I am tremendously honoured, surprised, and deeply flattered to accept Secular Woman’s award for Man of the Year 2013. It is particularly gratifying to be so named, considering the other names put forward as their award recipients. I have always been grateful to anyone who reads or otherwise notices my work toward racial and gender equality, and to be named with such distinction is not something I ever expected.
As the secular community grows, like all political movements it must begin to look inward and reflect on its actions. For those of us whose motivation toward a secular world is grounded in humanist values, we must periodically turn the lens of scrutiny and the tools of inquiry upon ourselves and interrogate whether we are living up to our own values.
Among the foremost of these is the idea of ‘equality’, and what that means to us. To some, equality means nothing more than “treat everyone the same”, a definition that seems laudable at a superficial level but which, upon any amount of honest scrutiny, is deeply flawed. We do not live in a world where a ‘level playing field’ exists. We live in a world in which individuals are treated according to shopworn stereotypes about the social group they belong to; whether that is race, class, sexuality, and of course gender. In many cases, such treatment happens even in the absence of intentional or conscious malice. The forces arrayed against members of minority groups are simply not the same as those arrayed against the majority, and an “equal” response to those forces will only serve to perpetuate these discrepancies. … Continue Reading