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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

We’ve seen briefly what happens, lots of interesting discussion happens :3

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

You know I got you 2 meant (now you 3) way before when Johnny first mentioned it xD

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

*what you 2 meant

Johnny Pez
13 years ago

XD

caseymordred
caseymordred
13 years ago

Speaking of xkcd, this one was apparently the comic that helped start the chain of events that led to the Schrodinger’s Rapist essay, and very pertinent to the current discussion as well, in that this is probably how the people who are anti-Rebecca view themselves:

http://xkcd.com/642/

Captain Bathrobe
Captain Bathrobe
13 years ago

Ah, well, we can’t put anything past you, Ami. XD

ithiliana
13 years ago

After reading this thread, a few points about public behaviors, politeness, courtesy, etc.

The small town I grew up in, anybody who was in public greeted everybody else on the street (granted, there might only be one or two other people). EVERYBODY no matter what age disparity or gender difference (there were degrees of polite greeting–from a smile and nod, to a “hello,” to stopping and talking a few moments–and even more). But the courtesy was to everyone.

Big cities–people don’t do that (no time, too many people–all jammed together).

Men who complain that women snoot them for public gestures of courtesy (won’t reply to greetings, are the “omg I hate men who open doors” strawfeminist, etc.) Iand I’m not even talking actual catcalls and propositions here, just what I was raised to call polite in a small town where most people knew everybody (or the even smaller town my parents were born in where you not knly knew everybody, you were related to most of the poeple who had lived there more than one generation in some way).

The question I have for them, given what I’ve observed, is how widely that public courtesy is extended to people who are not in the category of “perceived to be young and attractive female whom I might get to ask out”: i.e. other men, and women who are a decade or more older, up to the women who might be your grandmother! Because if you’re only being courteous to the small category of “acceptable for dating purposes and maybe sex” females, then you’re not being courteous. You’re not being polite. You’re being self interested .

If you (as I have seen) dash ahead in a most notable way to open the postoffice door for a sweet twenty-something and then let it slam shut in the face of the 70 something women (in one case my mother), then you ain’t no way polite, courteous, or even a decent human being.

Hippodameia
Hippodameia
13 years ago

“Because if you’re only being courteous to the small category of “acceptable for dating purposes and maybe sex” females, then you’re not being courteous. You’re not being polite. You’re being self interested .”

THIS! A thousand times this!

plymouths
13 years ago

I actually think I mostly DO follow the “advice” NWO gave about responding to random men who approach me. I’m pretty confidant, haven’t experienced any of the serious sexual harassment or assault of the type a lot of people here talk about, and seem to somehow magically have some sort of “go away” vibes that mean people don’t fuck with me. But even that has limits. I’m still aware that I am smaller and weaker than the average man and I’m at a disadvantage against even a similar-sized person who happens to have a weapon or a group of people. So I still take reasonable precautions to protect my safety. Acting “aloof” isn’t one of them though – last I checked nobody avoided a mugging by aloofness.

Erl137
Erl137
13 years ago

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?

I’m gonna respond to your stupid-ass question with a story.

I’ve never been assaulted on the street. I’ve never been the victim of a theft or mugging (yet! Knock on wood). But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell when it’s a real risk.

One time in middle school, a friend of mine and I were waiting for the train (major metropolitan area light rail). We were two nerdy-looking kids, sitting alone on the bench, talking about ancient Rome. Suddenly, a group of five or six girls, probably about our age, came by and stood around us in a semicircle, talking loudly and obtrusively. Then one of them took out a donut, took a bite, and then ripped off a piece and threw it at us. She took another bite, ripped off another piece, and threw it at us.

I got mad. I bent down, picked up one of the pieces, and threw it back at her. She shouted at me. I stood up and was head and shoulders above these girls. It was an intense moment, watching her calculation of the situation change. She moved to shove me. I almost shoved her, but my friend held me back.

A guy, shorter than me but stockier, wandered up. He was clearly part of the group.

“Didja touch her?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “I woulda fuckin killed you if you touched her.”
“Well, that’s why I didn’t touch her,” I said, ever the master of witty repartee.

That seemed to satisfy him, and we all got on the train together. They sung deliberately obscene songs and laughed raucously, but the real threat was over.

The thing about that story? The whole time, I was terrified. I knew some shit was going down. Looking back, they were probably trying to pick a fight in a very specific way: have the girls act aggressive but non-violent, goad me into making the first move, and then feel justified when the guy in question responded violently. At the time, though, I had no idea what was going on. But it was clear to me that *some shit was going down,* that these people had designs on me not in my best interest.

So no, NWOsilly. You can’t ask that question with “no matter the circumstances.” It’s all about the circumstances. In that situation, it was a gang of mostly women. In another, it could have been mostly guys. But when someone’s talking about being creeped out, they’re not usually talking about particular people at all. They’re not talking about something that can be captured by a photograph, or a four-word sentence. They’re talking about a situational awareness, and that awareness deserves to be respected.

Does someone’s maleness figure into that awareness? Maybe. Who the hell knows? But this idea, that somehow prior victimization is necessary in order to feel fear, and that the sensation of creepiness can be divorced from context, are both stupid. They don’t hold true in my own life.

I wish I could answer your question with a clear “no.” But really, it’s too incoherent to deserve such an answer. Your question ignores what discomfort is about.

Bee
Bee
13 years ago

I know! I know who doesn’t have a card!

Hey, Captain Bathrobe, get out of Johnny Pez’ brain, please. A woman needs her privacy!

caseymordred
caseymordred
13 years ago

Plymouth: It is interesting to bring up aloofness, because if that’s what the privileged males are talking about, then they seem to be conflating two of their silliest complaints:

1. The whole Schrodinger’s Rapist thing, which I’ve probably singlehandedly worn out the name of in this thread alone

and

2. Annoyance at a woman who is unreceptive to male attention, even well intentioned

And that, I believe, is the rub of it all. They are upset that any given attractive woman could be unreceptive to their attention.

So there you have it, privilege deniers who are still tuned in: If you are even the least bit put out that a woman is not receptive to your attention, that alone makes it not well intentioned.

Captain Bathrobe
Captain Bathrobe
13 years ago

Hey, Captain Bathrobe, get out of Johnny Pez’ brain, please. A woman needs her privacy!

Sounds more like he’s in your brain, Bee. 🙂

Bee
Bee
13 years ago

“And that, I believe, is the rub of it all. They are upset that any given attractive woman could be unreceptive to their attention.”

Well, and also not attractive. That might be even worse, ’cause she should be grateful, the sow.

Bee
Bee
13 years ago

Captain Bathrobe, I’ve taken up residency here in the Pez brain. It’s made out of candy, and there are basenjis! It’s amazing!

I’m never gonna leave. You can’t make meeeeeee!

caseymordred
caseymordred
13 years ago

Yeah, that’s covered under the “average women are just as bitchy as the good looking ones we want” argument in their official playbook (the “Shaming Tactics” thingy.)

PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth

*gets a hose* Hold still Pez

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

I’ve actually been approached by a guy about my netbook xD I THINK he was hitting on me, but who knows xD

I was sitting at a Starbucks drinking coffee, I noticed he kept glancing at me… then he came up to me and started to chat me up and said he’s never seen a “laptop that small” (it’s a netbook and an older one I got on discount xD) and that what kind is it, etc etc.. and I said that I actually had no idea (which is honest, I didn’t buy the comp, I bought it off a friend) and then he stared at me, and I looked confused… and then he left o_O

I didn’t think he was creepy… I was just confused xD I literally had no idea what to say next xD

Another time (in my big XXL male hoodie that everybody seems to like xD ) a guy came up to me at night and said I’m rly beautiful and wants to get to know me better and was super hitting on me and I was about to walk away (he was a geeky looking Asian guy) but I thought “you know, I think ppl this brave should be given a chance”… so I gave him my email addy :3 Apparently my voice when giving him my email addy screwed things up b/c then he emailed me “are you a dude?” xD So I guess maybe I’m not helping ppl xD

“DON’T HIT ON HOT GIRLS THEY MAY END UP BEING TRANS WOMEN!” xD

but yeah, it has a lot to do w/ all sorts of factors, incl where I am, what I’m doing and how I feel xD sometimes when I’m out grocery shopping… I just.. *gasp* want to shop! xD so I will just say “sorry” and go back to shopping xD

Papr1ka
Papr1ka
13 years ago

Geez…I dunno why NWO finds it so hard to understand that being approached by a stranger in a dark parking lot is intimidating. Personally, I don’t care if it’s a man or a woman doing the approaching, in situations like that I am pretty uncomfortable, unless the person in question is a child or something. But even so…what if the child is….a vampire? =O

The bottom line is, we aren’t mind-readers. You can’t automatically know if someone is coming up to you to ask for directions or steal your wallet. Hope for the best, but wanting to be prepared for the worst is not a bad thing.

As for being approached by dirty or foul-smelling people: sure, maybe the person just got off from working at a rough job. But maybe they’re intoxicated, and therefore, potentially adding to the unpredictability factor. It’s not unfair if someone feels a little creeped out in these scenarios, even if/when they do end innocuously.

speedlines
speedlines
13 years ago

But even so…what if the child is….a vampire?

Vampires I can deal with. I just don’t want to see those two little girls from The Shining.

caseymordred
caseymordred
13 years ago

Paprika: did you read that xkcd comic I linked a few posts back? The reason some guys (not MRA trolls like we have here, but more well meaning ones who honestly don’t understand) don’t understand it is because they identify with the comic rather than thinking that a woman has every right to not want to be bothered randomly, even if well intentioned.

Papr1ka
Papr1ka
13 years ago

Speedlines:

Gah, those two little kids were creepy! The scariest part of the movie, imo.

Caseymordred:

I’ve seen that one before. It’s funny in a sad way. We’re not all sitting around here discussing how men should never approach women ever, just that men shouldn’t approach women and expect a response that is perfectly tailored to their intentions.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

We’re not all sitting around here discussing how men should never approach women ever,

I am.

So… which kind of shotgun should I use when a man approaches me? xD or is a chaingun better? o_O How about the BFG? has nebody had any experience w/ that?

Kave
Kave
13 years ago

Ami

I’m to bed, leaving you with a big hug. There will always be assholes in life your better them them.

I cannot get past the comment on page three or so that said she was acting like a 5 dollar whore by being in the elevator at 4 am. There is no excusing this kind of justification. How is this possible?

Kave
Kave
13 years ago

I mean better them then you… David must get an edit bar.

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