The Neofeminists

How to describe this “new wave” of hypersensitive, reactionary, dogmatic and witch-hunt brand of feminism that has surfaced in the last year, with Ophelia Benson, Jen McCreight, Rebecca Watson and others carrying the banner?  As I’ve said before, I think the term neofeminism is about right.

Here is Benson at her accusatory best, this time accusing Michael Shermer, of all people, of believing that women are, at least implicitly, “too stupid to do nontheism:”

Don’t laugh: Michael Shermer said exactly that during a panel discussion on the online talk-show The Point. The host, Cara Santa Maria, presented a question: Why isn’t the gender split in atheism closer to 50-50? Shermer explained, “It’s who wants to stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, who’s intellectually active about it; you know, it’s more of a guy thing.”

It’s all there—women don’t do thinky, they don’t speak up, they don’t talk at conferences, they don’t get involved—it’s “a guy thing,” like football and porn and washing the car.

What Benson didn’t mention was that Shermer’s remarks were lifted out of context. Here is part of Shermer’s response:

First of all, Benson shortened the quote. What I prefaced the above with is: “I think it probably really is 50/50.” Benson also left out my follow up comment moments later that at the 2012 TAM (The Amazing Meeting) conference of skeptics and atheists, there were more women speakers than men speakers. I misspoke slightly. According to D. J. Grothe, the TAM organizer, there were an equal number of men and women speakers (the roster on the web page is incorrect) until, ironically, Ophelia Benson herself dropped out.

Whatever reason Benson had for dropping out of the conference, this is telling. So, she is calling for more nonbelieving women to get involved in the conversation but was absent herself. Nice. As it turns out, a brief browse through the Twitter secular community will reveal that many women have spoken out against this new wave of feminism that seems more about exclusion and frantically thwarting contrary arguments than really enacting societal change. The us against them dichotomy, which seems to include most everyone, couldn’t be stronger.

According to Shermer’s blog post, even Harriet Hall, who was instrumental in the “first wave” of feminism, has even been put off by this new brand of nuttiness:

Harriet Hall, M.D., the SkepDoc columnist for Skepticmagazine (one of two women columnists of our three, I might add, the other being Karen Stollznow), who lived through and helped bring about the first-wave feminist movement, told me she “was vilified on Ophelia’s blog for not following a certain kind of feminist party line of how a feminist should act and think. And I was attacked there in a disturbingly irrational, nonskeptical way.” I asked her why she didn’t defend herself. She wrote in an email (12/08/12):

“I did not dare try to explain my thinking on Ophelia’s blog, because it was apparent from the tone of the comments that anything I might say would be misinterpreted and twisted to use against me. I have always been a feminist but I have my own style of feminism. And I have felt more oppressed by these sort of feminists than by men, and far less welcome in that strain of feminism than in the atheist or skeptical communities.” (Italics mine)

There you have it. Straight from a feminist that these folks are overtly confrontational and misguided.

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2 thoughts on “The Neofeminists

  1. I am shocked…..shocked i say, who would have thought the folk over at FtB were anything other than 100% honest & truthful?

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