re
considering half the human race – some 4 billion people – the only
factor that all women in the world have in common is that they are
women.  The sample size is too big to assign any other guaranteed common
characteristic.”

There could easily be something besids being a women that affect the sample size that we simply don’t know about.

Assuming this, we can rule out “slacking on the job” (because some
but not all women are slackers, and it would have to be all, or at least
a statistical majority, to be valid), “lesser qualifications” (because
some but not all women are less-qualified, and it would have to be all,
or at least a statistical majority, to be valid), “it’s the economy,
stupid” (because the economy affects different employers in different
ways so not all would be forced to cut pay, and that entirely ignores
gender), etc.  Once again, the only universally-met criterion is
“chromosomally XX.”

There are severall problems with this paragraph. First, it only adresses three of the many reasons besids gender that could be affecting pay. Second, the rebutles are not good ones.
Your rebuttleis  “because some
but not all women are slackers, and it would have to be all, or at least
a statistical majority, to be valid”. This is false, it would only have to apply to more women then men to affect the outcome. If even a small % of women slack more then men, then that will show on the pay anaylisis. 
Your second is “because
some but not all women are less-qualified, and it would have to be all,
or at least a statistical majority, to be valid” this is invalid for the same reason as the first, If even a small % of women have less qualifications, then that will show on the pay anaylisis.
Your third “because the economy affects different employers in different
ways so not all would be forced to cut pay, and that entirely ignores
gender” is false as well, because women have higher insurense premioums (last I cheked) and are more costly  and riskiere to have as employee’s, so it would make sense that the the first to go would be the most expensive employees. 
Finally, it assumes that that every women is being payed less becuase they are a women, which is false.

“I certainly don’t pretend to have a complete grasp of all the details of
the pay policies of all the employers in the world (or even one
country) but from where I’m sitting, it looks very difficult to
attribute the pay disparity between men and women to anything other than
the sex of the employee.

As a gender egalitarian who strives toward the erasure of all
differences in perception of people of different sexes (aside from the
unavoidable biological facts), this is utterly unacceptable to me. 
Equal means equal, and paying people differently based on their being
chromosomally XX or XY is a textbook example of inequality.”

All I can read from this is that you dont know its because of discrimination. You can only assume it is because you cant think of any other explanation.

Just because you cant think of a better explanation does not mean the one you came up with is right, especially when the only evidence you have is “I cant think of anything else”.

Saying “discrimination must be the cause of the pay gap,  no other
explanation presents itself” Is like saying “The universe must have been
started by a intelligent creator, no other explanation presents
itself”.

Unless can actually prove (not just “I cant see any other reason”)
that discrimination specifically is the cause, there is no point in
complaining about this pay gap.

Lovely post Lauren. It saddens me to read some of these comments and all the bad vibes I get from them. Such a shame really.

There are several posts on this site that don’t have “anything to do” with atheism. However, one thing Hemant wishes is to help make women feel more welcome into the movement, and atheists caring about women’s issues like they care about gay rights issues is a good start. Some of these comments do the exact opposite of bringing more women to the movement; they actually help push us away.

There are some blog posts I like and some I don’t like, last I checked I wasn’t forced to read any of them. So what’s the big deal?

It’s not directly connected to atheism. I just find it really interesting and worth talking about. Does there need to be any other reason? If you don’t like it, you may cancel your subscription at anytime. I offer full refunds.

Oh that comment is just stupid.

It is 25 years old, anecdotal as all hell, and you provided no proof that she was denied a partsdhip because discrimination, and not some other factor. Heck you provided no evidence that this whole thing even happend anyways.

Even if it was true, it does not back up your assertion that women don’t dare speak up. Your supposed wife is just one women.

I hate posts like this, nothing but fluf, no reasoning, no logic, just “I have exactly one piece of unverifiable, anecdotal evidence that sort of kind of not really backs up a silly claim”.

This is interesting.  The industry with the smallest wage gap is- construction.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/the-gender-pay-gap-by-industry/ 

And now I can’t find it but teaching (where you’d think the people would be doing pretty much the same job) was better than average 90%

As for proof that discrimination is a factor (obviously not the only factor) study in which people rate a customer service rep.  Rep is an actor, and men get rated higher than women.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male%E2%80%93female_income_disparity_in_the_United_States#Bias_favoring_men 

And identical resumes with male or female names, male names get more call backs.

And I’ve seen this in a few places

the research shows is that most of the gender pay gap — about 60 percent of it, in fact — can be attributed to factors other than gender discrimination, such as choice of industry, choice of occupation, years of work experience, and union status

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/05/21/mind-the-malefemale-income-gap-but-dont-exaggerate-it/ 

That still leaves 40% of the wage gap attributed to gender.  And of course gender discrimination can play an influence in things like career choice, and ability to get better experience, but we’re getting several degrees removed here.

I would reply to your post, but first I require proof that you actually wrote it and did not have it ghostwritten for you by another person, claimed as yours by an impersonator, or otherwise misattributed. Until you provide such proof, I will persist in showering you with hostile and condescending faux-skepticism because your alleged experience and the clearly erroneous conclusions you draw from it do not perfectly align with my preferred point of view.

 While I recognize this is your website, I find the fact that you’d allow such “factual” nonsense on a site that claims to be about “skepticism” really astounding.

We definitely DO live in a gendered society where both women and men face negative gender stereotypes, both conscious and overt, that bleed over into the actions and events that affect our lives.  By no means are women treated as equals as men in many, many areas of life.

However, the specific “77 cents” statistic is a mish-mash of purposeful misinterpretation and overt dis-ingenuousness.  It’s the equivalent of Ken Ham’s banana=proof of god argument, and that’s what makes me scared for you and your site, Hemant.

In Ken Ham’s case, he really, really wants to believe in God.  Thus, he cherry picks evidence that proves that – only, his evidence, the banana-fits-perfectly-into-our-hand nonsense, falls apart under scrutiny because we realize the facts that undermine it.  You often reference how silly that argument is, and rightfully so.

In your case, you really, really want to show that women are discriminated against in our world – a much more intelligent and just goal than Ken Ham’s above.  However, allowing this “77 cents” nonsense on your site, you’re also cherry picking evidence to support yourself (which is odd since there’s plenty of REAL, stable evidence out there).

The “77 cents” idea falls apart under factual inquiry and even basic common sense, just like Ken Ham’s banana idea, but since the “77 cents” information helps something you agree with, you just accept it at face value.

That’s a dangerous path for a skeptic, and honestly, it’s hypocritical – making fun of Christians for their terrible “facts” to support their ideas while doing the same yourself.

 I can certainly understand and respect the desire to not jump to unfounded conclusions, and I do admit that I’m reaching just a bit (when, in all likelihood, I would condemn the religious for an equal amount of reaching to argue the existence of their gods), but I still can’t quite see how teh other factors you describe could account for such a widespread disparity.

Certainly, they would be more than valid in individual case studies, but the probability of so many individual cases being similar enough to account for what is effectively a sex-wide shorting on pay seems too low to be plausible.

 Forcing employers to specify a pay range sounds good but I can’t help but think it’s still loose enough for them to sleaze their way around it.  There’s passing over for promotions/raises, “negotiations” during interviews, and various other creative accounting practices that I’m not thinking of right now to comply with the letter of the law whilst simultaneously putting the spirit of the law through a meat grinder.

Still, I’m tempted to say “bring it” anyway.  Businesses want to play the pay-inequality game, they invited this upon themselves.  Maybe it will prove to be enough of an inconvenience to smaller shops that they’ll be so busy complying with it that they won’t have the time or resources to plan how to screw their female employees out of due compensation.

 Directly? Nothing. But with the silly attempts to inseparably wed feminism to atheism, it becomes an issue of atheism by an indirect route.

 Graduated from Women’s Studies, did you? With that attitude, I’m surprised you can hold down a job.

To all the “What does this have to do with atheism?” trolls:

Atheism is usually (not always) a result of skepticism. Feminism is a subset of skepticism, a logical movement which says that both sexes should be equal. Podcasts such as the Godless Bitches combine atheism with feminism. So if a presumably feminist author who is a guest poster on The Friendly Atheist wants to post about a feminist and equal-rights issue… so what? It’s not your blog, stop pretending like you have any say into what topics are discussed and which ones aren’t.

You will be hard pressed to find many atheist blogs nowadays that don’t touch upon feminist issues.

 There’s many links to it in the comments section already, but it boils down to the statistic is purposely misleading.  A woman doing the same job with the same educational background and the same hours does not earn a smaller paycheck as a man.

The difference in pay – the 77 cents thing – comes from many other factors coming into play- women work fewer hours, women take more time off, women tend to do less-dangerous indoor work rather than more dangerous outdoor work, women tend to go into fields that pay less than men, etc. etc.

So, the 77 cents thing is not about a woman earning a smaller paycheck than an exact male counterpart.  It’s a mashing together of ALL of these factors, and more.  Yet by distilling it to a talking point of “a woman earns only 77% of a man’s salary” is grossly misleading and dishonest.

The fact that this site would allow such nonsense without challenge is ridiculous. 

“The difference in pay – the 77 cents thing – comes from many other factors coming into play- women work fewer hours, women take more time off, women tend to do less-dangerous indoor work rather than more dangerous outdoor work, women tend to go into fields that pay less than men, etc. etc.”

I haven’t vetted your claims yet, but I intend to do so…but for now I just want to address a couple of points.

Women take lots of time off in the states particularly for maternity leave. In nearly every other developed Western country, maternity leave is paid (and many times, paternity leave, too!). Women are forced to take extra time off to have and recover from having children. Why? Sexism. 

Women work in less dangerous jobs because of sexist assumptions that only men can drive forklifts and only women can answer telephones. 

And what about that last one? Fields that “pay less” than men? Why is that? Is it because women truly aren’t into making money, or is it because it’s harder for a woman to succeed in male-dominated upper echelons? (Also, it’s irrelevant because the comparison is between the same jobs across gender, NOT across different fields – the whole point is that you can be a female fry cook and STILL possibly make less than a male counterpart over time for no discernable reason other than your gender. That’s why it’s a systematic issue.)

” I can certainly understand and respect the desire to not jump to
unfounded conclusions, and I do admit that I’m reaching just a bit
(when, in all likelihood, I would condemn the religious for an equal
amount of reaching to argue the existence of their gods), but I still
can’t quite see how teh other factors you describe could account for
such a widespread disparity.”

Would not how “widspred” it is seem to indicate more then one factor is at play here? Provavble factors, such as women working less hours then men, taking lower risk-lower paying jobs then men, Being less assertive when setting pay,  and taking time off from work to raise children, slowing there career down.

These factors are known, and have been proven.

“Certainly, they would be more than valid in individual case studies,
but the probability of so many individual cases being similar enough to
account for what is effectively a sex-wide shorting on pay seems too low
to be plausible.”

Unless you wish to substantiate your claim with ACTUAL evidence, not just the faulty logic of “I cant think of a different answer” there is no point in continue this discussion.

“First, there is no society wide cultural force that persecutes women Second, there is no socity wide cultural force that perescutes atheists.”
I’m curious…have you heard of this thing called “Christianity”? Did you read the article right before this one where that pastor advocated to his large congregation that all atheists ought to “get out” of the US? Did you think that was just a friendly suggestion?

Absolutely. 

It’s Hemant’s site and he has every right to sponsor posts about stuff that has nothing to do (even tangentially) with atheism/religion/skepticism.

But the key point in the response above is that for a site that prides itself on “skepticism”, having a post that is making a 100% partisan attack and doing so with a completely disingenuous statistic pretty much flies in the face of what I’d expected from this site.

While the right is the one who tends to be more foolish religious than the left, this site hasn’t struck me as a DailyKos/DU type of place that puts partisanship ahead of pragmatic rationalism.

The OP is complete crap.

Many atheists like coffee as well.  I look forward to the site hiring a blogger to talk about the goings-on at Starbucks.

Many atheists enjoy hiking.  I look forward to the site hiring a blogger to talk about hiking trails and issues related to the environment.

repeat infinitely

 The inability to think of another answer isn’t faulty logic, it’s just not a compelling argument in my favor.  I readily admit that there is neither expectation nor grounds for believing a case based on a gut feeling, and I’m also admitting that because my personal and professional experience does not include any formal study into this pay-inequality matter, I have little else aside from a gut feeling.  It’s unfortunate for me but I’m at least trying to be honest about it.

That said, working fewer hours and taking time off to raise children don’t seem to be arguments against the existence of discrimination because in those cases, work is not being done and thus dollars are not being earned.  My impression, which may again be mistaken due to my own deficiency in information on this matter, is that in otherwise-equal scenarios women are not paid as much as men for doing identical work.  Fewer hours worked would indeed account for less pay earned, but we’d then be comparing a man who worked a standard 40-hour week to a woman who worked, say, a 30-hour week.  To correctly compare, we’d have to take a 30-hour male employee and compare his earnings to the 30-hour female employee.

Being less assertive I can understand would be an issue and it seems to me that it’s a matter of how we socialize children – female children are all too often taught to be meek and deferent rather than assertive and self-respecting.  I can’t see a large-scale solution to that aside from changing how we raise children so that male children and female children are both taught to stand up for themselves and have realistic appraisals of their value in society.

Taking lower-risk-lower-pay jobs…again, wouldn’t that be a similar case to the less-hours-worked scenario?  Wouldn’t we have to compare wages between male and female employees with like job duties?  If the female employees are being paid less, that’s a problem.

Please understand I’m not posting this just to be difficult or argumentative.  This is posted from a stance of honest, unintentional/unwillful ignorance and a desire to better understand the matter at hand.  I work in IT so my studies, my job, my day-to-day life experiences don’t really confer much insight upon me into what seems to be an HR issue professionally and a sociological issue academically.  Instinctively I feel like it should be akin to debugging a program – find the logic that sets $FEMALE_PAY to a lower value than $MALE_PAY and excise it.  I understand that it’s not that simple but I just don’t know what the answer is.

I don’t expect you to change your stance and agree with me based on “it seems like it to me and I can’t come up with a better answer.”  You’d have no right to call yourself a rationalist or skeptic if you accepted anyone’s random claim without scrutiny.  I would, though, be interested in reading the findings of any studies done on the causes you’ve cited.  I don’t know much about this now but I’m certainly willing to learn.

It appears that my idea of the definition of the word “troll” is different than the generally accepted definition. For using it out of place, I apologize. It was mostly out of frustration regarding what I perceived as the derailing of a valid discussion simply because it was assumed to be off-topic by some. Again, sorry for calling people trolls when they really weren’t intending to be such.

 Is that really how small shops prefer to spend their time? Thinking up more nefarious methods to screw their female employees of out of due compensation? Or medium shops? Or large shops? With so many women in HR departments?

I’m sorry that you skimmed through my post and didn’t take the time to read one way in which women’s issues are connected to the atheist movement. You’re welcome to find other examples in other comments and throughout the site.

Please refer to my last two sentences in the post you skimmed through. Better yet, refer to Hemant’s comment. If you’re so unhappy with the content, you’re welcome to start your own blog that doesn’t mention women’s issues, coffee, or hiking.

No, I’m not saying that at all, and I no longer think you were asking an honest question.

BTW, I was wrong, Lilly Ledbetter changed the time limits, renewing the limit with each discriminatory paycheck, that’s not random, nor is it holding anyone hostage.

The Fair Pay Act largely deals with other legal technicalities making it slightly easier for women to win a discrimination case and making the penalties a bit more significant, it would still be damned hard to win a wage discrimination case.

“What if a man finds another man is being paid more?” – Now you’re just being dishonest. The question here is discrimination. If you can find something there is discrimination based on and prove that discrimination, then you’ve got a case, if not, you don’t, period.

“Are women truly encouraged not to become doctors and scientists?” That’s the wrong question. The right one is “Are women encouraged to become doctors and scientists to the extent that men are?” and the answer is no, women, on average, are not encouraged to pursue those careers the way men, on average, are. 

 Odd, I thought this was a blog about atheism, not general progressivism.

I think one reason is because the feminist movement truly tries to co-opt the atheist and secular community/movement so fervently.

Seriously. And when you listen to the rhetoric from the feminist side, it is remisniscent of the christian arguments and illogical positions.

Also, there is more of a religious effort to destroy LGBT rights and communities versus women.

That said, yes, the religious community does try to sunjugate and discrimate against woemn, which is vile and reprehensible, but the feminists do themselve no favors in the approach they take with concern to the atheist/secular movement.

All atheists are not feminists, and all feminists are not atheists. Keep them separate.

No society wide cultural force that persecutes women or atheists??
What blissful planet do you live on and how do I get there?

Why is it “whining” when it goes agaisnt your beliefs?

Seriously. If it was in favor, I am betting you would say it was “voicing actively” but when it is against, it is whinning.

Come on Axe, you are better than that.

We may disagree most of the time, but you ARE better than that.

If you drank less coffee, the fly issue would be a far less, erm, pressing concern. 🙂

What is with you and “trolls”. Did you grow up in northern Norway and get molested by trolls? Did you just finsih reading some “Harry Potter”?

Every other word out of your mouth is “troll this” or “troll that”.

Come on, if you are going to play in the sandbox, get some new material.

You are becoming the Rodney Dangerfield around here, only your catchphrase is “Troll”.

 The lack of good research doesn’t make bad research good.  I’ve not been able to find good research on this and nor has anyone has been able to point me to any. 

Of course I haven’t done my own research.  I don’t have access to the data or the means to fund it.

The burden of proof is on those claiming that employers would pay half their workforce 30% more than they have to to get the job done if they didn’t have to.

You can edit it to say something else or expand on a previous point…that’s what I usually do when that happens.

AHHH…AH..AHHHHHHHH….

SEXIST.

You just said HR has more woemn…..AHHHH AH AH AHHHHHHHHHHH….misogynist…..sexist……

Next, you are going to lay claim that nursing has more women….AH AH AHHHHHHHHHHH……

Sexist.

How dare you pollute these waters with facts…..

1) Coffee drinkers and hikers aren’t discriminated against. If there was discrimination in this country against coffee drinkers or hikers because of religious reasons, then it would be a better comparison. And yes, sexism is largely rooted in religion, though in a much more subtle way than homophobia is. 
2) I’m willing to bet that you don’t regularly read every atheist blog you come across. You probably find some too boring, some too off topic, or some that you don’t quite agree with. If this blog doesn’t fit your criteria for a blog that you would want to read regularly, then stop reading it. There are other atheist blogs out there. Also, (I don’t know if you knew this was an option) you don’t have to read every post. 

I’m not moving goal-posts. I am apologizing for calling people trolls when it’s clear they were not trolling.

I’m not sure what more I can say. I was wrong, and I’m sorry.

Have you stopped beating your wife?

That is the basic premise of the “privilege” argument. It cannot be successfully defended against because it is a false dichotomy. No matter how you respond, you are fucked. It is a disingenuous argument and one that further pushes the sides apart instead of trying to find common ground.

Maybe if I had said that all progressive issues are connected, you’d have a point.

I don’t think that’s the premise of the argument, but I do agree that it makes it insufficient as an argument.  Is that evasive enough?

Saying “That’s Privilege!” isn’t in and of itself an argument.  I shouldn’t try to persuade anyone by calling privilege.  I can say it to explain why I think we’re not communicating, but it’s my statement of opinion not, “you should change because I said you’re suffering from privilege”.  As I’ve harped before, arguments need to be falsifiable, and ‘privilege’ is not.

Mea Culpa accepted and now forgotten….but I warn you…..Antarctica is not THAT far away!!!

(my adventuring arse was down there two years ago!)

And as an added bonus, this from reason.com, on the difference between fairness and equality:

http://reason.com/archives/2012/06/06/the-democrats-fairness-canard

The fundamental difference is that atheists in the US are a minority
whereas women in the US are a majority. Putting aside as has already
been pointed out that far less than 40 % of the wage gap are due to
discrimination (the studies exist) the reason why this legislation
did not pass is not that the women are somehow suppressed. It is
because 75 % of the women did not think it to be important enough to
vote accordingly.

OOF!  Wow….just…wow.  Do you think it keeps your butt from falling asleep on those long cycling tours?

I don’t really mind issues of gender equality being talked about on the forum. I’d worry that the misogynistic radfem idiots would show up waving their flags and branding us all as operating under false consciousness, but that would be easy enough to counter – I’d just move on. My biggest bugbear here is the apparently wholesale acceptance of a statistic for no reason other than that it appears on a pretty little chart. TERRIBLE faux pas for a blog that claims to be interested in truth, and from an author who’s the founder of a skeptic organisation. These statistics are the ones pushed by the radfems that pair up with the Christian right on so many issues it’s quite frankly amazing that they manage to still label themselves ‘feminist’ at all without laughing out loud.

For anyone interested, the pay difference is more like 99.8 cents for a woman to every 1 dollar for a man. There are many, many sources that indicate why, but this video’s a decent start.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwogDPh-Sow 

Why is it “whining” when it goes agaisnt your beliefs?

My beliefs?  You mean my belief that Hemant can post whatever the hell he wants on his own frigging blog?

Every baby-eating pic or joke makes me roll my eyes but you don’t hear me whining every time he posts a pic of a baby dressed up like carrot.

If he posts half a dozen things on math you won’t hear me whining “what does this have to do with atheism?”

As Hemant already expressed, if people don’t like what he posts here, they’re under no obligation to keep reading.  Pretty simple. That was my only point.

the radfems that pair up with the Christian right on so many issues

This question will undoubtedly reveal my ignorance, but I’d like to not be ignorant, so I’ll ask it……

can you expand a bit on the “many issues” that radical feminists and the Christian right are in on together?  Because i’m trying to think of some and i’m coming up blank……but I definitely want to hear more if this (depressing) suggestion is true.

Feminism is about equality for women. That is the one thing that all feminists will agree on. They have different opinions about other issues, but that’s fine. Atheism is a lack of belief in gods, but there are also many other issues that are debated within the atheist movement. 

 “there is no society wide cultural force that persecutes women”

Really? this article was about how women are systematically paid less than men when doing the same work. How is that not a society wide cultural force that persecutes women?

So employers are only hiring women because they consider them to be de facto cheap labor? Yeah, that’s not demeaning and insulting. 

It’s not bait and switch. You know, and have known for quite some time, that Hemant and his contributors are interested and like to have dialogues about women’s issues. You know this. The posts are titled, and it’s they’re easily formatted so you can skip the ones you’re not interested in. It’s not a bait and switch, it’s Hemant and his contributors discussing issues that matter to them. Issues that you know matter to them. If it doesn’t matter to you, then skip the post.  Really, how difficult would it be for you to just skip the post instead of coming in every time to whine about the feminists?

 Saying somebody has privilege is not a personal attack/accusation in the same way as asking “have you stopped beating your wife.” People have privilege whether they want to or not. I have white privilege, but I’m also a bisexual woman, so I lose on those counts. Of course, being bi but in a relationship with a man right now, I get to take some advantage (not by any fault of my own) of heterosexual privilege. It’s not an accusation, it’s a statement of fact about how differential treatment of different segments of society. You don’t have to be defensive about being told you have privilege.

Actually, I think that would be a pretty cool thing to read about. I would welcome a post about it on Heman’ts blog.

 “Is it really true that women are encouraged toward more lower-paying fields?”
Yes, from a young age girls are taught to be pretty and passive and are not encouraged to enter STEM fields. Women are encouraged to go into nursing rather than be a doctor. Or be a law assistant instead of a lawyer. There are concerted efforts by many groups to fix this, but it is a societal wide problem. So, even though the local university might send in some people to talk to girls in junior high about a career in engineering or science, that influence still pales in comparison to the messages (conscious and unconscious) they receive everyday that discourage them from those fields.

That doesn’t mean women aren’t systematically margenalized. (that’s why when discussing rights, we talk about the margenalized people, not just the minority. The %1 are certainly a minority, but they are not margenalized.)

Blank? Really?

You should have a look at Ruhama – the Irish charity that ‘works with prostitutes’ and is a huge proponent of the Swedish model for prostitution law. 

A charity that gets government money.

A charity that’s run by the same two orders of nuns that were responsible for the heinous Magdalene Laundries in Ireland.  Their tagline “we have a long history of helping vulnerable women” is just hilarious.

I would change what Franklin said a little – objectification (unless under controlled, mutually consensual circumstances) is abhorrent. Sexualization as a ‘thing’ done to someone is, too. But sexuality – which is at the root of the opposition to pornography, prostitution, the re-telling of scary (and totally fabricated) trafficking myths, etc. is what they really oppose.

They are both about the removal of agency from women. Perhaps for different reasons (though they both think they have knowledge that is unattainable to the rest of us, and are doing ‘what’s best’ for us) but they’re still moving toward the same goals. A future where women will self-censor when it comes to anything sexual whatever. Of course, when the religious realise that radical feminism’s end-goal is a world full of political lesbians and miserable men, they might have a difference of opinion and split. But for now, what’s good for the goose…

 What you say is spot on.  Unfortunately I don’t think anyone else is reading this thread, especially Hemant and the rad-fems.  They’re doing exactly what Christians do – put up shaky “facts” and ignore reason that proves them wrong.

The fact that is STILL UP on a skeptics blog is ruthlessly absurd.