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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.

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zombie rotten mcdonald
13 years ago

disapprove, of something -a term, a color, a poem, a song- without making it a really big deal.

Fair enough.

But my hatred of the Styx song “Babe” goes to a cellular, reality-warping, soul-destroying level.

Quick, Spearhafoc, post some fashion photo links!

ithiliana
13 years ago

Molly Ren: one of the squee communties is featuring hippos this week–have you seen the CUTE piccies?

speedlines
speedlines
13 years ago

Oh god PLEASE don’t use Blogger. Unless you really don’t want anybody to comment. Use WordPress.

Molly Ren
13 years ago

@ithiliana Nope!

Johnny Pez
13 years ago

Also, the United States of Mexico is a completely different country.

Hippodameia
Hippodameia
13 years ago

Ithilana, do you have a link? I love hippo pics!

Plymouth
Plymouth
13 years ago

Also, I really think “US Americans” is the very best terms for us because of this:

PROUD OF MY COUNTRY! HAHAHAHA!

(it has been years and I still laugh at this)

zombie rotten mcdonald
13 years ago

Or is that offensive because it can also refer to vampires?

THOSE PREENING EFFETE VAMGINAS!!!!

Magpie
Magpie
13 years ago

Would MRAL be OK with the term “Seppo”, do you think?
And is the hippo pool heated? It’s snowing here :3

speedlines
speedlines
13 years ago

I personally believe that August 24 should be officially named Talk Like Miss Teen South Carolina Day, like such as Talk Like a Pirate Day or Talk Like Yoda Day and I believe U.S. Americans and everywhere else can do so by following rules like such as:

1. Start every sentence with “I personally believe”
2. End every sentence with “for our children”
3. Refer to Iraq as “the Iraq”
4. Include the phrase “like such as” in every sentence.
5. Refer to Americans as “U.S. Americans” and the country as “U.S. America”
6. Ignore basic punctuation rules

And I believe this should help build up our sense of humor for our children.

Molly Ren
13 years ago

@zombie That might be my favorite comment on this blog.

Ymata
Ymata
13 years ago

Magpie you are in Aus, yes? Where do you live that it’s snowing!?

Johnny Pez
13 years ago

Or maybe Vespucciland.

Magpie
Magpie
13 years ago

Hi Ymata. I’m in Orange, NSW. It’s stopped again now, though – sunshine through sleet. Wait another 5 mins …

zombie rotten mcdonald
13 years ago

Or maybe Vespucciland.

would we all have to drive scooters?

ithiliana
13 years ago

see more Daily Squee

Captain Bathrobe
13 years ago

Also, the United States of Mexico is a completely different country.

Christ, Johnny! Where do you find time for all this?

Hippodameia
Hippodameia
13 years ago

Bookmarked – thank you!

Plymouth
Plymouth
13 years ago

Oh, crap, if it’s the United States of Mexico then I can’t refer to my country as “The States” either! Damnit! Taking all my fun >:(

ithiliana
13 years ago

http://squee.icanhascheezburger.com/2011/07/06/cute-baby-animals-hippo-love/

Direct link to baby hippos — tried to embed earlier and it did not work. BABY HIPPOS!

Magpie
Magpie
13 years ago

I was looking at an Australian tourist book printed in 1908 (so 7 years after federation) which referred to Australia as “the states”. Apparently it didn’t catch on!

Ymata
Ymata
13 years ago

@Magpie, that’s exciting! I thought Orange was a warm place for some reason. I’m in Melbourne, they said there might be snow on the nearby hills today. Snow!!

Uh, sorry for interrupting. But snow!

Magpie
Magpie
13 years ago

Orange has ‘the highest mountain between the Blue Mountains and Madagascar”. We get snow on the mountain for about a week each year. Maybe 2 days a year it falls in town, but doesn’t settle. I remember a Swiss exchange student we had once, who had been warned “Orange is really cold!” He showed us photos of himself skiing to school. lol

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

On a semi related note.. b/c this got me thinking on it… I honestly think “it’s just my opinion ok!?” as a response to criticism is not a v good defense.. not in terms of a defense of the opinion, but in terms of what you basically want ppl to regard YOU as, as a person who believes in things… : I have a friend who used to do this a lot.. she’d write something big and passionate, and then ppl would disagree or ask her to give cites or justifications for her claims that involve other ppl or what others SHOULD think, or judgement about a group or genre.. and she’d just explode into “it’s just my opinion! I can believe whatever i want!” and.. that’s fine.. but it’s basically saying that your opinion grows on trees, and that she herself came to that opinion not by information, or observation, or even logic, but that it’s just some random thing she believes… like “I just like Stargate, I dunno why, I just do” except of course that’s not what is usually being said in these situations.. it’s assertions, backed up by other assertions (example: “science fiction is a stupid and immature genre, Isaac Asimov is proof of this, his books are childish and pedantic, those who like science fiction should be considered of lesser intelligence”) but when PRESSED, b/c they are afraid they might look bad, or can’t defend their assertions or don’t want to deal w/ criticism, or etc.. they back off and say “IT’S JUST MY OPINION!”

except that your opinion is FOUNDED on something right? o_O or are they just saying “it’s just some random thing, like disliking anchovies, I can’t explain it, so it should be regarded just the same?” cuz I mean it’s FINE if it is, but I think you do a disservice to yourself by hiding behind that if rly you DO believe what you believe for reasons you believe are just, but you’re afraid of criticisms of those reasons : by saying “it’s just my opinion!” you’re often saying it shouldn’t be taken w/ much more than a grain of salt b/c it isn’t based on nething :

ithiliana
13 years ago

Speaking of derogatory terms, I saw some post somewhere today about a prisoner who is suing because he does not want to be referred to as ‘inmate’ which, his brother says, implies that he went to prison to ‘mate’ with other men….let’s see if I can find it before I have to go to bed!

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