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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

@Spearhafoc I have wondered about that… ever since his “a rape accusation is enough evidence to get a man locked up” thing added to his statement that every man has been accused at least once in his life, and that women calling him a rape apologist on the internet is a rape accusation. xD

Shouldn’t every man then be locked up? o_O If me or Holly have all this power, how come we even keep the trolls around? xD If we’re rly such a man-hating conspiracy and the state serves US, why go thru the song and dance of this stuff, why not have every man rounded up and killed? o_O

NWOslave
NWOslave
13 years ago

No Ami dearest, your beautiful eval of my psyche is ellegant as always but completely bullshit.

The point as always is, women have swallowed their indoctrination completely.

Heres the scenario which plays out every day. Man approaches woman who has never been hurt by a man, yet she feels afraid at his mere approach. What is her fear based on? Indoctrination, plain and simple. She is taught to fear men. Why? Because men are bad.

Since the majority of women are NOT ever hurt by men the only reason a woman would fear a man is because of indoctrination. In fact, the majority of women have been HELPED by men. You are TAUGHT to fear men.

NWOslave
NWOslave
13 years ago

caseymordred, You accept that you are privileged because you’ve been indoctrinated to believe that. You are part of the problem.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

At least I figured out how to get him to just SAY what he believes xD

caseymordred
caseymordred
13 years ago

Typical privilege denying bullshit. Of course you don’t see your privilege, that’s how privileged you are.

firebee
firebee
13 years ago

“why not have every man rounded up and killed? o_O”

Why bother, when we already in an all but literal sense have them all chained to the grinding wheel, forced to bear the lash whilst doing our dirty, dirty, also oily labor with their… gleaming muscles…

… s’cuse me a moment…

Holly Pervocracy
13 years ago

[repeat in hope he acknowledges it]

NWO, you aren’t arguing in good faith.

Are you really asking when it’s okay to hit on a woman because you’re curious to hear the answer?

Are you really concerned that men are never allowed to hit on women?

Are you really worried that men are all thought of as rapists, every one of you? Does this make you really (as in, actual fear, not pure ideology) worry about your safety or your expectation of justice?

Do you genuinely fear that you–personally–will be harmed or go to jail because you hit on a woman?

Are these questions you ask things that you really want answers to, and are these objections you raise things that really bother you?

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

NWO, who do you believe is best able, free of indoctrination to judge things? :3 Who do you think should have final objective say? :3

NWOslave
NWOslave
13 years ago

@caseymordred, Yikes. Every wonder why men think feminist logic is circular. Look at your last statement.

captainbathrobe
13 years ago

Ami, because you need them to do the hard and dangerous work. Duh.

Johnny Pez
13 years ago

I’m fairly certain that if that were true, NWOslave would have been locked up a long time ago.

NWO doesn’t strike me as the sort to let a beautiful reality get in the way of an ugly theory.

Bee
Bee
13 years ago

Slaveman: How will men know if a woman is too tired to talk?
How will men know if a particular woman doesn’t want to be hit on?
How will men know if a woman just got out of a bad relationship?
How will men so all the many things you all seem to mention, since as you all continually say all women are different?
I mean hell, even elevator guy asking to talk to the girl. On another occasion a different girl may have said, “I don’t want want coffee but I sure could use some sex!”

In this specific case, the woman in question had just said that she was tired and was going to bed. Pretty clear signal that she was too tired to talk.

She had also said, repeatedly and in this guy’s company, that she didn’t like being hit on.

I’m not talking about guys reading women’s minds. I’m just saying that in this scenario:

Man: Hey, I noticed you from across the bar. You look lonely. Can I buy you a drink?

Woman: Thank you, but you know, I actually just wanted to sit here by myself tonight. I have a lot on my mind.

A respectful response is:

Man: Well, have a good evening, then.

Not:

Man: Oh, come on. Just one drink? I’m a really good listener!

Even that isn’t awful. Points lost for not getting the hint, but he’s still being fairly respectful.

Woman: Thanks, but no. I just don’t want company tonight. Another time, maybe.

Man: You’re killing me with that smile! Come on, I don’t bite. I’ll just sit down and we can chat about what’s going on. What’s your name again?

So, that’s going too far. BE RESPECTFUL.

Jesus fuck. I can’t understand why a statement saying that guys (and women) who want to avoid being seen as creepy should listen to their intended target’s statements of what they want and try to not overstep any clear boundaries is a fucking controversy to anyone. Even you, slaveman.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

Let’s take this one step at a time. xD

NWO, by your statement, you then imply that you believe women who HAVE been harmed by men are justified to fear them.

Correct? :]

Let’s forget HOW MANY… or even what you mean by “harm”. Let’s start w/ that :3

caseymordred
caseymordred
13 years ago

Deny it all you want NWO, it’s still true.

You aren’t allowed to decide for yourself whether you’re a decent human being. That’s up to other people to decide.

After all, otherwise, men could say the most sexist things in the world and then say “it’s not sexist unless I say it is,” or “I’m a feminist because I say so.”

Therefore.

NWOslave
NWOslave
13 years ago

I’ve answered enough of your questions Ami. How about you answer mine for a change. Do me a favor though, keep the emotes to a minimum. I find them to be condecending, as if you belive everything is a big old joke.

Heres the question.

Should a woman, who has never been harmed by a man feel afraid or creeped out if a man approaches her, no matter the circumstances? Please explain your answer.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

Actually, i have an even simpler question for NWO! And on topic too xD

If this is all indoctrination, WITHOUT indoctrination how do you believe Skepchick would have reacted to the guy in the elevator (how she reacted was a result of her thought process which you believe is indoctrination)? :3 I.e. how do you believe she SHOULD have reacted?

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

Is it ok if I think CaseyMordred is not helping? -_- Let’s can the “you’re too privileged to know you’re privileged” (which yeah… o_O) thing ok? :3

Spearhafoc
13 years ago

no matter the circumstances

Circumstances always matter.

caseymordred
caseymordred
13 years ago

Ami, it’s right there on the Male Privilege Checklist. I’m not saying anything unusual here.

PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth

1. If a man walks up to you in a deserted parking lot, it’s mostly likely he needs direction or some other assistance, or he just might like to talk to you. DO NOT act like he is a creep or a criminal. DO NOT treat him like a second class citizen. DO NOT roll your eyes, condesend or act aloof in any manner. DO NOT dramatize with your friends about the creep who approached you. You are not a superior being.

If I am in a deserted parking lot and a guy starts walking up to me I might feel nervous because *I* have no idea why he is approaching me. He could be doing it for the innocuous reason of “help, I need directions” or he could be doing it for less pleasant reasons. If it is at night, it is worse because there is less light for other people to see me being hurt even if I am screaming as loudly as I can.

If I am aloof it is not because I am “superior” it is because a strange man in a deserted parking lot has approached me and I have no idea why. That reserve is there to keep the distance to prevent me from being harmed. YOU may not think I or any woman has the right to be reserved around a strange man, but you are also an idiot.

2. If a man approaches you and he’s filthy and dirty and he looks like he just buried a corpse, this is because men do virtually all the dirty, dangerous manual labor. He may in fact have just buried a corpse. When he approaches dirty he does so because you are there now when he got off work. DO NOT look down on him because your clothes are clean and he is dirty. DO NOT roll your eyes at him for approaching while dirty. DO NOT act like he is beneath you because of his attire. You are not a superior being.

There is a difference between a man who is obviously coming straight from work and the guy I am referring too-and you know that. But it is easier to claim that this is about women thinking they are superior to men for you and not about our being concerned about someone who could hurt us.

3. DO NOT act as if women are cleaner than men. DO NOT manipulate every situation to make men out as either abusive/inferior, or women as victims/superior. In other words, break the cycle of misandric indoctrination.

Oh I am sorry, did my pointing out that a guy who does not smell like a urine factory is more likely to not be thought of as creepy then a man who has taken a bath in a week bother you? Trying to care but…nope, do not care.

NWOslave
NWOslave
13 years ago

@Bee

We have the dialogue from this prize of a woman and the guy sounded pretty respectful. Yet he’s still a creep, right?

Johnny Pez
13 years ago

“Context is not important.”

firebee
firebee
13 years ago

You know, concerning that matter of indoctrination, there was an… Ion exchange… right at the top of the thread that neatly encapsulated one of the things I laugh bitterly about as regards this question of rape and rape products. It went roughly like:

1) She didn’t have anything to be concerned about in an elevator at 4 in the morning.

followed immediately by

2) Why was she, a woman, in an elevator at 4 in the morning?

Which strikes me as one of the more compact real-world representations of what fear-of-rape is meant to mean to women, in the “rape culture” (I think is the right word for it?). One is by all means meant to have a vague and unactionable fear of rape, when it comes to matters that restrict one’s freedom of moment — I can’t drive between cities after dark because of the rapists that run at 75 miles per hour, say. But when it comes to specific and actionable items such as “That particular person is standing next to my car door, and that other person would be flanking me if I approached my car,” that’s not okay because they might be really awesome human beings or something. I’m meant to be generally afeared of being in the parking lot at all instead.

I might cynically say that I seem to be encouraged to engage in every precaution except the ones that might actually keep me from being raped.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

NWOslave | July 7, 2011 at 9:40 pm
I’ve answered enough of your questions Ami. How about you answer mine for a change. Do me a favor though, keep the emotes to a minimum. I find them to be condecending, as if you belive everything is a big old joke.

Heres the question.

Should a woman, who has never been harmed by a man feel afraid or creeped out if a man approaches her, no matter the circumstances? Please explain your answer.

Here we go again, that NYAH NYAH I wun answer your questions thing xD You’re the one who treats this as a game xD even tho according to you I’M the one hurting real ppl xD

This is why I’m asking you my question (which AS USUAL, when you can’t answer, you dodge it even tho the question is KEY to me being able to answering yours xD) What do you mean by “harm”? o_O

NO MATTER the circumstances?

Should ANY woman?

Without me even knowing her? xD

So you’re asking me “in a situation you know nothing about, can you make a final all encompassing statement for all situations?”

in which case the answer to THAT question is no..

Actually your question makes you sense… you went from the general to the specific.. I’ll fix it up xD

Should any woman, who has never been harmed by a man ever feel afraid or creeped out if a man approaches her, no matter the circumstances? Please explain your answer.

The answer is yes. The explanation is b/c I have no idea anythng about the situation xD

It’d be like saying Should any man, who has never been accused by a woman ever feel afraid or worried that a woman he is with might accuse him of rape, no matter the circumstances?

xD

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

I’m starting to feel like Caseymordred IS here to goad us into agreeing w/ certain thiings… xD

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