1is2many: The White House’s New PSA About Stopping Violence Against Women

What does this have to do with atheism?

I think it’s a great campaign, but it relates to atheism just as much as news about state laws regulating tattoo shops or the legal drinking age. Everything can be related back to atheism or religion in some way, but I don’t read this blog to get those general news stories.

Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

This is Hemant’s blog, no matter who writes for it (Hi Lauren!). Hemant cares about women’s rights. So if Hemant lets someone write about anything, be it women’s rights, atheism, or magical sea turtles, they can. The great thing about the internet is that you DON’T HAVE TO READ IT!

 Cramming one’s feminist agenda everywhere they go just dilutes it and makes people resent it.

If you curse more maybe I’ll take you even more seriously!

 Doesn’t matter. Hemant lets this junk on his blog without any details.  The last time was the whole fake “women earn 70 cents for every dollar men make” – proven false but Hemant leaves it up to white knight the ladies. 

So you resent women wanting to be treated like human beings.  Got it. 

HA HA YES, “this atheism blog should be about just atheism” = “I hate women.” 

BRILLIANT, Buffy.

 Read the title of the blog post, genius.

A) Asked and answered.

B) Not what you said.  Apparently, speaking up against violence towards women qualifies as “cramming a feminist agenda everywhere.”  Anybody who resents equality for women because of this post is an asshat.

*goes out to dinner at a steakhouse*
Kevin: WOMEN SHOULD BE EQUAL BLEAARGHGHGHGHG
Me: Yes, but I came to this steakhouse for steak, not for feminist social issues.
Kevin: YOU HATE WOMEN!!!!!

Jesus Christ you people are stupid.

 Buffy, I am a professor of history, women’s studies, an Africana-studies.  Garbage that Lauren has been posting is intentionally-misleading nonsense that aims to rile up emotions instead of uncover the rational truth of gender inequality.  The fact that Hemant lets this garbage on his skeptics blog makes me wonder why he does what he does.

But, your “you have a different opinion than me thus you hate me for being a woman and being gay” is fake-victimization at its finest.  Who needs to discuss issues when OMG PEOPLE HATE ME FOR BEING A WOMAN AND GAY.  You’re just as bad as Lauren.

It’s funny how skeptical rationality goes out the window with you when your opinions are threatened.

It would be valid to answer this by talking about humanism… But “Hemant and the other people who write here are humans with diverse interests” really is a valid response. They’re not hired by you to write exclusively on any particular topic.

People get mad when Sean Carroll blogs about atheism because he’s “supposed” to blog about science. The politics site AMERICAblog sometimes posts about medicine or pictures of pet dogs. People have diverse interests. Live with it.

And out come the people questioning the placement of content.

Listen. Hemant is an atheist. A friendly one, at that. And he owns this blog. It’s called the Friendly Atheist, not Stuff That Only Has to Do With Atheism And Owned By A Friendly Atheist. The title of the blog describes the owner (formerly sole author). NOT the content.

If he wants a certain type of content to be put up, then so be it. Don’t like it? There is nothing keeping  you here.

This is why I call these people trolls. They come out of the woodwork, out of lurking, simply to complain about the type of content on a blog that they have no obligation to repeatedly visit.

I have never — and I mean never — complained at any blog I frequent because I had the temerity to presume what kind of content should and should not be in said blog. If I don’t like the content, then guess what? I fucking leave. And I never return. I don’t say a goddamn thing. Because despite my own meaningless, personal issues with the content of the particular blog post in question, someone else might actually want to read it. With that in mind, I stop myself from acting like the Content Police.

Once again: If you don’t think this belongs on this blog, then feel free to keep it to yourself. You will only end up annoying the hell out of people who may actually want to read such content. Nothing is holding you here. Nothing at all.

Lots of atheists eat tacos.  Based on your reasoning, tacos are a salient issue for this blog.  GG.

 Actually, your use of “feminist agenda” gave that part away.

Tell me, Guest Coming Out Of Lurking Just To Complain #4,835… where does it say that the only content allowed on this blog has to has some direct, tangible connection to atheism? Where does it say that no other content is allowed?

Maybe… just maybe… the problem is your own assumptions about what kind of content should and shouldn’t be here. Maybe the problem is that you (and others like you) somehow got it in your heads that this blog should somehow only stick to atheism, and nothing more.

 Perhaps you should spend less time in social justice movements and more time in literacy classes?

Again, why is your personal definition of what should and shouldn’t be on this blog, the only valid one? What makes you think that you know anything about what should or shouldn’t be on this blog?

Feminism is about shouting down every idea around it in every venue it can wiggle into?

Maybe people wouldn’t take you for a misogynist if you’d simply express your skepticism about the material posted rather than going into “GRRR, stop cramming your feminazi agenda down our throats on this atheist blog!!!” mode.   Once you do that it’s pretty hard for you to convince anybody that you aren’t simply a misogynist troll.

Because women aren’t really people, and thus should be compared to food preferences, rather than having the issues which affect fully half of the atheist population discussed on an atheist blog?

Feminism is relevant to atheism because women are atheists.

So you think feminism has nothing to do with atheism, even though pretty much all rationalization for oppressing women comes from religious justification? That modern-day society’s tendency to blame women for sexual harassment/assault isn’t rooted in the religious need to keep women from exercising sexual agency?

You’re a professor, eh. What a waste of fucking money it would be to take your class.

 “Feminism is relevant to atheism because women are atheists.”

Also because religion is a significant contributing factor in misogyny, and–as we’re finding out–sadly atheists are not immune to it.

Something which affects a full half of the atheist population is relevant to atheism. Women aren’t “other.” We’re right here. Not talking about serious and life changing issues which affect half of the people with whom you will be interacting does all of us a disservice.

Do you complain when atheist blogs talk about LGBT advocacy and racism, too?

As a woman, who has finally started identifying myself as an atheist, I appreciate that Lauren, Hemant, and others are covering issues pertaining to women. 

I grew up in a rural part of the Bible Belt and one of the first things that pushed me away from religion were the views about women and what our place in society was suppose to be. I began questioning that in the 6th grade and would not accept that women are less than because some random book said so. Unfortunately, questioning and push back  is not acceptable in Christianity and that often leaves one feeling very alone and on the outside. 

It took me 13 years to finally call myself an atheist and come out to friends and family. I have just started looking into the secular community to decide if I want to be an active participant or not. 

I have been following the recent discussions about women and sexual harassment; I was initially shocked that misogyny and harassment are such a problem, but my biggest concern is how the community is responding to this issue. 

It’s blog posts like this that make women feel more welcome and let women know that we have a place here where we will be treated like human beings instead of a continuation of what we faced in our religious communities.

So thank you Lauren, Hemant, and all the others who are blogging about the issues women face!

Claims of “cramming feminist agenda” along with claiming to be a women’s studies professor…

Please don’t feed the trolling y’all 🙂

I see no reason a companion post couldn’t be made about men. You might consider emailing the author with a request, along with some resources. It may not have occurred to her.

Or why not email Hemant when a story about men who are abused comes up?  Or even better, why not write a post about it and send it to Hemant?

Does this never occur to the people whining about every feminism-related post?

If its not Franklin’s issue then we shouldn’t be bringing it up. It’s unbelievable that Franklin isn’t consulted first on what is or isn’t pertinent to atheism.

I know every time there’s a post about women’s issue the idiot mansplainers come out of the woodwork. “This is not about me! This is not about me!”

Yet again, it is a PERSONAL blog and you don’t have to read it.  If you don’t like it, go somewhere else. Contrary to what you may believe, The Friendly Atheist is not written specifically for you. The readership here has varied interests. What you and “guest” are saying is like if someone opened up USA today, saw an article about Europe’s financial crisis and screamed “THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE USA! WHY DO YOU KEEP PUSHING EUROPE ON ME WITH IT’S COMMIE SOCIALIZED HEALTHCARE AND MONARCHY!!!1!!!”

 I’d like to say that I also really enjoy posts about feminism, as well as LGBT and ‘general news’ type of posts. There’s no reason for this blog to be solely about atheism, and if anyone is truly offended or annoyed by ‘off-topic’ posts, I’m sure they can find an all-atheist blog elsewhere. No matter what the subject matter is, I find that the posts here are generally well-written and well thought out, and the comments usually provide intelligent conversation. That’s why I love this blog.

So yes, just to be vocal, some of us do enjoy having these posts here.

Yes, tacos can be written about on this blog, because Hemant gets to pick what goes on the blog. If Hemant wants to write or have someone write about tacos, they can. Are you finally getting it?

“In the last year, one in 10 teens have reported being physically hurt on purpose by a boyfriend or girlfriend.”

I’d like to toss my voice in here too. There have been feminist types of posts on this blog since I can remember, it’s one of the regular themes of this blog, albeit not the primary of course.  If there were one of those “keyword” or “topic” type lists on the side that told you what this blog was about, I’m almost certain feminism would be in the list.

Moreover, I’ve always appreciated the discussions of feminism specifically within the atheist community. Like all groups, there are good and bad feminism, and we’ve even experienced that here (much of the posting after the elevator incident was far too incendiary to make good discussion until much later after the fact), but on the whole I’ve found that this community has been rather above average in the criticism and discussion of issues revolving about feminism.

For better or for worse (having rather crappy internet here, I cannot watch the video in question to judge it, but it seems from others like there are legitimate criticisms both for and against it, as is the case with most things) this is something that will possibly affect quite a few people in the US, and depending on its success or failure, is something other countries may want to keep an eye on, to possibly try themselves or improve upon. It is perfectly relevant discussion material for our community, which has its fair share of feminist readers.

Honestly, it’s pretty uncommon for a blog to be totally single-minded, and it’s not necessarily an advantage to be so in the first place. If you don’t want to read the feminist posts, there’s no obligation to. If you have some disagreement or criticism of the content of one, by all means, this ought to be a critical community, take part. But to suggest that feminist content oughtn’t be even posted in the first place, as though the very presence of it on this blog is somehow unacceptable, strikes me as a rather silly position to take.

I agree, it is silly, and rather annoying when there are 76 comments on a post and nearly all of them are just arguing about whether the post “belongs” here or not, and not discussing the actual content of the post. When the very first comment is “what does this have to do with atheism?” you can be pretty sure the conversation isn’t gonna go anywhere. There are multiple posts here every day; if one doesn’t interest you, move on to the next one. Why people feel the need to derail the conversation before it even starts, I’ll never understand.

The correct method for dealing with this problem is to admit that women are far more at risk than men of serious domestic violence while accepting that any cases that do happen to men are just as serious as those that happen to women. That way, help will be given equally to those that need it.

Yes, this post is somewhat off topic of the blog, but I decided that posts like these just give me more to debate about, which I love.

For many women, feminism was what led us to atheism. I wouldn’t have started questioning my faith if it wasn’t for the fact that a book that was supposed to be the moral code told me that I couldn’t speak in church, that I should never teach a man, and that I should be completely submissive to my future husband (right next to where it tells slaves to submit to their masters, even if their masters are abusive).
Feminism led me to question the things that I had been taught all my life. When I first started talking to people on an atheist forum, I shared my story, including a lot of my feminist thoughts. I had been so used to being shut down by people everywhere else on the internet whenever I brought feminism up and I was expecting people to respond negatively and shut me down. I was absolutely shocked when they responded completely positively and laughed at all the stupid things Christians teach about female submission.

It’s interesting that after years of assuming that atheists were a hateful group of people, they turned out to be the most accepting, kind people I had ever met. Everywhere else I tried to talk about women’s rights, I was automatically shut down and insulted, but these people actually listened to me. Now I find it extremely disappointing that people are coming here just to point out that this stuff isn’t relevant. Maybe it’s not relevant to you or how you became an atheist, but it is very relevant to women and what led them to atheism. My favorite thing about the atheist community is their acceptance and how much they care for other groups of people. Now it seems like some people want to make sure that women only feel welcome and cared about in groups that are meant for women. While you’re at it, let’s make sure that minorities can only discuss racism when they’re on a blog about racism. Let’s make sure that gays can only discuss gay issues when their on LGBT blogs. Let’s make sure that everyone knows their place and we keep this a proper straight, white, middle class, male, friendly atheist blog and keep the whining and bitching out so these straight white males don’t feel threatened.

 *sigh*

Alright, here’s the deal. I am a woman, and I am an atheist. Amazingly enough, it is incredibly difficult for women atheists to deal with atheist issues while being beaten unconscious and/or until we are dead. Yes, it’s true: if you want women in the atheist movement, you can’t just ignore us while we’re screaming on the floor as someone rapes and/or murders us. I know that some people would prefer that we simply wear long sleeved shirts to cover our wounds and makeup to disguise our bruises so that we can be pretty eye candy at conferences, but it’s really hard to smile adoringly at you when our teeth have been knocked out, and it’s also really hard to make you a sandwich with a cast covering our broken arms.

So! What does it have to do with atheism? It has to do with the fact that women are atheists, and as such, issues that impact women also impact atheists. Hell, even if the woman in question isn’t an atheist, she’s probably someones sister, lover, wife, daughter, friend, mother, cousin, boss, employee . . . well, you get the idea, or at least I hope you do.

With this in mind, maybe next time you hear or see a woman being assaulted, you could call the cops or something, not just hurry on by as you rush to give a speech about how people use the Bible to support treating women poorly.

Or not! I suppose you could just go and bemoan the fact that the Bible says that rape victims have to marry their rapist while ignoring the cries of the woman who is getting raped in the closet behind you. Either way. Who am I to judge?

RE comments on “on topicness”: It’s Hemant’s blog. Yes, the broader topic is Atheism. But does it really matter if he, or the other awesome contributors, go on tangents once in awhile? 

Further, seeing people writing on womens’ issues makes me feel more welcome here. It means that I, and other women, matter to you guys. It’s a form of support. (Although that might just be me. I don’t know.) 

If you don’t want to read posts about feminism, skip the post. It’s not that hard. 

I’m a woman, too. Fancy that. 🙂

You are absolutely right, Ben. Most gender-egalitarians (people who believe in equality regardless of gender) would never call themselves “feminists” for the reasons you mention, and also because of a long history of misandry (hatred of men) shown by many prominent representatives of feminism.

Given that the atheist community is facing issues of sexual harrassment at conferences recently and debating and discussing sexism in general lately, I can understand why Hemant and his writers are bring women’s rights issues to the attention of their readers – they are trying to discuss current issues with their readership and given the discussion about sexual harassment at atheist events recently, I see this as relevant.