Post by WaitingforGodot
Go to any site that hosts modern intellectual discussions, especially around the sciences, atheism, skepticism, and freethought, and one topic that will be shared across all of them is “the role of women at our site”.
Sites and scholarly topics that appeal to the intellectually-minded have always drawn more men than women, largely due to some outdated yet self-fulfilling idea that women neither like or tend to be competent at truly rational thinking, thanks to those silly emotions of theirs. Anyone over 25 who is into sciences or philosophy will tell you that it’s a uterine-free world out there.
But this view of women’s place at the intellectual table is being challenged the net over. Women scientists, bloggers, freethinking atheists, traditional feminists and even stay at-home-moms with sharp minds have all started to say, in a variety of lovely ways, “we are here. Now notice us”. And the men have. By embracing women’s participation, or by blasting it to the pits of dismissive hell, where mansplaining and scorn is the best reply you can hope for, and threats of violence or rape a sadly expected “worst”.
Navigating these waters for any site is a tricky thing. Doing it — even harder.
First of all, you have to want women’s participation, and accept that it’s a good thing to have various minority voices on your site. Having decided that, you have to encourage it by having a variety of topics that might interest or appeal to women specifically, as well as the generic ones that appeal to everyone, regardless of gender. You have to walk the walk, and listen to what women are saying: What topics matter to some or most women in your field? What questions are unique to the women of/in your field? What articles have been written by women at your site, on any topic, and how can you highlight them? What off-site discussions are happening? Are women involved? Are they encouraged to talk?
And a big one — what is your actual attitude as represented in your sitespace? Is it easy to find moments where women’s opinions have been dismissed? Does the site allow anyone to say anything at any time about women? Are the conversations bully-based (that is, to the extent that it’s true that women “give up” earlier than men, do the men win when there are disagreements, just ’cause they are louder, meaner, and more stubborn)? Are lots of the participants telling those who speak abusively to back down or get out? And if fights (all too common around mansplaining-land) do break out, how does the community at large, handle them?
To the best of my knowledge, RationalWiki has had few if any of the dramatic “MRA v. Feminist” epic battles of the century so common around the net. In part, I suppose, it’s because we are simply not that big. We do have small spats now and then, and there is always disagreement on what terms like “feminism” even mean anymore. But we tend to keep it mostly level-headed. Most of the active editors and lurkers are generally what I would call “feminist”. They are quick to jump into the fray and challenge the more stereotypical views of women. When we address topics like Akin‘s now-famous “rape shuts that whole thing down”, our comments and articles tend to be fairly feminist minded. We discuss issues and largely agree that things like the generic rape culture is a social problem, and is not likely to be fixed by just changing your clothing or hiring more women cops. In the Saloon Bar, where we hang out and bash each other for no good reason, you’ll find people who question all the assumptions, or who express dislike for so-called 3rd wave feminism. But from my experience, those conversations remain civil, controlled, and intellectual.
We do get plenty of trolls on our MRA articles, of course. But it’s OK, ’cause you’ll see a site of editors take them on and blast them to smithereens.
Thanks in part to the work of some dedicated editors, female and male, we have several decent articles of interest to skeptics with a feminist bent. But we can always use more women around here. Scientists to help us blast away pseudoscience, writers to add splash and pizazz to otherwise boring articles, historians to add details we’ve missed, and generally opinionated women of all bents to keep us sharp.
Great pages to check out:
- Men’s rights movement — It’s a bit hard to justify why you need your own “special rights” when you control the government of every single country in the world. Just saying …
- Female genital mutilation and Circumcision — we take a pretty strong view that both of these are child abuse
- Rape, and Rape culture
- Abortion, Circumventing Roe v. Wade
- Misogyny — though we need help with quality articles about religion and women, especially institutionalized misogyny.
- Diet woo — stereotypical as it is too suggest most women diet at some point in their life — I think it is a topic of interest to many women
What we are missing includes articles on body image and social pressure to conform to roles, as well as issues that cover women-targeted woo around menopause and aging.
There’s not a lot of us around yet, but some of the women who have graced the pages of the wiki:
I can’t believe I only just found this blog. This post warms my heart.
In my experience, RW is one of the few feminist-friendly rationalist communities – Less Wrong, for example, despite their beliefs about “the psychological unity of humanity”, bizarrely makes special pleading for gender and gender only. Perhaps I should think about writing stuff in my own blog that would be interesting for RW-ians.
The particular style of LessWrong’s sexism is possibly even more disturbing than their tolerance for racists – I mean, Human Biodiversity advocates.
LW has been marinating in the pop evo psych Kool-Aid.
Occupy Wall Street’s General Assembly operates under a revolutionary “progressive stack.” A normal “stack” means those who wish to speak get in line. A progressive stack encourages women and traditionally marginalized groups speak before men, especially white men. This is something that has been in place since the beginning, it is necessary, and it is important.
— Russell Coker, PhD, Linux kernel security engineering
somebody should write a mediawiki extension already
“RW is one of the few feminist-friendly rationalist communities..”
Probably a good reason for that. The asymmetric sexism of gender Marxism (Feminism) should be abhorrent to any rationalist or humanist.
http://owningyourshit.blogspot.cz/2013/04/my-address-to-ny-state-libertarian.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OwningYourShit+%28Owning+Your+Shit%29
The trouble with your hyper-libertarian view (and if you’re dumb enough to call feminism Marxist, I can stretch to call libertarian Fascist, and hilarity can ensue) is that it assumes that equality generates itself automatically. It doesn’t, and we can see that because we have, for years, lived in a fairly government-free world. The international community, for instance, may have arbitrators and mediators, but it isn’t actually governed as such. It’s still a bunch of entities freely doing their own thing, occasionally working together if it suits them. Historically, people have also been free to do as they please with things. Feminism and anti-discrimination law is a reasonably new concept that came as a response to precisely the fact that this equality wasn’t magically manifesting itself. It transpires that, actually, in that sort of world it’s the loud and obnoxious that get to shout most, it’s the already powerful who can use that power to gain more power. Sure, you can nominally remove barriers and say “look, there’s no law holding you back, you’re equal”, but that just creates an illusion of freedom. You’re still sucked down by the pre-existing underprivilege that you often have no choice in – and people at the top get pulled up by pre-existing privilege or dumb luck. Dress this up as a good thing all you like, but don’t pass it off as “equality”, because it really isn’t. With that system in place for hundreds of years, we ended up in a situation where women are second class and ethnic minorities are despised. Equality never manifested itself at all when people were given free reign to oppress all they like based on prejudice and the need to perpetuate their own power.
The reality is that it’s something we need to work for. It’s something that we need to engage with, and see what needs to be changed to actually drag it into the world, because people are going to be out there thinking it’s a bad thing and wanting to stop us. It’s going to inconvenience those already in a position of power because they know actual equality inevitably means a smaller slice of the world for them – so they do anything and say anything they can to dress it up as being about being unequal and about people wanting “special” privileges. No, people don’t want special privileges, they just want the same privileges as everyone else. You think this sort of thing has no place in a “rationalist” or “humanist” community? Then what’s the point?
Feminists engage in two primary pursuits, one stated, and one not-so-stated:
1. Fighting inequality in the situations where it disadvantages women
2. Fighting the Men’s Rights Movement
Now I have also found that Men’s Rights Activists engage in the same pursuits in reverse, as it were:
1. Fighting inequality in the situations where it disadvantages men
2. Fighting the Feminist Movement
If the Rationalist Movement wishes to tackle the gender equality issue, it can engage in both of the first pursuits without compromising its own values, but neither of the second ones. This leaves the Feminist Movement and the Men’s Rights Movement, if they want the Rationalist Movement’s wholehearted support, two options:
1. Stop fighting each other
2. Stop fighting each other
Currently we have Feminist Rationalists compromising their Rationalist values by siding wholeheartedly with Feminism (see Pharyngula, RationalWiki, Atheism+, etc.), and we have MRA Rationalists compromising their Rationalist values by siding wholeheartedly with the MRM (see Phawrongula, LessWrong, etc.). I think this is a bad thing, which is why I disapprove of RationalWiki’s direction. Not because I’m a misogynist, or a man-hater, but because I valued the state of affairs where I could turn to RationalWiki for a purely Rationalist perspective.
This is quite a significant straw man considering that feminists only “fight the men’s rights movement” in places where they de-rail feminist causes with their own bullshit, or actively try to blame everything on women. In fact, the majority of MRA stuff is that. And further in fact, the ones who care most about men’s *actual* rights and issues are most likely third-wave feminists.
This is either dishonest or uninformed. Feminists generally only admit that men have issues when it serves them as an example of Patriarchy “backfiring”. They frame every problem as a women’s problem. The issue of a potential draft only conscripting men is framed as a women’s problem because women have to suffer the slight of historically not being considered fit for military service. Never mind the fact that being sent off to die is much worse than feeling insulted. The issue of the significantly higher incarceration rate of men is seen as a women’s problem because women are seen as fundamentally good, or alternatively, incapable of surviving prison life. Never mind the fact that being sent to prison is much worse than feeling insulted. The issue of custody is seen as a women’s problem because (even though it was feminists who instituted the current state of affairs) women are seen as the more important caregiver, where men are there to bring home the money. Never mind the fact that being prejudged unfit and subsequently losing the right to be a part of your child’s life is much worse than feeling insulted. Et cetera, et cetera.
Furthermore, while some feminists may genuinely wish to help with men’s issues, it is not their place to lead the movement for men’s rights. Just as it is not straight people’s place to lead the movement for GSM rights, no matter how sympathetic they are, and just as it is not white people’s place to lead the movement for ERM rights, no matter how sympathetic they are. They can help, and their help is much appreciated, but they are not to commandeer the movement for their own purposes.
You say “feminists in general” as a sweeping statement of fact… but where’s your evidence that this is the case?
You say “in fact, the majority of MRA stuff is that. And further in fact, the ones who care most about men’s *actual* rights and issues are most likely third-wave feminists.” as a sweeping statement of fact… but where’s your evidence that this is the case?
“RationalWiki has had few if any of the dramatic “MRA v. Feminist” epic battles of the century so common around the net. In part, I suppose, it’s because we are simply not that big. We do have small spats now and then, and there is always disagreement on what terms like “feminism” even mean anymore. But we tend to keep it mostly level-headed.”
Let’s look at the article on Anita Sarkeesian, now fully exposed as a fraud, and see how “level-headed” ratioal-wiki is.
First, their discussion section does not involve the debate of the accuracy and structure of the page on her, it has been made into a one-sided, heavily-censored forum in which anyone presenting legitimate criticism is trolled 4-chan style.
I recently dumped 90+ minutes of vlogs exposing her, including primary material FROM HERSELF claiming she was not a gamer, meaning she’s a busybody invading the gaming community and trying to change something of which she is NOT a part.
I get snark from the “editors” who proudly proclaim “I’m not going to go through 90 minutes of blogs”,.
RATIONAL! .. I don’t think it means the same thing to rationalwiki that it does to the rest of us.
Hi, I think the feminist project as a whole needs to be more introspective. I see a lot of righteous indignation out there. While people like Sommers are mentioned on the rational-wiki page on Feminism, her substantive criticisms are not. I would challenge a rational minded person to read Susan Pinker (who is not mentioned and should be), and Sommers, and understand what is being said and then argue that this situation is okay. (For real — w rational disinterested discussion.) That would be interesting discussion. In lieu of any response to these critiques, they deserve their due representation, and rational-wiki is a good place to do so, since the wiki’s point of view is supposed to be — rational. For the record, I think the MRA are a bunch of clowns, and fully support the core feminist project of equality.
Fascinating. I must confess I find the misandry on RW to be quite blatant.
:shrug:
Are feminists acknowledging that it exists yet? Maybe you could break ground here!
Have noticed this so much on their disingenuous level of criticism on their pundits, also their inconsistency on their complaints about fallacies. The ED page for RW is pretty hilarious and wouldn’t be suprised it’s somewhat accurate. That being said, it seems to be generally more rational on topics of religion and pseudosciences.
Some of the articles however blatantly push an angle on subjective politics and over simplify or not even represent at least their most persuasive arguments. Some articles are literally uncyclopedia-tier (ex.Donald Trump) which are admittedly funny at times but not as funny as dramatica or uncyvlopedia respectively.
Pros: Good for info on pseudoscience and trends not well covered or not as well known or established.
Cons: Wikipedia is much more informative and honest on almost everything else