Category Archives: misogyny
Digital twats vs. the Pussy Pricing Cartel
Like women, pandas are too lazy to have sex properly.
So, porn. Apparently women just HATE it, and a fellow calling himself Womanhater over on the MGTOWforums is here to tell us the REAL reason why. Well, reasons. Obviously, everybody already knows
that porn makes men not have to deal with women, and therefore lessens the value of the snatch mafia and the pussy pricing cartel.
But, Womanhater thinks “there may be another factor at play.” Let’s let Mr. Hater explain:
[W]e all know that twats will throw sex at a man and lie to him endlessly to seduce him into legal slavery/marriage. But porn makes the sex she has to throw at him much more unpleasant.
Remember, sex is pretty unpleasant for most women to begin with:
We know that that vast majority of twats either do not enjoy sex at all, or they only enjoy it with thug cock. As such, they have to engage in a physically unpleasant activity with a man they’re not physically attracted to, but only financially attracted to.
But then along comes porn, and suddenly women discover that they have to actually make an effort as well:
Porn means that she cannot simply spread her legs, lay there like a dead fish, and let her victim bust his nut. Porn has made her have to act now too. She must work much much harder to emulate the digital twats her victim has been seeing for a decade or better, and only a true sociopath can fake emotion that well that long.
Also, they can’t get away with being big fat fatties either:
Porn has also raised the expectations of her victim vis a vis her physique, which as we all know is a challenge for Western women these days.
In the end, it all comes down to sheer laziness:
In short, if the twat wasn’t lazy, she’d not be trying to loot a man. And that laziness is exactly what has porn has challenged. While there’s still plenty of victims in the world for the vile cunts to loot and torture, they’re having to work much much much harder to do it now, and THAT is why the twats dislike porn.
QED!
Chart breakers
Some people probably shouldn’t try to make charts. I mean, take a look at this fucked up Venn diagram here:
Making a Venn diagram is harder than it looks.
There’s so much wrong with this diagram it’s hard to even know where to start. The letters are too small. “Narwhal” should be plural. The Sirens of Greek Mythology did lure sailors to their death with their songs, but they weren’t sea creatures. They were, rather, bird women – you know, with wings and everything. Also, while Miles Davis was indeed a thing (specifically a man) with a horn, to the best of my knowledge he never stood in a pond, at least not while playing said horn. And even if he had, it wouldn’t have made him a sea creature.
I suppose I should acknowledge that I’m the person who made this Venn Diagram. I would like to apologize for its many failings and for any damage it may have caused.
But, look, I’m not the only one who can’t design a diagram for shit. Consider this unholy mess, put together by Susan Walsh, a retrograde dating “expert” who runs a blog called Hooking Up Smart. Walsh devotes considerable energy to bashing feminists and sluts, sometimes at the same time. In a recent post, she attempted to spell out the economic costs of sluttery. This diagram was the result.
Even Walsh seemed to realize that it was a bit of a turd, and she offered it to her readers with a sort of apology:
I’m not an economist; this is really more of an exercise in common sense, as well as a work in progress.
No, you’re not. No it isn’t. And that’s no excuse. Essentially, Walsh just made up some bullshit, drew lines between different parts of the bullshit, and pretended it all made sense. There are so many things wrong with her flow chart that, as was the case with that Venn diagram above, I don’t know where to start. Graphically, it’s obviously a disaster.
From Hooking Up Smart. Click on this pic to see the full chart. You really need to.
And when you look at the, er, content of the diagram, it’s equally befuddling. Apparently the only possible results of a pregnancy that results from a “casual sexual relationship” being carried to term are “dropping out of school,” “promiscuity,” “substance abuse,” “violence,” and “crime,” followed closely by “prison,” then “EVENTUAL ECONOMIC STAGNATION!!!!!!!!!!” (And yes, she did use ten exclamation points.)
But my favorite bit of the diagram is the question “was sex consensual?” If it’s not, watch out! Someone might have to go to court! (For some reason she forgets to draw the requisite line to “prison,” perhaps because it is so rare for rapists to actually serve time?)
Here’s the thing, Ms. Walsh: sex that isn’t consensual is no longer an example of a “casual sexual relationship.” Sex that is not consensual is rape. Just as boxing that is not consensual is battery.
Walsh knows all this, of course. It’s just odd that in this diagram she seems to consider the supposedly dire consequences of “promiscuity” as far worse – for individuals and for society – as the consequences of rape.
She might want to make a few adjustments before she puts forth her next version of that chart.A better solution would be to simply delete it from her computer and pretend it never happened. That’s what I’m doing with my Venn diagram.
PR for the MRM
The scribbled-out face of the Men's Rights Movement
Sometimes MRAs are infuriating; sometimes they are hilarious. And once in a long, long while they are simply adorable. Consider xavan512 (not his real name), a Redditor who thinks it’s high time that MRAs launched a PR campaign to defend themselves against the mean things said about them by “radical feminist blog’s or other ignorant people” who think that:
“Oh those MRA’s just need to get laid” “They are a bunch of lonely neckbeards” “They are just bitter” “They are probably forever alone’s” “They hate women” “Misogynists” ect.
Basically they are trying to make our concerns appear illegitimate because we must be whiny losers. Or because we “hate” women since we don’t adhere to the feminist dogma.
Ok, you say, so far he’s just being sort of irritating. But here is where the “adorable” part comes in. You see, whenever feminist meanies suggest that MRAs are woman-hating losers, xavan512 proposes, MRAs should respond with “hard evidence” to counter this perception. No, not penis pictures. Something even better: pictures of themselves with actual, smiling girlfriends.
Xavan512 started by posting the picture in the top right. Yep, that’s xavan512 and his actual girlfriend, standing in a field, dressed to the nines (or at least the high sixes or sevens). He’s looking dapper in his suit, accented with a bold red tie, and she of course looks lovely in a totally cute dress with an utterly adorable tiny pink purse. I’m not sure if they’re on their way to a prom, or a wedding, of if they just like posing in outdoor settings.
By the way – I didn’t scribble over the faces on the picture. Xavan512 did that himself, because, he insists, “being publicly MRA is socially taboo.”
After posting this photo, which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that xavan512 thinks highly enough of at least one human female that he is willing to stand next to her long enough to get a picture taken, this newly self-appointed MR PR guru urged his fellow MRAs “to post a picture of yourself or mention if you have a girlfriend/wife.”
Alas, xavan512’s plan met a certain degree of resistance from fellow Reddit MRAs.
OThomson complained:
Why post a picture of ourselves with our girlfriends, we do not need the Validation of a Women to make our cause just, i’ll freely admit i’m single and looking for the right person because looking for non-crazy, non-privileged, non-annoyance is a genuine trouble these days, i don’t resent Women for that (Ok i slightly resent their position as sexual selectors for our species because it gives them so much power over men) but on the whole i’m an MRA because i want to defend my rights and the rights of all Men.
Francomaistre was even more cutting in his criticism:
I’m sure you propose this with the best of intentions, but I’m with OThomson on this. Trying to engineer some kind of phoney boloney PR campaign with cherry picked images of smiling couples professionally photographed in semi-formal dress in pastoral settings seems like a pretty dramatic mischaracterization of many MRA’s experiences and subtly subverts the movement and concerns that drives many of us to be MRA’s in the first place.
Maybe it’s a separation or divorce situation, maybe we’ve been subject to a false rape or domestic violence accusation, maybe we’re sick of being stereotyped by the media as dim-witted psycho-violent timebombs just waiting to be tripped, or are just generally sick of being treated by second-class citizens by “empowered women” who can judge our sexuality, shame us, and even inflict physical violence on us almost entirely without consequence.
Someone woke up cranky today!
Here’s the thing: the adorableness of xavan512’s picture aside, if MRAs are tired of people calling them misogynists, there’s a much more direct way to challenge this perception – and that is to challenge the rampant misogyny in the MRM. You want examples? Check the archives here. I’m kind of a lazy bastard, and I don’t like doing any more research than I have to, yet over the relatively brief lifetime of this blog I’ve managed to post literally hundreds of pretty outrageous examples of misogyny from the mouths of (or, rather, the keyboards of) MRAs. And that’s only scratching the surface. I don’t read every MRA blog every day. And I only post a tiny, tiny fraction of the misogyny I run across. It is everywhere in the MRM.
If you’re an MRA, and you’re NOT a flaming misogynist, and you want your issues to be taken seriously, don’t post pictures of yourself with your smiling girlfriend. Challenge the misogyny that surrounds you. Get together with other MRAs, and drum the misogynists out of the movement. Build bridges with feminists working on men’s rights issues. Just say no to the douchebags.
My absolutely, positively last post on that atheist elevator thing.
Going down fast.
You know, sometimes it takes a real man to put things into perspective. So it’s good that we have soMENi over on the MGTOWforums to set us all straight on the real lesson to be drawn from that whole atheist elevator controversy:
Considering MEN invented elevators and the electricity to power them, women should avoid MEN’s elevators and use a fucking rope instead to ascend to their rooms.
Oops! Men invented rope too. Oh well, flap your arms b!tch. Doing that might reduce all that excess energy going to your moaning mouth.
And … cut.
That’s a wrap.
There’s nothing more to say.
No more atheist elevator posts for me.
Atheist Elevator Redux, Part Deux: The Return of the Nice Guy
You wouldn't want him propositioning you on an elevator at 4 AM either.
So now it’s all about the “nice guys.” It’s not just that mean, mean Rebecca Watson slandered the good name of all men in the world by suggesting that one amongst their number had committed a somewhat creepy act in an elevator at 4 AM. Now some commenters are accusing her of something like a hate crime against the Nice Guys of the world.
According to cranky sometime-Men’s Rights blogger The Damned Olde Man, the woman he refers to only as “Rude Elevator Bitch” has publicly humiliated a man whose only crime was that he was a little bit shy. Embroidering liberally on the scant few facts we know about the case, Olde Man sets forth a brand new narrative of the incident — based largely on his own imagination –with the mysterious man at the center of the story now transformed into a sweet, awkward fellow he calls Nice Elevator Guy:
By all accounts, NEG appears to be a rather shy, somewhat unconfident nerd or geek who appears to be lacking in the social graces.
When Olde says “by all accounts” he actually means “by no accounts.” We have no idea what sort of personality this fellow has, only that he apparently propositioned Walker in an elevator in Dublin at 4 AM.
It was probably not a good idea to ask REB for coffee just after she finished a lecture on how she is offended by men who sexualize her, especially late at night in an isolated elevator. That would be her point of view which she and all of her supporters have stated quite eloquently. So if one only accounts for REB’s feelings, it was the wrong thing to do. But how about looking at the situation from NEG’s point of view?
That is, from the imaginary point of view of the imaginary character Olde has simply superimposed on a real man we know almost nothing about.
A shy, socially awkward nerd who lacks confidence is likely to feel uncomfortable in any situation where he intends to proposition a woman. But he is likely to be terrified of doing it in a public setting with plenty of people around to witness his humiliation when she turns him down. So from his point of view, an isolated elevator in the middle of the night is probably the ideal location, especially since he was probably never going to have this opportunity again.
Note to shy guys of the world: this is not a good idea. It’s not going to work out well for you.
I’m not quite sure if that’s necessary. I’m a shy guy, and I’m pretty sure most of us shy guys already know that propositioning a woman when the two of you are alone in an confined space is a bad idea. Many of us who sometimes feel awkward in social settings have what is known as “empathy” towards other people and thus are aware when something we do might just make someone else feel awkward. Olde Man continues:
His fear of humiliation is probably not as irrational as her fear of rape and in hindsight, it was definitely more justified. He didn’t rape her, she did reject him. She not only rejected him, she humiliated him, publically, for all the world to see.
Yeah. She “publicly” humiliated a guy she never named. According to a guy who has just written a long post in which he repeatedly refers to her — a blogger who posts under her real name — as a “bitch.”
It’s bad enough to read this bullshit in MRA blogs, where it’s irritating but hardly surprising.
It’s a bit more troubling to find much of this dumb argument repeated – in somewhat more polite language, admittedly – in Psychology Today. In a post entitled “What’s a Shy, Geeky, Nice Guy to Do?” cognitive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman offers a very similar version of events, in which
a nervous, presumably geeky, socially awkward guy gets on [the elevator] ]with her … [his] heart probably beating fast and palms sweety as heck … .
“Presumably,” “probably” – in other words, these details are simply invented.
While Kaufman acknowledges that the mysterious (alleged) Nice Guy’s approach was “lame,” he, like Olde Man, turns the story into one in which Nice Guys are the real victims:
many entitled, narcissistic males have commented to the effect “what an ungrateful bitch, she should be grateful for being complimented!”, and quite a few feminists have commented “good for Rebecca for scolding men, they need to be put in their place!” All the while, shy, geeky, genuinely nice guys have sat there, reading these extreme comments, no doubt scratching their heads and wondering what in the world they are to do.
What is a shy, geeky, nice guy to do?
Then Kaufman gives some advice on how the Nice Elevator Guy could have handled the attempted pick-up better:
Don’t be creepy. Asking a girl to your hotel room in an elevator at 4 in the morning when the girl has already announced she is tired shows very poor mating intelligence. …
Well, yeah. He continues:
Look for indicators of interest. Any dating coach will tell you how important it is to look for signals of interest. Pay attention to her state. Does she look exhausted?
Generally speaking, when a woman gives a talk about how she hates being hit on at atheist conferences, then later announces that she’s tired and wants to go to bed, these are what you might call “Indicators of Leave Me the Fuck Alone.”
Kaufman goes on:
Does she cringe when you start talking? That’s probably not the right time to put your arm around her.
Can’t argue with that one, really. Cringing: never a good sign.
Kaufman barrels ahead with this mixture of the obvious and the creepy:
Build some sort of rapport first. The guy in the elevator was a complete stranger. There was zero connection. What could the guy have done to increase his chances of receptivity in this particular situation, when she clearly was not in the mood? It’s hard to imagine he could have done anything, but at the very least he could have tried to make some sort of connection.
Or, here’s a radical notion: he could have just LEFT HER ALONE. This one tired lady in the elevator is not the only lady in the world. There will be other chances. Stand down, dude.
But Kaufman, who can’t leave well enough alone himself, goes on to imagine a scenario in which Nice Elevator Guy manages to charm Watson utterly.
RUPERT: Oh, hi Rebecca! I’m a huge fan of yours. I really liked your ideas earlier about skepticism…feminism…blah…blah…And I totally hear you about the guys here. They really are creepy, aren’t they? [Insert witty joke here about how if you were a female at this conference you'd become a lifelong skeptic of geeky men]
WATSON: [Laughs] Yea, thanks for understanding. You were really listening to what I said earlier. What do you research?
Ungghhhh. Excuse me, but I have to go lie down for a moment. The stupid here is too much.
After a bit more of this imagined witty banter, the charmed WATSON is inviting HIM to HER room!
It was at this point that I discovered that there was another whole page worth of this shit. I couldn’t bring myself to read it.
Atheist Elevator Redux
Found on the Men's Rights subreddit on Reddit
Here, found on Men’s Rights Reddit, is a “demotivational” poster that illustrates just why Rebecca Watson’s comments about that now-famous elevator incident, and the ensuing discussions that erupted amongst feminists online (and here, in our longest thread ever), were actually, you know, necessary: whoever made this evidently thinks that the very notion that a RAPIST would ask someone out for coffee first is so inherently and self-evidently hilarious that you don’t even have to explain why it’s so hilarious.
Never mind that, er, rapists often DO invite their future victims out for coffee, to the movies, out for a kebab, etc, etc first. Never mind that if some hypothetical woman had accepted a 4 AM “coffee in my room” invite and been raped, many of the very same guys now ranting about how she’s calling all men rapists would be blaming her for being a “slut” who “was asking for it” by agreeing to said “coffee” date.
(And I’ll just note that Watson did not in fact accuse her admirer in the elevator of being a rapist or even a creep; she simply mentioned that propositioning someone in an elevator at 4 AM is a creepy thing to do.)
And yes, that is Richard Dawkins in the picture. I’m not sure why someone who presumably agrees with what Dawkins said about the case would want to feature him in a poster next to the word “rapists,” but what do I know? In any case, Dawkins is now being hailed as a hero by more than a few of the regulars in the Men’s Rights subreddit — not for his scientific work, or his science writings, or even his atheist activism, but for his douchebaggery towards Watson. The Flying Spaghetti Monster works in mysterious ways, I guess.
Speaking of which — the mysterious ways thing, I mean — can anyone explain the logic behind this comment to me?
Specifically, could you explain the bit about “smack[ing] the shit out of” feminists who’ve stood up for Rebecca Watson? It seems to me that if you’re trying to make the point that Watson and her supporters are reacting hysterically to an innocent invitation to coffee, and that women have no reason to be fearful or concerned or even just mildly creeped out by men propositioning them in elevators at 4 am, it does not exactly help your case to talk about doing physical harm to feminists (or children, for that matter). Doesn’t that suggest, rather, that women should be concerned about strange men in elevators — because of the off chance that one of these strange men could turn out to be, you know, the sort of dude who posts shit like that on the internet?
Sunday Afternoon (here in the Americas, anyway) Cartoons: SomeGreyBloke becomes an MRA
Courtesy of SomeGreyBloke, here’s a cartoon depicting one man’s — well, more specifically, one grey bloke’s — moment of Man-lightenment! And ladies, if you find yourself irresistibly drawn to this grey man with the yellow teeth, you’ll be pleased to know that he’s single!
Female troubles
Truly, they is.
JayJet of Happy Bachelors has a few wise words for men who think it’s even possible to have a “friendship” with a female of the species:
The reason friendships are so tough to maintain with women is that women are conditioned to “use” you. Meaning, if they don’t see you as a romantic partner, they will consider you platonic-friend/cuddle-bitch/money-tool/emotional tampon so you can meet their needs at your expense. …
You’re better off not having friendships with women for these reasons. Your purpose for being with a female is simple: Sex. I’m sorry but anything beyond that is a road filled with pain.
But it could be worse. They could be alien females. And we all know what they do.
That’s right. They inhale your gonads. And not in a sexy way, either.
Let’s let Eddie Murphy explain, in this clip from Bowfinger (which for some reason won’t embed here properly).
Rape: Not particularly hilarious
Things that aren't funny: 1) This guy 2) Rape
Rape jokes, not made of comedy gold. The San Diego Reader – attempting, rather ineptly, to channel The Onion – recently ran a bit of “almost factual news” about the recent Slutwalks. The title: “Slut Walk Devolves into Rape Run.”
Here’s the lede (as they say in the biz):
It was supposed to be a triumph for women eager to reclaim their sexuality from the threat of sexual violence. But sadly, Slut Walk San Diego went horribly awry as some 50 men, many of whom claimed to be unable to control their animal urges when presented with such a plenitude of hot female flesh, plunged into the crowd of over 2000 sluts in a quest for sexual gratification, consensual or otherwise. Dozens of arrests have been made, and police say it may be weeks before all the snatched panties have been returned to their rightful owners.
See, it’s funny because they were being raped!
Amazingly, the one comment that this lovely article managed to inspire was even less hilarious than the article itself. According to someone calling himself a86d:
Its bs like this that is further going drive culture to FURTHER feminize men and go back to that process of thinking that a man needs to be controlled because hes just a beast. BS we’re not animals, We’ve evolved and people need consequences….in this case …. BURN em. The Dilbert comic writer seems to think that all men need to be castrated because we can’t control our urges, because society forces us men to be a round peg in a square hole…..if you want to live a certain life style….you can find it. Own up, be mature, respectful and if you cross the line EXPECT TO BURN!
I’m not quite sure if all that BURNing is supposed to be directed at rapists or sluts. I’m guessing the latter, but in either case I don’t think I’ll be inviting a86d to my next barbecue.
Two atheists get in an elevator
So here’s a hilarious atheist joke for you all:
Two atheists at a conference get into an elevator at 4 AM. The dude atheist, apropos of nothing, invites the chick atheist to go to his room with him. The chick atheist, who’s never even spoken to the dude before, is creeped out by this. (She says no.) She mentions the incident in a YouTube video. A shitstorm erupts in the atheist-o-sphere because, like, how could she possibly call an atheist dude a creep and aren’t women treated worse in Islamist Theocracies?
Then Richard Dawkins says,
Dear Muslima
Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.
Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep”chick”, and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn’t lay a finger on her, but even so . . .
And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
Richard
In a followup comment, Dawkins tops that bit of hilarity with this:
Rebecca’s feeling that the man’s proposition was ‘creepy’ was her own interpretation of his behaviour, presumably not his. She was probably offended to about the same extent as I am offended if a man gets into an elevator with me chewing gum. But he does me no physical damage and I simply grin and bear it until either I or he gets out of the elevator. It would be different if he physically attacked me.
Damn. That joke didn’t turn out to be really very hilarious at all. Maybe I told it wrong?
In any case, as you might already know (or have gathered), this whole thing actually happened over the past weekend. The atheist chick in question is Rebecca Watson, a popular blogger who calls herself Skepchick. The conference in question was the Center for Inquiry’s Student Leadership Conference. The part of Richard Dawkins was played by, well, Richard Dawkins. (You can find both of his comments quoted here.)
The incident has been hashed and rehashed endlessly in the atheist-o-sphere (and even out of it), but I think it deserves a tiny bit more re-rehashing. Mainly because it illustrates that some really creepy, backwards attitudes can lurk deep in the hearts of dudes who think of themselves as enlightened, rational dudes fighting the evils of superstition and, yes, religious misogyny.
The strangest thing about the whole incident is how supremely mild Watson’s comments on the creepy elevator dude were. Here is literally all she said about him, in passing, in her video (transcribed here):
So I walk to the elevator, and a man got on the elevator with me and said, ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting, and I would like to talk more. Would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?’
Um, just a word to wise here, guys, uh, don’t do that. You know, I don’t really know how else to explain how this makes me incredibly uncomfortable, but I’ll just sort of lay it out that I was a single woman, you know, in a foreign country, at 4:00 am, in a hotel elevator, with you, just you, and–don’t invite me back to your hotel room right after I finish talking about how it creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable when men sexualize me in that manner.
That’s it. That’s the whole thing. You would think that most guys would be well aware that accosting a woman you’ve never met before in an elevator at 4 AM is, you know, kind of a no-no. But, no, Watson’s comments suddenly became an attack on male sexuality and men in general. One critic put up a video lambasting Watson, ending it with the question:
What effect do you think it has on men to be constantly told how sexist and destructive they are?
Never mind that she didn’t, you know, actually do that at all. Nor did she even remotely suggest, despite Dawkins’ weird screed, that creepy dudes on elevators were somehow equivalent to genital mutilation or the general denial of women’s rights in Islamist theocracies. She merely suggested that guys might want to think twice before hitting on women who are alone with them in an elevator at four in the morning. Pointing out the creepy behavior of one particular dude is not the same as calling all men creepy.
Now, the atheist movement tends to be a bit of a sausagefest, pervaded by some fairly backwards notions about women. (Prominent atheist pontificator Christopher Hitchens, you may recall, seems to sincerely believe that women just aren’t funny. Not that he’s exactly a barrel of monkeys himself.) But some of the most vociferous critics of Watson have been other atheist women – including the one I quoted above.
Watson responded to this in the first of several posts she wrote about the whole weird controversy:
I hear a lot of misogyny from skeptics and atheists, but when ancient anti-woman rhetoric like the above is repeated verbatim by a young woman online, it validates that misogyny in a way that goes above and beyond the validation those men get from one another. It also negatively affects the women who are nervous about being in similar situations. Some of them have been raped or otherwise sexually assaulted, and some just don’t want to be put in that position. And they read these posts and watch these videos and they think, “If something were to happen to me and these women won’t stand up for me, who will?”
In a followup post, she noted:
When I started this site, I didn’t call myself a feminist. I had a hazy idea that feminism was a good thing, but it was something that other people worried about, not me. I was living in a time and culture that had transcended the need for feminism, because in my world we were all rational atheists who had thrown off our religious indoctrination so that I could freely make rape jokes without fear of hurting someone who had been raped.
And then I would make a comment about how there could really be more women in the community, and the responses from my fellow skeptics and atheists ranged from “No, they’re not logical like us,” to “Yes, so we can fuck them!” That seemed weird.
Watson began hearing from other women in the skeptic/atheist community who’d met far too many of that second sort of male atheist.
They told me about how they were hit on constantly and it drove them away. I didn’t fully get it at the time, because I didn’t mind getting hit on. But I acknowledged their right to feel that way and I started suggesting to the men that maybe they relax a little and not try to get in the pants of every woman who walks through the door.
And then, as her blog garnered more attention, she faced a virtual invasion of creepy dudes being creepy:
I’ve had more and more messages from men who tell me what they’d like to do to me, sexually. More and more men touching me without permission at conferences. More and more threats of rape from those who don’t agree with me, even from those who consider themselves skeptics and atheists. More and more people telling me to shut up and go back to talking about Bigfoot and other topics that really matter.
She didn’t shut up.
So here we are today. I am a feminist, because skeptics and atheists made me one. Every time I mention, however delicately, a possible issue of misogyny or objectification in our community, the response I get shows me that the problem is much worse than I thought, and so I grow angrier. I knew that eventually I would reach a sort of feminist singularity where I would explode and in my place would rise some kind of Captain Planet-type superhero but for feminists. I believe that day has nearly arrived.
Go read the rest of her post. Despite the creepy dudes and the misogyny and Richard Fucking Dawkins’ patronizing little screed – which led Watson to a moment of despair much like that of virtually every movie hero(ine) at the end of act two in the story arc – Watson ends it fairly hopeful. It’s kind of inspiring, really.
