While I do not have time right now (damn work and school!) to go back over the article as I'd like, particularly with Tav's and Void's responses, this is one example where I have problems with the construction and language of her article: when she's discussing how she has had conversations where atheist males display "rape blame".
This is a legitimate problem, but it is not an atheist problem, nor a white problem, nor a straight/cisgender problem. It's not even a totally male problem.
Eil has way more connection into the atheist community than I have, granted. But I have a LOT of guy friends. I've hung out "as one of the boys" in a lot of circumstances. Rarely do these types of attitudes ever come up. When they do, it has invariably been by Christians (sorry dears). Not just by guys either - this has come up in girl circumstances and WOMEN have placed blame on other women. Again...the blamers were Christian. It's across the racial board.
I understand Eil is using this example to show why a woman, specifically, might not want to be atheist - if she's going to deal with abuse, why would she want to be part of that "community"? There's a whole problem in itself right there. However, throwing this under "white males" and "privilege" is unacceptable to me - not when I hear women themselves blaming other women for what happened to them. In fact, appealing to this particular instance as a reason other women might not want to be atheist smacks of doubt in her fellow woman...as if she thinks many other women are really as irrational as that. And one other thing that isn't addressed is the fact that the blame she is hearing might be this sort of logic:
Before I proceed: Is rape okay, understandable, forgivable, etc under any circumstance? Absolutely, positively NO! Let's just make that clear.
However, do some women chose to associate with criminals who don't care if such actions are acceptable or legal? Do they drink/get high such that they run the risk of not having the physical or mental capacity to avoid or escape said situations? Yes to both. If I sat and thought a while, I could probably come up with more reasons.
Were these some of the reasons she heard? I don't know. but if you weren't thinking rationally, and predisposed to thinking that someone was unfairly blaming you and others of your gender, would you take offense? Probably.
Again, I am picking one portion out of the article here, but it's full of holes that I'd love to have filled. There are other sections I could cite the same way. What were specific conversation examples? Were they really all white atheist males? Throwing things like this under the title that she did smacks of sensationalism to me. I think this is what people are reacting to, Fr0d0.
This is a legitimate problem, but it is not an atheist problem, nor a white problem, nor a straight/cisgender problem. It's not even a totally male problem.
Eil has way more connection into the atheist community than I have, granted. But I have a LOT of guy friends. I've hung out "as one of the boys" in a lot of circumstances. Rarely do these types of attitudes ever come up. When they do, it has invariably been by Christians (sorry dears). Not just by guys either - this has come up in girl circumstances and WOMEN have placed blame on other women. Again...the blamers were Christian. It's across the racial board.
I understand Eil is using this example to show why a woman, specifically, might not want to be atheist - if she's going to deal with abuse, why would she want to be part of that "community"? There's a whole problem in itself right there. However, throwing this under "white males" and "privilege" is unacceptable to me - not when I hear women themselves blaming other women for what happened to them. In fact, appealing to this particular instance as a reason other women might not want to be atheist smacks of doubt in her fellow woman...as if she thinks many other women are really as irrational as that. And one other thing that isn't addressed is the fact that the blame she is hearing might be this sort of logic:
Before I proceed: Is rape okay, understandable, forgivable, etc under any circumstance? Absolutely, positively NO! Let's just make that clear.
However, do some women chose to associate with criminals who don't care if such actions are acceptable or legal? Do they drink/get high such that they run the risk of not having the physical or mental capacity to avoid or escape said situations? Yes to both. If I sat and thought a while, I could probably come up with more reasons.
Were these some of the reasons she heard? I don't know. but if you weren't thinking rationally, and predisposed to thinking that someone was unfairly blaming you and others of your gender, would you take offense? Probably.
Again, I am picking one portion out of the article here, but it's full of holes that I'd love to have filled. There are other sections I could cite the same way. What were specific conversation examples? Were they really all white atheist males? Throwing things like this under the title that she did smacks of sensationalism to me. I think this is what people are reacting to, Fr0d0.
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