Where the Girls At?
Ms. magazine, surprisingly, actually wrote about the lack of female atheists, agnostics, and non-believers in general - or at least the perceived lack. I had thought about linking to the actual article, but I think I'll link to the skillful dissection of it at Blag Hag. Jen even thoughtfully provides a list of female atheists - writers, bloggers, activists, etc. - from a post earlier this year. I'd personally add Barbara G. Walker to that list. Ms. Walker is a feminist, atheist, anthropologist, historian and knitter. As in author/compiler of one of the most complete, ...
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Ms. magazine, surprisingly, actually wrote about the lack of female atheists, agnostics, and non-believers in general – or at least the perceived lack. I had thought about linking to the actual article, but I think I’ll link to the skillful dissection of it at Blag Hag.
Jen even thoughtfully provides a list of female atheists – writers, bloggers, activists, etc. – from a post earlier this year. I’d personally add Barbara G. Walker to that list. Ms. Walker is a feminist, atheist, anthropologist, historian and knitter. As in author/compiler of one of the most complete, most-often used knitting stitch dictionary collections anywhere. Yeah, she knits a little.
I know that a lot of atheist groups around here are primarily composed of men. One of the groups that I haven’t yet been able to get to (hoping to change that Sunday) is run by a woman. There is the local secular parenting group, but circumstances and my own horrific shyness have kept me away. I doubt I’m the only one. But atheist women are out there, and Jen’s list is only a beginning. Finding a group that welcomes female skeptics is another rant for another day.
Most of the time, women have been marginalized by men; told to sit in the corner, STFU and make coffee. I had expected better (or at least an attempt at research) from Ms. It hurts to know how wrong I was.
Random Fun by .
Today is the beginning of National Adoption Month. This month is primarily designed to celebrate and support children who are adopted from the foster care system.
As some of you know, our daughter was not. She was adopted as a 6-week-old infant, from her “cradle care” house (a type of foster care used by our agency and others as a halfway point between a family who gave birth to a child and a family who may raise that child). Some adoptive families that I know have adopted this way, including Thorn and Lee, who have just welcomed their daughter home this weekend; M Howard Karp, who is about to finalize her daughter’s adoption this month (they now have 2 kids); Tiruba, who currently has 4 kids who were/are in foster care with special needs; Ben from Hey, You!, who adopted from foster care several years ago; and Baggage, from the sadly defunct Baggage and Bug blog, an adoptive parent to at least 4 kids adopted from foster care. There are a lot more, but those are the ones I know the best. Feel free to mention others in the comments.
Usually there’s some sort of massive finalization ceremony or some such thing to mark National Adoption Day in just about every county in the US. In fact, School Girl’s adoption was finalized during one of those ceremonies. It was a bit…surreal and anticlimactic, so we don’t usually celebrate it. Not like her placement day, certainly. I think I wrote about it once in one of my earlier blog incarnations, and it’s been long since archived, printed out and the ‘puter copy destroyed.
This month, I’ll most likely be writing about the ever-popular #jackassadoptionquotes. So, let me know your favorites in the comments and I’ll write about them.
Parenting by .
This is Halloween – The Nightmare Before Xmas soundtrack
Jack the Ripper – Screaming Lord Sutch
I Put a Spell on You – Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
Halloween – Siouxsie and the Banshees
Evil Night Together – Jill Tracy
Sally’s Waltz – The Nightmare Before Xmas soundtrack
Night on Bald Mountain – Mussorgsky
Naked Girl Falling Down the Stairs – The Cramps
Riboflavin-flavored, Non-carbonated, Polyunsatured Blood – Don Hinson and the Rigormorticians
The Passion of Lovers – Bauhaus
Some are obvious, some are just because. I’m feeling a lot more like celebrating than I was a year ago. I think I’m more of a costuming person than a decor or soundtrack person when it comes to Halloween anyway. Mr. Evil and School Girl were in charge of the decorations this year. We actually carved pumpkins today, complete with roasted pepitas and pizza afterwards.
Halloween is this Sunday. don’t drink and drive around the neighborhood while the kids are out – thanks in advance. Have fun.
Friday Random 10 by .
Yesterday, Florida’s ban on same-sex adoptions finally came to an end.
Attorney General Bill McCollum waited until the end of the day yesterday – the deadline for appealing the 3rd District Appeals Court verdict from last month – to announce the state would not appeal.
He did have to make a parting shot…
“No doubt, someday, a more suitable case will give the Supreme Court the opportunity to uphold the constitutionality of this law,” McCollum said.
Nope, it’s not enough to have the state’s only “expert” witness thoroughly discredited and shamed (I’m sure everyone remembers George “lift my luggage, baby” Reckers). It’s not even enough to have study after study that suggests that not only are same-sex families no worse than opposite-sex families (check the date on that particular study, please), same-sex families can be even better for a child. Never mind that, in all the time the adoption ban was in place, same-sex families were part of the foster care system. Just not good enough to be real families (she said with just a hint of bitterness). Not that the ban was wrong to begin with; this “wasn’t the right case” and the right one will come along really soon. Grr…
I hope that the stake gets driven into this dead ban really, really quickly. So it can never come back.
Congratulations to Martin Gill, his partner, and his two soon-to-be-adopted sons.
Read much better writiing about this at Joe. My. God and Pam’s House Blend.
Good Cthulhu that was a long break.
We Live So Fast – Heaven 17
Low Rider – War
The Ballad of Davy Crockett (in Outer Space) – They Might Be Giants
Save it for Later – The English Beat
Waltz No. 7 in c#, Op. 64 No. 2 – Chopin
Where the Rose is Sown – Big Country
A Sort of Homecoming – U2
High, Y’all – Sly and the Family Stone
Love is the Law – The Suburbs
Put it to the Test – They Might be Giants
Buttons, Rings and Other Things
Subscribe to this feed here:- Where the Girls At? November 3, 2010 spyderkl
Have a listen…
