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creepy feminism hypocrisy misogyny oppressed men patriarchy rape reactionary bullshit sexual harassment threats

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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Hippodameia
Hippodameia
13 years ago

@Ami I think it’s unreasonable. The Iranian players wouldn’t be allowed to leave the country to play in the first place unless they followed the Iranian dress code, and I think the team made every effort to adapt the hijab to FIFA’s dress code. They didn’t run into any problems in the preliminary matches, either.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/08/opinion/main20070233.shtml

The FIFA officials claim that the Iranian team had plenty of warning about headscarves, but that doesn’t jibe with the timing of the ruling, which was handed down just before the game was due to kick off.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/united/olympics-2012-fifa-bans-headscarves-for-irans-women-soccer-team/2011/06/06/AGzT1JKH_story.html

It also seems that the current head of FIFA proposed in 2004 that the soccer players wear hot pants”to boost the sport’s popularity.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/jan/16/football.gender

I think FIFA’s behaved pretty badly in this.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

@Elizabeth my friend had a girl who was incredibly creepy and pushy to him too… -_-;; She kept pushing him for sex and trying to drag him out of his house late at night for it… and was doing weird creepy things like inappropriate sexual come ons.. .. it was f-ed up and I was like “no, you don’t need this….” and “what’s she doing is wrong, and extremely creepy… get away from her” it was so f-ed up >:|

Plus he had just gotten out of a rly awful abusive relationship that I was trying so hard to get him to realize… and how manipulative and f-ed up his ex was. but it was so much like my mom and my dad : He kept being guilted back, she’d act like HE was the bad guy, and threaten to leave him so he could cheat on her like she knew he wanted to (even tho she was SO in love with her, but she KNEW this)… and it’s just… 🙁 except this time I’m an adult and I can help… and I used stuff detailing power/control and abuse dynamics to show him, and telling him it doesn’t matter their genders… see what she’s doing? I was so afraid of him pushing me away too 🙁 esp since she had isolated him from ALL his friends (except me…) which is a classic abuser tactic >:| I’m so glad he finally got away… :] I was SO happy for him…

But then that other creepy girl showed up bur at least both are gone from his life :] But yeah, I called that s- out… >:| Abuse and creepiness can happen to men too and by women and my reaction isn’t less if the genders are reversed >: nor did I tell him what a bad guy he was for not giving it up to creepy girl, or that when he said he was creeped out, I wasn’t like “oh I’m sure she means well… what’s wrong with you that you won’t go f- her!? do you understand how she should be applauded as an assertive girl?” >_<;;

PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth

Outside of my distaste for having to change their behavior because their society thinks men are incapable of controlling themselves when they see a woman’s hair on her head, if they want to wear tutus if it does not interfere with the game, who cares?

PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth

Oy Ami, sounds like a tough situation, glad to hear it is finally over and he escaped her clutches.

For my BF, I had to try very hard to not jump in with his second to last relationship with the way she was behaving until invited me to comment because that is what friends do. She was demanding, clingy, whiny, complained about me all the time (even though BF and I were barely talking) and would demand things like “you cannot invite her to your sister’s birthday party because I cannot stand to look at her knowing she has seen you naked.” She also tried to convince him I was not his friend because I was letting him have the space to work on his relationship.

Finally it almost (but not quite) came down to picking between us and he said he would rather have my friendship then her “love.”

Then he tried to get me to go to Chicago to the YDA convention that he had disinvited me from going with him on because of her.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

@Hippodameia re: mandatory hot pants

http://ami-rants.blogspot.com/2011/05/if-its-not-sexist-why-dun-guys-have-to.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_IIHF_Women's_World_Championship

For unknown reasons, the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association decided that the Canadian team should wear pink and white uniforms instead of the expected red and white.

unfortunately these things aren’t unusual in women’s sports :

PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth

I am trying to decide if I should go home now or later because I have nothing going on here but also have not much to do at home.

PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth

Aaaaand that is why I plan on dressing my kids in green and yellow until they are old enough to express a preference.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

Uh oh >:| They will grow up to be Green and Sinestro Lanterns!

Captain Bathrobe
Captain Bathrobe
13 years ago

Elizabeth,

I missed that! Sorry. Great minds think alike and all that. Yes, the female analog to creepy is definitely crazy, psycho, or some variation thereof.

And, yes, boiling bacon is just flat-out wrong.

Plymouth
Plymouth
13 years ago

You know, I honestly do have some sympathy for guys who say it can be tough to avoid being seen as “creepy”. Just saying – “Don’t be creepy – you know how!” isn’t useful. It’s not entirely cut and dried – there IS some subjectivity, where things some people think are creepy are not seen as creepy by others.

That said, there are some broad brush guidelines that hold for most people. That’s what confuses me so much about this – people are upset to see some of those guidelines spelled out! People are upset to be told SPECIFICS about how not to be creepy! They’re even trying to generalize from those specifics and accuse women of saying ALL come-ons are creepy. Which is just… what the fuck. I think some people just wanna have an excuse to feel sorry for themselves so they refuse to listen to anything that might make their lives better.

Magpie
Magpie
13 years ago

Posterformerlyknownaselizabeth, that’s Aussie sports colours – they can play for the Matildas!

speedlines
speedlines
13 years ago

If by ‘some people’ you mean MRA’s, then yes, you’d be correct.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

My favourite team name from Aussie sports btw (cuz I have a friend who is Australian and we’re both sports geeks :3 ) is Rabbitohs! xD I love it so much that when the Winnipeg team was deciding on the name recently (they ended up going back to Jets, which is what they should have done xD ) I suggested the Winnipeg Rabbitohs xD Or the Beavertohs!

Captain Bathrobe
Captain Bathrobe
13 years ago

Plymouth,

You’re assuming good faith here. I think a fair number of these guys are outraged that a guy was called out on his creepy behavior. Someone who genuinely cared about not being creepy would take this advice and mentally file it away for future reference. What (a lot of) these guys want is the ability to continue being creepy with plausible deniability.

PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth

Some tips on how not to be seen as creepy:

1. Pay attention to surroundings-if you are in a deserted parking lot and come up to a woman asking to go somewhere with her, chances are you will creep her out. If you are at a party where you ask her to sit in the backyard or other quiet space to talk, chances are very unlikely you will creep her out.

2. Pay attention to your own looks-if you have a five day old chin shadow, major circles under your eyes and look like you just buried a corpse, chances are you will creep her out. If you are neatly dressed, bathed and/or do not look like you just buried a corpse, chances are very unlikely you will creep her out.

3. Try to avoid looking like you just buried a corpse period. Oh and bathe regularly.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

Green and Gold/Yellow can also make them Green Bay Packers! Or the Edmonton Eskimos :3

Magical Laura
13 years ago

“Abuse and creepiness can happen to men too and by women and my reaction isn’t less if the genders are reversed >:”

YES. My friend’s ex controlled his every move, and would twist every argument she created around to him. Although statistically physical abuse is mostly committed by men, I don’t think there is much of a difference in abuse in general. I have known many bad relationships, and gender makes no difference in cases of abuse.

I also dislike how men are supposed to ‘enjoy’ sexual abuse, like everyone talking about how hot female teachers who abuse their students are, and how the boys enjoy it and ‘become men’. Or I read about a case where some women in a bar pulled a guy’s pants off and exposed his genitals, and of course everyone laughed and acted like it wasn’t a big deal.

I’ve been an emotional abuser. I will admit this. After my boyfriend left me and told me he wanted nothing to do with me, I really craved attention from guys. I really hate the way I look, and this was a great way to decide no one else would ever like me. After I was raped I made friends with a very kind and wonderful guy who made me feel so much better, but I had no romantic feelings towards. I couldn’t tell him, my fear of him breaking off our friendship was too great. At least, it started out that way. I got so consoled by his compliments and gentleness that I pushed him for more. I’d ask him to walk me home every night, buy me drinks… I even relished his pain and enjoyed how sad he seemed when I slept with someone else, because this meant he wanted me so much. I can’t even think about it now without feeling sick. We are still good friends and I am incredibly grateful. I have apologised so many times and he has a lovely girlfriend and is really good friends with my boyfriend.

He is NOT a NiceGuyTM, by any stretch of the imagination. Although he liked me, he told me he ‘never thought he had a chance’ but still wanted us to be friends. His friendship was never a cover for his trying to get sex or romance. He genuinely cared about how I felt, and comforted me over other boyfriends without ever being bitter or resentful. I have had a lot of guys pretend to be friends with me and then get nasty when I don’t fuck them, but this guy was genuine. I used him and strung him along to keep him hurting because it made me feel good. It’s not alright and me being a woman and him a man makes no fucking difference.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

Well TBF I dun think whether a guy looks neatly dressed or not necessarily says whether or not they’re dangerous (if this is about being afraid of potential danger)… 😐

PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth

There is a team called the Matildas? Only in Australia which has men so manly they can be called Matilda and no one cares. No, wait, they are women…damn that would have been so awesome.

I should get some bacon and fry it up…yummmmm…

Magpie
Magpie
13 years ago

My brother went to Green Bay for work once, and they gave him a Packers t-shirt for a souvenir, he wears it all the time. I rang him when he was over there, and asked what’s is like – he said all he could see was snow, with lumps that were cars and buildings.

PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth

Oh you are right Ami because there have been plenty of well dressed peeps out there who have acted badly (get out of my head Ollie North) but I am talking about things that can make someone think “that guy is creepy” looking like you buried a corpse is definitely one of them.

Magpie
Magpie
13 years ago

There is a men’s team called the Swans – is that manly enough? (Actually, Manly are the Sea Eagles, I think)

PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth

I was thinking more about how having a very feminine name like the Matildas still did not make the males less than manly.

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