The internet can be a tough place and confusion often results from poor writing. We all need to take a little more time to read what we type.

We must also remember to value people’s thinking and recognize everyone has the right to disagree.

Right behind that, though, is my concern about the almost gleeful tendency I’ve seen to minimize and criticize anyone who thinks that the problems she highlights are “legitimate”. There’s a real fear that people will quit being involved in the atheist community if they feel like they need to hold a specific view on EG (and I’ll admit this is in some way validated by how quickly terms like “gender traitor” and “misogynist” get thrown around). I’ve actually seen women say, in no uncertain terms, that they don’t want men to feel afraid to hit on them, in an elevator or elsewhere– and they resent other women for telling men otherwise. And it’s their right to think that way, of course.

It’s still depressing, though. People who prize rational thought should be able to understand things like group dynamics, including and especially the fact that everyone is entitled to their own opinion about what constitutes socially acceptable behavior.

In the end, I look at A+ as a step forward to look hard at the old saw about sticks and stones, and to remember that there are large numbers of anonymous people on the internet who are just hateful individuals. Feeding the trolls is a past-time for many, but maybe there needs to be an understanding that the attention is like oxygen to them. Ignore them, and they find someone else to bother. “O hai troll.” Then move on.

For the rest of us, who aren’t trolls, and who are just tossing ideas around? I think the biggest thing that A+ highlights is the need to choose our words and actions carefully and considerately, particularly when we disagree and probably won’t be able to meet in the middle. That’s a good thing. The world needs more of it.

But even with that complaint aside, what is with all the awful hate in her inbox? People who do this should not take the advice; “be yourself” because they ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Jen has said something that I and a lot of other people have been thinking for a long time.

On a different note, a natural next step in Skepticism should research and study, not just announcing “I’m skeptical of climate change.” Did that person read the studies on it and the evidence or do they just keep repeating their mantra? It’s okay to be skeptical, but not okay to be lazy.

On the other hand, I find it very interesting that much of the debate and online conversation has occurred, not about A+ itself but about the way in which Jenn (and Rebecca) have been treated. That alone has made the conversation “tilted”. A+ isn’t about (or rather shouldn’t be about) how Jenn and Rebecca were treated. Instead it should be about what a great idea A+ is and why, on it’s own merits, we should support the concept of A+. It really is too bad that a new movement has to start that way, because it is a good idea. A+ gives people who are not already leaders in the classical Philosophical and Humanist groups a chance to lead.

Jenn, please continue to lead, we are happy to follow!

I recently brought a new anti harassment policy to the table at out Humanists, Atheists and Agnostics of Manitoba and it was accepted by our executive very quickly. In this policy we do not focus on the gender of the group or the individual. Instead we focus on the behaviour of the individual. If it is bad behaviour, we address it respectfully.

I find the American rhetoric where “Old white men” is a term used to express a misogyny problem to be sexist in and of itself. Just because any group has a large portion of male membership does not mean that it is necessarily misogynistic in any way. To say Old white men are the problem is “lazy rhetoric” that, instead of defining the problem, defines the demographic. I should add that if the a demographic is (in spite of it’s overwhelmingly good behaviour) the only problem you see, you are a sexist, or a racist, or an ageist. Again, if there is a problem with a group, tell us what it is and we’ll address it. If your only issue with any group is that there are too many old white men you need to rethink what you are saying.