Here, found on Men’s Rights Reddit, is a “demotivational” poster that illustrates just why Rebecca Watson’s comments about that now-famous elevator incident, and the ensuing discussions that erupted amongst feminists online (and here, in our longest thread ever), were actually, you know, necessary: whoever made this evidently thinks that the very notion that a RAPIST would ask someone out for coffee first is so inherently and self-evidently hilarious that you don’t even have to explain why it’s so hilarious.
Never mind that, er, rapists often DO invite their future victims out for coffee, to the movies, out for a kebab, etc, etc first. Never mind that if some hypothetical woman had accepted a 4 AM “coffee in my room” invite and been raped, many of the very same guys now ranting about how she’s calling all men rapists would be blaming her for being a “slut” who “was asking for it” by agreeing to said “coffee” date.
(And I’ll just note that Watson did not in fact accuse her admirer in the elevator of being a rapist or even a creep; she simply mentioned that propositioning someone in an elevator at 4 AM is a creepy thing to do.)
And yes, that is Richard Dawkins in the picture. I’m not sure why someone who presumably agrees with what Dawkins said about the case would want to feature him in a poster next to the word “rapists,” but what do I know? In any case, Dawkins is now being hailed as a hero by more than a few of the regulars in the Men’s Rights subreddit — not for his scientific work, or his science writings, or even his atheist activism, but for his douchebaggery towards Watson. The Flying Spaghetti Monster works in mysterious ways, I guess.
Speaking of which — the mysterious ways thing, I mean — can anyone explain the logic behind this comment to me?
Specifically, could you explain the bit about “smack[ing] the shit out of” feminists who’ve stood up for Rebecca Watson? It seems to me that if you’re trying to make the point that Watson and her supporters are reacting hysterically to an innocent invitation to coffee, and that women have no reason to be fearful or concerned or even just mildly creeped out by men propositioning them in elevators at 4 am, it does not exactly help your case to talk about doing physical harm to feminists (or children, for that matter). Doesn’t that suggest, rather, that women should be concerned about strange men in elevators — because of the off chance that one of these strange men could turn out to be, you know, the sort of dude who posts shit like that on the internet?
And your point in bringing that up was…
titfortat: Actually, if it hadn’t been for Dawkins’ (et sequalae) we’d not be talking about it.
It’s not really about Rebecca Watson and the guy in the elevator. It’s about people like you being so worked up that she gave advice that said, “I found this creepy. Other women might find it creepy. If you want more women to be skeptics/atheists with you, try not to be creepy.”
Completely. Baseless. Speculation.
I have had women make me feel uncomfortable by not being respectful of my boundaries and personal space. I have had men make feel uncomfortable by not being respectful of my boundaries and personal space.
You just said that if it had been you and another man, in the exact same scenario presented by Rebecca Watson, you’d have felt “weird.” Not “creepy,” – heaven’s no. Just “weird”. You presented a bullshit hypothetical and then debunked it yourself.
Ridiculous.
Sorry, that was directed at Titfortat. Sure, it’d be different if there were two women in the elevator… it would also have been different if elevator guy had been (as I quipped a few days ago) a bear in a man suit. RW would’ve been concerned about literally being eaten if that were the case (sorry for getting silly, but this situation is getting silly).
damnit… sequelae
She wouldnt have. You know it and I know it. The post would NOT have been written had it been a woman. Of that I am sure. I dont know if she was scared or freaked out but obviously she did not like his advances. I have no problem with her account. My initial remark was only about how I believe that if the gender of the person was the same we wouldnt even be talking about this shit.
I’ll agree with you there. If Watson had been speaking about a woman trying to hit on her in such a way that completely ignored her clearly stated boundaries, then I doubt Dawkins would have gotten as upset and offended. As a result, it is highly unlikely that the hordes of angry, offended men would have reacted with the hysterics they did. As a further result, this whole thing would not have gone viral. Most women probably hearing Watson’s experience would have just nodded their head and gone ‘yep, that’s a bit creepy’ without interpreting her words as a scathing indictment of all womanhood, everywhere.
So, yeah, the gender matters, but not for the reason you think it does.
Yeah, i KEEP TRYING to remind ppl how this started -_-;; The “feminist blogosphere” did not pick up her video and then start talking about rape and etc.. they were reacting to Dawkins et al…
it’s like the DIckwolves thing, or all sorts of other things… a lot of ppl (me incl) had no problem w/ the original comic… what WAS a problem was after Shakesville talked about it, they got bombarded w/ trolls and rape threats, and Liss got emails threatening her w/ rape, and etc etc etc -_-
I think David should post Ion’s call to action for trolls btw… just in case they missed it xD SOLIDARITY!
@Pecunium
“You don’t get to define creepy for other people. “
I’m not interested in defining anyone’s feelings, I’m interested in dismissing feelings. There has to be some common standard what’s socially acceptable and what’s not. This standard is not defined through a single persons feelings. If many people disagree about the social acceptability of a situation there is a good chance that this situation is located in a gray area. I’m not talking about ethics here, I’m talking about social norms.
“And people get to talk about what creeps them out. “
Do they talk with their friends about what creeps them out or do they broadcasts on the internet with a huge audience? Nobody cares if Watson tells her bff about that situation, but it’s entirely different if she tells the anecdote to make a point about sexism in the atheist community.
“That Marcotte, and Meyers, see the lessons to be learned differently is perfectly normal. People are the sum of their experience. “
Ok, but neither Marcotte nor Meyers argue from experience. Both mainly argue from a feminist framework. Marcotte never dated as a men and the last time Meyer dated was probably before I was even born. So excuse me but I don’t trust in their expertise. Also Marcotte is first and foremost interested in pushing her political agenda. She’s interpreting the actions of EG in the worst possible way, she is not less biased than the author David mocks in his last post ( http://manboobz.com/2011/07/12/atheist-elevator-redux-part-deux-the-return-of-the-nice-guy/ )
“I remember those conversations with MRAL too. The difference was this: he was saying his hardships were worse than other peoples. “
Ok, this point is interesting. The first claim you made is that creepiness is subjective and I get not to define what’s creepy or not. When we say creepiness is subjective we also have to expand this to other negative feelings. Now you say, the fact that the well-known-poster claimed he’s more suffering than someone else allows us to establish a objective, comparable scale of suffering. Why? Either we agree that some suffering is worse than others or we don’t. The fact that a person draws a comparison changes nothing.
Just to clarify, he’s saying that the situations you compared aren’t the same because Watson didn’t say “what happened was worse than what’s happening to women in the Middle East!” and MRAL was making direct comparisons.
Whether or not general statements should be open to comparison is another debate, he was just telling you why it’s different, b/c Watson didn’t bring it up, Dawkins brought up the comparison. MRAL brought up his comparisons, Pecunium didn’t.
If Watson had compared her situation to those in the middle east, and Dawkins had then called her on it, that would be more comparable to what you are saying Pecunium did to MRAL :]
That’s not to say I dun think you can argue the point you made, but that particular comparison doesn’t rly work v well :] (you may disagree xD)
Or if, on a thread about Middle Eastern women talking about things they have been through, Watson shows up and says they are lying and exaggerating. Then saying “hey, aren’t you the one who complains that some guy hit on her in an elevator?” would be comparable to the MRAL/Pecunium/et al situation :]
Skipping over the silliness about Marcotte and Meyer not speaking from experience…
Wrong, Thomas. No one denied that MRAL was suffering. Clearly, he was. We said that the factors he blamed for his suffering (such as his supposed deformity) were not the actual things causing his suffering.
@Ami
Well, I don’t really trust in my own argumentation, but still think I’m more right 😉 But I stop now, because I don’t really feel comfortable to use another poster as an example to make my point. It was a bad idea from the start.
Too bad Ion flounced off-I would have explained to him that pretty much every woman on here (except me because I think a guy hitting on me at 4 in the morning has *got to be joking because guys do not hit on me*) and most of the men, including him, would be bothered (creeped out) by someone asking them to a hotel room at 4 in the morning.
Ion even said he thought he would wake up without a kidney. So the complaining that the trolls are doing is not that they think she was wrong, it was that she was being honest and up front about it. That all women, at all times, should keep their mouths shut and accept whatever crap the man wants to dish out.
So, here is a story. The last time I saw Richard Dawkins was after my boyfriend, friend, and I saw him across the hotel bar we were sitting at, enjoying a drink after one of his talks. We offered to pay for his drink (we asked our waitress — who was also his waitress — to tell him we wanted to pay for it because we had enjoyed his talk), and, momentarily, saw him scurry out of the room, after throwing some money on the table.
It was around six or seven, if it matters, and there were a group of three of us (two men, one woman) in a fairly populated room, and we didn’t even try to talk to him. And he freaked the fuck out.
So I’m finding it a little weird that he’s making all this noise now like Watson is being unreasonable.
Oh, by the way, I’m on vacation. Hence the not posting lately. It’s been pretty fun though, so far. if anyone’s wondering.
What did you get Ami and Me?!
A … bratwurst … snowglobe?
Actually Ion I’m pretty sure that people are finding you creepy because of comments like this:
“This may offend your feminist sensibilities, but I’ve found that it’s usually much more useful and accurate to observe what women do rather than what they say. So yeah.”
Yeah, less to do with you disagreeing and more to do with the fact that you apparently wouldn’t care much about consent or a woman’s feelings.
What I never understand by stuff like that, and also the trolls who tell us what women think when we’re women here right now is do they think we’re naive.. or lying? o_O
Like is it more useful to observe us cuz we know not what we do, and we don’t understand our own thought processes, or it’s cuz women lie? o_O;;;
Yay snowwurst! bratglobes!
@ Thomas
“There has to be some common standard what’s socially acceptable and what’s not. This standard is not defined through a single persons feelings. If many people disagree about the social acceptability of a situation there is a good chance that this situation is located in a gray area. I’m not talking about ethics here, I’m talking about social norms.”
See, there is actually a lot of agreement about the social acceptability of the situation. Women, for the most part, agree that this guy’s choice of time, place and social context to hit on Watson was terrible, and the sheer number of cues of disinterest he deliberately or accidentally ignored in the process of hitting on her was unsettling. Not terrifying, but offputting. MRAL and others on this thread have agreed that the guy’s attempt to pick her up at 4 AM in an elevator (after she was a guest speaker giving a speech on how she didn’t want to be hit on by strangers at this conference), was poorly thought out, and he would have done better in another time and place. So it’s generally agreed-upon that trying to pick a woman up in a situation in which she feels unsociable and kind of vulnerable is usually not a smooth move.
Many men seem to identify strongly with the figure of the awkward guy who fumbles his attempts to hit on women. That’s understandable; everyone loves an underdog. But if I were a socially awkward guy trying to pick up women at conferences, I’d appreciate some advice on the best time and place and social context in which women are amenable to being picked up. I’d want some examples of doing it wrong (Watson’s anecdote) and doing it right (PZ’s list of tips). What confuses me is that Rebecca Watson was not mean to him, but a lot of guys are reacting as if she were. She just politely turned him down. She never mentioned him by name. She just used the whole awkward encounter as an anecdote to illustrate a point in a vlog and offer awkward guys some advice on paying attention to the cues this guy missed. I don’t understand why so many men are angry about her advice. Do you?
Thomas If many people disagree about the social acceptability of a situation there is a good chance that this situation is located in a gray area. I’m not talking about ethics here, I’m talking about social norms.
So is everyone else. The norm one part is pointing out is that hitting on someone in a place they can’t get away, is creepy, and should be avoided. Dismissing that is what you are doing.
So your norm is, “when people are trapped, it’s ok to make them uncomfortable,” got it. I disagree.
Do they talk with their friends about what creeps them out or do they broadcasts on the internet with a huge audience? Nobody cares if Watson tells her bff about that situation, but it’s entirely different if she tells the anecdote to make a point about sexism in the atheist community.
When making points about sexism in the atheist community is part of her social role, then it’s perfectly appropriate. More to the point, (to keep in in the conversational envelope you want to work in) I think that discussing it in her blog would have been completely appropriate no matter whom she happened to be. When something bothers me enough to want to share it, I am not going to say, “gee, some asshat might be offended, I ought to take his/her feelings into account and stifle my anger.”
Fuck that noise. I am entitled to share my opinions as I see fit. So are you, so is she, so is everyone. I am then free to opine about those reactions. Which is how social norms like not chatting people up in elevators become norms.
Norms require consensus. Consensus requires communication.
Ok, but neither Marcotte nor Meyers argue from experience. Bullshit. You want to argue that, then you need to prove it. Show that none of the opinions they shared on this topic come from personal experience. PZ Meyers, in the, “Decent Human Beings” post listed his experience, so it’s patently false in his case. I’ve not read the specific post of Marcotte’s, but I’ve read enough of her work to doubt that it was purely theoretical either.
Ok, this point is interesting. The first claim you made is that creepiness is subjective and I get not to define what’s creepy or not. When we say creepiness is subjective we also have to expand this to other negative feelings. Now you say, the fact that the well-known-poster claimed he’s more suffering than someone else allows us to establish a objective, comparable scale of suffering.
No. What I said was MRAL introduced the question of the relative merit of the suffering. He said he had suffered more than anyone else here. That invited comparison.
Watson did no such thing, so the introduction was both a non-sequitor, and irrelevant. It was meant to make shut her up by saying her problems were unimportant on their face.
@Ami: You know, I never really understand either. I mean are women evil masterminds who enjoy hurting men and screwing them over? Or are women naive children who need to be looked after because we can’t make decisions ourselves? You’d think there’d be some kind of consensus over this.
But then again, being able to pick one or the other based on the situation works much better. That way it’s easier for them to “prove” feminists/women are … EVIL!
Did she do that? o_O
No she didn’t… but do you know the concept of an EXAMPLE or an ANALOGY?
I was just arguing that just because X justifiably (!) creeps you out (that means everybody understands your feelings!) it still often can be ridiculous to complain about X and ask people to change their behavior.
The example of asking men not to use elevators at night makes that hopefully clear.
And imho that’s also the case with Rebecca Watson. It’s just ridiculous to complain about guys making awkward proposition (even at 4 am) exactly as it’s ridiculous to rant about drunk people having a good time, people with dogs that bark at you and pull the leash or about “there must be something wrong with that guy”-guys etc. etc.
Come on, please!! In the US… aren’t they showing up with loaded guns at the Tea Party rallies? Now, there I would draw the line… there you have a moral right to complain about this behavior.
Btw, Ami, where’s your nitpicking now?
Rebecca Watson said…
“Don’t do that, guys!”
GUYS…!!
Would a girl propositioning her at 4 am not make her uncomfortable to?
soo….. why didn’t she use gender-neutral language?? => SEXIST!!!!!!
And that’s how the nitpicking would continue:
You: “Women don’t use sexual violence!”
Me: “They do ”
You: “but it’s a proven fact that men are more likely…”
Me: “Drug dealers are also more likely to be Blacks or Hispanics than Whites. Wouldn’t someone ranting “Please, Blacks and Mexicans, get real jobs, don’t be drug dealers!” not be racist? Of course he would be, and so Rebecca Watson is sexist!”
You: “But it’s so much less likely for a woman to use sexual violence, it’s extremely unlikely.”
Me: “Yes, but where exactly do you draw the line…? What’s ‘extremely unlikely’ 10% of all cases ? 5% ? 1%? ”
oh god, Internet arguments are a waste of time 😀