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Check out my post over at Skeptic North for all my new holiday art in one place!

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A few days ago, I wrote two posts addressing the topic of appealing to a female audience. One was about the Blag Hag guest post When Gender Goes Pear-Shaped and the other was Reaching a Female Audience: The She-ra Approach. My motivation for writing both of these posts was a concern that free-thought groups would begin to make ill-informed changes, based on intuition instead of facts, which would be well-meaning but ultimately unhelpful.

Then, I come across PZ Myers post about how men should shut up and listen to women:

Listen. To. The. Women.

I’ve got a simple suggestion for my fellow men. Learn to shut up and listen. Seriously. You want women to find your organization pleasant and interesting and worth contributing to? Then don’t form panels full of men trying to figure out what women want

Great. Well, you know what, dudeman? I don’t want men to shut up and listen to me because I’m a woman. I want people to shut up and listen to be because I’m effing awesome, mmkay?

First of all, the panel in question wasn’t a women’s issues panel made up of mostly men. It was an audience choice panel, where the topics were chosen after the panelists were chosen. My guess is that, like most panels on the topic of women in atheism, if the organizers had known in advanced that those would be the topics, they would’ve chosen more women to be on the panel. Secondly, men giving their views on women in atheism isn’t automatically sexist. In fact, I thought the discussion touched on points that may not have been touched on in your average women’s panel (like the fact that atheist gatherings are the only place to find like-minded partners). Guess what—-this wasn’t the only panel in history to ever talk about women in atheism, ever again and I certainly wouldn’t have wanted them to skip the subject entirely because oops there aren’t enough women on the panel. I’m not convinced that when it comes to the subject of ensuring groups are more female-friendly nobody relies on women members to contribute.

The entire point of my She-ra Approach post was to argue that if you want to create an atmosphere which is more inclusive to women then you need to make an atmosphere which treats everyone like people. People are complex and you can’t make assumptions about them because of gender, race, or age.

Don’t make assumptions about me, negative or positive, based on my gender. Listen to what I have to say because I’m smart, funny, and make solid arguments. Invite me to speak at your event because I’m an international award-winning mangaka and TED Fellowship member. The fact that I’m also a young woman and totally adorable might also be a nice plus! But, like She-ra, I’m not awesome because I’m a woman I’m awesome because I wield the effing powers of Grayskull, bitch!

But, if horror of horrors, I were to say something that someone could *gasp* disagree with…ha ha I know, ridiculous, but stay with me for the sake of argument…if I were mistaken then nobody should feel uneasy about telling me so. I don’t want men to be told to shut up and listen to women because a) I don’t want men to “go easy” on me when expression their opinions about what I say and b) I don’t want men assuming that I’ll have the same opinion as someone else because they’re also a woman.

Yes, presenting more women role-models is a good strategy. It’s probably helpful to remind organizers to seek a variety of content; it can be easy for all of us to stick to what is familiar. But, if women aren’t being chosen to speak or chosen to be leaders because of the fact they are women, then that has to stop. But don’t go around telling men they should listen to me because I’m a woman.

Why writers should move beyond The Hero’s Journey

Storytelling is a wonderful platform to share a message. Instead of making an argument through writing an essay, a story can place the reader in a scenario where they can empathize with characters and become emotionally involved in the message the author wants to convey. Entertainment is at its best when the story has meaning, but ever since Joseph Campbell and George Lucas hooked up to cross-promote each other’s work—Campbell using the popularity of Star Wars to boost his mono-myth theory of mythology and Lucas using the Hero’s Journey to lend a sense of intellectual credibility to his popcorn space adventure flicks—Hollywood has been obsessed with churning out cookie-cutter Campbellian scripts that follow the Hero’s Journey formula. The formula does more than just stifle creativity, it contains a framework which will nearly always produce the same message, one based in pre-Enlightenment thinking that hero’s are born not made, humans require rule from divinity, and problems can only be resolved through spiritual metamorphosis. I say it’s time to let go of this Eurocentric, often misogynistic writing formula and mystical view of the world and begin celebrating the humanist ideals from the age of reason through the art of storytelling.

Let’s compare the mono-myth poster child, Star Wars, with the ode to secular humanism that is Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek. It should be said that I’m a big fan of both these series. But when Lucas and Campbell told us to take the Star Wars Saga seriously, as a means of finding deep truth, that’s when I become critical of the story. Star Wars is a great space adventure and highly entertaining, but when it comes to being a model for journeying through life, it’s a giant step back into the dark ages.

When you take a close look at the meaning behind the world of Star Wars, you quickly notice it is one rule by theocracy. Whether it’s the ‘dark side’ of the Sith or the ‘light side’ of the Jedi, those who rule do so by divine right. Luke Skywalker is our hero because it’s his birthright; he was born into the royal bloodline of the Knighthood. You can’t simply work hard to become a Jedi, you need to be born one. The purpose of the common man, like Han Solo, is to serve and protect those of royal blood, like Luke and Leia. Luke is our savior not because he practiced hard to become good with a targeting computer, but because he has privileged access to divine powers. This is all good fun when used simply as escapism, but as David Brin points out in “Star Wars despots vs. Star Trek populists” the message behind Star Wars is one of anti-democratic, elitist ideals.

Star Trek is great escapism too, but if you wish to draw greater meaning from it you’ll find a forward-facing philosophy based in secular humanism where all humans are created equal and their greatness is based on their own merits, free from dogma and the supernatural. James T. Kirk wasn’t given command of the Enterprise through birthright; he earned the title of Captain through his own talent and hard work. The Federation set out on its mission of exploration not by sending lone knights out into the galaxy, but by organizing into cooperative crews who rely on one another to succeed. Roddenberry’s vision for humanity was a future centered on democracy and rationality. This message is far more useful to modern life than the backward-looking theocracy of that galaxy far far away.

In addition to Star Wars, another saga often identified as an example of “modern myth” is J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. But, again, the messages found in this tale are anything but helpful in creating a free, modern society. Instead of Jedi, the humans of Middle Earth are ruled by kings, and those kings are subject to the watchful eyes of wizards and immortals. The Ringwraths are the worst examples of how humans should behave; they desire the power of the ring, a man-made object which bestows power to mortal man. How dare they seek the knowledge to become equals with their divine rulers? I reference David Brin again as he points out in his article, “J.R.R. Tolkien – Enemy of Progress”, how the trilogy romanticizes monarchy and privileged knowledge:

“…pain and damnation await any mortal whose ambition aims too high. Don’t try putting on the trappings or emblems or powers that rightfully belong to your betters. Above all, don’t try to decipher and redistribute mysteries.”

There is, however, a more recent “modern-myth” fantasy saga which does indeed promote post-Enlightenment ways. J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series uses modern day witches and wizards to go against the idea that a special class of elites is entitled to rule based on bloodlines. The protagonists fight for the idea that both non-magical humans (muggles), witches and wizards born in non-magical families (muggle-borns), and those who grew up completely in the magical world (pure-bloods) are all equal, against the antagonists who believing the pure-bloods deserve to rule over what they consider to be lower class people. There is an emphasis throughout the books that it takes more than supernatural ability to succeed, as is demonstrated in the first book when Hermione and Harry need to pass the sixth barrier to the Philosopher’s Stone. The barrier tests their ability to reason and not their ability to use magic, “’Brilliant,’ said Hermione. ‘This isn’t magic – it’s logic – a puzzle. A lot of the greatest wizards haven’t got an ounce of logic, they’d be stuck in here forever.’” This is far from the romanticizing of classism and divine power contained in the mythic journeys of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.

The Harry Potter series is often analyzed as another example of the Hero’s Journey in action. However, I find that the series exposes the major weaknesses in the Hero’s Journey theory of storytelling. It reveals the model for what it is—-a series of generalizations so vague that it can be made to fit nearly any adventure story. The seven book series, with a combined 4000+ pages, has enough content that one could find almost any desired pattern in its over 900 000 words. You can find multiple examples in it from the list of Hero’s Journey ingredients, but so many as to become meaningless as a useful formula. Harry Potter contains trials, supernatural aid, many magical mentors, and many thresholds to be crossed because that’s what an adventure story is. The one element that the Hero’s Journey contains which makes it anything more than just a list of common adventure story traits is also the one element the Harry Potter series lacks; a spiritual metamorphosis. Harry doesn’t undergo any spiritual transcendence during his seven year journey through Hogwarts.

Harry’s core traits remain the same from beginning to end. He doesn’t transform himself or his beliefs in order to resolve the conflict of the series. From the very beginning and throughout all seven books, he is willing to sacrifice his life to protect those he loves. He never has to come to this through revelation. What prepares him for this purpose isn’t faith, in fact, he is inspired to set out to do what he was always willing to do—-give up his life—-not by taking a leap of faith but by learning the missing pieces of information in a puzzle and receiving evidence (Snape’s memories) that what he’s planning to do really is the right solution. In his world, with magical laws of physics, the removal of the piece of Voldemort’s soul from his own is no more a spiritual transformation than would be the surgical removal of unwanted growth. It doesn’t change him, it’s simply another physical task that needs to take place—-all the Horcruxes need to be destroyed, and Harry just happens to be one of several. When this is done, Harry’s spirit isn’t changed; he’s still the brave, self-sacrificing Gryffindor from the first book. The only changes are ‘physical’ traits (in the magical sense)…he’s no longer a Horcrux, he’s no longer a Parselmouth, and he no longer has a psychic connection with Voldermort. He never feared death and he never becomes master of two worlds. To apply the Hero’s Journey to Harry is to miss the real message of the series: how to deal with death.

Harry Potter is not a tale of a mystic warrior seeking union with the divine. It’s a story that makes an argument about the role of death in our lives and does so by illustrating the differences between the Potter family and the Riddle family. Harry and his parents are willing to accept death because they value life. Harry’s mother sacrifices her life out of love for her son so he can live. Voldermort, aka Tom Riddle, is left orphaned by his mother because she lets herself die over the grief that his father left them. This illustrates the important difference between Harry’s mother, willing to die for her son, and Tom’s mother, not willing to live for her son. The picture Rowling portrays through the story is that the good characters will risk death to protect the lives of others, while the evil ones risk the lives of others to protect themselves. It is Voldemort, not Harry, who seeks spiritual transcendence beyond the mortal world (by, you know…going on a murderous rampage to split his soul into seven pieces). As writer Jim Hull points out in “Not Everything Is A Hero’s Journey”,

“There can be nothing more destructive to the world of storytelling than this compulsion for spiritual metamorphosis. Stories are about solving problems. Sometimes, solving those problems require the centerpiece of a story, the Main Character, to undergo a major transformation in how they see the world. Sometimes they don’t.”

Harry doesn’t have to transform his worldview in order to complete his story.

Although Star Trek is one of the best examples of storytelling promoting secular humanist ideals—-ways of thinking which are critical to human flourishing—-you don’t have to confine yourself to science-fiction, as I believe Harry Potter demonstrates. Fantasy adventures, even if they have supernatural elements, can convey messages about humanism and critical thinking if the deeper meaning of the story isn’t preoccupied with mysticism. We hang onto to stories about heroes born ‘the chosen one’ and immortals with divine power because we yearn to feel special and to have the comfort of higher powers watching over us. It’s fine to have these tales to innocently escape to, but if we’re going use stories to help us create a map for living we need to grow up and look to forms of storytelling which teach us the values of reason, humanism, and secular thinking.

Discussions about the observation that there are less women involved in secular and skeptical communities and how to improve the situation is nothing new, but the latest debate surrounds an incident described in a guest post at Blag Hag, When Gender Goes Pear-Shaped by Sharon Moss, which took place at the American Atheists’ Southeast Regional Atheist Meet where an attendee was made to feel alienated after posing a question to the panel. Her question pointed out that the panel used the term “female” repeatedly instead of “woman/women” during the discussions about how to make atheist groups and events more female-friendly. The blog post refers to the attendee’s concern that the term “made us sound like livestock rather than people” and describes that the panel didn’t really address the question but instead “The woman asking the question was viciously torn apart and ridiculed for even bringing it up.”

When I first read the post I was shocked that such a poorly run panel took place. However, since viewing the actual footage of the event, I found that the appalling behaviour and outrageous comments from the horribly moderated panel I had imagined didn’t actually exist. I kept waiting for the wildly inappropriate male panelists and audience members to begin their ridiculing. I kept waiting for the shocked faces of the offended women in the audience. Blag Hag guest blogger, Sharon, left me thinking a horrible incident had occurred, but the spectacle I had imagined never came. In fact, the account of the incident wasn’t entirely accurate.

I had expected the topic of conversation to be, as the post describes, “that men hitting on women is just biological (therefore excusable), making it sound like a woman in that kind of situation should just STFU and get over it.” Not only was that not the case, but it was actually a pretty nice discussion about making a safe atmosphere, not being a dick, and one panelist pointed out that his group is made up of a lot of families. From reading Sharon’s post, you get no hint that a mature, productive discussion occurred at all.

The post paints a picture of a panel which not only ignored the woman audience member, but only took questions from the males. The reality I saw from the video was that it wasn’t an audience Q&A at all. They didn’t take any audience feedback, except for an informal polling by a showing of hands. I get the impression that the reason she was ignored, if she was, would be because that wasn’t really the format of the panel. Honestly, once she asked her question about the panel’s use of the term “female” it seemed like there simply wasn’t much interest in the critique. After all, her question didn’t have anything to do about the current discussion. The post gave me the impression that there was an inequality in the use of the term female throughout the discussion that this woman was drawing attention to, but the panelists used the term “male” as well in reference to “male atheists”.

Finally, the blog post made me imagine that the infamous “weaker sex” joke by one of the male panelists was said with a venomous tone. Not only was it not as deebaggy as I imagined, it wasn’t even quoted accurately. Sharon quotes him as saying “What do you want us to say, ‘the weaker sex?”, which made me imagine a direct insult at her. Instead, he said “Now, one will use ‘the weaker sex’.” which was directed at the audience in general and seemed completely satirical of idiots who would actually use that term. What made it funny was how unacceptable it is to think that there’s such a thing as a weaker sex.

I initially trusted the description of the events that took place, but now feel the tone and content of the blog post misrepresents the tone and content of the available video footage. I think it’s important to take a critical look at such important concerns about the atheist and skeptic movements.  Ensuring that secular and skeptic groups and events are inclusive to everyone is important to me; reaching out to more women is important to me, and making sure people don’t feel alienated is important to me. But I feel a little duped by the picture painted in Sharon’s post and this makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable because I don’t like the idea of tackling problems based on potentially inaccurate information.

What worries me is that unhealthy divisions can form instead of real growth. Sharon’s post focused on the claim that male attendees simply use the excuse of “it’s biology” when faced with concerns surrounding flirtation. What I would’ve missed if I hadn’t seen the footage of the discussion was that the panelists brought up the fact that there aren’t many options for atheists or skeptics if they’re looking for somewhere to find like-minded partners, besides conferences and meetup groups. The real take-away from the discussion was that there is a need for spaces that cater to singles seeking other singles within the movement, with one female member of the audience pointing out that women go to events to meet men as well. That is a bit of a different situation than the guest Blag Hag post would leave you with.

I don’t think that Sharon or anyone else should be told to STFU or that they’re overreacting. I just think it’s worth investigating whether or not thousands of women are being driven away from atheist events “for no other reason than because this movement can’t seem to figure out how to treat them like equal humans.” That’s not a small claim.

Taking individuals’ feelings seriously and addressing their concerns in a respectful manner is important (apparently, the claim that this didn’t occur may also be inaccurate). But we can do that and still apply critical inquiry to people’s concerns when evaluating what changes should be made to the community as a whole. Just because I feel like the American Atheists SERAM panel was grossly misrepresented in Sharon’s post doesn’t mean I think there aren’t any problems.

But just because Sharon feels that the reason for lower ratios of women in secular humanist groups is for no other reason than unequal treatment of women by the movement doesn’t mean this is the case. There might well be other reasons, and it’s important to know the real picture if you care about improving it.

EDIT: 02/13/11

I just wanted to a add a final summary.

• I feel the tone of “When Gender Goes Pear-Shaped” was inappropriate and I was left feeling fooled by originally trusting its accuracy. The author left me in no doubt that the panelists were malicious and demeaning when this clearly was not the case.
• It’s possible to empathize with both the woman who was offended and Sharon, who wrote the post, and still disagree with their assessment of the panel.
• The claim that there are less women in atheism solely because they are being driven away by sexism is a huge claim, for which no evidence has been presented. Making changes to the structure of an entire movement without any objective investigation can cause unintended damage to secular communities.
• All claims are subject to skepticism, and there is a distinction between feelings and claims. I’m uncomfortable with what feels like a growing atmosphere where legitimate criticism and inquiry is characterized as bad-mouthing, on either side of any debate.

Alienating women by calling them feminazis is wrong. Mischaracterizing people while voicing legitimate concerns is also wrong and alienating.

Surly Amy, a Skepchick and the artist behind Surly-Ramics, took some lovely photos of me wearing her beautiful handmade jewelery. You can find them over on her flickr page. Surly-Ramics is the place to go if you’re looking for jewelery to show off your love of science and skepticism! They can be found on Etsy too!

Does God have a Future?
A Great Debate Filmed by ABC’s Nightline

Today, we attended a debate between Michael Shermer and Sam Harris vs. Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston. The debate was “Does God have a Future?” and will air on ABC Nightline on March 23rd. It was splendid  to see Shermer and Harris speak again, after each giving their own great talk, last month, at TED. Chopra was predictably absurd, dishing out his brand of woo juice cocktail—-new age pseudoscience post-modernism blended with faux quantum physics. Jean Houston, whom I’ve never heard of, was a complete embarrassment. I don’t recall anything relevant in her boring anecdotes.

I had a chance to ask a question, so I came up with one for Deepak. He had mentioned “deeper ways of knowing” and gave the impression that this was through intuition and repeatedly referred to “the subjective”. So I asked, “Without the objective scientifiic method, how can we distinguish what is true from what we simply want to be true?” Deepak answered this by saying he would answer my question, but that he didn’t want to answer any more questions after that. He then proceeded to not answer my question by doing his little Chopra word dance of nothingness.

Now, I know correlation doesn’t always mean causation, but if you want to interpret Chopra’s actions as being totally scared off by my question of skeptical awesomeness, I have no problem with that whatsoever!

If you’ve read any of this blog, you’ve probably guessed I’m an atheist–that gross word people use to describe us non-believers. But I think I’ve said before that atheism isn’t what’s important to me; I’m more concerned about skepticism in general (rather than just being skeptical about gods)…because atheism alone can lead to those annoying people who say “I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual”. I know because I used to be one of those annoying people…

And spirituality still involves faith: believing something to be true without evidence, despite evidence to the contrary, or even believing something for which there can be no evidence. There seems to be only one reason why we would give in to this type of thinking; because it feels good. People only have faith in things they want to be true. And so, when you use faith you fall into a dangerous mode of thought where you let your emotions get in the way of seeing objective truth.

This is where I found what’s important to me (and why I love Carl Sagan so much)…I realized that I’m far more concerned about what’s true than what feels good. This takes much more discipline than faith, though the spiritual gurus would have you think different. Spirituality is constantly trying to convince people that faith is a virtue and that it takes a disciplined mind to make faith work.

I have never known anyone, not one person, either religious or spiritual who is happy…truly content, and content because of their faith. What I see is people constantly needing to remind themselves of their faith; day in and day out they need to repeat to themselves what they believe…as if they are deeply unsure if it really is true. They need to gather in large groups with others of similar faith to reassure one another that this is what they all believe. Not only do I find this deeply unsatisfying, but doesn’t that also seem like a ritual of self-denial?

This is why I want truth. Truth isn’t something you need to recite. The truth simply is…whether you want it to be or not…good or bad. The truth about the world around you is there whether you choose to accept it or not, whether it hurts you or not, whether you want it or you don’t. Truth doesn’t promise to always makes you happy–but isn’t there something so very selfish about wanting only what makes you happy to be real? What the truth will always offer you is understanding and that is something that stays with you.