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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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luke123
luke123
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.”

Plymouth, It’s just like if Dawkins would put up a video in which he says that feminists should stop being whiny manhating bitches.
Putting up a video telling men to stop being ‘creepy’ is insulting, so it’s not surprise at all that there is a backlash.

luke123
luke123
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.”

She was?

Nobby
Nobby
13 years ago

But, luke, she brought it up as a specific example of the problem that she fights against, which is women being pushed out of the atheist community. Are specific examples of offending behavior a bad thing? Isn’t it a good idea to use examples to demonstrait points?

And if no one cares, why do people follow her blog or have her speak at conferences? This is an issue she speaks on. Not the only one, but one very major one. If people didn’t care, why does anyone know who she is?

And your analogy is a false one. The president is the president in order to lead the country. Rebecca’s job (if you can call it that), is to speak on feminist issues in the realm of atheism. She is doing exactly what she gets paid to do.

So, what issues do you care about, luke? I’m wondering. What social justice issues do you think are a problem, which are the most ‘interesting’? If there are any, i suppose there could be none. Dawkins brought up FGM. Why should anyone care about that? Because, you know, they could just be dead. Why do we care about FGM in Muslim countries when there are people dying everywhere from hunger and thirst and lots of other issues?

Nobby
Nobby
13 years ago

@luke yes, she was. She was at that conference as a feminist atheist voice to talk about such issues. That’s what she does. I suggest you watch the whole video, as she spells it out quite plainly.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/xx134/ami_angelwings/Magyc%20Cards/NobbysImpatience.jpg

here… now I’ll leave ppl guessing what’s going on w/ Nobby and what happened to him xD

Nobby
Nobby
13 years ago

Okay, I need sleep. People will have to continue this without me. Sorry for bailing, but sleeppp….

Nobby
Nobby
13 years ago

Wait, no, I lied. Before I leave, I just have to look at AAAGHGHSGJgfdscdx

Magpie
13 years ago

Ami, you are a cheeky genius with those cards!

zombie rotten mcdonald
13 years ago

Vampires are lousy undead. I can’t tell you why, but you should be able to see it.

A ghoul that can’t come out during the day? Why are we even arguing?

Look, you’re wrong; that’s good enough for me.

zombie rotten mcdonald
13 years ago

Also, if the food is sucking, it’s not quite dead yet.

Magpie
13 years ago

Nobby, you can’t go to bed at 2.45am. Don’t you know that some bloke might want to crack onto you in 1 1/4 hours time? XD in a lift ;]

Pecunium
13 years ago

As a point of note, “Don’t take this the wrong way” would imply to me,:whatever was to follow, that the speaker knew what s/he was saying could be taken “the wrong way.”

It’s sort of like,”No offense intended, but.” If someone starts a comment to me that way, and I don’t know them, the ‘wrong way” has just been presented.

Nobby
Nobby
13 years ago

@Magpie actually, it’s only 12:50 here, so not too bad.

Also, I fail so much at the sleeping…

Magpie
13 years ago

Sleep well then, Nobby. It’s only 6pm here and I’m already sleepy.

Plymouth
Plymouth
13 years ago

Putting up a video telling men to stop being ‘creepy’ is insulting, so it’s not surprise at all that there is a backlash.

Which is exactly what I just said she DIDN’T do. If it was just “don’t be creepy!” sure, that would be super insulting, useless, and annoying. It wasn’t that! It was “hey, if you do X, Y and Z you will come across as creepy so don’t do that”.

Have you actually even SEEN the video?

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

@Nobby good night :3 *hug*

zombie rotten mcdonald
13 years ago

“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.”

Regrettably, it’s not so mystifying to me. I have dabbled in many of the corners of the feminist blogosphere, and I have to say, there is a point here; that when a woman asks to be treated with a little common courtesy, it becomes a shouting match to push her back down; as a tactic, it is typically effective, especially when coupled with the inevitable threats of rape. It’s not the level of backlash, but the predictable pattern of it.

It’s a depressingly regular cycle, and women bloggers all have stories to tell of it.

And then slime molds like Ion and Slaver chime in to say “Why do you insist that ALL men are evil?” ignoring BOTH the fact that nobody claimed any such thing, and the fact that there are a fair number of men out there, demonstrating very evil intent, every time this happens.

OK, now I go back to making up shit about why I hate vampires.

luke123
luke123
13 years ago

“Which is exactly what I just said she DIDN’T do. If it was just “don’t be creepy!” sure, that would be super insulting, useless, and annoying. It wasn’t that! It was “hey, if you do X, Y and Z you will come across as creepy so don’t do that”.

Have you actually even SEEN the video?”

Ok, that’s better than outright saying ‘don’t be creepy’, but it’s just a fact that people don’t like to be told what to do (unless they specifically asked for advice), so it’s still insulting.

Magpie
13 years ago

Yes, ‘people’ had specifically asked for her advice. She didn’t ask for yours, though.

Doctress Julia
13 years ago

I remember this time when I was like 12 or so, and I was in DC with my mom and sisters to visit my aunt… we stayed in a really nice hotel, and me and my little sis (she was like 7 or 8) went and swam in the pool. It was on the roof, and under glass- it was so cool! And we got to go by ourselves. When we were done, we took the elevator down to our room. A man got on at one floor before ours- a middle aged man, dressed in a suit. He stood over me; cornered me. I kind of huddled closer to my sister. We were both wet, cold, tired and wearing swimsuits, towels around our shoulders… I was scared. I felt exposed, nauseous that I could see his eyes examining us. I knew I should be scared. He said, ‘Hello, my name is Abdul. Can you and I be friends?’ That’s it! How harmless and innocent! I mumbled no, that we had to go meet our mom… we bolted out of that elevator as soon as it opened.

Anna and I were scared the rest of the night- I was shaking. I felt sick. We didn’t tell my mom; what good would that do? We were afraid we’d run into him again the whole time we were there. Why was this such a big deal; why did I react that way?

What does my fucking anecdote have to do with this? I don’t know, it also happened in an elevator? Or, maybe- why the fucking fuck would an adult man try to initiate contact with a clearly underage child? For nothing good I know, and I knew that even at that age!

I don’t remember the first time that I was leered at, preyed upon, sexualized and/or devalued for being female (kindergarten, most likely), but once it began I knew I’d have to endure it all my life. I could swear that nobody listens to a godamned word that I say. It will never end- not until I am old and angry enough to be totally ignored.

Nobby
Nobby
13 years ago

Agreed with Plymouth. And for reference, the panel in question was on “Communicating Atheism”. Communicating it to women very much falls under that umbrella, so talk about such issues is completely relevant.

Also, a lot of Dawkins’ work involves trying to convince people that atheism is the right way to go. In effect, trying to get more people to be atheist. He does it by providing why religion is wrong in X, Y, Z case usually. Why is he okay in doing this, but Rebecca’s tactic, in trying to make atheism a more welcoming atmosphere, a bad one? I mean, you could easily say that Dawkins’ issue with religion is a personal one. You’ve certainly given no evidence to say that Rebecca’s issue is purely her own, but you are saying it is.

@luke to the last comment, Dawkins tells people what to do all the time, at least as much as Rebecca is. He tells people not to follow religion. Why is that right and her point wrong?

Okay, dang it, sleep. Thanks, @magpie. Same to you when you do get to sleep!

And thanks, Ami. That card is amazing and awesome in so many ways :-). Good night to you too! I would hug you, but whatever’s going on with my arms there looks dangerous :-p

Magpie
13 years ago

Hells bells, two weeks ago I would never dare comment on the internet, now I can’t stop, even though I haven’t got two thoughts to rub together. It’s bloody addictive, that’s what it is. Somebody should tell me to pull my head in.

zombie rotten mcdonald
13 years ago

Plymouth, It’s just like if Dawkins would put up a video in which he says that feminists should stop being whiny manhating bitches.

No. It’s not.

I could say that Vampires are just cold hearted bloodsuckers, and posted a video of Nazi atrocities to support it. Both are bad things, but my simply saying they are equivalent does not obligate anyone to agree with me that they are.

Because, seriously, it’s obvious that vampires are worse than Nazis.

Doctress Julia
13 years ago

I just wonder sometimes- when am I allowed to be uncomfortable or feel threatened? Why is it that some people feel entitled to dictate that?

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