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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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kirbywarp
kirbywarp
13 years ago

Why am I afraid this is gonna either lead to being stretched out, pulled back and forth by two people shouting “he’s mine! no he’s mine!” or being auctioned off with two people offering more and more hilariously high bids? 😛

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

o_o

NO! >:O

*clings to Kirby*

however we can share :3

Pecunium
13 years ago

Ion: wish more women did, it just seems very rare right now. It seems very rare… to you.

Not to everyone. Lessee… I’d say about half of my partners have ‘put the moves one me”, not the other way around. I’ve also had women whom I wasn’t interested in (or when I was unavailable) let me know that all I had to do was say yes.

My fiancée, proposed to me. My most recent ex took a bus for three days to see if her interest in me was sexual.

So perhaps it’s not women, but you.

OHSHIII
OHSHIII
13 years ago

GEEZ, all this insanity, just because a woman had the gall to say, online: “Hey, when you are a stranger hanging around me for hours at a convention (to the point where I recognize you, a total stranger) and you don’t say word one while I’m out speaking or hanging out with friends afterward, but then follow me onto an elevator and then, when I’m alone and vulnerable, proposition me — that makes me uncomfortable. That feels creepy. Please don’t do that.”

Wow man, total cold-hearted bitch there! Or maybe the guy was just Ugg City, because apparently no woman could refuse an out-of-the-blue offering of sex from a visually inoffensive and blandly attactive man/clone of Bradd Pitt.

And all of this is because Clinton gave women the right to get their internet licenses. That irresponsible bastard.

Molly Ren
13 years ago

I will use my adorable hippo wiles to charm Kirby away from Ami!

kirbywarp
kirbywarp
13 years ago

Don’t worry ami, I won’t fall for Molly’s adorable hippo wiles…

*sees picture of hippo nomming on turtle*

TAKE ME MOLLY I’M YOURS FOREVER!

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DDDDDDDDDD::::::;

>:O

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g69/lost_angelwings/cam/Oct%205%202007/IMG_4458.jpg

*counters with router cat*

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

KIRBY YOU HIPPOGAMOUS MALE YOU! >:O

Molly Ren
13 years ago
kirbywarp
kirbywarp
13 years ago

Alright, that does it. Molly has found my weak spot.

*squeeeeeeeeeeees at cute lil baby hedgie*

Well you done done me and you bet I felt it,
I tried to be chill, but yo so cute dat I melted.
I fell right tru the cracks…
And now I cannot get baaack.

Pecunium
13 years ago

MRAL: Let’s ask the feminists here, actually, they’ve been avoiding the issue as feminists are wont to do. Do you guys think that women are entitled to be as rude as they want, and (here’s the kicker) NOT thought of as rude?

No.

But… That’s not what was said. Not all rudeness = misandry. Just as not all rudenes = misogyny.

The major problem most MRAs have is that they see anything which doesn’t go the way they want it to, not as the fact that life isn’t always fair (much less what we want) as a big conspiracy to screw men over. It’s not.

Let’s zoom in:
to disapprove of unpleasantness from a woman is misogyny.

Lets zoom out: To want pleasantness and to disapprove of unpleasantness from a woman is misogyny.

That’s an important pairing. It says that when one wants pleasantness, and doesn’t accept that unpleasantness may be what one gets is misogyny (if one is doing that with women. If one is doing to men, it’s misandrist. If one is doing to minorities it’s racist).

That first half of the equation is not merely important, it’s critical.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

>:O Counters w/ proof of her high status (and bounciness xD) and some cuteness

Molly Ren
13 years ago

Damn, and I didn’t even get to use my turtle eating mashed potatoes pic…

Nobby
Nobby
13 years ago

This capybara is disdainful of such rediculous proceedings.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/171976/enhanced-buzz-416-1305902816-9.jpg

And my sleep schedule hates you all.

kirbywarp
kirbywarp
13 years ago

Now I don’t know. This is so confusing. On the one hand, hippo! On the other hand, kitty! On the other hand, hedgie! On the other hand, bunny! On the other hand, turtle! I just can’t make up my mind!

Magpie
13 years ago

I wanted to see capybara, and all I got was 404. I haz a sad 🙁

Molly Ren
13 years ago

Kirby, let’s all move in to a big house in the country where all three of us can be surrounded by our cute animal pets!

Magpie
13 years ago

Never mind – there he is. Disdainful indeed!

Nobby
Nobby
13 years ago

@Magpie it’s up! My uploading was slow.

kirbywarp
kirbywarp
13 years ago

Capybara is indeed disdainful…

Pecunium
13 years ago

MRAL: Then she, just like many other bullying women, started calling him a creep and a loser.

No, she didn’t. No one knows who this guy was. Not you, not me, not anyone in this discussion.

She was talking about a type of behavior. Why? Because she had an example of it. Without the examplar, there was nothing to talk about. Since it happened, there was.

She didn’t call him a creep. She said she was creeped out. I have an ex who loves spiders. Let’s them crawl on her. She also like scorpions. Kept one as a pet. That creeped me out. the scorpion was, to me, creepy. But it wasn’t a creep.

She didn’t say he was a loser. She said she didn’t feel threatened, just creeped out. So, since it did cause her a strong emotional reaction (like the woman who didn’t respond the way you wanted her to in the elevator) she talked about it; esp. as what had happened was relevant to the very talk she had given. She didn’t say never hit on women. She didn’t even say, “never hit on them in an elevator.” She said, “look at the totality of the situation before you hit on women.

And you are all afroth because of that.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

@Molly Ren that’s what I proposed to start w/! >:O We should just share him :3 (and the aminals :3 )

Magpie
13 years ago

This place really runs the gamut – from NWO and Ion to cute bunnies and kitties and hippos. With wise and witty people talking and arguing and making friends. It’s great!

Molly Ren
13 years ago

You were right, Ami, and I was wrong. *buys huge country house and stocks it with bunnies, kitties, turtles, router cats, and hedgehogs*

And we all lived happily ever after! XD

Nobby
Nobby
13 years ago

@Magpie Now don’t you start with that groupthink backpatting! Typical feminists!

Okay, that is enough parody for me. Forever.

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