Reading the posts I wonder if we all read the same speech? My take on it is that Lindsey was genuinely attempting to link to the audience by first discussing the traditional views about women. His central message however became blurred IMO with the “shut up and listen” comment which appears to be heart the dissent coming from the Feminists. Given what Rebecca Watson has blogged about I can see what angered them when Lindsey made the statement. I really don’t think that his motive was to silence dissent or show disrespect to the feminist movement but to state that skeptics are fellow travelers furthering the goals of progressivism. That being said, his response to Watson’s blog was way out of character and amounted to an unwarranted ad hominem attack that led to the backlash. The “apology”, watered down as it was only added fuel to the fire.
Personally I have a great respect for the aims and goals of this organization and for the administrators and moderators who run it. I feel the same way about most of the members on this forum. Lindsey made an error in judgement and IMO needs to apologize to Watson for his remarks and then continue furthering the goals of CFI. He isn’t the organization, we the members are and we shouldn’t abandon our principles because the head shed put his foot in his mouth. I still have respect for the guy but maybe he should look to a member of the feminist community to parse his next speech to the Women in Secularization Conference.
Cap’t Jack
Lindsay did issue a sincere apology to Watson for his screed against her. The CFI board’s apology and Lindsay’s subsequent apology for the speech came across as insincere.
I think EOC is right, instead of abandoning CFI I need to get involved and work to change the organization. There is important work to be done, and CFI has the resources to accomplish good things. We just need to get the right people in charge.
Lindsay did issue a sincere apology to Watson for his screed against her. The CFI board’s apology and Lindsay’s subsequent apology for the speech came across as insincere. I think EOC is right, instead of abandoning CFI I need to get involved and work to change the organization. There is important work to be done, and CFI has the resources to accomplish good things. We just need to get the right people in charge.I really don't think the backlash is over yet as I'm certain there are more members who feel the way you do. Some will probably pull out in protest or disgust and it may fall on the board to replace him or he may resign. Your second statement says it best. There is important work to be done. The org. Needs to mend fences and move on. Cap't Jack
I realize I don’t have the background of the first Women’s Secular Conference nor the behavior and comments that may have occurred there, however, I downloaded his speech to a flash drive and got around to reading it after I had gone to bed this evening. I was so confused that I had to get up and onto the Forum even though it’s midnight here.
At this point, I couldn’t see anything amiss with that talk. Darron, could you identify the specific statements that were so upsetting? Meanwhile, I’ll go back and download the comments following his talk since I didn’t do that earlier.
Occam
I couldn’t get the text of Rebecca Watson (Wilson?), but I did get the analysis so I’ll go back to bed and read them there.
I tried to wade through the comments following Lindsay’s speech, but on both sides they were repetitive and far too wordy.
Occam
I’m glad to see that you’re not quitting, Darron.
I read everything and feel just as confused as some of the others here in this regard. Perhaps it is the differences in our experiences which make some perceive an insult where others don’t. I personally don’t care if I’m insulted in the heat of debate as we are emotional beings that don’t always intend the actual harms we incidentally express in communicating. I’ve been accused before by some acquaintances of having some anger issue in the midst of some discussion. Confused, I would try to explain to this person that I am far from it and whatever you are perceiving is perhaps my natural zeal for discussion or something. Thinking that that is a sufficient explanation, I then hope that we can carry on and get back to our discussion at hand. Instead, I am charged doubly for it as somehow even my explanation was interpreted as assuring my ire. So now I’m off track with the original argument and am feeling betrayed that my own words are insufficient to console this person. Now I am becoming angry because the frustration of the accusation is getting insoluble. And thus, I indeed have proven my anger!
I actually disagree with associating feminism to represent a significant stance on being skeptical or humanist and feel that overt support should not be granted to the cause because it is extraneous and irrelevant to the cause. Whether a majority of people who are feminists are also skeptics or humanists, the association dictates to others that in order to be feminist, you must not be religious. Not only is this absurd, there are many women who are not religious and yet find themselves indifferent or in disagreement with the general feminist ideologies. I know many such women more than any other. In fact, their are many women who want to embrace the advantages of the very supposed weaknesses that women are claimed to have been imposed by through patriarchy.
I still have yet to meet a girl who embraces any weaknesses of some major stereotypical man. The patriarchy that is presumed as some derogatory assault against women is actually coming from as many women as they are from the men…if not moreso!!
The term, feminist, is itself descriptive of some favor towards women over men. I think the term, humanist, if it is truly meant to assure fairness for all humans, is sufficient and unbiased.
Another factor to take in consideration is that associating feminism with atheism, skepticism, or any other similar cause discriminates other women and alienates them from active participation and getting the sincere help that these groups can actually serve. I stand for equality of the sexes and gender choices. But I recognize that feminism does not represent all women appropriately, regardless of those who call themselves assure.
As a man, I too am discriminated. …and equally severely at most times. And feminists would suggest that I may too start a group of masculines to address these issues. Well, I say, thank you for the permission, but I stand for all people and believe the issue is to be resolved collectively and inclusively.
For those men who also sincerely believe that women are the oppressed, it says more about you than the rest of us who disagree. I say, try looking in the mirror and ask yourself why things are going so well for you as opposed to other men.
It appears that we’re getting spammed. Is anyone noticing?
I did volunteer to work with them at the end of my letter.it's a good start! ;-)
I realize I don't have the background of the first Women's Secular Conference nor the behavior and comments that may have occurred there, however, I downloaded his speech to a flash drive and got around to reading it after I had gone to bed this evening. I was so confused that I had to get up and onto the Forum even though it's midnight here. At this point, I couldn't see anything amiss with that talk. Darron, could you identify the specific statements that were so upsetting? Meanwhile, I'll go back and download the comments following his talk since I didn't do that earlier. OccamWasting four or five sentences explaining why he didn't need to welcome the women to the conference was bizarre, but not offensive. The offensive part came when Lindsay started talking about privilege, and how women use their privilege to tell men to "shut up and listen" when discussing feminist issues. This is a classic straw man argument. Women are not in a positiion of privilege in our society, and the women at the conference have not been going around telling men to "shut up and listen." As I mentioned earlier in this thread, even at secular/skeptical conferences women are subject to sexual harassment, groping and unwanted advances. The women Lindsay was addressing ask for civility and respect, and when they complain about the sexual harassment, groping and unwanted advances they are vilified from all sides, including receiving threats of physical harm. Lindsay's speech ignored those problems and focused on a false premise making the women at the conference the offenders.
I think you are confusing two things here, Darron: women and feminists. Big difference. Criticizing feminists doesn’t necessarily mean one is a sexist, just like disagreeing with the approach of, say, the The Black Panther Party doesn’t make one a racist. There are many different ways to go about a problem and I see no reason why Lindsay or anyone else shouldn’t form an opinion on what they think works and what doesn’t.
I see, George. Like Lindsay you’ll ignore the reality that women are being harassed, groped and threatened and believe that women are in a position of privilege and telling men to not discuss feminist issues. How is the weather on your planet?
Neither I nor Lindsay are ignoring anything. The problem exists and I agree with Lindsay that some of the approaches of dealing with this problem don’t work.
Plus, Lindsay is the CEO of the Center for Inquiry, the one place where nothing should be a taboo. He doesn’t have to be right but he needs to show that any subject can be publicly discussed and debated.
I see, George. Like Lindsay you'll ignore the reality that women are being harassed, groped and threatened and believe that women are in a position of privilege and telling men to not discuss feminist issues. How is the weather on your planet?I didn't get the impression that Lindsay was claiming that women were privileged. I understood his reference to mean that men being understood to be privileged by feminists can tend to presume that men are not worthy of input into the movement by them and thus make them belittle the efforts of those men by discouraging them from speaking (shutting them up, in essence). I think this is true too. But I do think that it was a mistake that Lindsay hosted the event in the first place because of what I said earlier. Also, it may not have been understood that hosting such an event was not meant to introduce one's personal opinion on the subject but to present the others who are to speak. I think it is at least a lesson to anyone speaking to first ask the event coordinator what is expected and what isn't.
Something else to consider…
Most of us skeptics can tend to be less socially adequate at the best of times. Ron Lindsay is perhaps a reflection of this. Practice with it will help but it means that we are all going to make errors along the way.
I didn't get the impression that Lindsay was claiming that women were privileged. I understood his reference to mean that men being understood to be privileged by feminists can tend to presume that men are not worthy of input into the movement by them and thus make them belittle the efforts of those men by discouraging them from speaking (shutting them up, in essence). I think this is true too.So, which women at the convention have told men to "shut up and listen?" Put yourself in their place. You've been groped at skeptical conventions. Men have made inappropriate and unwanted advances at these conventions. You've been the target of sexual harassment at these conventions. Once you were even referred to as the "token female" on a panel at a skeptical convention. When you complained about this misogyny, disrespect and abuse you met a firestorm of online criticism, including threats of rape. Finally, CFI organized a skeptical convention specifically for women; a place where you can socialize with like-minded women without fear of a few sexist pigs feeling your breasts and asking you to their rooms. Then the CEO of the sponsoring organization in the kickoff speech explains why he doesn't feel the need to welcome you to the conference, and goes on to state that the women who have been harassed, groped, propositioned and threatened are guilty of telling men they cannot voice their opinions on feminism. Problem is, you have done no such thing, and neither has any of the women sitting around you. No wonder they reacted so strongly. CFI compounded this problem by releasing the board's weak statement that they tried to pass off as an apology. Ron Lindsay seemed to smooth things somewhat with his most recent apology, but he has not admitted he did anything wrong. I find it disconcerting that an organization devoted to rational thinking should behave so irrationally. Now the Point of Inquiry team has packed up and left because the CFI leadership's actions made it almost impossible for them to book guests, and the CFI board would not give their backing to Chris Mooney and Indre Viskontas. As I said in the OP, CFI is heading down the road to irrelevancy. Whether you agree with my assessment of Lindsay's speech or think I'm reading too much into his statements, his speech and the board's subsequent (in)actions have dealt a severe blow to CFI's credibility.
As I said in the OP, CFI is heading down the road to irrelevancy. Whether you agree with my assessment of Lindsay's speech or think I'm reading too much into his statements, his speech and the board's subsequent (in)actions have dealt a severe blow to CFI's credibility.Maybe. But even if that were the case, Lindsay is hardly to be blamed for it. Fuck political correctness.
Having read the speech and the responses linked to here, I too feel we’ve got a tempest in a teapot full of egos here. Lindsay’s point about privileging the point of view of the opressed in discussions of how to challenge opression struck me as both a fair observation about the excesses of postmodern leftist criticism and also out of place in the introductory remarks to a conference about feminism and secularism. His response to critics was hyperbolic, which I don’t find surprising since he’s shown himself before to be a pretty poor communicator for the leader of an organization like CFI, prone to knee-jerk responses he later has to qualify. I’m not a big fan of Linday, but I think the notion that what he said in his initial remarks was offensive, as opposed to clumsy, is difficult to defend. And quitting the organization over the whole affair strikes me as hysterical and thin-skinned for a bunch of people working as public advocates for a set of ideas loathed by much of the world. We’re never going to get anywhere with the rest of the world if we tear ourselves apart over little semantic struggles like “privilege” and "atheist vs agnostic vs secularist vs humanist, etc…).
I can’t help but wonder if there is a whole soap opera of personality politics lurking beneath the surface of this controversy. The public elements seem so inadequate to explain the hostility that I would guess this is just the tip of an iceberg most of us aren’t aware of.
There is one thing a bit disturbing about the whole business though…Apparently Occam and George and I are all in agreement! 
At this point, I couldn’t care less about POI and it’s hosts. That program has been dying a slow death for a while, IMO.
FWIW, I agree that Lindsay could have done better, but having a “Women in Secularism” movement is in itself, a bad tactic; if you are attempting to appear be inclusive. 
Having read the speech and the responses linked to here, I too feel we've got a tempest in a teapot full of egos here. Lindsay's point about privileging the point of view of the opressed in discussions of how to challenge opression struck me as both a fair observation about the excesses of postmodern leftist criticism and also out of place in the introductory remarks to a conference about feminism and secularism. His response to critics was hyperbolic, which I don't find surprising since he's shown himself before to be a pretty poor communicator for the leader of an organization like CFI, prone to knee-jerk responses he later has to qualify. I'm not a big fan of Linday, but I think the notion that what he said in his initial remarks was offensive, as opposed to clumsy, is difficult to defend. And quitting the organization over the whole affair strikes me as hysterical and thin-skinned for a bunch of people working as public advocates for a set of ideas loathed by much of the world. We're never going to get anywhere with the rest of the world if we tear ourselves apart over little semantic struggles like "privilege" and "atheist vs agnostic vs secularist vs humanist, etc.....). I can't help but wonder if there is a whole soap opera of personality politics lurking beneath the surface of this controversy. The public elements seem so inadequate to explain the hostility that I would guess this is just the tip of an iceberg most of us aren't aware of. There is one thing a bit disturbing about the whole business though...Apparently Occam and George and I are all in agreement! ;-)Yes, we'll put Brennen. An unfortunate episode on all sides.