If I have any readers near St. Louis, MO, I’ll be in town soon! This Saturday (August 14th) I’ll be speaking at The Skeptical Society of St. Louis’s Skeptics in the Pub about Boobquake and its aftermath. It starts at 7pm and is being held at Jack Patrick’s, which is at the intersection of 10th and Olive in downtown St. Louis. We’ll also be hanging around for some drinks afterward, so it should be fun!
There’s a meetup.com event here. I hope to see you guys there!
Friday night I embarked on a top secret mission with Hemant of Friendly Atheist (who has his thoughts on our adventure here). Hemant brought the event to my attention. Because I like him so much and I’m a bit of a masochist, I agreed to tag along. We headed to Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL for the Focus on the Family Celebrate Family Tour:
If you’re not familiar with FotF, you should be tipped off by the fact that “Family” is in their name. I’ve ranted about them here before – about them calling Harry Potter witchcraft, spreading misinformation about gay parenting, and wasting money on misleading pro-life Super Bowl ads. I’m not exactly a fan of this conservative Christian organization, but I was willing to listen for a night out of curiosity and the desire for blog fodder.
Hemant and I had some fun hyping this up in our minds. …Okay, so it wasn’t exactly a spy mission since anyone could attend and when we signed up we used our real names. Yeah, awesome spies. But I still had the Mission Impossible theme song playing through my head, and we even made up aliases. I was his wife (woo, take that fangirls!) who was trying to show my heathen husband why Christianity was so awesome. We picked 3/14 as our anniversary because we’re nerds and that’s the only date we could remember.
We later discovered we were terrible spies because 1) A good Christian woman would have taken her husband’s last name, 2) We didn’t have wedding rings, and 3) I know diddly poop about acting like a Christian. I also tried to fit in by wearing my Sunday’s best, but I later realized the new Christian fashion is all about capris. Seriously, every woman there was wearing capris. I think this was just a ploy to get me into a skirt for the first time in years.
Proof for the skeptical. Also, yay Christ and his kingdom.Anyway.
I’m not going to spend time discussing certain Christian tropes that you hear all the time (“It’s not about you, it’s about God,” “God saved me from death! …but not from breaking my legs,” etc). 1) I’ve discussed them before, and 2) I can discuss them later – they’re not exactly specific to this particular event. So even though many things had me facepalming, I’ll save them.
The event had about 1,000 people in attendance. It opened with FotF President Jim Daly sharing some personal stories and explaining the different programs that FotF organizes. FotF is known for its rabid pro-life and anti-gay marriage stances, so I was impressed by how much good they actually are doing (or at least attempting to do). I wasn’t aware that FotF was so active in encouraging adoption* or providing marriage counseling (though we could debate how useful Christian counseling is over getting counseling from a psychologist…).
*(An aside on the adoption thing. Apparently one of the higher-up officials with the Colorado adoption agency, a Dr. Sharon (missed her last name), told FotF that “The best homes for these kids are Christian homes” and wished there were more of them. This may have been said in confidence, but wow. Kind of not a good thing if a government employee is viewing a certain religion as superior when deciding who gets to adopt children.)
I have to give them props for being aware of this problem – people not knowing about their good works. They mentioned it several times throughout the night, and stressed the idea that “If we want people to believe in Christianity’s message, we need to show them the actual good it’s doing.” Again, we could debate if that message is true or not, but I’m all for Christians being less hypocritical when it comes to being moral/doing good works.
Some of the stuff he said was definitely silly though. Apparently 9 year olds are never supposed to say “no” to their parents. Yep, train your children to be good little unthinking drones! Oh, and Nick at Night is horrible television for your child to be watching. That explains why I turned out the way I did. Thanks a lot, I Love Lucy.
The main part of the program was with Dr. Emerson Eggerichs of Love and Respect Ministries and his wife Sarah (…is it bad that this makes me think of the Ministry of Love from 1984?). They mostly discussed the following quote from Ephesians 5:22-33:
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything… 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Of course, when I say “they,” I mean Emerson did almost all of the talking while Sarah just sat there and looked pretty. I’m not sure why she was even there, other than so they can say “Look, we’re progressive and including women in our discussions!” …Except not really.
Emerson’s main message was that this passage wasn’t about submission, but about the different ways men and women communicate. He claimed women desire to be loved, and men desire to be respected. This claim was “supported” by a poll FotF did of its members – not exactly a scientific study of all men and women. During conflict, when women feel unloved they respond with disrespect, and when men feel disrespected they respond by being unloving. This starts what he refers to as the “crazy cycle” where a fight will just escalate until, apparently, someone realizes the Bible is telling them to stop.
While I appreciate the attempt to say this isn’t about submission (but not some of his pot shots at feminists), it’s still just replacing one stereotype about men and women with another. Great, women don’t have to “submit” to men – but we’re hyper emotional beings that communicate completely differently. He even referred to women as having “Pink glasses, pink hearing aids, and pink megaphones.” Next time someone doesn’t understand me, I’ll try to put away the pink megaphone, I guess.
This part of the program got kind of old after a while – Emerson just basically repeated the same thing for an hour. But then we got to see the comedian Jeff Allen perform. He was actually really funny – we were a bit doubtful at the beginning what a “Christian comedian” would be like. Some of his jokes were about God or religion, but they were ones anyone would find amusing, even a couple of atheists.
I should say, he was really funny most of the time. At the end of his act he felt the need to lay the evangelizing on thick, and tell a serious story about how finding Christ saved his life, etc etc. It wasn’t lame because it was about Jesus or Christianity – I was eating up the rest of his skit. It just…wasn’t funny. His job was to be a comedian, so it just came off as totally awkward to get up on his soap box. It would have been equally awkward if a comedian started going off on how awesome atheism is without actually making any jokes.
Not to mention this was the one moment of the night someone decided to take pot shots at atheists. I made sure to take some quick notes on what I learned about myself:
Yep, the whole atheists are depressed canard. It never gets old, does it?! Hemant and I decided we weren’t living up to our atheist standards, and we needed to angst and shoot up heroine more. Or something like that.
There were a couple of general things that struck me as odd, from the perspective of an outsider looking in:
1. Well, feeling like such an outsider. Even though no one knew Hemant and I were a couple of atheists (I promise we were respectful through the whole thing), I still felt out of place. As someone who was not brought up in a Christian household, there are just so many cultural things I don’t know about. Certain phrases or ideas seemed to elicit unanimous mumbled praise from the audience… usually the phrases that I found particularly silly or contemptible. And the way all heads instantaneously snapped down when a prayer started was just odd to someone who hasn’t been trained to do those mannerisms.
Not to mention the inside Christian jokes. Apparently Lutherans are very “cerebral”, and this titillated the audience. Anyone care to explain this in-joke to me?
2. FotF seems to think that any sign of interest is equivalent to winning over supporters. They’ll probably love this blog post if they find it. I don’t know if this is wishful thinking or purposeful spin, but it popped up a lot. For example, Daly made a comment how the former President of the National Organization for Women supported FotF’s right to have a pro-life Super Bowl ad. Daly quipped with a grin, “You know something’s going on,” referring to her support. Yeah, an understanding of freedom of speech is going on.
Another example of this is when they mentioned how 27 non-Christian Comcast staff members were helping them film one of their events. The staff mentioned they had never heard religion discussed that way before, and asked for more information. More information does not automatically mean you converted all of those people – but that’s how FotF framed it. I often ask for more information from religious people when I think they’re particularly wacky, not correct.
3. The Christian Veneer. I can’t get over this phenomena. Most of what FotF was saying throughout the night in terms of families and relationships with your spouse was fairly relatable and sane. It was the same sort of advice you’d hear from many secular self-help books like the typical Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus idea (as untrue as that may be).
…But then they had to go and slap Jesus all over it. Is it not enough to just love your spouse, respect their feelings, and compromise a little with them without having a Bible verse telling you to do it? Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and atheists have the same problems and the same solutions. It’s not the Bible that’s giving you the answers – you’re just cherry picking things from the Bible that happen to fit your solution… after you’ve come to it.
4. They didn’t mention gay marriage at all. Hemant and I were both really disappointed. We figured with their fervent anti-gay marriage stance and the recent Prop 8 ruling that they’d be sure to say something. Nada. I guess it just wasn’t the topic of the night. But if anything, I’m now convinced we need more gay marriages because of this event. I mean, the whole thing was about how marital strife comes from men and women inherently communicating differently. If it was a man communicating with a man or a woman communicating with a woman, no problem, right?!
5. All the speakers seemed genuinely nice. This shouldn’t be shocking, but FotF has some platforms that are so nasty that it’s sometimes hard to separate the people from the ideas. I constantly have to remind myself that Christians go out of their way to evangelize and fight for their specific morals because they truly believe in them and care about people. It may be misguided and ultimately harmful, but they’re really doing it with good intentions. I’m sure any of the speakers would be great to chat with over tea… I just don’t want them making any sort of laws. Nor will I stop criticizing their viewpoints just because they’re trying to be nice – it just helps to know where these people are coming from when you do have to debate them.
I’m still no fan of FotF. While they’ve become a bit humanized to me, I still can’t support most of what their organization is doing. Adoption is awesome, but not when you only think heterosexual Christians make good homes. Marriage counseling is great, but not when you assume all other religions are doomed to have failed relationships. Continuing to perpetuate myths about atheists is…well, not so hot. And hell, one of their college programs focuses on teaching students about creationism and intelligent design – it was difficult for this evolutionary biologist to not start facepalming in the middle of the event.
You know, it would be nice if people from FotF would attend some of our godless events. Maybe we could become a bit more humanized, instead of representing depression and debauchery.
…As much as I do like debauchery.
Mom: What do you imagine your wedding being like?
Me: …I kind of need someone to get married to first.
Mom: No, I mean, what would your dream wedding be like?
Me: I don’t really fantasize about my wedding. I don’t know, cheap.
Dad: Good, I raised you right. Now you won’t be the type who gets married too early just because you’re in love with the idea of getting married.
Mom: *disappointed look*
Me: I guess if I had an infinite amount of money, I would chose a really cool place to have it in. Like in a Natural History Museum.
Mom: …With dinosaurs and mummies and stuff?
Me: Yeah! I mean, how cool would that be, to get married under a giant fossilized skeleton of an ancient whale or something?
Mom: *look of horror and disgust*
Me: …Well I think it would be cool *pout*
The Secular Student Alliance just put up the video of Greta Christina‘s talk from the SSA conference in Ohio. It’s an hour long, but totally worth it if you have the time. When I was there, it didn’t feel like an hour because it was so captivating. Greta’s an excellent speaker!
I’ve learned to dread questions starting with that statement, especially from my mother. Apparently getting my bachelor’s degree in genetics and evolution makes me the Leading Expert on anything having to do with biology. For example, over the last couple of days I have fielded questions on:
I’m not sure which type of questions exasperate me more: Medical Questions or Extraordinarily Specific Questions About One Particular Species that Only a Researcher Who Has Studied That Species Would Know. I think it’s partly annoying because I’d love to answer questions about things I actually know. Whenever my parents do ask me questions about genetics, I get all giddy and love explaining it to them. But biologist does not equal doctor. And once I actually am Dr. McCreight, I think this will get even worse.
I just need to train my mom to say “You’re a geneticist” before her questions. That way she’ll be able to see how silly it is asking me about mating habits in ducks.
To all my engineering and computer science friends – I apologize every time I’ve come to you asking you stupid questions about Microsoft Word or my phone. …Though I’ll probably keep doing it. Consider this a preemptive apology.
They’ve discovered our secret hobbies:
And Jenny, darlin‘, YOU are going to attract people just like me when you are derogatory and ignorant about my favourite Church. M’kay? So if you don’t want a MY reaction… go back to whatever nerds do… endlessly poking each other in the belly-button, or playing with aborted fetuses, or, whatever.
Damn. What are nerds supposed to do for fun now?
I know I always say not to feed the trolls, but when they’re so amusingly ridiculous I feel selfish not sharing it with the rest of you. Especially when I think belly-button poking can be the new euphemism for godless, nerdy activities.
Though, read the rest of that comment at your own risk. If you tend to become enraged after reading nonsensical transphobic screeds… you’ve been warned.
I think I ovulated while watching this last night:
<td style=’padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;’ colspan=’2’Laura Ingraham
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
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Seriously, does this man not have the best job in the world? He gets to call out people for being racist and for being terrible writers to their face because they willingly sign up for the verbal beating. All while not coming off like a jackass thanks to ingenious use of satire. I’m jealous.
Lately there has been a lot of discussion here and elsewhere about male privilege and sexism. I think one of the reasons this is such a touchy subject is because many of our actions that are inherently sexist are unconscious, so we can get especially defensive when people call us out on them. For example, let’s look at how Physics students react differently to male and female lecturers:
Why aren’t there more women physicists, and in senior positions? One factor may be unconscious biases that could keep women physicists from advancing—and may even prevent women from going into physics in the first place.
Amy Bug, a physicist at Swarthmore University, examined the bias question. Her research team trained four actors—two men, two women—to give a 10-minute physics lecture. Real physics classes watched the lecturers. Then the 126 students were surveyed.
When it came to questions of physics ability—whether the lecturer had a good grasp of the material, and knew how to use the equipment—male lecturers got higher ratings by both male and female students.
But when asked how well the lecturer relates to the students, each gender preferred their own. And while female students gave a slight preference to female lecturers, male students overwhelmingly rated the male lecturers as being superior. The research appears in the journal Physics World.
Bug says the results may be evidence of inherent biases that could hold women back—along with economic inequalities, such as lower wages and smaller start-up grants. Which reduce career acceleration and thus the amount of force available to crack the glass ceiling.
Note that it’s not just male students who have some sort of unconscious biases – the female students do as well. This is why it is so important to become aware of our biases. When someone points out that something you said is sexist (against women or men) or that you’re privileged, it’s not to make you feel guilty or like a bad person – it’s to make you conscious of your actions. Only once we are aware of what we’re doing can we actively try to correct it.
Back to the science aspect – I would like to see this repeated looking at scientific papers in addition to lecturing ability. Often times when names on papers are represented by initials alone, people assume those authors are male. If given the same paper, but one with a male name and one with a female, would students say they are the same quality?
I’m also curious how prevalent this is in other disciplines. Is it a science thing, or does the same trend hold in liberal arts? Would it be less pronounced in a field with a more equal sex ratio like Biology? Something I get to think about before I become a lecturer…
(Hat tip to Rugved)
Yet another thing us women have to worry about when having sex. Thankfully Lady Gaga enlightens us all (emphasis mine):
She may ooze sex appeal during her on-stage performances, but Lady Gaga is a little more conservative when it comes to her life in the bedroom.
In a new interview with Vanity Fair, the eccentric singer, who recently reunited with her ex Luc Carl, says she is trying to avoid sex for a rather off-beat reason.
“I have this weird thing that if I sleep with someone they’re going to take my creativity from me through my vagina,” the 24-year-old says in the magazine’s September issue.
Well damn. I thought having sex just fractured your souls like horcruxes. Now I’m losing my creativity too? What other attributes have I been leaking out my genitalia?!
