Brights Discussion - London - 24th Oct. 2005

"Why are so few women interested in secularist activism ……………………and does it matter?"

I think there are two main reasons:-

Firstly - The malign effect of religion and its practices are not being spelled out, neither in general education, the media, nor by the largest of our two small organisations.

Most people still think religion is basically OK except for the few extremists. Because of this:-

Unlike other fields of activism, people don’t see its relevance to everyday life.

Secondly - Women are above all practical people, and they are arguably among the best activists.

There are many other organisations in which they can and do work.

If one looks at community organisations, committees, pressure groups, recreational societies and adult learning - from Adult Education Courses to the U3A, one will see in many of them a substantial preponderance of women.

History shows that even in the past when women were almost totally excluded from secondary education, the professions, public life and political activism, women found ways to be effective and innovative activists.

Many successful landmark battles - for workers rights, political, health and social reform have been led by women - from the Matchgirls of the East End, Ford and Grunwick, to the Asian women of Gate Gourmet; from the Suffragetts to Greenham Common; from the campaigns for reproductive rights by activists such as Margaret Sanger in the US and Diane Munday and ALRA.

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The time has long gone when women accepted the role of sandwich makers and camp followers and if male secularists, straight or gay do not recognise that female perspectives and activism are necessary and desirable, the promotion of our ideology of freedom and equality will suffer.

It is interesting that the only times when the organisations were doing well and growing were when women’s active participation was strong, when there was no question as to whether the BHA was atheist and secularist, and when the organisations were actively supporting issues such as church led restrictions on contraception, adoption and abortion rights.

And now with the rise of Islam and the high profile of sectarianism around the world, the physical and sexual abuse of women and sexual abuse of children by priests, where religion is obvious and visible women are active- not in the secular humanist movement. but in organisations such as children’s charities, Amnesty International and the Peace Movement

(Leaflets - ‘Secularism and Secular Humanism in the Peace Movement’ and ‘Women, Religion and Peace’ show how women’s rights, welfare and education is essential to ‘peace and harmony’ Links on http://www.slhg.adm.freeuk.uk/bromley.htm )

Secular humanism has reverted to an emphasis on subjects of interest mainly to men - which is an age old practice that has always kept atheism 'fenced off' as the preserve of little cliques of educated men - as meta-physical game play - interesting only for endless philosophising - intellectualising – an elite leisure activity. Fun for some, but limited for many.

§ It has been used as an extension of the gay rights movement

§ For ever more detailed discussion of Evolution/Creationism /ID

§ And for male bonding

All important but not to the exclusion of everything else.

Almost only subject common to all is education, but the lack of serious ideological campaigning has not conveyed the urgency of opposing the religious determination to keep religion in schools.

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But we should not imagine that it is more important to have women just to make up the numbers than that they are sound atheistic secular-humanists!

That is the simple answer as to why women are not interested in secular humanist activism.

………………Does it matter?"

If one just wants secular humanism as a playground for sustaining the not-so-old-boy network and indulgent elitist philosophising, with basic lobbying to government without the backup of public support - then no it doesn’t matter.

If our aim is to promote rationalism, secular humanism, and criticise superstition and oppose sectarianism, to reduce people’s acceptance of the false claims of the religion’s, and get religion out of public life and politics, it certainly does matter that over half the population are apparently uninterested.

IMO Secular- humanism needs women, and Women need secular-humanism

Answering the original question does not in fact get us very far, unless we look at what we can do about it.

My Definitions:-

Ignoring for now discussing the effect that the religious control of education has had on our language, I will confine myself to the following:-

Secular Humanism - a combination of atheism, secularism & humanism

(Discussion:- IMO the place for agnostic humanitarians is with the Quakers, Unitarians and SoF. Secular humanist have only two organisations in the UK, and we cannot afford for our ideology to be diluted to the point of invisibility by religious appologists)

Feminism – that women are intellectually equal to men and the default position in society and discussions and decision-making . is not male

Sexism - is prejudice or discrimination against women on grounds of sex or gender, it can be overt or covert, conscious or sub-conscious, and by men or women, straight or gay.

‘In my opinion’ - means just that, no better or worse than anyone else’s opinion & my opinions do not need to be subject to male validation.

Generalisations of men and women - means Some men and some women. Not all men and all women

But if the cap fits –wear it

1) Q. Does sexism still exist? Or is it just a figment of the female imagination?

A. See Fawcett Society Paper ‘Equality Matters’ & Observer ‘Focus’. There is ample evidence that in many fields, in the home, in the workplace and in politics women are disadvantaged - by unfair sharing of domestic and family work.and inequalities in pay and pensions.

2) Q. Do we have a problem?

A. Yes I think so & I will give you a few examples:-

New Humanist -is the ONLY humanist journal in the UK

In the Sept/Oct /2005 Issue:-

Of the 82 named individuals were women.

Of the 42 Honorary Associates 4 are women.

Of the contents, out of 43 items only 5 were by women writers ( and that included two letters to the Editor).

Is this an acceptable gender balance?

– if women are as intelligent, educated, rationally and intellectually equal to men there can be no justification for this discrepancy. The reasons may be traditional, deliberate or accidental. But since I have, over the last few years the brought the subject to the attention of the editors, and it has not changed, it cannot be purely accidental.

– I have offered suggestions but none to my knowledge have been employed.

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Similar but more detailed questions after a 6 month analysis of the Freethinker and in response to the question as to why there was so little content or female perspective in the Freethinker, the following view was published:-

"If there is a paucity of female writing in the magazine, it is because women have chosen to exclude themselves, possibly because:-

1) they are reluctant to be associated with the mainly radical anti-religious tone of the Freethinker,

2) they insist in writing under pseudonyms, often gender-neutral, which we are naturally reluctant to accept,

3) they are not prepared to submit work for which no payment is offered."

and:- " I have tried really hard to get female writers on board, with very scant success. This, I believe, is because few of them have the stomach to use the forthright, uncompromising language of the FT, and choose to pussyfoot around with subjects that are of little interest to FT readers."

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Look at gender balance of membership and participation on discussions & forums, I will not go into my personal experience of (being banned and from which I am still banned) other than to observe that women's equality issues are conspicuous by their absence in secularist activity.

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After leaving the Secular-newsline forum because of bullying more than a year ago, I returned recently to see what was going on there, the gender balance had not changed, and the first thread I looked at on whether Clark would be the best leader for the Tories, and with no previous relevant context, I read - quote: “I wonder if Ruth Kelly really does wear a studded garter for self-mortification (as recommended by Opus Dei). It wouldn't surprise me if she did - her voice is deeper than mine, and I sing bass” I posted a reply saying that I thought this was crass and sexist and no substitute for political discussion, for this I was bounced from that discussion group!

(I also suggested that such supposedly ‘light-hearted lampooning” would not be tolerated about blacks, Jews or homosexuals).

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I have written of the need for the public to understand why the religions are against homosexuality, that it has nothing to do with sex or the bible, but the sexist attitudes of the religions to women and men’s role as dominant partners in relationships. I tried to put this up for discussion but it was never discussed, and I have never been asked to contribute my ideas on the subject to the Gay and Lesbian Humanist journal, which last time I looked was totally male orientated.

see 'Illicit Sex and the God Machine' on www.c.s.e.freeuk.com/AtheistPerspectives.htm

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I promote Atheist Perspectives through Secularsites in print and on the Internet – on Education, health, personal and sexual relationships, social policy, political attitudes With the exception of SPES, I have never seen them even considered let alone read or promoted by the UK secular humanist movement.

I promote and link other organisations websites thought secularsites- yet many if not most do not reciprocate links

www.secularsites.freeuk.com

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3) Do these examples matter? Yes, because these gatekeepers, not ‘Big Brothers’ but ‘Little Brothers’– ‘those ubiquitous chippy runt-of-a-litter - LitteBrothers’ (a phrase used by Carol Sarler in relation to the oppressive use of power on ID cards) - not only ignore women’s right to contribute, but actively prevent them from doing so - a tactic that has always been used to prevent women from expressing their opinions.

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Q. Are Women Intrinsically Passive?

My experience and observation of activism does not support this.

So are they only tolerated if they are ladylike & don’t argue with the man in charge?

I am not passive and I am not tolerated. I would like to have read you ‘Bolshie Woman’ The Life and Times of Violet Elizabeth’ but I don’t have time.

(They can be seen on:- http://www.workshop3.freeuk.com/Verse.htm

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Q. What can we do to attract more women into secular humanist activism?……… & I suppose it depends on what do you mean by activism

1) Recognise that

a) sexism is deeply ingrained in our culture ref. Observer ‘Focus’ Report

b) that sexism is a specifically secularist issue.

2) Every progressive movement has its dragging anchors, its ‘traitors’, backsliders, apologists, Uncle Toms or Aunty Thomassinas - Women themselves must become more assertive, and not tolerate sexism, understand the issues and stop colluding – or just keeping their heads down, under the impression that being accepted by the dominant male elite gives them kudos, status over other women. - tolerated only if they are obedient and ladylike, is just not good enough.

3) Women have a right to argue and contradict. They have a right to participate in all discussions on any topic and do not have to stick to ‘women’s issues’ or defer to men.

* Men should recognise and resist their traditional ‘right’ to’ talk-over’ women.

* Women’s participation in discussion does not make a subject less important.

* Sexism is rooted in the male dominated monotheistic religions

* Which in Britain & Europe is rooted in Christianity http://www.rootsofsexism.freeuk.com

This is what makes sexism a secular-humanist issue.

It is doubly ironic that any woman should feel excluded from secularist activism.

Opposition to religion and disobedience by women and dissenters has been

suppressed and ruthlessly punished throughout history. (Cultural evolution?)

Women were kept out of education until the rise of secularism in the late

9^th & early 20^th Century – by Christian control of education.

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Feminism & Atheism as issues, although they have the same common enemy, can be, and often are used as a divisive tactic by those hostile to either or both.

Religion as a cause of sexism will be ignored or opposed by those who are hostile to women’s participation in debate and activism (including secularist activism). The role of religious attitudes as a cause of the women’s inequality, will be avoided by feminists for fear of alienating believers.

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What else can we do:-

1) We can recognise and allow for the fact that men and women have different priorities and different preferences in the way they approach a subject - These are subtle differences. e.g. waiting to be asked, rather than putting themselves forward. IMO the latter – from a woman is seen as self-agrandisement. – but as I have found out, if women do not promote the many initiatives they take, no-one else will.

2) IMO Women are more interested in health and welfare, social policy, family and community issues and women’s role in society and peace activism, that some men find trivial and unimportant compared to what they see as the bigger issues – of war, deep philosophical argument and biblical analysis, and arguing the origins of life the universe and everything! - and male bonding And if women try to horn in on their patch they think we are making a take over bid.

3) Find our what puts women off (or in my case gets me 'put off'!) e.g.

Being expected not to object to condescending and patronising men. Particularly when they appear to know little nothing about the British secular humanist organisations.
When men choose to deny the validity of women’s personal experience and observation, and refuse to accept, without endless argument, that a woman can still disagree with them.

These are forms of elitism and bullying.

Too many men pay lip service to the notion of equality. For the same reasons as women, but also because they prefer the status quo – are advantaged by it, socially, politically, in the home and in the workplace and in public life.

We can none of us escape our own conditioning,

We cannot expect all secular humanists, particularly those new to secular freethought to have sorted out and jettisoned the deeply ingrained notions inculcated over nearly 2000 years of almost compulsory Christianity.

But of we claim to be rationalist, (in the modern sense) we should be expected to consider the evidence. If we claim to believe in concepts such as autonomy of the individual, freedom of thought and expression and economic and gender equality, then in my view, sexism is incompatible with secular humanism.

Q. Why should atheist women be active secular-humanists?

A) Opposing the fallacious notions and attitudes to women, that are promoted by the religions, is central to women’s rights - autonomy, freedom and equality and PEACE

B) Organised secular-humanism needs women activists.

§ We are over half of the population

§ It is our lives that the religions have screwed up over history, and still do.

§ Without us they can they are handicapped by the distortion of an all male perspective.

§ They need our perspectives and experience on secularist aspects of topics such as health, education, sexuality, personal relationships, crime and punishment, conflict resolution, science and technology, ecology and the environment.

Every subject has a female dimension.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1598649,00.html

Sunday October 23, 2005

The Observer

So, it's another 'row'. In this one, a bloke in advertising says something sexist, a woman in advertising gets the hump, the bloke denies it, there's a media firestorm, the bloke resigns, and then the bloke says, hey, I'm not a sexist.

This year we've already had Michael Buerk getting agitated about women in television, Larry Summers, the president of Harvard, saying that women can't do science, and last week it was the turn of advertising when one of its most celebrated figures, Neil French, stepped into the fray. Except this time, it turns out, there's a twist.

French is - or at least was - worldwide creative director at WPP, the world's second-largest advertising group. He is commonly referred to as 'The Godfather' and used a private dinner in Toronto to deliver his insights into the gender issues affecting the advertising industry today.

'Women don't make it to the top because they don't deserve to,' he's reported to have said. 'They're crap.' The problem, in his view, was that they 'wimp out and go and suckle something'.

French, 61, later clarified his position. 'What I did say was to be a creative director requires 100 per cent commitment. People who have babies to look after can't do that,' he said. He told the Financial Times yesterday that he hadn't 'a sexist bone in his body' and that he hadn't seen his eight-year-old son for three months because of work.

So, it'd be nice therefore to write a story about how he's wrong and to have some women who have made it to the top say that he's talking rubbish. But here's the tricky thing: that would require finding one of these women, one who isn't crap and who hasn't gone to suckle something. And the problem is it's difficult.

In an industry worth £18.3 billion a year in Britain, there are precisely two female creative directors - Kate Stanners at Saatchi's and Rosie Arnold at BBH - and they both happen to be on holiday. So that's it.

This article has a hole in it, but then it turns out the whole industry has a hole in it because the twist in this particular case is that French's comments turn out to be based on at least a partial truth: women don't make it to the top. More than that, they are not even getting in through the door: they barely exist.

Remarkably, advertising, or at least the creative side of advertising - the people who dream up the ads you see on TV and in the newspapers, who write the copy and storyboard the scripts, the ones who are meant to anticipate our tastes and dreams and desires - turns out to suffer one of the worst gender biases of any industry in Britain.

Research shows that 80 per cent of all purchasing decisions in Britain are made by women; yet 83 per cent of all 'creatives' are men. This is worse than it was 30 years ago. In this, a 'soft' profession, one that doesn't involve wearing overalls or unblocking drains or driving a fork-lift truck, but instead revolves around coming up with ideas and snappy lines and getting inside the heads of the ordinary folk who are going to be buying the products, the workforce, the culture and the awards system - the value structure by which the industry judges its own - is overwhelmingly male.

Rita Clifton, chairwoman of Interbrand, calls the lack of female creatives 'absolutely bizarre and extraordinary'.

In fact, Rita seems to disprove a large part of the story - that women are crap - before she even says a word. I get hold of her at 8pm on Friday night when she's on a plane on the way back from Ireland and she says she'll ring me later, which she does - at 12.30 in the morning. 'Are you still up?' she says. 'Sorry, I've only just got in.' And she's one of those sucklers. She has two children, aged 14 and 17, and although she's not a 'creative' - she works on the commercial and strategic side of advertising - she was vice-chairman at Saatchi's before moving into brand consultancy.

'The thing is that, while a good creative should be able to think themselves into any role or profile, and men can do this as well as women, the difference is they don't feel it,' she says. 'I think this comes across in the ads. In lingerie ads the women are very observed figures. These are women who are set up to be watched. The same with some of the supermarket ads.'

Almost 15 minutes of every hour of commercial television is adverts. It's part of our cultural wallpaper; images of men and women and families and relationships that seep into our lives without us even noticing. And it's almost entirely a view of the world as seen by men.

Could it be, I ask Tess Alps, chairman of the PHD media agency, that the lack of women is because the industry is dominated by men who think like French and he's just the only one who's dared to say it?

'I think that must be true. There's an iceberg phenomenon. It's well known in research circles that, if one person's voicing it, then ten people are thinking it. There are some very threatened males out there. They're a dying breed, but they still exist across all the creative professions - advertising, TV and journalism - which is really pretty dismal.'

Although it's the City that has dominated headlines for the past few years, a place where the pay gap between men and women is 43 per cent, it's interesting that the recent spate of stories concern professions seen as less aggressive and more creative; environments in which you might expect women to prosper.

Sophie Campbell, a journalist who worked in advertising in Singapore in the Eighties where French made his name, describes him 'as good but not nearly as good as he thought he was'. But this, she says, is a key advertising skill. 'Whenever I see a really good ad, I'm impressed because I know that the person who made it is not just very talented but also incredibly pushy. My trouble was that if a suit came along and said, "You've got to put ten seconds of a product shot in" I'd end up doing it. The successful ones, and maybe this is something that men are better at, say, "Get out of my office, arsehole".'

And then there are the hours. I manage to get hold of Charlotte Horton, a 28-year-old junior creative at AMV, because she was at her desk on Friday night and said she was planning to stay there all weekend. 'It's a very tough world in a lot of ways and there are almost no female role models. I can't imagine doing this job and having babies. There's Kate Stanners who has a family and that's it.' In her department there are 50 people, five of whom are women, 'and we tend to end up getting the low-fat crisp ads'.

It isn't just about long working hours, it's also about the way adverts are judged. Advertising has what Clifton calls 'its own internal logic' and Alps, 'a cosy little boys' club'.

'Men create the standards by which ads are judged and then go round handing out awards to each other,' says Alps. 'The thing is that they just don't value the kinds of ads that women write and that women like.'

According to Clifton, even employing a female creative team isn't necessarily the solution: 'What I've found is that female creatives are working within this culture, and they are being judged by these standards so they're creating stuff that's framed by that.'

The question is whether this will change when this next generation of women comes through. It seems unlikely. Natalie Ranger, a 28-year-old freelance junior creative, working at 4Creative, says that, although men like French are in retreat, she can't see herself staying in the industry for more than ten years. Her first placement was at a company 'where I worked on sanitary towels for three solid months. I couldn't believe it, it was like "Oh, I see, I'm a girl, so I do tampons, do I?"'

There are attempts to try to change things. Peter Souter, executive creative director at AMV and a former president of the industry's association, the D&AD, advocates positive discrimination. But it's unlikely to have an effect any time soon. This time next week, the headlines will have moved on.

On the blog that revealed French's comments to the world there's a message added by 'Patsyb': 'This is not an ad industry problem - it's a societal problem. I made all the sacrifices French says women won't make - and both my kids and I still got screwed. Why don't female creatives rise to the top? They get fed up with the dickheads, the heartbreaking choices, the insane juggling that makes you get up and vomit every morning from the stress ... until, finally, they say to hell with it.'

Gender Issues

http://www.guardian.co.uk/gender/0,11812,670739,00.html

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1598615,00.html

Carol Sarler’
Sunday October 23, 2005
The Observer

She wanted cigarettes and I wanted wine, so we tooled down Main Street USA in search of a liquor store. We strode in, cheerfully oblivious to the ominous 'we card' sign on the door - my friend, after all, is 42 and I am what you might call not even that young - to be greeted by flat, inanimate eyes, two squished bugs in pastry dough, and: 'I need your ID.' In vain did we plead that, as foreigners unaccustomed to such a request, we could not oblige. Tough. If we couldn't then nor could he.

He did not, of course, 'need' the ID; he asked for it because he felt like it and he felt like it because he could.

So when I return home to find Labour MPs in revolt over the issue of ID cards, I embrace them all - even though I think their concern is misplaced. I would not live in fear of abuse by magnetic strip, anxious that MI5 might sell my eye colour to Mossad, nor even do I much anticipate summary inspection by over-zealous police.

No. It is not Big Brother who should alarm us; it is that ubiquitously chippy runt-of-a-litter Little Brother, already in waiting by the million for his reincarnation as, for instance, my wine merchant above, so he can dedicate himself to making the rest of us miserable for no other reason than that he likes it and he can.

No matter how they puff their chests, these really are the little people. Little in heart, little in soul. 'It's company policy' may well be their most regularly cited excuse - and, to be sure, managements do make rules - but when it comes to the interpretation of those rules, the further down the food chain you go, the more you find that the spirit and the letter are divided by nothing more gainful than power or spite.

I fully believe, for example, that the bouncer goons at last month's Labour conference had been told to have no truck with trouble. Nevertheless, give them self-important armbands, sling access-all-areas laminates around their necks and it is at their behest that trouble suddenly comes to mean a stroppy octogenarian.

I also believe that it was against some kind of rule when a pretty blonde girl walked along a cycle path last week near the harbour at Dundee.

But for a guard and a harbour-master then to get so hot under the collar that they bellowed at her through a megaphone before calling the police and having her arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act is a testosterone fix too far.

The act, like the suss laws before it and the ID cards to come, are all toys in the playbox of wannabe bullies and nothing that I have seen, either here or anywhere else, suggests that such people will ever learn to play nicely. Shortly after the fall of Ceausescu, I had Romanian friends to stay. En route to the theatre, one of them began to weep; they wouldn't let her in. She had left her passport at home. Passport? For the doorman at Cats? It can happen. That's all I'm saying.

In a land of ID cards I would be very afraid for my personal liberty. But only because Sod's law says if I were to be confronted one time too many by an officious twat, I'd be the one banged up. For slapping him.

The drugs question

Just when he thought it was all over? By my watch, it took just 97 minutes from his second-ballot victory for David Cameron to be asked The Question. Again. For crissake. But the most tiresome aspect of the on-going inquisition is its disingenuous claim that: 'It's nothing to do with drugs, it's to do with whether he broke the law.' Of course it's to do with drugs. He has not been asked about the other probable illegalities of youth - shoplifting, speeding or buying a pint of beer south of his 18th birthday - because those are deeply dull transgressions while drugs, put simply, make sexier stories.

Fine. So be it. But if the grown-up players of politics and media continue to suggest that, among all youthful derrings-do, drug-taking is the most coo-golly-gosh, lip-smackingly-titillating thrill of the lot, we cannot then be surprised if our children come to agree with us.

Sex per cent

I need elaboration from comrades at the Guardian, who reported a survey of heterosexually active teenagers which found that only 50 per cent of the girls, against 58 per cent of the boys, have sex involving condoms. The more I ponder the discrepancy, the more puzzled I become.

End of article - Return to workshop3

I think there are two main reasons:-

What else can we do:-

The Fawcett Society –‘ Closing the Gap on Inequality’