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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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NWOslave
NWOslave
13 years ago

Holly Pervocracy, shouldn’t you be moderating the naysayers on Ozzy’s family blog. I heard someone might have posted something that didn’t agree with her emminence. The patriarchy never sleeps, beware.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

@unreal man they are judging that the actions of an unknown individual seem creepy to them… who is he? was his information posted? 😮 should anecdotal stories no longer be shared or reacted to online? o: There’s been a lot of stories posted here… and ppl saying “ew I’m so sorry for you, that guy sounds like an asshole!” is that also damaging to the unknown person?

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

If it makes you uncomfortable or creeps you out, then you are welcome to feel that way and even tell him. Whether he cares or not is up to him, unless he’s caused you physical harm or committed a crime…

Nobody has to follow Skepdude’s advice o_O He gave his opinion, Dawkins gave HER opinion… neither has the power to enforce it on the other o_O both can be (and are) being criticized..

There I regendered it… is that misogynist now since apparently originally it was misandrist? xD

unreal man
13 years ago

@NWOslave
you’re wasting your time pointing out misandry to these feminists (even though I agree). Hell they probably don’t even realize the word feminism is sexist in itself.

NWOslave
NWOslave
13 years ago

PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth, I’m just trying to enlighten her on the proper way to act so that she’ll never make any man feel uncomfortable. I mean the commentor’s here clearly said they were trying to help men overcome thier social awkwardness. I thought I’d return the favor. Since you praise, well women/yourselves for “suggesting” how a man should act, you should praise me as well. Doncha think?

oldfeminist
oldfeminist
13 years ago

unreal_man, that blog post was amusing for its idiocy. Not only did he think Rebecca named Elevator Guy, he also apparently thinks the skeptic community needs a better female representative.

Singular.

TVTropes Smurfette anyone?

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

Wait did she just combine ALL of our quotes into one piece as if we were all one single person? o_O (also I thought she wasn’t reading me if I used smileys nemore xD what’s the next NWO ultimatum? xD)

What I find interesting is that he didn’t say SHE was creepy, or that she gave creepy vibes, or that all women are creepy. He said that the particular situation, it being 4am, him having given a talk on the treatment of men, her doing it in an enclosed space… was creepy. o_O And I think we all know that by creepy he means “it made me uncomfortable” and it’s not so vague that you have no idea what he means… he means “this situation made me uncomfortable”…

So he means a specific situation. o_O Not “girls don’t be creepy”. Now THAT would be vague. xD If you want to know what men think, that is one man (and others agreeing with him) telling you. How useful is that? I have no idea xD Cuz lots of men would also not think that’s creepy… just like if you approached me w/ a wrestling catchphrase to pick me up (it’s on youtube) it’d prolly work… but it prolly wouldn’t work on others xD

So… now that I reversed the genders.. what’s the vote? unfair? misogynistic? xD

PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth

Actually that was not the proper way to ask her to leave you alone-you know that and I know that and to say otherwise is being disingenuous and well, oafish.

Ms Watson was also use an example of what a guy should not do because it will help him avoid issues in the future just as I did when I pointed out how you were wrong and a proper way of doing it.

*signs NWOaf for a Miss Manners course at the local remedial school*

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

NWOslave | July 7, 2011 at 3:54 pm
PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth, I’m just trying to enlighten her on the proper way to act so that she’ll never make any man feel uncomfortable. I mean the commentor’s here clearly said they were trying to help men overcome thier social awkwardness. I thought I’d return the favor. Since you praise, well women/yourselves for “suggesting” how a man should act, you should praise me as well. Doncha think?

I think it’s more that some ppl agree w/ her advice (as you notice some ppl haven’t said a word about how they think of her advice xD )… not that “OMG YOU GAVE ADVICE AS A GIRL YOU ARE CORRECT” xD

If she suggested that men castrate themselves, do you believe we’d be “praising” her? o_O

Like do you think this is about the specific situation, and her specific thoughts and statements? Or do you believe she could have said anything and we’d all be like “fuck, yeah!” o:

Cuz if it’s the latter, then it’s prolly a different conversation/discussion to have… right now ppl are speaking of specifics :]

Molly Ren
13 years ago

You know what’s funny? You try to come off as wise and mature, but in fact, I actually used to think like you when I was younger and stupider. I bought into all the “women are evil, women are natural rapists” crap spouted by masculist circles and their neutered mangina allies. I was concerned about not coming off as threatening or creepy. I was courteous and kind and polite, I respected men, but I forgot to respect myself. And while the bad girls, playa gangstas, and abusive douchebags were strutting around town with an “I take what I want” attitude and a new boy on their arm every week, I was hearing “Wow, you’re a great gal, but I like you as a friend. Well, see you later, gotta go have sex with the jerk girlfriend I’ve been complaining to you about!”

So you’re right about the chest-puffing part, but not so much about the being afraid. I’m less afraid now than I ever was. I put myself first. I don’t apologize for being a woman. It took me a while to wise up, but I did. And let me tell you, things are better than ever. I got my first boyfriend after acting ‘inappropriate’ and going for a kiss the night we first met. A day later, he was the one would wouldn’t leave me alone. So much for “men give in because of social pressures”, I guess. Second boy, in college, I acted like a five-year old jerk. Totally out of character, even I was ashamed of my behaviour. Afterwards, he was calling me to hang out. Sometime later, I met someone I really liked. Like an idiot, I decided to play it cool, be nice, be polite, take things slowly. Guess what? Zero interest. Learned my lesson then and haven’t looked back. As for “friends who will abandon me”… I don’t know what the people are like where you live, but the gals I know just don’t fit your simplistic caricature. Also, currently half my friends are male. Weird, huh. But uh, keep telling yourself you’re so much better for being a neutered wimp. I’ll be busy having fun in the real world meanwhile.

unreal man
13 years ago

@ Ami
Like I said, calling guys creepy in this way is abuse of power.
You see, there are many guys out there, perhaps the majority, who really want to get it right but are unsure of what that entails. They pay attention to discussions where women say what is acceptable and what not. They try to learn and follow the rules. Only the problem is, “creepy” doesn’t teach them anything at all. Anyone can call any behavior creepy (just look at some of the other comments here). The fact that the elevator guy was polite didn’t seem to save him. The fact that he didn’t push it was also no use.

So what message does this creep-o-meter send to such guys who are trying? Very simple, that whatever you do, somebody is going to call you a creep and a ton of others will agree. This creates hurt and resentment. Also being labeled creepy can very quickly spiral out of control and turn into incriminating rumors.

Many guys will deal with that by giving up and not caring at all what women feel and do whatever they want. Kind of like “ok, so you think I’m creepy, well just you wait…”
Somehow I don’t think that was the idea of all this was it?!

So the whole thing boils, yet again, down to deciding which of the two you want: 1) make things better or 2) make yourself feel better. The vast majority of feminists here in this thread clearly want the latter.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

NWO, Elizabeth and others have said the same thing to me that you have (even before you did) about the way I write and my smileys and if I kept it up nobody would read a thing I said…

which is v similar “if you do this you will be creepy” xD

I didn’t care (and I’m sure other men won’t about her advice…)

other ppl didn’t think it was important to them (and I’m sure other women are fine w/ elevator hit ons)

in both ways, nothing was “enforced” o_O Elizabeth, being a woman, did not have any more ways to force me to do what she wanted, than you did. :] She also gave me advice…

just as you’re giving Plymouth…

as I recall, neither of you were jumped upon for your advice to me, despite the difference in genders xD

what are the consequences of ppl not following Skepchick’s advice? Skepchick will reject them if they ask her to their room.

what are the consequences of me not following you and others advice? They will not respond/read my stuff. (my blog presence is not what it COULD be if I wrote normally for instance) xD

but it’s up to me whether I care what ppl think, or how to act :]

Plymouth
Plymouth
13 years ago

NWO – I’m not a woman, I’m a girl.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

@unreal Anyone can call any behavior creepy (just look at some of the other comments here). The fact that the elevator guy was polite didn’t seem to save him. The fact that he didn’t push it was also no use.

Except her use of the word “creepy” focused on the specific situation, (4am, in enclosed space). o_O

But that’s neither here nor there. :]

So what do you believe the solution is? What do you believe she should have done or said or thought? If you were her and you wanted to express the same thoughts, what word would you have used? :] What do you believe we should do about this? (I won’t derail this into other loaded words or a discussion of the word “slut” or nething, I want to hear what you have to say :] )

Plymouth
Plymouth
13 years ago

Also, I’m not a feminist. I just think they have some good ideas.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

If she thought that that specific behaviour in that situation was creepy, but creepy has different connotations, would it have helped if she said “it makes me uncomfortable, and men if you do not want to make women uncomfortable, do not do this in an enclosed space at night?” Or do you think the problem is she felt uncomfortable at all? o:

How should women modify our behaviour to not make men uncomfortable and scared? :]

Amnesia
Amnesia
13 years ago

@unreal man
Dude, you’re complaining to women who’ve been called bitches for not using the right tone that creepy is such a demeaning and hurtful term. Talk about privilege.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

@Plymouth I vacillate between what to call myself all the time. xD I think I’ll ultimate settle on “Ami” :3

NWOslave
NWOslave
13 years ago

All women should wish to avoid making men uncomfortable. Therefore, no women should do what elevator girl did.

“Because just because you don’t believe in God doesn’t mean that you don’t think that you’re entitlted to man’s time, attention, and bodies.”

“I would not be because I would be too busy laughing at her but that is my reaction and I am not Ms Watson.”

What the fuck is it with women who think men automatically owe them every courtesy in every possible situation? What a bunch of whiny, entitled babies.

The poor dear, her life must be fucking ruined. How dare he talk about her at all on his own blog, the nerve.

Just a couple of reversed comments.

Misandry is your privilege, and you love it.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

*ultimately xD

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

@Amnesia yeah presumably if he understands that then there are other concepts he could get and support when it comes to women, but this isn’t about women for him atm, so I want to give him respect to articulate his solutions and views :]

Amnesia
Amnesia
13 years ago

@Ami

Kay. I’ll sit back and let you work your magic. Sorry, magyc.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

I’m trying to calm things down, cut thru the rhetoric (even what actually HAPPENED seemed to have been lost in the whole argument xD )… seems to be working :3

Kave
Kave
13 years ago

Unreal man, As a man>

I’m in an elevator at 4 in the morning with another guy. I don’t know who this guy is and he asks me (or you) to come for coffee in his hotel room. Creepy.

I’ve been come onto by men many times in my life. Although I’m getting broader now I’m tall and slim with same length somewhat long hair and generally look like a generic bassist.

I can’t say it’s never offended me. When the guy put his hand on my leg when I was hitch-hiking (back when people did that) very creepy but generally not at all

The boy telling me he loves my hello kitty purse while my wife is in the ladies room, not at all creepy in fact the three of us ended up hanging out for awhile. I would however feel uncomfortable in the above situation.

I have no doubt that you would have felt creepy in many situations if the shoe was on the other foot.

Arielle
Arielle
13 years ago

One of the reasons I’m an atheist is because I dislike the way the female sex is looked down on in most modern religions. To see so many anti-feminist/misogynist atheists is appalling. Being so hateful against girls and women is anything *but* rational. In religion, there may be some ideas pushed into people’s minds about superiority and inferiority based on sex, but to see supposedly “rational” people embrace misogynistic beliefs perpetuated by society makes me feel even less safe in this world. Ever since being aware of the MRA/anti-feminist communities, I feel like even more men are potential misogynists. Hell, most of my friends are men, and I really hope none of them secretly resents me.

I used to really like Richard Dawkins. Assuming that the one mentioned is the real one, then I don’t want to read his writings anymore. I’d rather associate myself with rational, not sexist, atheists.

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