Responses to requests, demands, and criticism in the blogosphere in recent months has prompted a great deal of discussion, most of it terribly unproductive. In fact, most of it has been downright silly – a childish back-and-forth which, to an outsider, might appear to be violent agreement. In other words, camps do not appear to disagree, in general, about foundational issues, yet the bloodshed continues. Need I provide examples? I don’t think so*.

I hate to harp on a point (I really do), but oversimplification and shallow treatment of issues appears to be at the source of so much of the animosity that I think that rational discussion could be had if a short checklist were followed which included keeping one’s mind open to the possibility the other person is not evil simply because they criticized something or failed to submit to demands.

I am short on time and not prepared to discuss “Atheism Plus” in detail at the moment, but the discussion of it provides an excellent example or two that I think provide some insight into how discussions devolve into battles.

First, there is a slippery slope involved which is accelerated by crowd behavior and by unproductive reactions to criticism. We may, for example, start with a civil discussion about whether or not gender disparity in local groups can be attributed to a barrage of unwanted sexual attention women may receive at meet-ups. A number of views will be expressed, some with comments about their own experiences:

Person A: “I don’t do that.”

Person B: “I’ve been groped at meet-ups and it made me feel powerless and alone.”

Person C: “That’s never happened to me.”

Person D: “I think we should ban people who do that kind of thing.”

Person E: “So, I can’t ask a woman out at a meet-up?”

Person F: “Wait, I go to meet-ups to meet men and I like it when they grab me. I can take care of myself and I don’t want that behavior banned.”

Person G: “I’m not going to attend meet-ups anymore if people think that groping is okay.”

…and so on.

None of these views should shut down discussion. The refusal to concede that one’s own view may not be “right” is what turns discussions like these into battles of wills. Note that the original talking point was simple and there are small steps away from it as people talk rather than listen or make assumptions about what was said rather than ask for clarification. Those small steps add up. One day, a woman casually asks that men put a little more thought into when and how they proposition women and a few months later dozens of people are painting everyone who doesn’t support a rather specific call to action as a misogynist or ‘gender traitor’ while some of those called misogynists and gender traitors have dismissed the original problem altogether. This helps no one.

Those promoting “A+” have painted critics with a broad brush; we are “haters” who are “against social justice”. A post by Greta Christina on the issue of inclusiveness provides some insight:

An atheist movement cannot be inclusive of atheist women… and also be inclusive of people who publicly call women ugly, fat, sluts, whores, cunts, and worse; who persistently harass them; who deliberately invade their privacy and make their personal information public; and/or who routinely threaten them with grisly violence, rape, and death.

An atheist movement cannot be inclusive of atheists of color… and also be inclusive of people who think people of color stay in religion because they’re just not good at critical thinking, who blame crime on dark-skinned immigrants, who think victims of racial profiling deserved it because they looked like thugs, and/or who tell people of color, “You’re pretty smart for a…”.

In addition to holding up the reprehensible behavior of a few trolls as representative of the community as a whole, these statements are so full of subtext that they cry out for scrutiny. There are clearly false dichotomies buried in there as many of the proponents of A+ and many of their readers have expressed the desire not simply exclude the asshats who “publicly call women ugly” or “who deliberately invade their privacy”, but also anyone who dares to question whether such things have actually happened in given situations.

As has been said many times, we should be charitable when someone’s meaning is not entirely clear – give them the benefit of the doubt when we have little evidence of malice. This requires empathy. It requires us to resist defensive reactions and reconsider our views when we realize that we have failed in that regard.

Greta also notes that to provide a safe space for people of color, they must exclude “people who think people of color stay in religion because they’re just not good at critical thinking”. I found this particularly interesting in light of the fact that the belief that everyone with faith in a deity of some sort is “not good at critical thinking” is a widespread view among atheists (and skeptics, unfortunately). PZ Myers, one of the founders/owners of FreeThoughtBlogs said  this of the religious in a debate a few months ago (one I urge you all to watch: http://youtu.be/ZsqqFpWh7m8 ): “There’s something wrong with their braaains!”

It may be that Greta meant to refer to those who claim that people of color are generally poor critical thinkers and this explains lower rates of atheism. However, the math does not add up. Try constructing a syllogism from these statements. The proportion of believers in the population of people of color is higher than the general population. Believers are poor critical thinkers. Therefore…

So, who is right? Well, neither is right. Or correct.

Out of curiousity, I watched a recording of a few people discussing “Atheism+” [A+]. Much of this particular discussion involved defending the approach of A+ and suggesting that critics are somehow against social justice in general. I won’t got through the entire discussion; many of the arguments were straw men, which are not relevant. However, many were based on unsupported assertions (assumptions) and that is directly relevant.

One of the participants, Debbie Goddard (of CFI On Campus) attempted to address real criticisms rather than discuss those straw men and from her comments the disagreements became more clear. At one point, Stephanie Zvan criticized skeptics for ignoring evidence, noting that “We have mountains of evidence that ‘treating people equally’ is not treating people equally.” Debbie clarified this by expressing her belief that “color-blindness” is wrong.

That is when I realized that what they are talking about here are legitimate and rational disagreements over how to approach social injustices.

Legitimate and rational disagreements. Meaning that neither view is so well-supported that they can claim to know what’s best.

Yet people attempting to discuss these things rationally have been vilified and views have polarized. And the people who were speaking in this recording were doing so with such certainty that they were “right” that they failed to see that legitimate and rational disagreement was even possible.

And this has happened with many on both sides of the issue with most of the ‘dust ups’ in the community. I think a lot of the problem lies in treating these topics as simple when, in fact, they are not. As Ron Lindsay stated in a recent post on A+:

Social justice is great. After all, who’s against social justice? It’s when one starts to fill in the details that disagreements arise.

And it’s the details that matter here.

There are some who argue that, because minorities are at a disadvantage due to a history of oppression, they require special protection in order to reach equality. There are others who argue that such protection is both unnecessary and racist/sexist/___ist in and of itself. And there is a full spectrum of positions in the grey area in between these two views. 

What Stephanie claimed is that science tells us that the first view is “right”. Her certainty in that conclusion is clear from the video. Yet, she is wrong – sort of.

There are three details that we should consider. I am going to ignore one which comes from that grey area because it is extremely complicated, and that is the question of whether equal opportunity or equal outcome should be the goal. In other words, what “equality” means [If you claim that the answer to that question is no-brainer, you are making my point]. The other two major issues are the evidence for the claim and the evidence which suggests the best courses of action to correct injustices, which is the whole reason for asking the question in the first place.

We all know that stereotypes exist and that racism, sexism, any-ism, are alive and well in our society. And there is plenty of evidence that implicit biases exist. In fact, they are impossible to eliminate. We favor people whom we view as “like us” in many different ways. Depending on one’s definition of “ingroup” in a given context, we favor those who fit it. However, we are capable of making choices and taking actions which render such favor powerless. We are capable of overcoming these biases just as we are capable of overcoming other cognitive biases. Not eliminating, overcoming.

So science tells us that we have implicit biases which require a special effort on our part to overcome. Stephanie is right, no?

Not so fast.

Science may be able to tell us if affirmative action has contributed to the huge reductions in racism and related outcomes which have occurred in recent decades, but it cannot tell us if affirmative action is a good idea today simply based on the knowledge that we need to make a conscious effort to overcome biases. Even the first question is difficult to assess confidently, but I suspect it can be done and I suspect that the answer will be, “Yes. Yes, it has.”

But this is an extremely complex issue and it is further complicated by the fact that we all have dog in the race. We all care about it because we all identify with one or more of those man made categories we sum up as the variable “race”.

My personal views about special protection are like most of my political views (this IS a political issue, after all): very centrist. I believe that we need to pay attention to things like gender parity if we are interested in decreasing it. I am not convinced, however, that quotas are entirely appropriate in all situations. And if you think that science has the answer to whether my views are “correct”, I challenge you to prove so.

And here’s where I say that in my view, both Stephanie and Debbie are wrong. What I won’t do is reject their views outright and wonder why they can’t just see the truth that I think is written in “mountains of evidence”. I won’t do that because, although I am confident in my own conclusions, I am open to the possibility that I am wrong about this very complex, emotionally-charged issue.

Why I think they are wrong:

The goal is not to place blame for disparities, but to reduce them. If the major source of disparity is discrimination, then the act of discriminating needs to be reduced. Science does provide us with information which is useful in efforts to reduce interracial and other inter-group tensions. What the evidence suggests is not the multiculturalism approach that Debbie believes is best, but what she rejected: color-blindness (and gender-blindness, etc.). Or perhaps a better term would be color-not-noticing, but that doesn’t roll of the tongue very well.

We all have multiple identities. I am a woman, a scientist, an educator, a skeptic, an activist, a blogger, etc. There are always people with whom I share some identities and not others. When the context focuses on a specific value or identity, those with whom I share that value or identity are part of my ingroup. Ingroup/outgroup classification changes with context, but some are more flexible than others.

Decades of applied research has failed to demonstrate that interracial tension in schools can be reduced by increasing discussions of cultural differences and celebrating diversity. This should not be surprising given the mountains of research that Stephanie mentioned about ingroup/outgroup mentality. Attention to differences increases that tension.

What reduces the tension? Focus on similarities, seeing people as part of the ingroup and ignoring the differences which are present in a given context. Reducing the amount of “othering” we engage in. The best way to do that is to focus on commonalities. For example, the work that Chris Stedman, author of a soon-to-be-release book entitled Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious  does has been criticized by PZ Myers and others because it brings people of different religious affiliations (and none) together to work toward common prosocial goals. Just yesterday a group of interfaith activists (as they call themselves) spent the day picking up trash on a beach to make it safer and cleaner.

Am I suggesting that people suppress parts of themselves about which they are proud? Let me make this clear: Hell, no. 

If that is what you’re taking from this post, you need to look outside of yourself and try to see the bigger picture. What I am saying is that my gender identity should have zero bearing on whether I am hired for a job or asked to speak at a conference or viewed as a sexual object in a professional context. Does that mean that I should not be proud to be a woman? Of course not.

Interfaith work does not suggest that people ‘check their religion at the door’, either. The work benefits more than just the likelihood that they will accomplish common goals.  Working together exposes each participant to people with whom they both share ideology and differ in ideology. Focus on the common ideology reduces the tensions caused by differences in other views and that reduction spreads to the differences themselves.

For example, a 2009 Gallop Poll result which most will find unsurprising is that people are much, much less likely to oppose same-sex marriage if they know someone who is gay/lesbian. There are certainly problems with drawing causal conclusions from such a study, but the effect is large and the findings are consistent with many lines of research which converge.

As I stated before, this is a complex issue. You may completely disagree with my argument, but to dismiss it altogether would be ludicrous, not to mention closed-minded and, dare I say it?, anti-intellectual.

I prefer to be recognized for my work rather than patronized because I am female. You may not see the issues the way I do, but calling me a misogynist for that disagreement is not only outrageous, it’s insulting and wrong.

When you speak with such certainty about how right and moral you are in relation to your critics without considering the possibility that you may be missing a nuance or two, you cannot hold any sort of moral or intellectual high ground.

My purpose here is not to argue about the topic of social justice, but to make the point that certainty, particularly about moral questions, is something we all need to be careful about. Too much (more than what is warranted) and it gets in the way of rational discussion. Too much and it divides people when no division is necessary. Too much and it is counterproductive. Too much and it is not confidence; it’s arrogance.

NOTE: Before you start commenting that Atheism Plus is about “allowing these discussions” because nobody else will, let me remind you that nobody ever said that discussions about evidence were outside the scope of Skepticism (one of the primary reasons put forward for the founding of A+) just because they relate to issues of social justice. In fact, quite the opposite is true and I think that this post is a good example of how science and skepticism can be applied to those areas.

*For those not following the ‘rationalist’ blogosphere, I apologize for my lack of links to the incidents I mentioned here. Frankly, there are too many and it’s difficult to know where to start or to choose one link which clearly demonstrates what’s happened. It seems to me that one does not need the background information to understand the example, but I cannot tell for certain.

I was hoping to kick-start this blog with a highly critical review (AKA, rant) about the BS spouted by two members of a panel at the World Atheist Convention. The four-person panel all made reasoning errors, the severity of which ranged from ‘not even notable or worthy of criticism’ (Rebecca Watson) all the way to ‘so ironic, hypocritical, and irrational that I can see why atheists are so hated’ (AronRa). I may still get to this at some point, but I have been sidetracked by something else and I am highly motivated to write about it instead.

So here I am, about to do something that may shock a few people who have read my criticisms of her in the past. I am about to stand beside Rebecca Watson.

While reading James Croft’s review of the CFI Student Leadership Conference, mostly to find out how the agenda, which focused on activism (especially the featured talk by Desiree Schell) was received, I got to this:

The skeptical twitterverse has been buzzing with criticism of Watson’s talk due to her singling out a specific member of the movement by name and critiquing them in her talk.

Well, that got my attention. A talk about sexism (Watson’s topic was the Republican War on Women) in which she names names? Curiosity took over and I popped over to Twitter for a look. The first thing that caught my eye was this post by an attendee. I watched the video in which Rebecca describes her experience at the WAC after the same panel I was planning to write about. Essentially, after a day in which she publicly discussed her experiences with sexism and after making it clear that she was tired and wanted to go bed, she had (from her post on the matter):

…an unpleasant encounter I had with a fellow atheist that I thought might serve as a good example of what men in our community should strive to avoid – basically, in an elevator in Dublin at 4AM I was invited back to the hotel room of a man I had never spoken to before and who was present to hear me say that I was exhausted and wanted to go to bed.

In other words, he just didn’t get it.

I initially skipped the reply from a blogger in order to get an understanding of what any of this had to do with naming names at the CFI Conference. Then I got the gist: It seems that Rebecca quoted (and named) this blogger at the beginning of her talk, knowing that the blogger was in the audience. A blogger who’d criticized her. On a public blog.

The rest of the post recounted the discussion among some of the conference attendees that followed the talk. I found most of it somewhat disturbing, but I have to say that there was a part that made me laugh out loud (bold mine):

The primary response to the incident seemed to be that there was a power imbalance, and it was inappropriate for Rebecca to use her power as a nationally-known skeptic and as an official CFI-endorsed speaker at the conference to attack a student at said conference. Moreover, having been publicly called out by Rebecca Watson, Stef McGraw’s reputation as a skeptical student leader is now ruined forevarz.

The discussion of “power imbalance” carried over in a rebuttal by McGraw.

So there are multiple issues here, but I think they are related and I hope to make that relationship clear here. The questions are:

1. Was the story a case of sexualizing? Is Watson whining and/or demonizing men?
2. Why the disagreements? Don’t we recognize sexism when we see it?
3. Was Watson wrong to identify McGraw in her talk?
4. Was there an “imbalance of power” comparable, as was suggested by many, to sexual harassment in the workplace?
5. Is Watson an hypocrite?

Regarding the issue that sparked it all, I will spare you an analysis of what makes the incident a case of sexualizing (and creepy). Rebecca did a fine job of that in a post herself (which I quoted above). I am more interested in the incredible shallowness of the discussion, the lack of empathy demonstrated by McGraw and those who ‘sided’ with her on the issue, and the way the whole thing completely occluded any discussion of Rebecca’s talk, which is a talk I actually want to see and hear about.

I was amazed that a young woman could hear the story and not find it creepy. Perhaps it takes years of experiencing sexism for yourself before you can recognize and understand it. However, empathy doesn’t require that kind of understanding and I find the lack of empathy among the students who commented on this disturbing.

Watson blamed Stef’s reaction on ignorance and I won’t disagree, but a lack of perspective is more than just a failure to read the feminist literature. The difference between ‘getting it’ and not, I think, is in how deeply one is willing to think about the issues as well as and how much one is willing to be educated. Most importantly, how willing they are to listen to the views of those with more knowledge and experience than they have themselves. It is not dissimilar to the problem of expertise and, unfortunately, I see this as a symptom of a cultural shift away from both respect for others and the willingness to work for knowledge.

Mostly I think that shallow thinking and disrespect for wisdom stems from the narcissistic idea that one knows enough already. I realize this sounds like the typical crotchety “kids today!” attitude and maybe it is, but I am not alone in my thinking on it. I have seen so much of this in my classroom that it is now easy to for me to spot. Many simply do not think beyond the surface features of concepts, especially if doing so means that they might need to change their view.

The surface features of feminism that seem to get the most attention today are sexual freedom and equal voice. Both of these issues are complex and, when people oversimplify them in the name of feminism, the ‘solutions’ can exacerbate the problem. Sexism, the thing that feminism fights against, is not simple either.

On Sexual Freedom

If I were an anthropologist studying our culture today, I might get the idea that “sexual freedom” is about incorporating sex into every aspect of life or that it is the freedom to express one’s self sexually without regard to other people’s feelings. It’s not. Sexual freedom means YOU get to choose what happens to your body. You get to choose when and with whom to have sex. That’s all it means. In order to have that kind of freedom, we have to take responsibility. Culturally, it must be as okay to say “no” as it is to say “yes”. This cannot happen if women are primarily viewed as sexual objects when they do not choose to be.

With all freedom comes responsibility. In the Watson vs. elevator guy example, there were responsibilities on both sides. Watson’s responsibility was to refrain from expressing an interest in sex if she didn’t want it. She did more than that. She clearly expressed a desire to do something else: to sleep. Alone. The man in the elevator had a responsibility to consider the situation and put a little bit of thought into how she might feel about being propositioned at that time in that setting.

On a side note, calling women “prudes” because they do not choose to have sex with multiple partners, do not like it when men stare at their boobs (instead of listening), or do not enjoy a constant barrage of dick jokes, is the opposite of sexual freedom. Think of it as freedom of religion, which includes freedom from religion.

On Sexism and Equal Voice

Sexism is a deeply-rooted cultural phenomenon that is perpetuated, in part, by personal interactions involving struggles for power. Sexism is the set of subtle thought processes that keep women from equal access to resources for the same effort. It is not about simple numbers. It is not, for example, the high ratios if male to female speakers at conferences. It is the set of thought processes that, in part, leads to those high ratios and the thought processes that those high ratios perpetuate. What needs to change are the thought processes.

Getting more women involved is not a cure-all, especially if the women who are included are not qualified to contribute (which only serves to exacerbate the problem as it appears that’s what women have to offer; that’s what makes tokenism bad). And nobody who is qualified wants to be asked to speak simply because they have the right genitalia. This is what some people mean when they say that ratios are a “non-issue”. It’s not that they don’t matter. It’s the fact that the problem is not the ratios. The problem is the culture that keeps them high.

On Watson’s Public Flogging

Regarding the ‘naming of names’, I don’t know if I would have added the quotes to my talk, knowing that the blogger was in the audience, but how doing so is wrong escapes me. One comment was that Watson was “using the first part of her talk as a soapbox”, which tells me that either they haven’t seen her talk before or they haven’t been paying attention. Most of her talks begin with personal stories. Some are very long and most are irrelevant “small talk”, but some are soapbox-like. I don’t know if it is an intentional strategy for her, but it has the effect of bringing most of the audience closer, which makes them more receptive to the message. Speaking style is one of Rebecca’s strengths. As for the “soap box”, I wonder if they realize that what we ALL do is stand on a soap box and preach. Few of us actually take actions to affect policy change.

Other criticisms included calling into question Watson’s “atheist credentials”. I didn’t realize atheists needed credentials, nor is it relevant. Yes, I have criticized her openly (on more than one occasion, actually) in the past for speaking outside her knowledge base. I do not think she has done so in this case, but that does not matter because it is just not relevant.

One commenter actually claimed that, “…Dawkins or Christina [Greta, I assume?] would never insult someone who was in the audience at a peer conference.” Um. Really? Indeed, they would if it were warranted. At The Amaz!ng Meeting last year, Massimo Pigliucci’s talk was built around criticizing two very prominent skeptics, Michael Shermer, and James Randi (whose organization hosted the meeting; Shermer’s co-sponsored it) for a lack of hubris! In a university setting, academic talks are criticized on the spot by colleagues, in front of other colleagues. Open discussion, including criticism, is how shared knowledge is built.

The bulk of the criticism of Watson’s ‘calling out’ seems to be about power. Power to do what? Some have compared it to sexual harassment, which is a bit ridiculous and, again, shallow thinking.

McGraw and others claimed that Watson’s position and ‘celebrity’ in skeptic circles put McGraw at a disadvantage. That may be true, but I fail to see the relevance of this, either. This is not about power at all. There are no decisions to be made, positions to fill, salaries to pay, or awards to be given. It’s a disagreement, not an exchange. In cases of sexual harassment and discrimination, power is used to control people or coerce sexual favors in exchange for access to resources. To use some stereotypical examples, get the job, you need to sleep with the casting director. To get a raise, you’re expected to look the other way when your boss ogles you or slaps your ass. If you have sex with the teacher, they’ll give you an A. THAT is about power.

And McGraw’s reputation has “ruined” by Watson? Rebecca doesn’t have that kind of power. Nobody does. First, people do not start with “a good reputation” that can then only be reduced. Nobody is entitled to such a thing. A reputation is something you earn. Nobody can harm your reputation unless they lie. If they are telling the truth, then it is you who have harmed it.

Finally, some discussion of whether Watson is a hypocrite was pushed around. I have to say that, although it clearly doesn’t change my view of the elevator man’s actions or Rebecca’s in naming McGraw in her talk, it is clear that her actions and messages today are a world apart from what they were just a few years ago – or even more recently. However, I am encouraged by this recent edit to a 2006 post:

EDIT, June 26, 2011: Someone just sent me a link to this and asked me what I think about what I wrote more than five years ago. Well, I think I was wrong to make a joke that sexualized two women. I made a lot of off-color jokes back then, and to be fair I probably still do — but the difference now is that I’ve had five years to grow and change and learn about ideas like feminism and the patriarchy, and I’ve figured out that my actions and words will never be separate from those concepts.

And I am equally encouraged that she wrote this instead of trying to bury or hide from the past.

I have heard, third hand, that Rebecca’s talk, which was about a dangerous threat we face today, was excellent. I will have to wait for the video to be posted to judge for myself. In the meantime, I am hugely disappointed that some of the students were so wrapped up in the drama and threatened by the idea that we still have work to do to in promoting equality (work that doesn’t involve raising our own self-esteems) seem to have missed it along with its point.

In my mini-review of The Amazing Meeting 8 I mentioned that there were two very dark spots in an otherwise amazing (sometimes the word just fits) weekend.

I was not ready to discuss these in detail, but when I stumbled over this blog post by Blag Hag Jen McCreight, I felt that at least one should be discussed and I would like to do so through the filter of one of the best talks of the weekend, given by Massimo Pigliucci.

McCreight addresses the question of sexism, saying:

The one annoying thing I saw was the perpetuation of the Sexy vs. Smart binary in talks.

I saw none of this in talks. She gives two examples: Michael Shermer’s talk included a Los Angeles County Fair commercial from a series which has been shown for several years now.

This series is meant to portray a stereotype of geography, not the attractiveness (or the gender; they could have easily used the dumb surfer boy image) of the actors. I can understand this getting past much of the audience. Those of us who live in southern California and have seen the entire series likely take it for granted.

That said, the video seemed to have little to do with the rest of his talk and seemed a bit too “look at these dumb people”; I cringed myself when I saw it. So this is probably worthy of discussion, but I do not think it is a strong example of associating appearance with intelligence.

McCreight also accuses SkepDoc Harriet Hall of sexism:

Whenever she mentioned Jenny McCarthy in her talk as an example of someone saying something stupid (which Jenny McCarthy certainly does often), she would include a picture of her bending over in a bikini or some other scantily clad outfit. Why was this effective? Why not use a photo of Jenny McCarthy in a suit?

Why is it sexist for Harriet Hall to show Jenny McCarthy, a former model and Playboy bunny, in a swimsuit rather than something more modest? If McCarthy were, say, a cashier by trade, the image of her in a cashier’s smock would have been just as appropriate, no?

The purpose of the images was to show that frightened parents will favor the message of someone entirely unqualified to give medical advice over their MD. McCarthy is qualified to have her picture taken and did so “scantily clad” for years.

McCreight also repeated something central to her own talk (which I am not ready to review in its entirety):

The stereotype goes that women can sexy/attractive/beautiful and stupid/ditsy/unscientific, or they can be smart/witty/scientific and frumpy/plain/ugly. This myth annoys the hell out of me, especially because it’s so common.

This is where I put on my “Massimo” glasses and discuss expertise.

Media stereotypes are not “myths”. In fact, they do not necessarily reflect what individuals in society actually believe. These definitions are important, especially when one’s argument relies on them. When you make statements about one thing (media portrayals), but you are really talking about something else (behaviors and attitudes), you need to prepared to cite sources which clearly show that these are interchangeable; the distinction matters.

The truth is that attractive persons are more likely to be associated with an occupation that is held in high regard, including scientist, than less attractive persons. That’s the halo effect. It is very well-established in the psychological literature and not limited to men or even human beings.

Some of the points Jen made are valid criticisms, but the valid criticisms are overshadowed by vague, uninformed statements. Many of the points rely on whether her general claims of “this is what people think” are accurate. She does not cite sources which show that she knows “what people think”, nor is her background in psychology or a related field, which might provide some evidence of expertise in this area.

“I’ve seen it” is not evidence, something a young scientist in training (and many older, experienced ones) must constantly remind themselves in order to overcome our brain’s desire to think that it is.

McCreight defended TAM organizers by repeating a statement made many times by Jeff Wagg about speakers at TAM7:

Last year, 8 women were invited to speak at TAM. 2 said yes. 1 of those women had to cancel.

I have never heard Jeff compare this with the number of men who were invited and how many of those accepted or canceled. Without that comparison, this information tells us nothing.

Frankly, however, I care much more about the quality of the speakers than their gender, but given the number of high-quality speakers available who are women and the ratio seen at other events, the lopsidedness at TAM in past years was a bit disturbing. I thought they did a great job all around this year and didn’t need to be defended.

I thought the sex workshop was on Sunday…

Regarding the “Feminism & Skepticism Workshop”, although I am not the person she quoted, I was sitting directly behind McCreight and walked out when “Angry Vagina Craft Time” was announced.

My take? There are three criteria which should have been met for a topic or activity to be included in this workshop:

1. It is a feminism issue.
2. It is a skepticism issue.
3. The discussion is well-researched and well reasoned.

Although there were definitely some good points, much of what was discussed prior to “Angry Vagina Craft Time” failed to meet one or more of these criteria, especially #3.

Asking people to make vaginas (term used loosely) out of felt and googlie eyes did not make me uncomfortable, but infantilizing women’s genitalia and calling it “light humor” made me a bit angry – yes, I had an angry vagina. And an angry jaw. It could have made many women very uncomfortable, yet it served no purpose that I could see short of a “fuck you” to those who have criticized the workshop’s organizers in the past for such things.

I left because I had seen enough.

Overall, in regard to sexism at TAM8, I thought this year was a huge improvement over last. I attribute this largely to a different mix of attendees. I really wish that friends who were turned off by the culture last year could have experienced it. Perhaps they would see the community differently.

To sum up my experiences and in answer to McCreight’s questions: There were exactly two times during the weekend when I was offended. That workshop was one of them. Ironic, isn’t it?