Liberal Debutante

So… The Edger is up and kicking. THere was a bit of a …. kurfuffle and whathaveyou about it. but. all is good. Here is my first post that I’ve put up over there. Ones in the making are….. Art in Secularism, Rocks and Fluff Don’t Work (it’ll be a good one), atheists in the media (revisted) aaaaaand… yeah. That’s all I got.

This is a response to Chris’ post: Why atheism is a rich man’s world - and how we can change it
I get it, women like being included, and that’s fine. Honestly now, it’s not like we’re excluding women in this faction. But! Before I get to the meat of Chris’ post, I just wanted to comment on a couple smaller pedantic issues:

ландшафтConstant reminders consisting of everything from TV ads to misused pronouns don’t let us forget the struggle with basic civil and social rights that women have battled, past and present alike.

Yes, and consistently feminists all over North America are using these “reminders” to slam men every chance they get. But for some reason the sexism against men is completely over looked. There are ads in the Toronto subways right now for the restaurant Moxies. I hear a couple of girls talking about how “sexist” the ad is because the woman is depicted in a pretty slut-tastic dress and all her jewelry is being pulled to the man beside her who is wearing an outfit that would make him out to be a magnet. They ended their conversation with “the guy is pretty sexy though”. … WTF?

It’s hardly a secret that there just tend to be more men in science.

So is it because our “movement” is so science oriented that there are fewer women? Maybe we should focus on the arts more in our programming to draw in a new (and possibly more feminine […stereotype alert!]) crowd? Hmm. Just a thought.

This is one of the more unfortunate side effects of “new atheism” brought up by the (otherwise exceptional) lead of Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris: the “big three” of non-belief nowadays.

I’m not sure that it’s their gender that is the unfortunate thing about these three men, it’s the lack of connection with individuals and how many people can’t relate to them that is truly unfortunate. What I’d like to see is someone who can talk reasonably about religion and life – but not be full of fluff with whom I can relate to. Woman or not.

Anyway, onto my real points!

The “new face” of atheism – as it seems to be called – is indeed very white male oriented. But why does this matter? Secularism in the public sphere is a somewhat innovative fad we’re diving into. Only recently have people felt comfortable enough to leap out and declare atheism as a way to brand themselves. Realistically, it just so happens that those who had the time and money to start this whole atheistic movement were white, well-off men. But the important part, is that it happened! And that it’s still happening! Now about who is running it.

Being involved with secularism, the movement, is a privilege. It’s a privilege that many people simply don’t have. It’s like complaining that you’re soup is too hot – people with another option can do it. And it seems like the people who did have this option, were white males, so they started this new stream of atheism. And it’s that, new… you can’t expect it to be a plethora of sexes and races when it’s barely accepted by the public at large!

But that entire point is extraneous, much like actively attempting to get women involved. It’s futile. The people who are currently involved are the ones who desire to be; at this point we should be attempting to get more people in general involved, not simply encouraging women to step into the movement. If I spent my time trying to get our women volunteers more active and encouraging them to be more vocal within our groups – I’d be wasting a whole lot of time where I could be doing more productive things like giving support to our already active volunteers.

Aggressively encouraging women to get involved is just like affirmative action. We start overlooking a plethora of capable people simply to be more inclusive. We look at a group of say 10 individuals, where 1 is a female…we ask the female to do the work simply because she’s a women and it turns out she’s the least capable. I’ve just wasted all of my time and invested interest in this person who is less capable than 9 other people, but I overlooked that point because for some reason we think that having women involved with organizations makes them more successful? Makes them more appealing? Makes us look less sexist? What?

Who cares what sex we have working with us? I don’t feel like I could relate to a woman Paul Kurtz any more or less than I can relate to the male Paul Kurtz. It’s reverse discrimination, as this unwarranted need for a closer male to female ratio requires the very discrimination that supporters are seeking to eradicate.
I personally think we have bigger fish to fry than putting energy into getting women involved. To be completely straightforward, I don’t have time to wave my hand at all the women screaming at them “Hey! Look! It’s fun! And non-patriarchal!” …Because those who want to be involved are already here, and are already contributing.

There is no “anti-women” sign on any of our doors. The exact same opportunities are available to women as are to men. When I’m looking for someone to fill a position, I’m just looking for a committed body and mind, not a gender. Why not invest our interests somewhere that it makes sense, like putting time, energy and money into art programs. (By stereotypical nature this would eventually lead to an increase in women, but that’s not the point.) It’s an entire social, cultural and academic side of things that we hardly ever touch on, but where there is a market for our mindsets and thoughts. Some of your are going to argue that women add more diversity, and different thoughts. …Any number of people despite sex, age or race are going to add diversity! I have the same opinions and thoughts as most of the guys in my little secular group. I don’t add diversity.

A social movement such as secularism is equal opportunity. If there are women out there pining to save the world from religion, teach other about science education or explore the paranormal they’re more than welcome to come on it. But I’m not going to waste my time convincing them that it’s okay to do that.