sexual harassment – Doug's Views

December 1, 2017April 18, 2020

Sorry Not Sorry Famous Men Got Fired For Being A-holes Toward Women

Collage of men accused of harassment with words Sorry Not Sorry on it

The most recent famous men caught up in the acrimony over the long history of sexual assaults and harassment against women include Garrison Keillor and Matt Lauer. Like previous men called out, they lost their jobs. That’s how it should be. For those complaining about due process and false accusations, there has been many YEARS of talking about this and telling men to stop being assholes, so I have NO sympathy for men called out today. Why can’t they keep their hands to themselves?

Don’t get me wrong, I was shocked with some of them – like Charlie Rose, but by and large these men had a reputation behind the scenes that was covered up because they were powerful and/or had the money to pay off accusers.

October 7, 2016April 18, 2020

Richard Carrier Ironically Sues A Woman To Silence Her

Dr. Richard Carrier

Dr. Richard Carrier, an atheist known on the chicken dinner circuit and professor of Ancient History, who helped get the social justice group Atheism+ started several years ago, now ironically finds himself on ‘the other side’ of the fence, as it were, by suing several people and blogs in the freethought community, including a woman who went public with a claim of sexual harassment, for $2 million.

August 16, 2013April 18, 2020

Why Can’t I Have A He-Man Woman Hater Atheist Club?

image from Braveheart with No women in text

Not the kind of atheist meeting I want to attend

The secular community has been rocked by a firestorm over sexism in the movement. Blogs and tweets have flown back and forth between women speaking out about it and some men who disagree that it is an issue. Recently accusations of sexual assault have been leveled at some prominent men in the movement and at some conferences. Since there is such strong male privilege and a cult of personality in a lot of these groups, it seems these gender issues are beyond being fixed (at least until the current generation of sexist men die off). Maybe we need to have separate groups.

There have been plenty of articles and blog posts about the firestorm but not too many that examine the underlying issue of why it seems the sexism won’t go away in a movement that prides itself on freethought, evidence and logic: