Not since college have had been immersed in gender politics like I have recently. It’s weird that in the twenty plus years since I experienced diversity debates in college, the arguments haven’t changed. I think it’s because the young people who come up in the freethought movement discover biases based on gender and feel that this is one injustice they can overcome. I have to admit that I’m white and I have a penis – so what! I think we all need to work on those issue we can solve together and acknowledge that we can’t be perfect. I’m not going to pick a side and I’m not going to apologize for being white and male.
What sparked this blog post is the STILL burning Atheism+/gender identity storm in the freethought community. Each side of the debate are doing purity checks and using extreme gender politics in an effort to make a utopia in their own image. Instead of using our tools to make a better world all freethinkers, both sides want to burn down our own house and rebuild it how they assume it should look – opposing view points be damned.
Isn’t Atheism Plus Another Name For Humanism?
In the wake of some very public and nasty debates about diversity and lack of respect for women in the freethought community, Jen McCreight, author of the blaghag blog on the Freethought Blogs Network created what she is calling a “new wave of Atheism” whose name evolved into Atheist+. Her goal was to move Atheism from just dealing with the god question – Atheists don’t believe in a god – but to also deal with issues like diversity and social justice. It seems to me that Humanism addresses all the issues McCreight feels is missing from Atheism and Humanism is non-theistic. One question I have is why not be a Humanist?
Some of the issues Jen McCreight sees Atheism+ dealing with include Racism, Sexism, Homophobia, Transphobia, Ableism, Classism, Ageism, Neurotypicalism, Animal welfare, environmental issues, and political issues (Health care, crime, drug laws).
To My Freethought Friends: You Are On Notice
There has been a serious issue with discussing diversity and sexual harassment within the freethought community. I have written a post or two about the matter and it seems that even a year since the biggest blowup – elevatorgate – the sexism and misogyny has not abated. It seems some immature boys can’t let go of the fact that their harassment is stupid and wrong. I’m declaring right now that I will quit any group that ignores or condones harassment and I will personally shun any person who harasses for any reason or continually makes excuses for such behavior. I didn’t come to this decision lightly but it seems some just can’t move forward and they are holding our freethought movement hostage. Enough is enough.
The other day on the Atheist Revolution blog there was a post about an Atheist blogger filing a DCMA complaint against another “Atheist” blog. The name of the blog is “Elevatorgate”. When I saw the site my jaw dropped. The entire site was devoted to Ad Hominem attacks on several bloggers and activists in the Freethought community who complained about diversity and sexual harassment in the movement and those who supported the bloggers who complained.