Category: Women in Secularism
Women’s History: A Core Secular Issue
It isn’t surprising that the secular movement in America has been characterized by historical discontinuities that, in a number of respects, resemble the amnesia that held back feminism for so long.
Feminism, Religion, and ‘Mattering’
My engagement in both the tough world of professional philosophy and the even-tougher world of literary fiction has afforded me an ideal vantage point for viewing the many subtle ways in which gender biases undermine women.
Sexism and Religion: Can the Knot Be Untied?
Can currently existing religion be disentangled from the misogyny of its texts, its traditions, and its practices?
Introduction
To organize an event with a focus on issues affecting a particular group, be it religion, race, gender, or sexual orientation, is to endure accusations of tokenism—the idea that inequality and tensions can be papered-over by the superficial inclusion or promotion of a particular group for the sake of appearances. Such insincerity and posturing can …
Nontheism and Feminism: Why the Disconnect?
You would think that nontheism and feminism should be a natural combination. Women have the most to gain from escaping religion, after all: monotheism gives men higher status, starting with their allegedly being made in the image of God. But atheism hasn’t always been very welcoming to women. Maybe there’s an idea that men created …
Sexism: It’s Not Mission Drift!
Recently within the atheist community, sexism has become a hot-button issue–or more accurately, a molten-lava/center-of-the-sun issue. Whether it’s the religious Right’s push to restrict women’s reproductive rights or internal debates about sexual harassment policies at atheist/skeptical conferences, sexism has become the topic. And this has left a lot of atheists scratching their heads. “Why are …
The Intersection of Nontheism and Feminism
It hadn’t occurred to me, seven or so years ago when I started the website Skepchick.org, that misogyny might exist independently of religion. Most of the antiwoman rhetoric that I read or experienced came by way of holy books—“wives, submit to your own husband as you do to the Lord” and so on. I assumed …
How to Attract More Secular Women Activists
At the pioneering program “Women in Secularism” sponsored in May 2012 by the Center for Inquiry–Washington D.C., I discussed some of the reasons—from the greater religiosity of women to actual denigration of female intellect by some male secular activists (which you wouldn’t think would exist among male creatures who pride themselves on their rationality)—for the …
Jezebel
My first memory of attending a political protest was with my father, after a woman named Eulia Love was murdered by two Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers in 1979 in South Central Los Angeles. Love was gunned down after allegedly threatening the officers with a butcher knife. The killing elicited a firestorm in the …
Islam Is Woman’s Enemy
I can scarcely tell you how pleased I am to be speaking at such a highly-needed conference: one devoted solely to women’s issues. Coming to Washington, D. C., for this conference is a double pleasure to me. Not only is it my first time to speak at such an event, but because sharing with you …
Poems
Please Answer All Three of the Following Essay Questions I What would it take to make you what you truly want to be and why will no one cooperate with you on these visions you have of yourself, when it would be so easy for them to finally acknowledge that you are the demon …