We Need Richard Dawkins And You

Despite having written “The God Delusion” which inspired me and others to be involved in the secular movement an argument goes that Richard Dawkins has had his day, a bit like a star footballer approaching retirement. His style of play is seen as ineffective and embarrassing as we are urged to move to civil engagement and reconciliation with believers. Turning keyboards into ploughshares will apparently herald a new age of reasonable reason.

Dawkins for me is the star defender of the team – he tackles hard. You do not want angels playing in that position; there will be times when the other side will shout for a booking let alone a sending off. But the game would be lost without that talent and determination regularly being employed on the pitch.

Watching Dawkins debate Deepak Chopra reminded me why I traveled thousands of miles to support the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Dawkins’ passion for not just calling out pseudo science but explaining what the science actually is, expressing real poetry in how things are without needing to imagine what we cannot know. Quite simply it is enthralling to hear complex subjects so beautifully explained by Dawkins.

I remember listening to a radio interview when a recovering drug addict phoned to say his new found Christian faith helped him and who was Dawkins to knock that? Richard replied that he had no desire to do so and wished him well. So much for the uncaring atheist bashing professor “The Guardian” article tried to paint to besmirch him recently.

Twitter does not do full justice to Dawkins, but his intellectual capacity to aid public understanding of science together with the resources he makes available to secular and atheist organisations makes a huge difference. Accusations of aloofness at someone who engages with the public on a social media platform, is the least of his worries in the hullabaloo.

For me this goes further than a culture war, or enjoying the argument on social media. People are suffering and dying because of attitudes which are defended as religious – or claimed simultaneously to be cultural yet still to be respected. For Dawkins this is no intellectual exercise but a moral imperative to speak out. How someone feels about a t-shirt really is not in the same league.

Though that did not stop Yvonne Ridley suggesting to me I must find the Jesus and Mo t-shirt as funny as the anti-semitic quenelle salute – because she said there is the empathy with how she feels about an image of the prophet. Religious cartoon satire worn at a student fair is the same as an inverse nazi salute on the railway tracks that led to a concentration camp where thousands were killed.

A t-shirt that says hi yet the image used (which do not forget means the cartoonist hides his identity for fear of reprisal) is somehow comparable emotionally with a disgusting gesture of fascism that killed millions. Sensibility is not sense when it comes to this view.

Religion needs challenging by one and all against apologists who misrepresent what religious freedom means as a way to reduce human rights. Sensibilities might be hurt, but bruised pride is the least of our worries in the grand scheme of things.

Debating tactics and strategy is all very well, and yes there will be times when free kicks might be awarded against Dawkins. It misses the nature of the game being played and the stakes involved. It’s not about winning player of the match, but calling out the harm done by religion and preventing it. Human rights, freedom of speech, contraception, to learn proper science at school and even men and women sitting or doing group work together. Even non religious institutions like University UK colluding with gender inequality unless challenged.

Dawkins with “The God Delusion” started a new wave of atheists. Not just to publicly declare there probably is no God, but to challenge the supernatural claims by which public policy is manipulated.

Secular activism needs you – it’s time to get off the bench. With a revamped OUT Campaign promised now is a good time to warm up. Join a secular society and get involved.

Article written by John Sargeant on Homo economicus’ Weblog

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Here are Gender Segregation Guidelines University UK Pulled From Internet

The University UK (UUK) guidelines on segregating have been pulled from the Internet, after politicians including the Prime Minister.

I wrote a detailed article on the UUK two page case study concerning segregation here, and part of my research for writing included using an app to download the guidelines.

So for those wondering what UUK actually said see below.

Previous post analysing UUK case study allowing gender segregation

As I mentioned at the time:

So a huge issue not raised by the case study ensues from the above – is the speaker attending as an individual or in a religious capacity? This has not even crossed their mind, just as a public/not public meeting distinction has not. If as a religious figure but at a public meeting, then public event rules should hold to prevent sexual discrimination.

It should concern us all that gender equality is being undermined by minority religious views. The University UK guidelines in a two page treatment miss out some key issues to discuss, and uses such a bizarre set of circumstances to frame general guidelines that they have not helped clarify the situation, not helping by failing to realise that men and women being seated apart is not treating everyone fairly when sexual discrimination is the reason for such a segregated seating arrangement existing.

Calling sexual discrimination free speech, or religious freedom does not change a thing. Reading this, it seems the Equality Act by not mentioning gender on a par with race may require a future amendment if we are serious about people not being treated according to gender in the public space.

I would regret needing a law to prevent such discrimination by gender. But these are the times we live in.

Article written by John Sargeant on Homo economicus’ Weblog

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Video: Sunny Hundal on 60 Million Indian Women Missing

Sunny at the TED Amsterdam Women Conference

Hundal explains why there are 60 million less women in India, a unique gender differential in the world.

In Sunny Hundal’s 15 minute TED talk, the gender difference between Indian men and women is explained by economic status. Men are financial assets, women financial liabilities – graphically shown by 8,000 dowry related deaths of women in a year – and that is just the official figures.

Education is not enough, nor urbanisation, to stem the tide of what Sunny describes as a genocide against women from gender selected abortion and infanticide through to dowry deaths. Financial independence will truly empower women. Having jobs, starting their own companies – no longer seen as a burden on family’s resources.

So whilst empowering women is the most effective way to end oppression, education is a means not an end in this. Jobs, well paying careers, which give independence to women are the way forward. We do not just need the right economic conditions but a cultural shift in attitudes which have been dominant for centuries.

As Sunny concludes in an article he wrote on this:

But the problem in India goes to the heart of cultural practices that have been around for centuries. Culture doesn’t just determine a country’s laws and how well they are implemented, it also discourages or encourages violence against women. Practices such as paying dowry for brides, shunning divorced women, passing on inheritances only to men, not putting girls through schools – are all part of the problem. As families get richer, there is more pressure to pay out bigger dowries for girls and they have more money to afford an abortion.

According to one estimate, by 2020 India will have an extra 28 million men of marriageable age. The social impact of such an imbalance is unprecedented in history, and India barely has a police force and judicial system that can cope with the current problem.

Unless the country recognises the gravity of the problem and does more to protect half the population, the social impact will be felt in every aspect of Indian society for decades.

Article written by John Sargeant on Homo economicus’ Weblog

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University UK Guidelines Allow Gender Apartheid

University UK have missed a distinction between a religious meeting and a public meeting in their guidelines “External Speakers in Higher Education Institutions”, as they recommend bending over backwards at the last minute to an indignant speaker who suddenly requests segregated seating.

You have probably read The Daily Telegraph article on guidelines issued by University UK – no doubt formed in the wake of the University College of London incident with Lawrence Krauss. What you might not have done is read the relevant guidelines themselves.

You can read them here see page 27.

The case study involves a speaker invited by a university who at the last minute springs gender seated segregation as a condition, and those pesky feminist groups that would be appalled by even a side by side men/women division. Such a last minute eventuality used, suggests not so much a serious treatment of proper guidelines covering, but crisis management for a sold out well advertised event. Unique circumstances, as a rule, do not make good general guidelines.

As such the feminist groups, and other societies that object, are to be placated with the right to protest and encouraged to hold a parallel debate on the issue. What triumphs over the beliefs of feminists, and students who do not agree with gender segregation is the free speech of a speaker who when agreeing to speak never mentioned at the outset of arranging this would be a deal breaker.

The case study misuses free speech of a speaker in a public event to allow gender segregated seating to be imposed. Even a third mixed gender seating area misses that people at a public meeting are not to be treated according to their gender. For that is sexual discrimination before we have even entered the door to find our seats. Religious freedom or free speech does not allow sexually discriminating seating happening anymore then it would allow racial discrimination in seating.

I have mentioned before on twitter that no one has been calling for gender segregation to be made illegal. The case study notes (page 28):

that decisions can be very fact-dependent, and that the law applies differently in different scenarios. For example, there is an express prohibition in the Equality Act against segregation on racial grounds, and there are also special provisions in relation to single-sex sporting events. The points above are not intended as a substitute for seeking appropriate legal advice.

Clearly the advice is to bend over backwards for a last-minute-condition by a speaker, for the law allows this. Whether it is moral, or ethical can be subject to the feminist group holding their parallel debate to let off some steam. If the law is not there to protect, you have no reason to object. By being inclusive we can role back the advances in gender equality; the contradiction should be apparent if we replace gender with race.

The case study mentions ambiguity over whether feminism is protected as a belief system to rival the religious belief of a speaker. Vegetarianism is recognised as a belief in UK law. University UK suggests legal advice – however, it’s suggestions weigh best interests of religion with the trump card. Is there any legal basis for them doing so?

I would urge university societies appalled at the idea of segregated seating at public meetings to ensure their Student Union has a proviso in guidelines that says segregation by gender is unacceptable as it would be by race at public meetings organised by student organisations, and that all speakers to public meetings recognise this. No last minute ransom could then happen because speakers have accepted no segregation will be allowed to happen.

What sort of meeting

I mention the distinction between what sort of meeting, because here the guidelines briefly asks as a question to consider “is the meeting open to the public?” A public event should treat all citizens equally – treating people according to their sexual anatomy where they may or may not sit would go against this idea as it would by race. Mentioning disability misses that you cannot choose to be paralysed, partially sighted or hard of hearing – we recognise that allocated seating helps less able citizens to be able to participate at a public event more equally with other attendees should they wish to take advantage of it. Your religious belief does not qualify in the same way as a disability.

To make where you sit a religious belief that must be adhered to at a public event misses that you have chosen to accept this belief as true for yourself. It cannot be imposed on others as true. They have religious freedom as do yourself. You do not get to trump other citizens by virtue of having a religious belief. The closest you could possibly hope to get to a disability is psychological upset if made to sit in a non segregated environment. I imagine feminists will beat you to it, with evidence of patriarchy. If sensibilities allow us to discriminate against others over their counter sensibilities we end up with a mockery of a guideline that should also consider the sensibilities of racism of the law permitted.

Racists that would not attend without racial segregated seating have no moral right to get their way, nor should our speaker or audience member by gender segregation. If citizens at a public meeting are to be treated equally, a university should hold it’s nerve.

If a religious meeting for a religion that practises gender segregation, then these points may not apply. For such adherents are voluntarily following their beliefs in a setting they have established. If members of the public are invited to a religious meeting, then they should be told of such segregation. We may object, but the format of the meeting changes that – without a law to say this would be illegal then religious freedom wins over what we would consider sexual discrimination. Religious freedom again trumps free speech of members of the public who might object to such an event, where women sit at the back or enter via a different entrance. In that situation a separate debate would seem appropriate to denounce such religious practises if the mood took you. Free speech after all.

So a huge issue not raised by the case study ensues from the above – is the speaker attending as an individual or in a religious capacity? This has not even crossed their mind, just as a public/not public meeting distinction has not. If as a religious figure but at a public meeting, then public event rules should hold to prevent sexual discrimination.

It should concern us all that gender equality is being undermined by minority religious views. The University UK guidelines in a two page treatment miss out some key issues to discuss, and uses such a bizarre set of circumstances to frame general guidelines that they have not helped clarify the situation, not helping by failing to realise that men and women being seated apart is not treating everyone fairly when sexual discrimination is the reason for such a segregated seating arrangement existing.

Calling sexual discrimination free speech, or religious freedom does not change a thing. Reading this, it seems the Equality Act by not mentioning gender on a par with race may require a future amendment if we are serious about people not being treated according to gender in the public space.

I would regret needing a law to prevent such discrimination by gender. But these are the times we live in.

Article written by John Sargeant on Homo economicus’ Weblog