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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 06/23/2012 : 22:44:01 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Who the hell is Russell Blackford? |
I guess that's fair, since I didn't know Travis Roy. Blackford has been big in Australia's skeptic scene for years. Here is his bio:I am an Australian philosopher, literary critic, and professional writer. My new book, from Wiley-Blackwell, is FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND THE SECULAR STATE. I'm editor-in-chief of The Journal of Evolution and Technology, an on-line, peer-reviewed journal. I am a Conjoint Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Newcastle, NSW. My formal qualifications include First Class Honours degrees in Arts and Law, and separate Ph.Ds in English literature and philosophy. The latter may seem extravagant, but I have my reasons! |
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular
Norway
1273 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2012 : 23:06:13 [Permalink]
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| maybe they think the problem is blown out of proportion, and acknowledging it will only add fuel to the fire. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2012 : 06:37:52 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by On fire for Christ
maybe they think the problem is blown out of proportion, and acknowledging it will only add fuel to the fire. |
The JREF board and executive staff may indeed think that, but they have plenty of evidence that Grothe's comments a month ago coupled with their current silence has prompted at least a couple dozen people to stop supporting the JREF, and many more to not start doing so. How many others have decided the same but not written about it publicly?
Has even a single person said, "I wasn't going to go to TAM this year, but in support of the organization's choice to avoid openly discussing the implementation of a strong anti-harassment policy and its president's obvious disdain for those who advocate such a thing, I have decided to go"? If there is, nobody is talking about him/her.
So because TAM is a fundraiser for JREF, if they think what you're suggesting, then they have evidence that what they think is actively causing a net decline in their income. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2012 : 07:05:55 [Permalink]
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Dana Hunter:This is it. This is the request that has stirred up such a shitstorm: have a policy in place that will prevent at least some harassment and deftly handle any that does occur, without blaming victims, without being unfair to the accused, without interfering with the fun of any except predatory fuckwits.
This is what some conferences haven’t yet done.
It bloody well boggles my mind. And commenter margiebargie on that thread:Women are paying customers at these conferences. We can get harrassed at the local bar for free. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2012 : 09:15:41 [Permalink]
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Just to be clear, to those who say there isn't one, there is a harassment policy for TAM. The problem is that it's not posted publicly for all to see. It is in the TAM packets that we receive when we arrive in Vegas and register at TAM. And I'm sure this years policy will be have stronger wording than last year. The problem is the way DJ responded to those who brought up that they did complain (even though he dealt personally and positively with one of those complaints) and that they haven't posted the rules on the site for all to see. While this is a PR disaster, TAM does and will have a harassment policy. Again, I'm baffled as to why the policy has not been posted in the the registration area on the JREF site.
Now we have people saying crazy shit about RW and others because this stubbornness on the side of the JREF has opened the door wild accusations about who is to blame and so on. DJ didn't help matters and really kicked this thing off by suggesting that general complaints about harassment at all such events are the reason that the TAM female numbers are down this year, when it could have been for any number of reasons having little to do with the harassment policy.
Of course a harassment policy should be in place and made very public.
It should also be pointed out that there will be the usual number of female attendants at TAM this year, some of whom will be there because of RW and the skepchics policy of promoting TAM to woman and raising money to get them there. Again, DJ was wrong to blame RW and RW's reason for not going are justified on those grounds.
Another thing is that many, if not most of the female attendants, and really many of the total number of attendants who register for TAM don't follow these goings on and aren't even aware of them. Believe it or not, the whole skeptical world doesn't revolve around the FtB and the JREF itself. TAM is famous for being an large and important skeptical conference, and that makes it a draw to people who have never even read the FtB or the JREF forums and aren't aware of this controversy. I can't even find a mention of the controversy on the CFI forums. But I guaranty there will be many CFI members at TAM.
The terribly frustrating thing about this is none of it had to happen. Now it's open warfare between FtB and DJ's and the JREF's defenders. All because DJ did not handle this in the way that he should have.
Sad.
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2012 : 10:00:35 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
DJ didn't help matters and really kicked this thing off by suggesting that general complaints about harassment at all such events were the reason that the TAM female numbers are down this year, when it could have been for any number of reasons having little to do with the harassment policy. |
This, I think, is the main problem. DJ is the one who turned this general conversation into one about TAM specifically. It was rash and ill-considered of him. And considering Rebecca's support of TAM over the years, utterly misguided. Yet he still shows no sign of acknowledging his responsibility in creating this mess. This whole imbroglio remains a massive failure of leadership on his part.
The terribly frustrating thing about this is none of it had to happen. Now it's open warfare between FtB and DJ's and the JREF's defenders. All because DJ did not handle this in the way that he should have.
Sad. |
I agree.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2012 : 10:35:21 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by On fire for Christ
Jref is probably being silent because any kind of policy change, statement or apology would be an admission that there was a problem. |
And that's part of the problem. Everybody knows "that there was a problem." Denying it - or ignoring it and hoping it will go away - is antithetical to skepticism. If that's what they're doing, then the JREF is making a mockery of its own mission.
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I think many people confuse acknowledging a social problem as being the same as accepting guilt for it. We saw it during elevator-gate, when a lot men were basically stuck on arguing "it's not fair to treat me like a potential rapist." We saw it during the onset of the Trayvon Martin shooting when people were quick to dismiss the possible role of racial bias in the killing. The media, in that case, were the ones accused of "stirring up" racist sentiments, despite the fact that racism remains a huge problem in our society. Few seemed willing or able to recognize it, and were instead stuck on reiterating that they aren't racists and therefore there is no problem.
But the thing is, racism (and sexism) is rarely overt or conscious. I recently watched the movie A Time to Kill about a pair of southern rednecks who rape a young black girl. The rapists were presented as southern stereotypes, mullet-headed morons who detested everything about black people. They were intentionally portrayed as over-the-top so that the audience could not relate to them. Racism is bad, so most people don't want to consider themselves racist. If the portrayal of racism was more subtle--and thus more accurate--too many people might recognize their own prejudices reflected back at them and may have ended up feeling uncomfortable.
So by dealing only in extremes, movies and television often contribute to people's cartoonish conceptions of these problems. Rape happens to drunk women in skimpy clothing who wander into dark alleys. Racism is when men wearing sheets burn crosses on black folks front lawns. Any attempt to detail how racism or sexism actually manifests in society will be seen by some people as an attack on their character--an unfair attempt to lump them in with the "real" racists and misogynists--and so we see the reflexive dismissal of these attempts to educate by those who need it most.
And, yes, skeptics are supposed to do better than that.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 06/24/2012 10:56:02 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2012 : 11:42:30 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
It should also be pointed out that there will be the usual number of female attendants at TAM this year, some of whom will be there because of RW and the skepchics policy of promoting TAM to woman and raising money to get them there. |
Then why was DJ complaining about female registration dropping from 40% to 18%?| Another thing is that many, if not most of the female attendants, and really many of the total number of attendants who register for TAM don't follow these goings on and aren't even aware of them. Believe it or not, the whole skeptical world doesn't revolve around the FtB and the JREF itself. TAM is famous for being an large and important skeptical conference, and that makes it a draw to people who have never even read the FtB or the JREF forums and aren't aware of this controversy. |
Except that some of DJ's comments were on Facebook and other, independent blogs, and people took him to task in those places, too. The controversy isn't limited to FtB and the JREF forums, and it won't be limited to the Internet when people talk about it at TAM.| I can't even find a mention of the controversy on the CFI forums. |
I can't even find a mention of TAM on the CFI forums. Of course, the search engine there isn't very discriminating, hitting on the word "testament," for example.| Now it's open warfare between FtB and DJ's and the JREF's defenders. |
That's rather hyperbolic. And it also presents a false equivalency. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2012 : 11:50:05 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by H. Humbert
And, yes, skeptics are supposed to do better than that. |
That's what has people flabbergasted more than anything else: the rationalist community was assumed by many who were new to it these last couple of years to be above things like sexism and racism. Specifically women, in a whole bunch of comments in various blogs, have said that our sub-set of society appeared, at first, to be a haven in which they wouldn't have to deal with the same bullshit they face "in real life" out in public or at work. They were wrong, and it's been very disappointing to them. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2012 : 12:12:39 [Permalink]
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Dave:
Then why was DJ complaining about female registration dropping from 40% to 18%? |
Because 18 to 20% has been the usual breakdown. Last year was obviously different. He's clearly disappointed that this year doesn't have the same kind of breakdown as last year. But he's likely wrong about the reason.
Dave:
Except that some of DJ's comments were on Facebook and other, independent blogs, and people took him to task in those places, too. The controversy isn't limited to FtB and the JREF forums, and it won't be limited to the Internet when people talk about it at TAM. |
Sure. Some of us will be talking about this at TAM. But I have over 1100 friends, (Ooops, I just checked and I have almost 1300 friends there) and not many in my newsfeed are talking about this, even though most of them are either atheists, skeptics or both. Hardly any of them are. And I submit that if you don't regular the FtB or the JREF forum, than this is mostly static going on in the background, if that, to most people going to TAM. But I'll let you know what I can gather from being at TAM myself.
Dave:
That's rather hyperbolic. And it also presents a false equivalency. |
Hyperbolic perhaps. But that's what it looks like to me. And no. I didn't intend for it to be a false equivalency. Also wasn't commenting on the content of the criticisms. Just the origin of most of it. If you look at back at my post, it's pretty easy to see where I stand on this issue. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2012 : 19:48:51 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Because 18 to 20% has been the usual breakdown. |
Got it.| And I submit that if you don't regular the FtB or the JREF forum, than this is mostly static going on in the background, if that, to most people going to TAM. But I'll let you know what I can gather from being at TAM myself. |
Thanks.| And no. I didn't intend for it to be a false equivalency. |
I know, and I know where you stand. I've just been sensitized to the fallacy and its toxic effects. While "both sides" have engaged in name-calling and unfair characterizations, only one side of this dispute has been calling for skepticism of ordinary events, insulting to those who feel uncomfortable by unwelcome advances, and dismissive of those who have been repeatedly subjected to inappropriate behavior. The "war" is of their making, and anything that even looks like someone trying to spread the blame around gets on my nerves. Sorry. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2012 : 21:47:30 [Permalink]
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Me:
And I submit that if you don't regular the FtB or the JREF forum, than this is mostly static going on in the background, if that, to most people going to TAM. But I'll let you know what I can gather from being at TAM myself. |
I spent time with Michelle today. (My refuge from flea bombing.) Anyhow, I brought this debacle up and she knew nothing about it. When I explained it to her, she quickly came to an opinion that was pretty much the same as mine. (And yes. Michelle can think for herself. It doesn't always work out that we agree on something I clue her in about.) Anyhow, case in point. She also brought up that single woman with young children are much less likely to spend the money to go to TAM and also deal with the problems of logistics. And that woman in general, with children, are more tied down than men are. That's what she thinks explanes a lot of why there are less woman at these conferences than men. At least, that's one reason. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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Rebecca Watson Not Appearing at TAM
