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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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Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

@Nobby I’m making a card based on you… I’m ashamed to say I can’t remember if you ever mentioned your gender -_- sometimes I’m bad at remembering these things :

Nobby
13 years ago

@Ami No problem! I’m male. It doesn’t come up much here, and I usually like staying ambiguous to see if a troll will make a stupid mistake :-p

luke123
luke123
13 years ago

@Nobby

If she wants to talk about it, she has to know the correct time and place, and the right way to deliver it.
The way she did it here, was just bound to generate pushback, instead of getting her message accross.

Nobby
13 years ago

@Luke what is the proper time and place? Because she did in in a talk about the conference (where she talked about these issues) which she posted to her blog (where she talks about these issues).

luke123
luke123
13 years ago

“Also, there’s kids dying of hunger in Africa, luke. Why are you here talking when you should be there saving lives?”

It’s not my ambition to end world hunger, and I wouldn’t know how to if it was.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

You’re still burying the lead xD nobody is saying ppl shouldn’t respond..

you believe that the details of the responses have been justified and are spot-on correct? Like what you said about Dawkins :3

Plymouth
Plymouth
13 years ago

Luke123 – but it’s totally NOT about her “personal issues and hangups” – she’s articulating a position that a lot of women agree with. She’s giving advice to members of her community about how to “not be creepy” and it’s specific and actionable. I’ve seen a lot of men complain that “don’t be creepy” is hard advice to follow because “creepy” is so subjective. She’s broken it down into minimally-subjective advice that applies in a specific situation she encounters a lot (namely cons). Why is that bad? People don’t have to take her advice, sure, but the level of backlash against it is just mystifying to me.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

if her public opinion is justified in being critiqued (as it is, since it’s public) then so are public reactions by ppl who have an even higher profile such as Dawkins and revealing what HE believes as well 🙂

Nobby
13 years ago

@Luke my point there is simple. People can not respond to all problems ever. Saying that “your fight against injustice A is stupid and petty because injustice B is worse!” Is a losing game. People pick the fights they want and are capable of fighting. Just as you (and I) choose not to fight hunger in Africa.

Also, it should be stated that Rebecca does a lot of work to help Muslim women, especially in the case of genital mutilation. So how the hell is Dawkins right, exactly? On what counts, and why?

Nobby
13 years ago

@Ami Nope, you see the problem is that Dawkins is right. Therefore you can’t be mad at him.

luke123
luke123
13 years ago

“@Luke what is the proper time and place? Because she did in in a talk about the conference (where she talked about these issues) which she posted to her blog (where she talks about these issues).”

It takes political skills to know that. I’m not a politician myself.

But I can tell when someone is not doing it right. As they say, you don’t have to be a cook the know the food sucks.

V
V
13 years ago

We’re just going to call him on the misogyny and not the massively offensive implication that all Middle Eastern nations can be painted with the same brush? That there are serious social equality problems in the Middle East, no argument there. The area has seen and is still seeing a great deal of turmoil in the past millenia, which generally doesn’t bode well for social progression. That they can all be fairly summarized by one long MUSLIM IS EVIL AND OPPRESSIVE screed is the offensive part. Iran is not Afghanistan is not Yemen is not Iraq is not Saudi Arabia and on. Their problems are unique to each individual country, and there is no overreaching solution that is one size fits all. (And while we’re on the subject of the Middle East? Several countries there, such as Iran and Afghanistan, have seen serious backslides in women’s rights following great gains in the past. Women in Iraq report that they feel it’s gotten worse since the invasion. Probably not your best comparison when talking about how women should stop whining and STFU about feminism. If anything, it probably serves as stark reminder to a lot of people of how the rights of a minority group can be abruptly curtailed.)

Now if we want to get into the specifics of his post, nowhere in Skepchic’s blog did she compare her situation to that of an Islamic woman in the Middle East, so his response is not only irrational, it’s also inapplicable. His point would be moot regardless; the excess of misogyny and sexism in one place does not preclude its presence in others, nor does it neutralize its impact by matter of comparative degree. The only people who think “good enough” is an acceptable status quo are the ones who’ve never experienced it. I am not fooled by your strawman, Mr. Dawkins, nor am I intimidated by it. Male sexuality is not under attack here; if there was anything being challenged, it was the casual disregard for another person’s comfort and potential safety. (Hotel doors lock automatically from the inside. I’d like to to meet the woman OR man who wouldn’t be starkly aware of that when asked to enter one by a stranger at 4 a.m. in the morning.)

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

@Nobby So how the hell is Dawkins right, exactly? On what counts, and why?

That’s the main part that I think is the issue here (if there is gonna be an argument/debate) yus xD

bhacssylan
bhacssylan
13 years ago

Just to say, luke did not (at least yet) say one could not criticism what Dawkins was saying. I’m sorry for misrepresentation.

luke123
luke123
13 years ago

“if her public opinion is justified in being critiqued (as it is, since it’s public) then so are public reactions by ppl who have an even higher profile such as Dawkins and revealing what HE believes as well ”

Oh yes, definately. But as Dawkins is not trying to appeal to feminists, he did the right thing.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

But I can tell when someone is not doing it right. As they say, you don’t have to be a cook the know the food sucks.

Except food sucking is kinda just a personal taste opinion, unless you can explain why it sucks xD

bhacssylan
bhacssylan
13 years ago

I’m in moderation? Sadness…

Anyway, hoping this gets through somehow, @luke Okay, what, specifically, is she doing wrong? And, please, why is Dawkins right? You said he is, and I would like to know why you think that.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

I think you’re wrong. Completely. Of course I can’t explain why. But you don’t need to be a cook to know the food sucks!

xD

I think I’ll use this from now on. xD

JC
JC
13 years ago

Lurker here but responding because I have been watching this unfold in gobsmacked horrified fascination for the last couple of days.

@Ami and @Plymouth: I think that the issue of sexual assault has been dragged in not because Rebecca Watson mentioned or even hinted at it but because people, in response to the Bretheren of the Clueless who kept posting “but WHY was propositioning her at 4am in an elevator SO WRONG!!!???!!”, tried to helpfully explain that for a woman an elevator at 4am with a man you don’t know and who has followed you from a bar without uttering a word is maybe, just maybe, gonna set a few alarm bells ringing. “But WHY would this make her uncomfortable???!!!!” says the Bretheren. And then, again trying to be helpful, more people gave links to elevator sexual assault statistics and links to “how not to get sexually assaulted” sheets prepared by police departments which say things like “Don’t get into elevators with strange men late at night”.

The Bretheren then, instead of going “Oh! I have been enlightened! I now understand why women might feel uncomfortable in this situation.”, move to “OMG!!!!! Rebecca Watson accused poor EG of sexually assaulting her!!!! That poor misunderstood (and yet still strangely anonymous and not in police custody) man!”

My mind is still boggling.

Oh and in my circle people from the USA are sometimes referred to as merkins which derives, I believe, from a Terry Pratchett novel and is thus totally gorgeous.

Plymouth
Plymouth
13 years ago

Luke123 – You’re moving the bar. You went from accusing her of “not being very socially skilled” to saying it takes “political skills”. Which is it?

Nobby
13 years ago

Um, oops. My login somehow changed and so my comments got locked in moderation. Sorry. Let me repost them:

First, I said “@Ami Nope, you see the problem is that Dawkins is right. Therefore you can’t be mad at him.” This is a distortion, and not really what Luke said. Sorry, that was my bad.

Secondly,

@luke Okay, what, specifically, is she doing wrong? And, please, why is Dawkins right? You said he is, and I would like to know why you think that.

MertvayaRuka
MertvayaRuka
13 years ago

@Plymouth:

“Why is that bad? People don’t have to take her advice, sure, but the level of backlash against it is just mystifying to me.”

It’s that bad because every single one of the guys that are part of the backlash are taking it completely personally. That’s what it boils down to. They see something of themselves in what this guy did and rather than take the opportunity to learn something, they’re going to get angry and defensive just like little snowflake Ion.

luke123
luke123
13 years ago

“So how the hell is Dawkins right, exactly? On what counts, and why?”

He is right in demonstrating that Rebecca’s rant about some minor issues, and her being a semi-well known figure in the community comes across as petty whining compared to real issues that are more interesting to be addressed.

It may be an important issues to Rebecca, but it is of no interest to Dawkins and most of the skeptic community.

If she has personal problems with certain people’s behaviour, it’s a private matter, and not something to be blown out of proportion as if it’s a major problem of massive public concern.

What would happen if the president gave a speech on television that his wife doesn’t fuck him enough ? In that case it would also be totally right if commentator said that he should concern himself with matters of importance instead of whining about his personal problems.

luke123
luke123
13 years ago

“@luke Okay, what, specifically, is she doing wrong? And, please, why is Dawkins right? You said he is, and I would like to know why you think that.”

Political skills are social skills.

Magpie
Magpie
13 years ago

But luke123, she was invited to talk on a panel about why women don’t come to conferences, and this was one of the reasons she discussed. It is exactly relevant and of concern at the conference.

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