Autumn Reinhardt-Simpson Autumn Reinhardt-Simpson's Blog, salon

Your Children Are the Enemy

The text from my mother read: “You should control her right from the beginning. Kids respect you that way.”

 

I froze in shock as I read this, the most naked statement I’d ever heard my mother make about her parenting philosophy. We were discussing the upcoming birth of my daughter and how excited I am to meet her, to learn her personality, much as I would a new friend.

 

My mother’s statement especially shocked me for another reason – the simple fact that she’d raised my siblings and me in a singularly laissez faire manner for the first half of our childhood. Toward the end, we didn’t even live in the same house as my parents. We lived next door in a completely separate house where we made our own meals, did our own chores, and generally lived unsupervised except for occasional, unexpected, and confusing crack downs. Periodically, my parents threatened to and sometimes did install devices, sensors, etc. to monitor our movements. I particularly remember when my stepfather installed a front door sensor, which was intended to send a signal to their house whenever we entered or exited. We used to have fun deliberately tripping it, over and over again until my mother would call us to yell angrily. There was also a sensor for the driveway. A car driving over it would set off yet another signal in my parents’ house, letting them know what time we were arriving home or alerting them that we were trying to sneak our car out the drive. I think, though, that the signals must have become annoying to them as they were eventually disabled.

 

Despite what these strange and draconian tactics seemed to imply, my parents were generally not involved in our lives. They neither knew our teachers nor our favorite TV shows. My mother had no idea that I loved to read until I was 16. They played no active role and my friends always said that it was funny they had never met my parents. So, one can see why I was somewhat taken aback by my mother’s text. Her peculiar mix of obsessive control and lack of involvement didn’t seem to match up with her stated belief that kids should be controlled from birth so that they learn to fear their parents.

 

It took me awhile to look back and see it, but I think I now know why she wrote that text. Before my stepfather arrived, I grew up in a pretty secular household. We went to church exactly three times in my early childhood. In fact, I’m not even sure what inspired these attempts at religiosity; none of us actually believed. But when I was 13, my mother married a nice, soft-spoken Catholic man who attended mass every week. She decided that we should all join him, so that we’d be a nice family. It was all very strange, new, and boring for us, but we went. Soon thereafter, she began to crack down on us in new ways, such as the sensors, redoubling her efforts to mold us into that nice family. But it was too late for us. We hadn’t grown up that way and the change was extremely confusing. Naturally, we rebelled.

 

About then, with my stepfather, my mother also began listening to talk radio. My mother’s favorite show was Dr. James Dobson’s call-in parenting and family advice show. Dobson is the founder of Focus on the Family, an evangelical non-profit association that is the vehicle for his conservative, fundamentalist views on social policy and family life.  Dobson is also a psychologist and spends much of his time pontificating on parenting. He has authored several books on the subject and is considered an authority amongst his flock. His views on parenting can basically be summed up as training a child to be fearful of and responsive to authority.

 

I was too busy being a teenager at the time to notice, but it seems that my mother was quietly buying into the teachings of Dobson and other advocates of authoritarian parenting, such as Michael and Debi Pearl, who advocate abusing infants in the name of a godly family life. Luckily for us, my siblings and I were all of, or approaching, an age at which the physical discipline central to these teachings would be ineffective. The only option remaining is what I call psychological warfare.

 

I don’t use this term lightly. Dobson’s and the Pearls’ teachings are based on the idea that your children are, quite literally, the enemy, that they are born in original sin, and that their spirit must be crushed in the name of god. They reduce family life to a power struggle, a microcosm of that greater struggle between good and evil that evangelicals quite literally believe in. If you are unfamiliar with these teachings, check out Libby Anne’s blog, Love, Joy, Feminism, where she, as survivor of such abuse, recounts her story, the stories of others, and even critiques the Pearls’ seminal works, passage by passage. You can find other survivors’ stories at No Longer Quivering and Homeschoolers Anonymous. You will quickly see that families that adhere to these teachings are not only families in which children are the enemy, but they are also families where the abuse can be so severe that children are murdered by their parents.

 

Again, I was very lucky. I did not endure the kinds of physical abuse that many suffered because I was too old by the time my mother became interested and she was only ever a peripheral devotee, nor was I homeschooled and therefore isolated. But I did suffer knowing that my mother never accepted me for who I was. She regarded me merely as a naturally disobedient child who couldn’t even be kept in check, or fundamentally changed, by years of emotional turmoil and unconscionable surveillance. It took me quite some time to recover from the feeling of never being okay as I am. Even today, I find myself surprised that children around me are granted a basic level of privacy that I could never imagine as a kid. Their parents don’t periodically upend their bedrooms in military-like searches for I-never-figured-out-what, don’t listen in on their phone calls, and don’t threatened them with surveillance cameras.

 

It now seems like this happened to a different Autumn. I have no idea where it came from, but I had always been a pretty “rebellious” spirit with some seriously feminist leanings. I am grateful for that because I think it’s the only reason I, a very troubled and emotional child, didn’t crumble. It will be the only reason why I can commit to letting my daughter tell me who she is as a person, while providing healthy boundaries with plenty of space for her to explore.

 

***

After sitting for a moment with the phone in my hand, contemplating that text, I wrote back, “I don’t see the connection. I know that I never felt respect for any adult who tried to control me.”

M A Melby M. A. Melby's blog, salon

Introduction

Hello everyone!

 

I’m M. A. Melby (not my real name) from Minnesota.  I teach physics.  I write.

 

I’m pushing 40 years old, been married to a man for almost 20 years, have two small children; and live a life that I once believed to be mundane.

 

I’ve been writing seriously for several years.  My most popular pieces tend to be of the take-down variety. 

 

Don’t worry, I won’t disappoint.

 

However, I want to correct an error that I made writing growing up.  Sometimes we see our own lives as the default – as ordinary – as normal; and I’m no exception.  It’s been difficult to shake the idea that if I “write what I know” that it simply will not be interesting.  However, every step of the way, either in my writing or experimental music, I’ve been encouraged to share my stories.

 

This is what I did for Atheist Voices of Minnesota and (amid the occasional point-by-point evisceration) that is what I’ll do for you.

 

Hi. I’m M. A. Melby (not my real name) from Minnesota.  I grew up in the middle of nowhere, in a Scandinavian American town isolated from the rest of the world on a small dairy farm.  I was the nerdy band-kid at a school with a graduating class of about 40 people.  I toured China with a wind ensemble in 1993.  I used to dress up as a vampire and run around playing rock-paper-scissors.  I both persevered and failed miserably as a woman pursuing a career in a STEM field.  I make noise.  I’ve shoveled shit and I’ve worked “at the beam” studying epitaxial thin films – and both were actually pretty awesome.

 

Be seeing you.

Iris Vander Pluym Iris Vander Pluym's Blog, salon

PROJECTION: It’s Not Just For Movies.

[CONTENT NOTE: f*-bombs.]

I have long been interested in subverting the U.S. conservative movement, which I am certain is the root of all evil despite what you may have heard elsewhere. If you are not convinced of this proposition, consider for a moment precisely what it is that conservatives wish to conserve: a status quo that is violently racist and sexist, patriarchal and heteronormative, ubercapitalist and imperialist, ableist and classist, Christian supremacist and anti-intellectual, sadistically punitive and social-Darwinist—I could go on (and on and on).

What the fuck. Two sentences in, and I've already bummed everyone out. :

But it's not all bad news! Having dedicated much of my adult life to the study of conservatives in the wild (and not coincidentally, much of my childhood to navigating those worlds to survive), I am here to provide you with practical tips that can save you a whole lot of time you would otherwise spend scratching your head in dumfounded bewilderment. The most important thing to know about conservatism is this: there is nothing new in any of it. Not one single thing. I have pored over tracts by Buckley, Schlafly, Will, Friedman, Rand, Coulter, Kristol and Krauthammer; I have listened to Limbaugh and watched Fox News; I have read The Wall Street Journal editorial page and countless right-wing blogs. And I have satisfied myself beyond any doubt that it always—always—boils down to a comically grandiose sense of self-importance and entitlement. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about panty-sniffing Catholic bishops or reckless Wall Street traders, the entire "intellectual" basis of conservatism can be summed up thusly: “I’ve got mine, Jack. Fuck you. And especially, fuck them.”

Naturally this point of view leads conservative minds to spin increasingly bizarre rationalizations for their own privilege, and corresponding justifications for oppressing others. One of the more common manifestations of this phenomenon is psychological projection. Projection is a theory in psychology whereby people avoid acknowledging dissonant thoughts and unsavory impulses in themselves by attributing them to others. Everyone is prone to this, especially in times of crisis. But right-wing conservatives deploy it to such an extreme degree and with such a total lack of self-awareness that it borders on comic farce. Allow me to illustrate.

So, some conservative Christians made a terrible movie based on a silly chain email endlessly promoted by a bunch of Liars 4 Jeezus™. (Here's the trailer, if you're a masochist.) Of course I have no intention of seeing this film. (See: nothing new in any of it.) Happily, it turns out we don't have to see it because some d00d named Neil Carter did and wrote about the film's egregious characterizations of atheists. For example:

Atheist professors are predatory, and they are out to convert everyone into ideological clones of themselves. Clearly the concept of people committed to “freethought” and “liberal arts” is utterly foreign to the writers of this flick. Ironically, while no secular university I’ve ever heard of would hesitate to fire a professor who demands a signed renunciation of religion from his students, I have heard of Christian schools which demand written statements of belief from both their students and faculty. In real life only one of these two cultures threatens people with everlasting torment for not believing the right things, and it’s not the group being caricatured in the movie.

Christian colleges require sworn statements of faith from their students, under threat of eternal torture in the next life [sic] and expulsion in this one. So, the filmmakers conjure up a villainous atheist professor who demands Christian students renounce their beliefs under penalty of failing his class. (Okay, strictly speaking they didn't conjure him up. They heard about him from an awesome email.) Except that such a professor is complete fiction. Pure projection.

See? Lets try another:

Atheists are cocky, self-sure, and totally enamored with their own superiority.

Reminder: the entire point of this movie is to illustrate the superiority of Christians.

Projection: it's what's for dinner.

Atheists will openly threaten you, bow up, get in your face, stare you down, and even chase you down a hallway and grab you to force you to listen to their angry diatribes because your faith makes them so angry!

We don't have to imagine this is what some Christians would like to do to non-believers: they already do it—and worse. [TW: extreme bullying, violence, rape and death threats, animal cruelty.] Project much?

Atheists are clearly incapable of love. If you’re hurting or sick they’ll abandon you.

Translation: "I'd be a horrible person if not for…Jeezus nagging me not to be."

Atheists lack ethical boundaries, so they’ll date students against virtually every university’s rules.

But not Christians. Never happens. Got projection?

Atheists have no basis for morality…If there’s no God, then there can’t be any good reason to follow rules or be honest or do anything moral.

Translation: "The reason I'm not a murderous, thieving rapist is because of an invisible Sky Daddy.” Okay, player. Stay away from me.

Obviously, none of this paints conservative Christians in a positive light. And it’s all pretty amusing, if you don’t think too much about the consequences for their children. But there is a frightening aspect, too. For example, if the religious right fears Obama coming to put them all in FEMA camps for their beliefs, consider what that might mean if (when?) they obtain such power for themselves. Even now, while we laugh at their ridiculous claims of persecution, conservative Christians are busy enacting religion-based laws that harm, oppress and yes, persecute their fellow citizens.

Marina Martinez salon

Spiritual Awakenings I Have Had

I’ve been alone a lot in my life. I remember once as a child I told my grandmother that I wished I’d had a little brother. I can’t remember her exact words, but she said something to the effect of

“Would you really want to subject another person to this?” This being our lives.

We’re not social people, my family. We don’t have parties, we don’t celebrate. Because why would you? Why, how, could anyone celebrate this?

I like to think that I didn’t come to the conclusion so easily. That in my valiant child’s heart, I thought if I had a brother, I’d protect him. But I also like to think that I was smart enough, even then, to know how wrong that valiance was.

When I was born, I know my parents wanted different for me. I have no reason to doubt their assertions that this is true. That is maybe why, in the long run, I did have different. But in the beginning, it was very much the same. Neglect, physical abuse, emotional terror, and general sexual impropriety were a part of my reality, as those things were a part of theirs.

You can’t have a baby in a mud pit and not expect to get mud on it.

But intentions must count for something, because here I am. Years ago, I found myself a citizen of two countries: Function and dysfunction. Both were extremely lonely. The former because I was no longer comfortable with the life I’d been given. The latter because I wanted it so bad, but I didn’t even know the language of function.

For this kind of lonely person, with too much perspective to be cowed and too little experience to be bold, God sounds like a wonderful idea. Here would be the all-knowing father I wanted, but never had. Here would be the all-loving mother I craved. Finally, I could be alone and not lonely. An eternal friend. I could take a God with me into the pockets of void-darkness inside of me. I could fill those holes with Holy light. I could have a spiritual awakening, I could have a life that truly was beyond my wildest dreams.

So I prayed and I meditated, and I asked a God I only believed in enough to resent for the knowledge of His will for me. And eventually, I did have my first spiritual awakening.

As with most spiritual experiences, I was some degree of exhausted and desperate. I was really depressed, and worried about whether my suffering had meaning when I started to pray. I repeated the same prayer over and over until it occurred to me that suffering leads to growth, growth to joy, joy to new levels of experience, which in turn leads back to suffering again. Over and over, the cycle of success through failure, of beginnings and endings everywhere all the time. I was merely at one of many points in this cycle, one small gear in a cosmic machine I had absolutely no hope to understand.

Rather than making me feel helpless, it gave me a sense of peace. My suffering was mine, but it wasn’t just mine. That’s when it started to become a thing that happened, rather than the thing that happened to me.

The second time I had a spiritual awakening, I was feeling really horrible about all the selfish bullshit I'd perpetrated on others as a result of my own pain, when suddenly I felt the light in the room grow brighter. At the same time, I realized that all the people I had so many issues with, people I blamed for how my life turned out, they were all just as lost and ignorant as I was.

I felt very strongly that I saw, for the briefest second, humanity the way a benevolent creator would see us. All so caught up in reacting to stimuli, all so afraid and confused. I felt like, if I could keep that feeling in my heart, maybe I could avoid being such a bastard all the time.

I turned out to be mostly right. Now my problem is I keep forgetting to remember what that felt like.

Most recently, I was really stressed out and overwhelmed after starting my own business, so I sat down to meditate. After a couple of minutes, I saw very clearly a creek I visited with my grandma as a kid, and in my mind’s eye, I sat beside it with a stack of origami paper.

I started building boats and floating them into the creek. I took my time, trying to get each fold right, but not always managing it, then I would set the completed boat in the water and let it float away. I tried to set it in the right place, I tried to build a good boat, but whether or not they sank or floated, I never even saw. I was already working on the next boat.

When I got up. I realized that's what I should be doing. I should be giving each task my complete attention, I should do everything I am able to in order to ensure success, and then I should let it go to sink or float on its own in the current of life. There's no judgment if the boat floats or sinks, only that this is the result that boat experienced. I made the best boat I could, and dropped it in the best spot I could, and the rest was the river.

Like my other experiences, a sense of peace settled on me, along with a sense of awe. I get so caught up in the trivialities of life while the infinite wonder of the universe quietly tessellates out all around me in every direction, both measurable and immeasurable. I am such a small part of this magnificent world that we still know so little about.

Even though they’ve all given me a perspective on my own place in the universe, none of these spiritual awakenings has made me feel particularly strongly about the existence or nature of a God. Despite the fact that I went into each of them searching for such a deity, they’ve only taught me that life itself is a vast, complicated, wonderful mystery. To assume more than that would be arrogant, and wholly beside the point.

Jadehawk Jadehawk's Blog

About Thought Experiments

[content note: non-graphic mention of rape in second-to-last paragraph]

Thought experiments are useful.

Not all thought experiments, not in every form, not on every topic, i.e. not everything someone might call a “thought experiment” is inherently useful, valuable, or worth entertaining. A well-designed thought experiment however can increase understanding of a concept, explore new questions and perspectives, clarify otherwise murky aspects of various issues, and uncover flaws and contradictions in ideas[1].

Probably most important for a useful thought experiment is that something new can be learned through it. A thought experiment needs to present us with a new idea or a new perspective on an idea that lacks the biases of familiar perspectives. For example, there would be little value in re-inventing Maxwell’s demon, because this perspective on the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is now well-explored, with much critical as well as supportive work already in existence[2]. A thought experiment on this topic would have to introduce something genuinely novel to be worthwhile.

Thought experiments are also very susceptible to the garbage-in-garbage-out problem: a thought experiment is only as useful as the experimenter’s understanding of a topic. Premises that reflect a misunderstanding or lack of knowledge will lead to faulty conclusions, and so do badly structured experiments. And sometimes, the flawed results can become highly influential, especially when they reaffirm already held erroneous beliefs. Descartes’ rationalist (in the counter-empirical, all-knowledge-comes-from-reason sense[3]) thought experiments stuck the world with Cartesian dualism[4], an incorrect worldview that infests many everyday concepts and many ideas about humans as individuals and as social actors. However, even when thought experiments have no connection to reality by design rather than through ignorance, the output is often garbage, because they are useless. Even though thought experiments are hypothetical and often quite unrealistic scenarios, the specific aspect that is to be evaluated in the experiment needs to be reflective of a real-world issue if it is to be of any use other than to entertain the experimenter.

A last essential feature of a well-designed thought experiment is clarity. Since the value of a thought experiment lies largely in providing new insights, making them inaccessible or muddled is counterproductive. This is especially so in situations where the thought experiment is already addressing a difficult issue that is e.g. very complex, or subject to strong cultural/emotional/intellectual/etc biases. A useful thought experiment reduces a problem to only the salient parts; takes principles, structures, or ideas out of their fraught or biased context and sets them into a new, neutral (because uncontroversial or else completely fictional) context; and/or creates scenarios in which empirically impossible separations of variables might be attempted. One of my favorite examples of a well-designed thought experiment is the Famous Violinist.

The Famous Violinist is a thought experiment at the core of Judith Jarvis Thomson’s essay exploring the ethics of abortion from a perspective that, in 1971, was novel to the debate over the ethics and legal status of pregnancy termination. The beauty of that particular experiment is the way in which it tosses out the cultural and religious ballast attached to reproduction, sex, and the control of female-assigned bodies that makes abortion such an intractable issue. It does so by creating a completely new context for the issue of whether or not a “right to life” supersedes the right to autonomy over one’s body: instead of “woman”, the person is “you”; instead of reproduction, the issue is a fatal illness; and sex is not anywhere in the picture at all. Similarly, it removes needlessly complicating variables from the discussion: by making the dependent dying person an adult with full human rights, the experiment shows the irrelevance of personhood to the issue. The essay also addresses many real-world scenarios and contingencies that follow both from the anti-abortionist conclusion (that right-to-life outweighs right-to-bodily-autonomy), and from the reverse[5]. The Famous Violinist thought experiment brought a new perspective to an ancient argument, it simplified it and removed it from emotionally and culturally loaded contexts, and showed its real-world applications and relevance, making it an incredibly useful thought experiment in moral philosophy.

Incidentally, it also answers the question “Do we discuss the hypothetical intra-uterine poet, or does emotion simply close down the discussion, in either direction?”[6]. We have discussed it already, 43 years ago. The career change from violinist to poet adds nothing to the conversation, so let’s stop beating a very dead horse, especially when doing so hurts those whose rights and bodies are being pontificated upon.

All of this is to say that when e.g. a Richard Dawkins creates a “thought experiment” that is structurally and substantively trivial but for which he purposefully uses emotionally charged examples (which are also factually inaccurate and promote harmful ideas about rape[7]), people will criticize him and his “experiment”. And they will do so not to create taboos, or because they don’t understand its logic, or because they’re emotional. It will be because that specific experiment is worse than useless; it is so trivial it produces nothing of value, while the examples are so toxic they produce harm; it is sensible to reject that.

And doing so is not rejection of thought experiments. Rejecting useless or harmful forms of thought experiment is not rejecting thought experiments in general, not even on sensitive topics. Rejection and criticism of false premises, especially those that are already perpetuated as “common knowledge” despite their inaccuracy; of provocation for the sake of provocation, especially when the target is vulnerable to harm as a result of the provocation; and of endless rehashing of the same point over and over again is not a witch-hunt. It is not censorship, is not creating no-go zones, is not rejection of thought experiments in general. It’s the rejection of a shoddily structured and harmful attempt at edginess that contributes nothing new or valuable to public discourse on any of the topics touched upon.

– – –

[1] Brown, J.R. & Fehige, Y. (2011). “Thought Experiments”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. [web]. Retrieved from here.

[2] Cohen, M. (2005). Wittgenstein’s Beetle and Other Classic Thought Experiments. [book]. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. pp. 25-27

[3] Blanshard, B. (2014). “Rationalism”, Encyclopædia Britannica. [web]. Retrieved from here.

[4] Descartes, R. (1641). Meditations on the First Philosophy in which the Existence of God and the Distinction between Mind and Body are Demonstrated. Translation by Haldane, E.S. (1911).

[5] Thomson, J.J. (Fall 1971). “A Defense of Abortion”, originally published in Philosophy & Public Affairs, Vol. 1(1). [web]. Retrieved from here.

[6] Dawkins, R. (Jul 30, 2014). “Are there emotional no-go areas where logic dare not show its face?”, Richard Dawkins Foundation. [web]. Retrieved from here.

[7] Miller, A.F. (Jul 29, 2014). “Richard Dawkins on Date Rape vs Stranger Rape”, Ashley F Miller. [blog] Retrieved from here.

E A Higgins E A Higgins' Blog, salon

Since So Many are Afraid to, I’ll Call it Like it Is

Trigger Warning:Ephebophilia, Suicide, Victim-Shaming

In the early hours of August 7th, 2014 Dean Ochi, 43, took his own life. Ochi, a contracted athletic trainer at Mayfield High School, who worked for the Cleveland Clinic, had been indicted on August 5th on fourteen felony counts including sexual battery and sex crimes with a minor.

According to Cleveland’s Fox 8 News, an investigation began in April regarding sexual relations between Ochi and a then 17 year old student, after the student told a friend who reported the relationship to authorities. Detectives on the case found, among other things, nude photos of Ochi and the girl, as well as hundreds of text messages between the two.

This was not the first time Dean Ochi had been the center of ephebophilic controversy. In 2003, in response to a letter from the school’s principal, Ochi acknowledged that he had made poor decisions when he put his arms around a girls waist, massaged a student under her shirt, gave out private contact information, and wrestled with a female student on the ground.

 When I read about Dean Ochi's self-inflicted death, I experienced multiple emotions. Having lost my father to suicide in 2009, and having found out some less than positive information about him, post mortem, I immediately felt innate sympathy for the daughter and wife and family he has left behind. No one should have to experience the pain that they have. However, above all, I felt livid at the cowardice he showed, outraged by the fact that he no longer will have to face the consequences for his actions.

When Ochi’s death was released to the public, it was not hard to find people’s opinions on the matter. As is common with younger generations, students from Mayfield High School took to social media to express their sentiments on the matters at hand. While some showed sympathy for his family and friends and mourned the loss of someone they considered a loved one, others took the events as an opportunity to defend his morality and his honor; others took the opportunity to blame the victims for the outcome, saying that if they had not come forward, he would still be alive.

Many people made statements similar to: 


And:


Are they kidding me? Are they literally making a joke? I do not remember the last time I made the “mistake” of breaking the law and becoming a felon. I question the morals of people who would call someone who sexually assaulted their classmate – a minor at the time – a good guy, or “the man”. When they say things like this, they are essentially saying the victim's claims are invalid. 

I think that reasonable and responsible adults would comprehend this issue and come to the conclusion that this man abused his position of power and trust. The people who are defending him are NOT reasonable and responsible adults. It does not matter that they are over the age of 18.

Other students made statements like: 

If one defends another’s actions (especially toward a minor) simply because they were not committed against themself, they do not deserve to be called an adult. This is one of what I believe to be societie's greatest downfalls. The indifferent, apathetic,  blasé attitude runs rampant amongst so many people, where unless a crime is committed in a way that directly impacts the individual, it's as if it does not exist.

The thing about truth, is that it is fact, and it is what it is regardless of opinion. Their opinion on him does not change the fact that he was an accused ephebophile. 

Many of those who have come out in support of Ochi made statements about how one mistake (try 14+) should not have had such an affect on his life, as if implying that he should not have had consequences for his crime. That would be like murdering someone, getting caught, and then walking free because “it was just one mistake”. Like for most people who intentionally break the law, it was not a mistake for Ochi until he got caught. He was well aware of his actions, well aware of the magnitude of the situation, but still chose to act and then chose not to face the penalties.

I have also encountered those who feel the need to defend him on the basis that and indictment is a formal charge and not a conviction. While this is true, sufficient evidence is needed in order for an indictment to be made. In order for indictment to happen, a case must be voted upon by a grand jury, based on whether or not it is convictable. So, here’s the thing, they had the evidence. They police had text messages and nude photos. Not only this, but if he was not guilty and this was all just a scandal, why would he not have tried to fight it? Suicide is not the response of an innocent man, in my opinion.

By no means am I saying that the students that were close to him, his friends, and his family should not mourn his death. They have every right to, and they should. However using his death to deflect from very serious allegations will do more harm than good. 

Maybe I am a bit unsympathetic, but an accused ephebophile took his own life, and there are people who take the time to defend him? They find it appropriate to defend that he chose to break the law repeatedly, and then made the choice to end his life instead of facing the penalties for his actions? I question for whom they find it sadder, the guy who no longer has to face the consequences for his actions or the multiple victims of his crimes? If you feel more for the ephebophile, you might want to check your priorities.

 

Autumn Reinhardt-Simpson Autumn Reinhardt-Simpson's Blog, salon

Christian Reconstructionism and the Non-Christian Family

I am about to become a mother in just eight weeks. My husband and I are very excited, but like all new parents we are worried about finances, healthcare, daycare, etc. We’re very lucky to have sufficient income and enough money saved that, though we will worry like all parents do, we are not likely to need public assistance. Of course, anything can happen. We could lose our jobs and not find others for quite some time. One of us could become severely ill. In that case, we would find ourselves grateful for public assistance. It would allow us to pay the bills and feed our baby. It would help us, as a couple, to be less stressed out about money and, therefore, our relationship would not suffer as much. In short, public assistance and programs that serve families do more than just feed people; they allow families to be emotionally healthy, keeping them intact.

 

Have you ever wondered why so much of the religious right is opposed to life-saving programs that serve families? Why would someone, who claims to promote family values and family togetherness, want to abolish the very programs that for many keep their families together and thriving? The answer for some is quite simple – because Christian Reconstructionism.

 

Christian Reconstructionism is a Calvinistic philosophy founded by Rousas John Rushdoony, a man who has had a profound influence on the Christian right. The underlying premise is that god demands separate roles for government, church, and family. Government, though theocratic, is meant to be limited and all moral offenses are dealt with by the church. These distinctions can become confused because Christian Reconstructionists call for Old Testament law, which would naturally involve both the criminal (government) and the moral (church). Furthermore, Christian Reconstructionism demands that only staunch adherents participate in government, further mingling church and state. However, one area that believers are convinced is firmly in the realm of the church is family assistance or charity. In the eyes of the Christian Reconstructionist, government has absolutely no business whatsoever creating programs to help needy families because god has intended this role for the church alone. To summarize, it is not only a bad idea to create government programs, it is absolutely going against god’s laws.

 

This might sound like a fringe philosophy, and twenty years ago you would have been correct. However, nowadays, you can find it in the mouths of such right-wing luminaries as David Barton, who said, “It’s not the government’s responsibility to take care of the poor and needy. It’s the church’s responsibility.” The Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America and other notable right-wing groups have also espoused this philosophy. Even more terrifying is that Michael Petrouka, the Republican nominee for an Anne Arundel County, Maryland council seat, openly embraces Christian Reconstructionism and will quite possibly be making and passing laws that negatively impact families in that state. Still more “mainstream” right-wing politicians have made common cause with many Christian Reconstructionists and have worked tirelessly, both in congress and state legislatures, to slash budgets and find other ways to put their theological views to work.

 

The problem for us as non-Christians is obvious. If the right continues to be successful in cutting programs to families in need, what will be our lot? The Christian Reconstructionist says that we should then look to the church for help. This is problematic in many ways: under a theocratic government, a church may refuse to grant help to non-members or unequal treatment may be given to families who don’t believe. Perhaps a family may not wish to convert and compromise their integrity. Of course, the reality is that many would compromise if it came down to feeding their children and that is exactly what the Christian Reconstructionist would like to see. In short, the religious right is working to destroy the integrity of your and my non-Christian family in its pursuit of what it sees as god’s mandate, that America embraces biblical law. It is time for non-Christian families to make economic justice a priority in the fight against religious oppression.

 

 

Major Mike Mansplainer Major Mike Mansplainer, salon

Meet Major Mike Mansplainer

 

Welcome to my new blog,  "Hold On, Let Me Finish… with Major Mansplainer." I'm a man blogging for Secular Woman. Yes, you read that right!

How did this happen? At the risk of tooting my own horn (not that there's anything wrong with that, amirite?) I've been a steady presence in the atheist movement for years and I know a thing or two about True FeminismTM.  So I figured I'd bring the voice of the Silent ManorityTM.

You know the phrase "not all men" that's been dominating the Internet?  Yep, that was me all the way back in the 90's on the alt.feminism USENET group.  I don't even remember what we were arguing about.  Probably Camille Paglia or rap lyrics.

Other than that, what True Feminist cred do I have?

First off, I was raised by a woman. This gives me plenty of insight into the day to day life of strong women everywhere.  

Then there's extensive research, especially some from great magazine articles on Evolutionary Psychology, I forget where.

And let's not forget the influence of Pop Culture, from those scrappy, resourceful Bond Girls ("Pussy Galore, I must be dreaming") – to the Cathy comic strip ("Aaack!")  – to modern-day Gwen Stefani ("Holla Back!")

Most important of all, I have my own eyes. They've been trained by years of critical and skeptical thinking so that I can see without the poisonous influence of emotion.  This way I can help those less fortunate and help them know the appropriate feelings they should have for any situation.

So, far be it from me to tell women how to be feminists BUT… Let me help you sort things out! ARE YOU WITH ME, SECULAR WOMEN?

In the meantime, in case I ever talk about humor and feminism, I thought I'd post this video by brave feminist Nellie McKay. She really gets why so many feminists can't seem to take a joke. I bet she doesn't get invited to many NOW conventions!

Thanks for letting me finish,

Major Mike

E A Higgins E A Higgins' Blog, salon

Women Against Birth Control

Recently there has been a series of images circulating the internet depicting a number of women holding signs explaining why they do not utilize birth control. While one or two of the reasons given can be seen as rational (e.g. they want to be “organic” and hormone free), there are many of the statements that are not only highly illogical, but also downright offensive. Among those that fall into the latter category are statements like “because my body is a gift to my future husband and that gift includes motherhood” and “because [birth control] allows men to use women with no consequences.” There are nearly two dozen more images with proclamations like the aforementioned including “because I can control myself,” “because I am responsible and make mindful decisions accepting the consequences for my actions,” or better yet “because children are not an inconvenience, they’re a gift”. What these women seem to be forgetting, what a lot of people on the anti-birth control band wagon have forgotten, is that what is good for them is not good for everyone else, and how you act is not how everyone else acts, and it really is just that simple.

A favorite of mine that was posted is “because I don’t have to give up my womanhood to be a feminist.” By the time I got to this statement, I was already scrambling to pick my jaw up off the ground, but when I finished reading it, I was dumbfounded. I’m not exactly grasping what this woman seems to know as truth. First, since when does having children mean one cannot be a feminist, and second, since when does feminism require you to not have children and to use birth control? The answer to these questions is since never. Never have I heard the feminists I know say or imply that being on birth control is a requirement to be a feminist. The statement she made is just further proof to me that there are still an incredible amount of women who have been mislead about feminism, albeit what “feminism” means to an individual tends to be quite subjective.

Also referenced in a few of the photos in the series, although not cited or peer reviewed, were some interesting science and medical facts. Apparently, at least according to one of the women pictured, women get cervical cancer from birth control alone, and not from things such Human papillomavirus (HPV), which using protection and getting vaccinated can prevent. There is no link between the use of general birth control and developing cervical cancer. The link here is from an increased risk for developing cervical cancer due to long term use of birth control pills in women who already have HPV and leave it unchecked and the symptoms untreated. While I can’t address every single absurd claim of phony science in the photos, I feel like it should also be noted that the same sign also mentioned a link between birth control and breast cancer. This link is also an increased risk, but this was back in the 1970s primarily, when birth control had high amounts of estrogen, not so much with the low dose pills these days. But if hormones are what are deterring these women from birth control there are alternative no-hormone options.

A running theme amongst the images that I found to be exceptionally flabbergasting is the way the word “womanhood” is used, for example “because womanhood and fertility are a beautiful gift and I want a love that is self-giving and life-giving.” What saddens me is how many of the women pictured define womanhood not by the fact that they have vaginas, or feel themselves to be women, but are dictated by ancient value systems of whether or not they reproduce, as though having children is a measure of merit to how worthy one is of their womanhood. Womanhood does not equal motherhood. The two are not synonymous, will never be synonymous, and have never been synonymous. People who say or believe things like that are essentially reduce the countless number of women throughout history who have been unable to have children or have chosen not to have children to what? What exactly is it that these women are implying? Is a woman who does not have any children but is accomplished in other aspects less of a woman because she has not bore children? Many of these same women in the photo series also mentioned how they don’t use birth control because they only plan to have sex for the purposes of producing life (e.g. the one who said that her body essentially belongs to her future husband, and should be fertile and ready to reproduce).

Throw in the reference to Roman Catholic family planning and I can hear the church bells a-ringing.

Elsa Roberts salon

Announcing Secular Woman Salon

Secular Woman is incredibly pleased and excited to announce the start of a new project that will add to the growing number of incredible voices writing on issues of concern to secular women, and that project is the Secular Woman Salon! The Salon is a new outlet on our website for the latest in opinion, think pieces, and news for secular women, as well as anyone interested in advancing the cause of social justice with a secular lens.

Through this project we hope to, quite literally, advance our mission of amplifying the voices of secular women by establishing a dedicated space where the causes, issues, and thoughts of such women will be foregrounded. Here you can expect to find articles, opinions, and discussions with an intersectional, feminist sensibility that are nuanced, intelligent, and sometimes angry. In this space we’ll be working to ensure that the voices and issues of import to women and other marginalized groups are front and center.

To ensure this we have put together a salon that is comprised of a fantastic group of writers who are as excited to be participating in this new endeavor as we are to have them. They come from a wide array of backgrounds with many interests and areas of expertise, and we couldn’t be more pleased that they have chosen to join us!

Without further ado, please peruse their bios below, and check out our first articles that have been published!

Iris Vander PluymIris Vander Pluym is an artist, activist and writer based in New York City. Raised to believe Nice Girls™ never discuss religion, sex or politics, it turns out those are pretty much the only topics she ever wants to talk about. A self-described “unapologetic, godless, feminist lefty,” Ms. Vander Pluym blogs at Perry Street Palace; she is also a regular columnist at The Political Junkies for Progressive Democracy, a contributor to Worldwide Hippies/Citizen Journalists Exchange and an occasional guest poster at Pharyngula, The Greanville Post and elsewhere. Follow her on Facebook, or @irisvanderpluym.

Elizabeth Higgins E.A. Higgins is a freelance writer from Los Angeles, California. A published ethnographer and graduate student studying Geography, she researches religion across the globe and the impacts it has on people and the planet. She enjoys writing about issues relating to women, humanism, secularism, and in her free time enjoys traveling, painting, and spending time with her boyfriend and her dog. Follow her on twitter or instagram (Darthlyzzious).

Marina MartinezMarina Martinez lives in Portland, Oregon with her boyfriend, Ben, her dog, Pepper, and her cat, Medusa. She enjoys being fat, being loud, long walks on the beach, and general awesomeness. You can find her on Twitter @marinaisgo, on Facebook, or by email at marinarosemartinez (at) gmail (dot) com.

Autumn Reinhardt-SimpsonAutumn Reinhardt Simpson is a librarian, activist and writer originally from Kennewick, Washington.  She received her Master of Library and Information Science with a concentration in Archival Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2008.

She spends all of her hard earned peanuts on travel to the U.K. and unnecessary fabric purchases in pursuit of the perfect warrior-inspired fashion. Autumn is the founder and organizer of Richmond (VA) Clinic Defense and delights in being a secular thorn in the side of the local authorities. She is currently at work on both a memoir as well as a book of essays in addition to the odd article.

She appreciates sewing, knitting and all things involving needles (except heroin), Katha Pollitt, travel and female warriors. When not sewing, she can be found pumping iron at the local YMCA.

Sara LoneSara affectionately refers to herself as a “millennial on a mission.” This mission? Creating a safer world for everyone, particularly women and non-religious folks in all the vast corners of the earth. Sara truly believes that education and cultural awareness will pave the way for tolerance, a virtue desperately needed in these extremely difficult and tumultuous times. Currently earning her Master’s degree in public policy, Sara fights relentlessly for women’s rights and separation of church and state on a policy level by regularly speaking out and lobbying on behalf of these causes. She has written for and worked with several organizations; a monthly columnist for Sacramento Reason and a weekly writer for The Humanist, she hopes to reach an even wider audience through Secular Woman, telling stories, sharing knowledge, and contributing to the growth of the secular women’s movement.

JadehawkKarolina Lewis is a student of environmental sociology and social theory who writes about theory and practice of social issues such as feminism, environmental justice, mental health, and secularism/skepticism. She formerly blogged at Jadehawk’s Blog.

Major Mike MansplainerMuch to his dismay, Major Mike Mansplainer is a fictional character, dredged up from deep within the lizard brain of Michael X.  As for the pseudonymous Michael X, he is a middle-aged suburban dad who writes and co-hosts a podcast for Secular Nation Magazine.  Tweet @Dofang for Michael X, and @MajMansplainer for his evil twin.

Corrina AllenCorrina Allen has been an educator in Central New York for the last decade and is the founder and president of the CNY Humanist Association. She lives with her book reviewer husband and their two young daughters in a house overflowing with books. She loves to dabble in all things creative – from drawing, crocheting, and designing mosaics to dancing in a jazz ensemble. You can find her on Instagram or Twitter @corrinaaallen.

M. A. MelbyM. A. Melby was born on a farm in rural Minnesota.  She studied physics and music as an undergraduate and applied physics and computer music composition at the graduate level.  After teaching college level integrated science in Flint, Michigan for seven years, she accepted a position teaching physics within a health sciences program in Minnesota.

During her college years, she was highly involved in student government and served as the Minnesota State University Student Association Cultural Diversity Representative from her campus.  She currently blogs at sinmantyx.wordpress.com and is a contributor at Transadvocate. She is active on twitter and serves as a Block Bot admin; frequently documenting online abuse. She was the lead author of the change.org petition presented by Secular Woman, asking the Southern Poverty Law Center to list Gender Identity Watch as a hate group.

Elsa RobertsElsa is currently a graduate student, pursuing a M.S. in Rhetoric and Technical Communication, but her real calling is to perpetual activism and teaching. She is frequently distracted by planning actions, attending meetings, and fighting people who are wrong on the internet. Her passions are typically aroused by thoughtless city planning for pedestrians and cyclists, casual sexism, poorly constructed arguments, and being told to “chill” about inequality. She is the current Vice President of Secular Woman (and heading the Salon project) and can be found tweeting wildly about a variety of subjects @elsalroberts.