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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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Comrade Svilova
Comrade Svilova
13 years ago

ehh… sarcasm isn’t your strong suit, is it? There I go, overestimating your reading comprehension again.

Ah, so you were really saying that you, a person who hasn’t (presumably) been put in a position of feeling nervous about your safety when isolated by a person interested in you sexually … that you think “no thanks” is all that is needed in such a situation?

Nice. Great that you haven’t experienced that kind of threat to your safety. But many women have, and hence any man who propositions a woman he doesn’t know who is in an isolated situation … stands a good chance of creeping her out.

Men's Rights Activist Lieutenant
Men's Rights Activist Lieutenant
13 years ago

I don’t think I’m backsliding. Things are looking okay. This just made me a little angry. No big deal.

And my therapist just told me not to talk about myself anymore, to anyone. That’s some advice I’m following.

MinervaB
MinervaB
13 years ago

“Do you walk around on eggshells every day, constantly trying to read everyone around you, for fear of – ye gods – possibly offending someone or making someone uncomfortable?”

That’s the whole point of Rebecca’s YouTube comment, though – she politely turned the guy down, then pointed out to her followers (who are likely to be other atheists interested in attending these conventions and maybe hooking up at them) that propositioning someone in an elevator at 4AM after they’ve said they’re tired and going to bed (especially when you’ve never talked to them before!) is not a good idea. Rebecca is, in fact, helping guys avoid walking on eggshells – she gave them simple advice to avoid awkward incidents in the future! Just leave strangers (even hot ones!) alone if it’s 4AM and you’re alone with them in an elevator. Talk to them before then – make the coffee offer while you’re both still at the bar with others or before midnight, maybe! Tada – fewer offended, uncomfortable people!

Plymouth
Plymouth
13 years ago

a) Like I said, “creepy” is really not that great an insult. It’s on par with “heebie jeebies”. It’s not good but it’s not all that bad.
b) Saying it in an internet video that doesn’t even name the guy? Also, really really not that bad! He can maybe, if he happened to see it, feel a little embarassed all on his lonesome and never tell a soul and either decide to not do that again or, ya know, do it again anyway and live with the not-actually-all-that-bad consequences.
c) I do ask men out. I’ve asked out more men than have asked me out. Er, I think. Neither is a very large number. Also, a lot of the “asking out” on both sides was done with pausible deniability so it’s difficult to count.

Men's Rights Activist Lieutenant
Men's Rights Activist Lieutenant
13 years ago

Why the heck should that guy care if she’s offended or creeped out, though? If he didn’t know her, no loss. And I’m sure there are some women who would have accepted the offer, so he had something to gain and nothing to lose.

Simone Lovelace
13 years ago

Ion, if she just said it make her feel “uncomfortable,” that would be a content-free sentence. She had to explain at least a little.

Saying “X behavior makes me feel creeped out and sexualized” isn’t accusing anyone of anything. Most men have never lived as women, so most men don’t always know what behaviors might come across as creepy and sexualizing to a strange women. That is both the kindest and the most likely explanation of the elevator incident.

Women like Watson, who gently and calmly point out “X behavior is makes me feel creeped out and sexualized” (and hence, is creepy and sexualizing behavior) are doing a major service to both men and women.

Men who get angry, dismissive, or defensive about this are doing a major disservice to both men and women.

Ion
Ion
13 years ago

If a woman made a man feel objectified or fear assault, my opinion of her and of Elevator Guy would be the same. Both are at best clueless and need to think more about how to make overtures in a better context – both out of basic decency and because it’s much more likely to work.

That’s the meat of the argument, isn’t it? You say that, presumably, this guy MADE her feel objectified and fear assault. She called him creepy. All because he said, and I quote again, “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?” Which apparently was creepy because it was 4 AM (they’d just left the bar) and they were in an elevator (maybe he was one of those weirdos who waits until he has a person’s attention and doesn’t like asking someone out in front of all their friends).

I object to the guy being essentially demonized, first by Watson herself (sexualizing, creepy) and then further by the various commenters who jumped to her defense. I also believe it was an incident completely blown out of proportion. That’s it.

Also, are we responsible for how other people feel about us? To what degree? And would you judge Watson’s response in this case (feeling threatened, creeped out, sexualized) appropriate, based on the facts? Personally, I don’t.

Molly Ren
13 years ago

I find it really amazing that Ion made some of the same points we made upthread (being propositioned for anything at 4am in an elevator is a little creepy) and is still insisting that the guy has been unfairly treated. That’s… pretty special.

MertvayaRuka
13 years ago

Honestly, this is like trying to get my son to do chores when he was about 14-15. He’d put a level of energy into avoiding whatever it is he needed to do that would have been enough to complete the task ten times over. Nobody’s asking for a second-by-second audit of your every word, action, facial expression or bodily function. Just do your best to be aware of the fucking world you’re in and that you are not, in fact, the axle about which it turns. Millions of people manage this every day. They don’t make weak excuses for not doing it. They don’t say “Tough shit” and then get indignant when shit happens to them. They just gut up and do it because it’s what they’d want other people to do for them.

Or, you can be a big baby about it and only complain when it happens to you. Your choice and your responsibility either way.

Ion
Ion
13 years ago

Women like Watson, who gently and calmly point out “X behavior is makes me feel creeped out and sexualized” (and hence, is creepy and sexualizing behavior) are doing a major service to both men and women.

Men who get angry, dismissive, or defensive about this are doing a major disservice to both men and women.

I don’t agree. Or I agree up to a point. Common courtesy is fine, but if someone accuses me of making them feel a certain way, or offending them, by simply being who I am, that’s their problem, not mine, and I won’t rush to change myself based on their opinion.

MissPrism
13 years ago

MRAL, these conversations among women that your fevered imagination relates to you do not actually happen all that often. In fact, a woman has said the kind of thing you’re on about to me precisely once, and she ceased to be my friend at that point because the chap in question is lovely and didn’t deserve to be spoken of like that and in fact the conversation made me so angry I realised I was jealous and rather liked the chap myself and we have now been together for ten years.

Women do often complain, or laugh, or both at once, about being propositioned in inappropriate or downright frightening ways or about blokes who won’t take no for an answer, and they are right to complain because that stuff is bad.

Plymouth
Plymouth
13 years ago

Apparently I have to say this YET AGAIN because apparently my comments are invisible to MRAs or something but “creepy” is really NOT THAT BAD. It’s not RAPIST. It’s not BRUTE. It’s not DEMON. It’s just PERSON WHO GIVES ME THE HEEBIE JEEBIES. It’s not good but it’s really not all that bad! People should like NOT FREAK OUT ABOUT IT!

Molly Ren
13 years ago

@MRAL Because his method wasn’t successful? Because he’d like to improve his method of picking up chicks for the next time he was at a conference?

I mean, it’s not like cause and effect are entirely irrelevant in the dating game.

PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth

Why do you keep ignoring the fact that he was asking her to his hotel room Ion?

You do see why being asked to go back to someone’s hotel room is creepy (even if you do not see the sexual overtones because you are scared of having major surgery performed on you when you are asked to go to a hotel room of some stranger at 4 AM) right?

Comrade Svilova
Comrade Svilova
13 years ago

if someone accuses me of making them feel a certain way, or offending them, by simply being who I am

It wasn’t WHO HE WAS it was WHAT HE DID.

Molly Ren
13 years ago

“Common courtesy is fine, but if someone accuses me of making them feel a certain way, or offending them, by simply being who I am, that’s their problem, not mine, and I won’t rush to change myself based on their opinion.”

You’re simply creepy, or rude? I mean, you usually need a bit more going for you than those two things if that’s all you got, or you’re gonna be very lonely.

Johnny Pez
13 years ago

Also, MRAL, normal people aren’t indifferent to the feelings of other people. Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true.

Men's Rights Activist Lieutenant
Men's Rights Activist Lieutenant
13 years ago

Well no, “creepy” is not as bad as accusing someone of being a rapist. But it’s still most definitely a slur, and it’s more notable because it can be applied to any man, and thus in practice it is used to bully men (usually by women) who don’t fit Her Royal Highness’ 10/10 alpha Brad Pitt ideal. If you call someone a rapist or a violent brute you better be damn well prepared to back that up. Not so with “creepy”. It’s just “a vibe”, “a feeling”. You can’t PROVE you’re not creepy. Therein lies the word’s power.

Molly Ren
13 years ago

“But it’s still most definitely a slur, and it’s more notable because it can be applied to any man, and thus in practice it is used to bully men (usually by women) who don’t fit Her Royal Highness’ 10/10 alpha Brad Pitt ideal.”

Me and Men in Full and all the other girls who watched Heroes for Greg Grunberg are once again erased. *gets out tissues*

PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth

Because I am tired of this constant claim that Brad Pitt is some kind of sexy ideal even though pretty much all the women on this board have stated explicitly he is not…

BRAD PITT IS NOT THE EPITOME OF SEXY FOR US. FIND ANOTHER GUY TO USE IN YOUR EXAMPLES.

/rant

As for creepy-that is the person who is on the receiving end’s right to determine how they feel the person is being. Girls can be creepy (although I think men tend to label those women as psychos) just as much as guys can. Plus, if I say you are creepy MRAL, that does not mean everyone else thinks the same or will agree with me.

Johnny Pez
13 years ago

You say you’re not talking about yourself, MRAL, but I think you are.

Molly Ren
13 years ago

MRAL wrote, “If you call someone a rapist or a violent brute you better be damn well prepared to back that up. Not so with ‘creepy’. It’s just ‘a vibe’, ‘a feeling’. You can’t PROVE you’re not creepy. Therein lies the word’s power.”

I think we’ve provided several reasons why the time and place made this come-on creepy. I also provided suggestions which would be not creepy, yet still meet your goal of asking someone out.

MertvayaRuka
13 years ago

@ Plymouth:

“Apparently I have to say this YET AGAIN because apparently my comments are invisible to MRAs or something but “creepy” is really NOT THAT BAD. It’s not RAPIST. It’s not BRUTE. It’s not DEMON. It’s just PERSON WHO GIVES ME THE HEEBIE JEEBIES. It’s not good but it’s really not all that bad! People should like NOT FREAK OUT ABOUT IT!”

It would seem that you do not yet understand Ion’s wisdom. Consideration of other people and their feelings is not for the offended, but for those who caused the offense in the first place. They’re the REAL wronged party here, what with having to deal with the agony of other people criticizing their every boundary violation, boorish behavior or thoughtless action. Can’t you spare a single moment to think of THEIR feelings, you heartless monster?

Yeah, me neither. Tough shit, that’s what I say.

zombie rotten mcdonald
13 years ago

You can’t PROVE you’re not creepy. Therein lies the word’s power.

Sure you can.

As PZ Myers points out, you do it by NOT doing or saying creepy, sexualizing, or objectifying things. And if you blow that, you can back off.

…say, I know I’ve been AWOL at teh World’s Largest Music Festival, but didn’t MRAL’s therapist suggest it was best for him to stay away from here?

Men's Rights Activist Lieutenant
Men's Rights Activist Lieutenant
13 years ago

Well yeah Poster, but if a girl thinks someone is creepy (for not being a sex symbol, okay, like Johnny Depp), she inevitably goes and gossips about this slimy peasant peon who had the HILARIOUS audacity to merely glance at Her Highness. Then he’s labeled as creepy by all her friends, and everyone they tell, and everyone they tell, etc., and he’s ultimately ostracized, all at the whim of some woman.