of the public complains that their "freedumb" is under attack. And their sheeple seem to believe it.

astounding, actually.

Unfortunately, atheism's public perception has been suffering from the old white straight guy blinders that many of the "leaders" (I dislike the term they use) have. It will be good to have women coming out more. In particular, it will be good to have women chiming in on conversation about inherent misogyny in the main religions. That is not a conversation that should be held without their input.

Edit to add I abaolutely love Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She is such a strong woman, and really knows what she is talking about. She is someone I would glad to hear more from--her perceptions are different from the old guard, and no less because of it. She has some fascinating insights into our world and our society, and various intersectionalities. And Sarah Silverman is hilarious. I would have liked to see her take over the Daily Show.

Edit 2: yeah, except for her attacks on atheists. Those get annoying--same crap we here from the right all the time.

This is not true.


It''s a false meme that people who dislike atheists speaking up have planted and many people seem eager to believe.

Have made quite a few misogynistic comments. That is not up for debate. (I admit I don't know about Dennet).

Whether we like it or not, they represent atheism for a large number of people, and that public perception does affect us. I agree that it is false, because misogyny is not caused by atheism, but on the other hand, the most prominent atheists are all older, white, straight men, and they are subject to the same cultural and societal problems that come with that. They have made explicitly misogynistic comments in the past, and you do yourself no credit attempting to deny it. Their misogyny does not reflect on you or on atheists, but on themselves.

I know you disagree, and I'm not interested in arguing about it, so I will be hopping out of this thread now.

It's a media thing so that they can get clicks and sell magazines when they shake their head at the 4. It's all bullshit. Sadly, too many people fall for it.

I'm not aware of where the term came from. I always liked it, but I won't use it in the future.

That said, there have been numerous times they have been misogynistic. I will stand by that. No, it is not because of atheism. At all. But denying they have been and are to some extent misogynists is not helpful in solving serious societal issues.

And yes, I am aware of bigger problems with other people, and that they are very strong humanists. Besides the point.

I'll deny they're misogynists all day long:

Yes, I'm a Dictionary Atheist. Also probably an Asshole Atheist.

You're telling me Dawkins hates that woman who happens to be his daughter? That the so-called Horsemen likewise hate their wives, sisters, daughters, etc.? And where does that leave the New 4th Horseperson (according to some), Ayaan Hirsi Ali?

Utter and complete bullshit.

Translation: they've occasionally said some things that pissed off some people on the Internet. And those people immediately reach for the "misogyny" club. Exactly the same way some DU Xians automatically reach for the "racist" club when any atheist criticizes Muslims.

BTW - since you're so sure they've said "misogynistic" things, how about linking to a few? IAW the definition up there, not "arguing with women" or "criticizing women," but displaying a HATRED of women.

Apologies, I have been misusing the term. I mean sexism. I changed it in at least one of the posts here.

noun
noun: disdain; plural noun: disdains

1.
the feeling that someone or something is unworthy of one's consideration or respect; contempt.
"her upper lip curled in disdain"


I think it is a form of hatred.

Hitchens qualifies as a misogynist in my book...he had terrible mommy issues.

&spfreload=10


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But I will be watching them again tonight. 4 brilliant men. Was watching a Hitchen's debate a few days ago, and I could listen to him talk all day long. So incredibly insightful.

Yes it is.

in religious institutions, well it's not pretty. Strange how one side gets all the blame for misogyny, while the other gets a pass.

I will call out sexism whenever I see it. Same as for Dem/Repub. I don't care who does more; if they do it, I'm not having any part of it.

And please don't say I'm giving religion a pass for misogyny. That's disingenuous, and really quite stupid.

I can see how this might be interpreted as a distraction from bigger issues in religion. But this post wasn't about religion, it was about women in atheism, so I responded as such.

Jesus, people, if we defend (edit)sexism, we are never going to progress. Yes, religion has more. Yes, the relative sexism of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris is small. But it's still there, and denying it is not going to help.

and it's a bit like the "When did you stop beating your wife" question. Once it's out people will talk about it and then fit words to make it true.There are women in atheism, but they get ignored by the media so they can instead talk about how sexist atheists are. The atheist who got prayer out of the classroom, and who was murdered for it was a woman. The four horsemen have said some unfortunate things, but they could not be described as sexist (I dunno about hitchens) Dawkins has made accommodations for mothers at conventions, Harris (who they love to misquote and slander) has directly addressed this problem.

Atheism doesn't have a women/minority problem, the media says we do, so people believe it. A certain group of men, some of who identify as atheist, have made it their life's mission to ruin women of any type, and of course we get the blame for it, never mind that their misigony is rooted in millena of religious standards.

This whole thing is a distraction from the sexism that is enshrined in religion (almost all of which are patriarchys, like literally that's how they run) Imagine if every time there was an article of the pope they smeared him like they do Dawkins. Or any time they talked about religion in the papers they tossed in a smear at the pope. That's what we're talking about. The sexism problem in atheism is mostly because there is a disproportionate amount of talk about it. That's what we're standing up against.

This article doesn't help either, they should simply be promoting women in atheism without dragging down men. like "If you thought there were no women in atheism, you were wrong!" kind of thing, not repeat the meme about how sexist atheists are.

I disagree that the four horseman are not sexist. They have shown a consistent pattern of sexism, despite the media inflation. I agree with the rest of your post, and in particular the last paragraph, but I'm not interested in discussing this any more. Apologies if my posts were considered too much for this group.

No they haven't.

I will try to make my case better then. I don't really want to put it here, as I do support them. It's not a priority at the moment, so it may be a while. Either way, I do think they are good people, just that they are men who are subject to the same cultural influences most men are. I have a lot of respect for them.

Apologies if you think my posts have been over the top--I realize my misuse of the word misogyny has not helped.

No need for that. I don't think you are over the top.... just expressing what many many others have said and it is a meme that has been pushed quite a bit.

But I think bluntness and a non-sentimental (not really the right word) delivery is being mistaken for sexism and misogyny. I'm quite sure tho' that all these guys work with women, and know women are no less capable and vital than any man. It's merely that everyone's been told they are sexist and so it is looked for and inserted into statements and arguments they make.... especially about controversial and emotional topics.

In part, I'm far more used to seeing older white men have problems with sexism than I am people in general with atheism.

Horrible sentence structure, but I think it makes sense.

Anyways, I will go do my research on this properly. I may very well change my mind, and if I do, apologies to the four horsemen, who even if they are mildly sexist are some of the most intelligent, insightful, and honest men I have heard.

Appreciate the conversation, it's always good to have my viewpoint challenged.

Edit: oops, promised not to use the four horsemen term...but it just sounds so badass I can't help myself. Also I like the idea that they're the ones bringing hell to all the Christians lol.

and who have worked closely with them for years? Or read or heard what such women say about how these men have acted towards them and treated them on a daily basis?

Is that what you base your claim of "a consistent pattern of sexism" on? And if not, don't you think that your claim lacks something important if it doesn't include that perspective?

What I'm trying to say is that while some sexist things have been said, they aren't significantly more sexist than society in general, and probably, if examined, do what they can to make up for that. But the way they are talked about you'd think they have said that women should be slaves to men.

The attention to their sexism is far inflated and is doing more to drag down the movement and is forcing other atheists to either splinter the whole group into "good" and "bad' or to defend something indefensible, instead of being able to work on internal problems while putting on a united front. Meanwhile the Patriarchy gets to keep trucking with' it's anti-women rules, because DAWKINS!!1!

I do see where you are coming from, and I think that Hitchens did have that problem, he was a little too far to the right, but in his later years he did start to realize his errors. But the rest don't especially deviate more than an average person on the street.

Everyone is sexist to some degree, including Dawkins. Everyone has said, thought or done things with regard to the opposite sex that are less than admirable. In some cases, it's just harmless jokes and banter, and in some cases, things more offensive. The real question is whether the behavior of Dawkins (or anyone else at whom such an accusation is leveled) is so far beyond the pale that it can't be accepted in decent society.

As noted, people who make such accusations of sexism might, if they were actually being fair, want to take into account how someone actually speaks and behaves towards women in their everyday lives. Lacking that fairly important information (as is apparently the case here), a little re-examination might be in order.

I'm sexist, you're sexist *fades away in a cloud of misogyny leaving only a fedora*

No matter how hard we try we all pass over the line, but are fortunate to not have a lens on our lives waiting for anything that could be taken as offencive. Much of the things we might say that is offencive is usually done unknowingly to us. And for someone like Dawkins where very single thing he says is harshly rebuked by people who say they're offended, it's probably harder for him to learn what is and isn't really offencive.

And I think you're right.

I honestly tend to forget that the average person is not usually great in these respects. I tend to hang around people who are very aware of these issues. With the constant media hype on them, I think I fell for some of it. I looked into it more, and despite the fact that there were certainly things they said that I strongly disagreed with, I don't think any of them were that bad. Especially when compared to the people they are up against.

The four of them are also incredible humanists. I think they've done more to advance the rights of people in general, and even women, than most people realize. Simply coming out strongly against religion is a big start.

Thanks for helping me understand a bit more--I'll keep learning.

and thank you for continuing the discussion, it made me really think about it and realize what really stuck out about sexist atheist meme, I think everyone learned this week.

Tempers run red hot in this room, I just hope we can stand the heat when we truly disagree (I mean, just look at what happened when we agreed!)

He's one of my favourite DUers, you can see why.

You rock too, Lq!

I honestly did not know that. I'm always told of god's wonderful love and how he will guide me through life, but now I find out everyone who believes this hates me? It's all so confusing.

Guess I'll just crawl back into my cocoon of atheist hate.

He's gonna miss you when you're frying in Hell like a Twinkie at the Kansas State Fair! But that's all part of his Love...It's Tough Love.

"lifelong atheist. Not afraid of burning in hell." Screw their tough love.

"when you're frying in Hell like a Twinkie at the Kansas State Fair!"

LOVE this!!! Sure gets the point across! LOVE it!!!!

I love that one! Makes me laugh every time I see it, and I have to sit and watch it for several rotations!

Here: Enjoy!!!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018750193

Thank you! Very cute birdies!

Spring has truly sprung ...

But I think it's a distinction without a difference, when murderers score more trusted than us. I'd accept 'hated' as a valid synonym.

No, it couldn't.

Hitchens may have been a bit misogynous.... but the other two are not. And I don't think any of them "hate" women or think they are inferior. I know Dawkins often says things plain and simple without any need to read between the lines.... but that doesn't stop people who don't like him from reading between the lines even when there's nothing there to read.

And how many women have written books and made films and debated the subject of atheism (the article's point)


And of course.... are they as misogynous as any religion? Talk about having "a problem hiding their misogyny"!!!

Wait to you hear about some of those religious traditions. I mean really? killing girls for going to school? Murdering women who have sex out of wedlock. Cutting off a woman's clitoris. Having more than one wife as if women are just interchangeable parts. Having to hide a woman's hair, arms, legs, face, breasts, and body because it is evil, too sexual or just plain bad.

Oh come on, atheism doesn't hold a candle to the out right hatred of women found in almost all religions.

Sexism is not misogyny and Dawkins isn't guilty of either.

I would have rec'd this if not for that idiotic meme. (Remember the thunderf00t bullshit on DU - atheists who fail at humanity?)

Describing herself as not only atheist - but a "libertarian anarchist."

Heads should be exploding all over DU about now. Will the Lib'rul Xian contingent be flinging the same insults at her as they do some male atheists and Libertarians? Stuff like "greedy misogynistic Liber-turd?"

Ah! Thompson is a small-L libertarian. That will probably make all the difference. Since there are Good Atheists and Bad Atheists, I guess now we'll see some parsing about Good Libertarians and Bad Libertarians.

And she's also British, so possibly unaware of what "Libertarian" means in the USA right now.

The article wasn't too bad, but I could have done without the usual swipes at Dawkins & Co.

And it seems to concentrate mostly on celebrities. No mention of the many other women who are leaders in the atheist community: Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists for years. Or the mother/daughter Gaylor team, founder and current president of FFRF. Etc. Etc.

Oh, that doesn't fit the "male leaders only" narrative, so we'll just ignore it...

She supports the Labour Party and Greenpeace. She's probably using the term in the old-fashioned civil-liberties sense.

Yes, there actually are good and bad libertarians: economic libertarianism (what used here to be called 'laissez-faire economics' and is sometimes called 'classical liberalism') is bad; civil libertarianism is good, and, contrary to some economic rightists' propaganda is not dependent on economic libertarianism. Indeed, IMO, the opposite is true. As I've said a few times on DU, social liberalism/ civil libertarianism without economic protection is only social liberalism/ civil libertarianism for those above a certain income. Being afraid to speak your mind or act unconventionally out of fear of being thrown out to freeze and starve on the street is no better than, or very different from, being afraid to speak your mind or act unconventionally out of fear of being put in prison..

Haven't seen you around here for a while, but it's always great to see your username.

Thanks for the good explanation. Here in the USA, the Libertarian Party has been described as "right-wing Republicans who want to smoke dope." AFAIK, they tend to be mostly economically conservative but socially liberal.

In the USA atheist/agnostic community, some prominent people like Penn Jillette and Michael Shermer identify as libertarians.

I'm not really sure what sort of libertarians they are. But I'm one of those cranky people who'd rather keep atheism away from politics as much as possible. After years of having to explain why all atheists are not Stalinists...

ETA - I was just having some fun with the heads-exploding idea. However...some people in Other DU Groups seem to be operating on a hair-trigger right now (and they'd probably say the same about this group). If they see someone self-describing as "libertarian," they might not take time to understand the context before Going Medieval on the term itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Michel

I just finished reading her autobiography, which includes
some of her speeches and her court testimony.

I stumbled across her while I was reading about convict relocations in and around Australia....

She was truly someone who walked the walk!

In guessing between An-Com and An-Cap, I would have guess An-Cap, but she might be in one of the smaller middle camps like the labor An-Syn's.

And the funny thing is, both groups insist the other is impossible/does not exist. Anarcho-communists and anarcho-capitalists waving their Red/Black and Gold/Black flags at each other, trying to get each other's wiki pages deleted.

If I had to guess though, I would suspect Emma Thompson to be closer to the gold/black camp.

they ditched Church Doctrine,,,,,,big difference

It really isn't useful to compare the best of one thing with the worst of another. Where would we be if we didn't have the religious based morals of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King?

Oh, wait a minute...

Just because they may claim their morals come from some religion (did they?) doesn't mean they wouldn't have been just as moral had they been atheists. And, of course, Lincoln COULDN'T be an atheist and get elected. I'm sure it was even worse than today in the 19th century for such things. King's world in the 50s and 60s is also much more aggressive against atheists than today.

There's no reason to believe their morals are "religious based".... and of course their oppositions also claimed their morals had religion behind then as well.


Morals and religion have little to do with each other in reality. But of course in the 19th century and in the black communities of the 1950s, that was not the zeitgeist.

But atheists didn't fit the narrative of all those church-going Xians leading the civil rights struggle. So they were sidelined and forgotten:

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2012-02-22/black-atheists-civil-rights/53211196/1

If I start a fire, then come back to put it out, am I a hero?

Mr. Lincoln burned many of his early writings on the subject.

He was known to credit his stepmother for his morals, not GAWD.

Where would we be? Civil war would have been over a lot sooner without
the excuse of "Ham" to support slavery.

"Religion is the opiate of the people." What I don't understand is what passes for religion these days. Lunatics somehow find feeble minded people who will follow them based on nothing but lies. Most religions have become cults for idiots.

- Mark Twain

Last edited Wed Apr 15, 2015, 06:32 PM - Edit history (2)

Sarah Siverman incorrectly defined atheism and insulted us on Huffpo (because she's superior to both theists and atheists, she's an agnostic, don'cha know? ):




This is a silly article that will be used by anti-atheists to spread the "atheism's sexism/misogyny problem" meme.

In real life, I don't go to any large meetings of atheists. I have been
involved in smaller, local groups. They are usually run by, surprise, women!

Also, any atheist event I have attended has had equal amounts of men and women.
Almost all of the atheists I know in real life are women.

How come this article didn't include views from women like Ellen Johnson,
Annie Laurie Gaylor, Margaret Downey, Gloria Steinhem and Susan Jacoby!

As for the 4 Horsemen:

I think that Hitchens was a brilliant, misogynist narcissist.
I have read almost everything he wrote and I am in his debt
for his courageous defense and explanation of atheist thought.
He is not my god!

I don't care for Sam Harris. I think he was on the wrong side of the
Iraq war, along with Hitchens.

I think Dennet is lovely.

Regarding Dawkins....I'd hit it!
Love him. Twitterverse is tricky to navigate.
He may, for all of his wisdom and intelligence,
be only able to view reality from a male-centric
viewpoint. Who knows?
I don't think he hates or disdains women.

This question:

The author apparently just concentrated on celebrity women atheists, an even smaller sub-set than "women atheists."

My experience at atheist/skeptics meetings agrees with yours. Though I also have limited experience. I used to go to occasional meetings of the SS. ALERTERS - that's an abbreviation for "Skeptics Society." GOTCHA! Quite a few women in attendance or speaking from the podium, etc.

Back in 2010, someone wrote an article asking "Where are all the women atheists?" And got a response entitled "Right Here!" from Jennifer McCreight. She put together a long, long list of women atheist leaders. It's still available online.

On the homepage for Atheist Ireland, that organization maintains a list of 1,500 women willing to speak at meetings, etc. That introduced me to some women I'd never heard of who had interesting things to say. Many of them from outside the USA.

And on that note - over at AI, someone recently accused its leadership of the old standby, "misogyny." A good chunk of AI's leadership are women, and they didn't let that pass. Nor should they.

But AI has tangled with the IRA in Northern Ireland, and the virtual theocracy of the Catholic Church in the Irish Republic over abortion and related issues. So I don't think they are very intimidated by an Internet loudmouth denouncing them.

There are a couple of small groups that I attend if the speakers are interesting,
but I don't go anywhere on the reg.... not really a "member".

I met Dawkins at a CFI author dinner. He signed a copy of "The Magic of Reality" for me.
He seemed very nice.

There were some Dawkins groupies at my table...very funny women, very crazy about Mr. Dawkins!

I have never been made to feel,at any of these gatherings, that my opinions were marginalized because I was a woman.

Then again, I don't run with the "big boys" in meetings in DC or wherever....so there may be some misogyny at the top.
There usually is, in ANY "leadership" situation.

My mom, for one. She used to be a protestant when she was young, but she got better. One might say she's also an agnostic, but without active belief in god or god(s), she's an atheist as well.

Hitchens was actively sexist. Promulgated it. Perhaps his intent was to rankle and challenge women to exercise their voices, but that's a charitable hope on my part with little evidence to support it. So, on that issue, I found his behavior, and his claims to be deplorable. Much like his position on the Iraq war, and the war drums he beat on the road to it. But he's dead now, and I am free, as I always was, to take what I deem his good ideas and run with those, and simultaneously discard his mistakes, or, even learn from them so they are not repeated.