Sexism Starts Early and Is Reinforced Often: STEM Edition

Listen up, everyone who likes to babble about innate differences between the sexes (especially you, Sam Harris). Listen to Libby Anne, whose daughter Sally loves science. Listen to the story of Sally drawing equations on her dad’s office chalkboard, and a science colleague dude walking in, and asking a little girl who’s enthusiastically writing numbers-

(No, he didn’t ask her about her math stuff. Don’t be silly! Everybody knows girls don’t math, even when they’re happily scribbling numbers.)

(No, you weirdo, he didn’t ask her if she likes science. Of course not! Her dad and her two year-old brother can like science, but even if she’s doing sciencey stuff all on her own, that’s obviously not what she likes, because girls don’t science.)

(No, of course he didn’t ask what she was doing! She was obviously just doodling. It didn’t mean anything. Numbers don’t mean things to girls, duh.)

No, of course he asked her the only rational thing you could ask a girl who’s playing with numbers on a chalkboard:

“What’s your favorite princess?”

Image is an angry troll face with red eyes. Background has the letters FFFFFUUUU repeated in red.

Because that’s not reinforcing sexist stereotypes at all.

Libby Anne spoke to the gentleman about it, and you’ll be relieved to know he’s totes aware that women are under-represented in STEM fields, it’s just that his nieces like princesses, so of course that’s what you ask little girls who are playing with math about.

Then, y’know, when those little girls tell you they haven’t got a favorite princess, but they adore science, of course it’s fine to walk out while they’re in the midst of sharing that love, because you’re probably busy and don’t have a moment to listen to miniature females talk about science. She’s supposed to have a favorite princess, anyway, amirite, guys?

Image shows Puss in-Boots from Shrek holding something in his paw, with his mouth open in an angry O. Caption says, "You see this? You see this shit!"

Libby Anne has a message for us:

Many little girls are into princesses, yes, and that’s fine. But but others prefer legos, or art, or My Little Ponies—or science. I want a world where girls are treated as individuals first, a world where girls are allowed to fill in the blanks in their own stories. Is it so hard to ask a girl her interests instead of assuming them for her?

My son Bobby is two, and I’m interested to hear what people say to him as he grows so that I can compare. What do people lead off with with five-year-old boys? It will be gendered as well, I’m sure, and that’s the problem—this is part of the process of socializing children into specific gender roles. Girls are assumed to like sweet sparkly pretty girly things and boys are assumed to like strong manly messy boy things. And then we do studies on psychological differences between men and women or differences in occupational choice as though these things are wholly natural rather than largely the product of relentless cultural shaping during childhood.

Can we please stop doing this shit? It’s 20fucking14. Isn’t it time to stop shoving little kids into gendered boxes and let them love what they love? Can’t we please encourage kids to figure out for themselves what floats their boat?

And if you engage in stupid oblivious sexist shit like the above dude, you really need to take another look at your assumptions, and consider that your thoughtless actions are a major reason why women and men turn out differently. Hint: it ain’t all biology.

/rant. Sod this for a lark. I need a vat of tequila and a truckload of limes, now, please.

 

 

 

Sexism Starts Early and Is Reinforced Often: STEM Edition
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Attention Coyne, Dawkins, and Harris: You Are Part of the Problem

I’d like to ask a favor of anyone who can manage to get a critical viewpoint through the defenses of atheist celebrities like Harris and Dawkins: please get them to read Libby Anne’s infuriating and heartbreaking post, Do They Care about Women, or Simply Bashing Religion? Because it’s a question they need to address. They’re driving people like Libby Anne away from movement atheism. That is very much to the detriment of the movement.

Libby is one of the best atheist bloggers out there. I don’t always agree with her, but I have to put careful thought into why when that happens, because she’s a lot smarter and more thoughtful than I am. She emerged from the Christian patriarchy/Quiverfull culture, so she has insights into the extremes of fundamentalist Christianity that are invaluable. I’d not be blogging about Christianist textbooks or aware of the plight of kids trapped in that awful bubble if it wasn’t for her. She’s also my go-to person for showing that there are better ways to parent than hitting your children. She’s made me aware of just how relentlessly even mainstream culture genders kids, well before they’re old enough to even have a concept of themselves as boy or girl or something else. She’s worth a thousand Richard Dawkinses or Sam Harrises to me. She could be a tremendous asset to any atheist organization.

She could, but movement atheism is too busy patronizing women and making sure we all get the impression that we’re only of use to our Fearless Leaders™ when we’re being used as a cudgel against religion, and she wants none of that.
Continue reading “Attention Coyne, Dawkins, and Harris: You Are Part of the Problem”

Attention Coyne, Dawkins, and Harris: You Are Part of the Problem

Some Useful Links on Sexual Predation

A while ago, I was looking up some facts and stats on rape, and collected a handful of links that might prove useful when arguing with people who refuse to see that there is a substantial subset of men who are, indeed, the majority of the problem. It also speaks to why we shouldn’t tell daughters not to get raped as much as tell sons (and, indeed, daughters) not to rape. As even Narendra Modi says, “After all, the rapist is also someone’s son.” (Or daughter. Let’s not pretend women can never rape, and men can never suffer rape, because that’s hardly true. It’s just that men are overwhelmingly likely to be the perpetrators rather than the victims. And those men who want to argue that, answer this honestly: when you plan a first date with someone, are you afraid she may not sleep with you, or that she’ll be weird or boring, or you’ll make such a fool of yourself she’ll never want to see you again – or that she will violate and then possibly kill you?)

Right. Here are the links. Feel free to add your own links to good resources in the comments. Continue reading “Some Useful Links on Sexual Predation”

Some Useful Links on Sexual Predation

Fifty Shades of F**king Abuse

Let me tell you how I got acquainted with some of the worst books on the market:

It was an odd time. I’d just spent over a month intensively critiquing creationist earth science texts, and that triggers depression after so many chapters. One begins to lose all hope for humanity. The end of summer loomed. B and I had a rather serious falling out. So there I was, mopey and miserable and wishing the world could just stop for a while.

I don’t remember what I was reading, but there was a link to Jenny Trout’s blog in the comments. And she had done to the Fifty Shades trilogy what I’m doing to Christianist textbooks. I’d been hearing for years how bloody awful the Fifty Shades of Grey books were, how they glorified abuse, how fake the BDSM was, and how terrible the writing was. I’d heard it from enough people whose opinion I trust that I hadn’t wasted my time attempting to read the bloody things. But now there’s gonna be a movie, and about nine trillion people think this shit’s the cat’s pajamas and ever-so-good for their looove lives, so maybe it would be a good idea to find out a bit more about it. And here was a brilliant, funny, and feminist writer who’d read and reported on them so I didn’t have to. It was like Cliffs Notes, with brutal honesty and snark.

Now, I should’ve been working, but I really couldn’t. And a day off wouldn’t hurt. And I read this: Continue reading “Fifty Shades of F**king Abuse”

Fifty Shades of F**king Abuse

Okay, Okay, Jeez, I’ll Get You a Feeder!

For the second time this summer, a little gray hummingbird has hovered meaningfully in the corner of my porch where a feeder could be hung quite handily, looked at me for a minute, and then zipped away. I am apparently being told in no uncertain terms that a hummingbird feeder is desired. I live to serve not only cats, but hummingbirds! Just think of the photos I could get for you, my darlings!

But I refuse to hang a feeder in ignorance. Advice and recommendations from those of you who know about this stuff would be awesome. The birds, the cat and I all thank you!

Image shows a gray and green hummingbird in flight against a pale gray background.
This isn’t my hummingbird. That little bugger never hovers when I have a camera ready. This is a female Anna’s hummingbird which vaguely resembles it. Photo by Matthew Field. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Okay, Okay, Jeez, I’ll Get You a Feeder!

The Cataclysm: “The Path of Maximum Abrasion”

Back at my old high school in Arizona, some genius or set thereof had made two independent but intersecting decisions regarding physical education:

  1. They made shorts mandatory, and
  2. They decided we’d do tennis in March.

Now, neither decision is necessarily bad, at least not on its own, but there were critical components of meteorology, geography, geology, and architecture no one had factored in. Namely: March is the absolute windiest month in Northern Arizona, Page is covered in thick sand eroded from the magnificent Page Sandstone, and the tennis courts were outdoors. I often had occasion to reflect upon the fact my youngest uncle had stripped the old paint from our Datsun 240z by sandblasting it. I now knew how that car felt. My legs had never been so completely free of dead skin, which had been stripped off along with several layers of epidermis. If I’d known much about religion in those days, I may have converted to a variety with an extreme emphasis on modesty, just so I could’ve claimed a religious exemption and put on trousers. That wind-blown sand hurt like blazes.

And that was just the ordinary spring wind, carrying plain old sand, not a volcanic blast cloud carrying all sorts of super-sharp, sometimes large, and definitely hot fragments of rock and glassy ash. I can’t imagine how much worse that would be.

Fortunately, we’ve got science to tell us enough to fill in the blanks. Geologists James Moore and Thomas Sisson were all over the trees after Mount. St. Helens hit them with all she had. You might think it’s weird, how two science guys can crawl around trees and stumps measuring what’s not there (on account of it having been abraded away), but they managed – and thus wrote another chapter in the volcanic saga. Continue reading “The Cataclysm: “The Path of Maximum Abrasion””

The Cataclysm: “The Path of Maximum Abrasion”

Dear Richard Dawkins: Your “Hypothetical” Is Still Rape

What a sick, sad man you are, Richard. First, you run a Twitter tutorial in getting away with rape:

Image shows Dawkins lecturing with a screen behind him. Across the top of the screen is, "Moral: Make sure she stays unconscious, fellas." Below is a screenshot of two tweets from Richard Dawkins. First tweet says, "Raping a drunk woman is appalling. So is jailing a man when the sole prosecution evidence is 'I was too drunk to remember what happened.'" Second tweet says, "Don't EVER rape anyone, drunk or sober. But also, don't accuse anyone of a crime if you can't remember what happened (& no other evidence)." Below, on either side of his head, is the slogan, "It's only rape if she remembers."
My interpretation of Dawkins’s noxious opinions. The tweets are his own words.

Then a woman who was raped at the age of 14 comes forward to tell you how your “how to get away with rape” tweets harmed her, and all you can say is: Continue reading “Dear Richard Dawkins: Your “Hypothetical” Is Still Rape”

Dear Richard Dawkins: Your “Hypothetical” Is Still Rape

Two Videos to Make Your Heart Go Melty (Unless You’re a Hater)

Sometimes, things happen that remind me the world isn’t filled quite to the brim with assholes. There are plenty of good folk, too. And sometimes, I collect those things and share them with you.

First up, a commercial from a for-profit company that carefully considered some of their customers’ suggestions they hate the non-heterosexual folk and said, “Nah, we’ll go with making love from hate instead.” Continue reading “Two Videos to Make Your Heart Go Melty (Unless You’re a Hater)”

Two Videos to Make Your Heart Go Melty (Unless You’re a Hater)

Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education IVc: Wherein the Climate Heats Up

Onward, Christianist weather! We’re warming up with some global warming talk today. While SPC was content to devote a mere text box to climate change, basically blowing raspberries at anyone who gives a shit about it and waving off dramatic increases in greenhouse gas emissions by proclaiming hey, plants love carbon dioxide!, BJU’s Earth Science 4th Edition isn’t satisfied with blurting a few facts and moving on. No, there’s a whole chapter on the subject. And, people, they are the totes reasonable ones. They’re right in the middle. Look: they sneer at both sides!

They begin with a very telling couplet of sentences: Continue reading “Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education IVc: Wherein the Climate Heats Up”

Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education IVc: Wherein the Climate Heats Up