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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Due to the alleged unsafe spaces and misogyny in the Atheist\/Skeptic community (?), the Center of Inquiry created Women in Secularism<\/a>, a supposedly safe place from harassment.<\/p>\n Sadly, I’ve come to realize this isn’t true. Women in Secularism is an unsafe space where harassment is quite much tolerated and advocated for<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How can I say such a thing? Well, taking a look at the WiS2 speakers<\/a>, you can find names such as Ophelia Benson<\/strong>, Melody Hensley<\/strong> and Stephanie Zvan<\/strong>.<\/p>\n I find it strikingly odd that these three women -and others- have been very much vocal on their hate of a fellow Humanist, Justin Vacula<\/strong>, just because.<\/p>\n Benson has been\u00a0campaigning<\/a> against<\/a> Justin for months in a hate-mongering fashion I have only seen in the most fundamentalist Islamists.<\/p>\n She even threatened Justin to have him kicked<\/a> out of the conference if he tried to engage in rational dialogue (that’s stretching the “harassment” definition way too far, even by their ever-changing standards)! How is “How, how are you doing?<\/em>” any sort of harassment, by any standard?<\/p>\n But that was just the beginning.<\/p>\n Zvan had yet to come in and play the victim<\/a>, quoting a convenient part of a letter she sent to CFI’s president\u00a0Ron Lindsay<\/strong>, where she accused Justin of who-knows what and then went back to her drama queen role:<\/p>\n On the other hand, if he attends, I will have a much less productive conference. Everything I do or say will be observed and reported on by a hostile party.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I understand why Zvan is so annoyed with the idea of having Justin at WiS2 – we’ve seen what is it like when an actual skeptic sees bullshit at a skeptic conference<\/a>! Yes, I guess reality-based criticism is bad for your productiveness… but I digress.<\/p>\n In that same post, Zvan quoted Hensley as saying this<\/a>:<\/p>\n Hi, this is Melody, the organizer of Women in Secularism. I can assure you that Women in Secularism is a safe place for everyone and I promise that every speaker and attendee will be taken care of. Comfort and safety is one of my biggest concerns.<\/p>\n As some of you might know, I have been the victim of cyberstalking and online harassment and it has affected me greatly so I take this matter very seriously.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n You know what? I don’t believe so. Not for a second. I have a serious concern about Justin’s safety there and I have serious reasons as to why<\/a>!<\/p>\n Ignore for a second that three of the WiS2 speakers are creating a threatening and unwelcoming environment<\/strong> for Justin.<\/p>\n Let’s go to the puppet-master, PZ Myers<\/strong>, who has weighed in<\/a> and is directing hate specifically towards Justin and “his fellow travelers<\/em>“. \u00a0Let’s take a quick look at the perils of disagreeing with PZ Myers on anything and have him state at his blog (or one of those of his minions).<\/p>\n You can be harassed<\/a>, you can loose your job<\/a>, you can be\u00a0silenced<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0you can be bullied<\/a>, just to name a few. And let’s not forget, Justin has already been a victim of these group of people, when he was forced to resign to\u00a0the position of co-chair for the SCA<\/a>, on baseless made-up grounds!<\/p>\n They hate his guts<\/strong>, and he’s going to the lions’ den<\/a>, a conference of theirs where speakers are already spitting hate and venom to his presence there<\/strong>, having their fandom ready to attack and be hostile and aggresive, and WiS2 organizers seem to be looking the other way.<\/p>\n I fear for his safety and that of “his fellow travelers<\/em>“. This is a poisoned environment and I’m afraid he could be in more danger than just being asked for a cup of coffee<\/strong> (which, oddly enough, some people think is harassment<\/a> – go figure)!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Due to the alleged unsafe spaces and misogyny in the Atheist\/Skeptic community (?), the Center of Inquiry created Women in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[219,218,214,215,217,220,213,107,216],"class_list":["post-675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cfi","tag-conference","tag-femtheism","tag-harassment","tag-justin-vacula","tag-melody-hensley","tag-ophelia-benson","tag-pz-myers","tag-stephanie-zvan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}