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?
Sort of on-topic for the post, not so much with the thread, I told my boyfriend about this and he said it was creepy as fuck for *anyone* to proposition another person at 4 A.M. in an elevator. His exact words were “…That’s so creepy. It doesn’t matter who’s asking, I just wouldn’t want to get robbed and murdered in some stranger’s hotel room.”
Hyperbole? Yes. But nevertheless, that shit can happen to anyone. Wouldn’t any of these MRA’s be creeped out if a stranger asked them to their room for coffee? Alone? At 4 in the morning?!
I don’t even know how this turned into such a big deal; this seems more like an everyone issue than a feminist-issue.
Oh, it’s more than mild annoyance. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here so often, talking out of your ass. We really get under your skin. Heh.
Except that leaves out every part of the story leading up to the elevator exchange, including the “please don’t hit on me” part and the “I’m tired and going to bed” part.
The 4am elevator invitation to his room part is bad enough by itself, but it’s all the stuff leading up to it that puts it in to particularly creepy territory.
You do have to realize that real life isn’t a Penthouse Forum letter.
Ion, try this on for size:
1. Propositioning a strange woman when you are alone with her in an enclosed space can be considered creepy behavior, although because women are individuals, mileage may vary on that.
1A. It is creepy because, as previously mentioned, this is a stranger. She doesn’t know you. You could be the nicest guy in the world, or you could be the kind of guy who is going to take a refusal very badly and possibly respond by attacking her.
1Aa. Expecting that she should assume that you are the former is paramount to expecting that she should assume all strange men are perfectly safe to be around.
1Ab. This is manifestly not true. Some strange men are not safe to be around, and she can’t tell just by looking which category you fall into.
1Ac. Therefore, this is essentially saying that she ought to prioritize your comfort over her personal safety. This is kind of an asshole move.
1B. Calling someone’s behavior creepy is not the same as calling that person a rapist. It is, however, saying that the behavior in question is setting off alarm bells in her head. Does she know for a fact that the guy is a rapist? Of course not. And she’d rather not find out that he is from personal experience. It’s better to reject a well-meaning guy who may honestly not know that his behavior is setting off alarm bells than to ignore the alarm bells and be raped.
1Ba. This does not, mind you, mean that she ought to be nasty in her rejection.
1Bb. Unless he fails to back off at the first ‘no’. Then all bets are off, because he has proven himself as someone who is not willing to take ‘no’ for an answer.
2. None of the above means that you can’t proposition strange women. Just don’t do it in an enclosed, isolated area where they couldn’t easily get away should you take it into your head to attack them. And don’t do it shortly after they’ve given a speech on how they don’t want to be propositioned.
Ion: She was creeped out, ergo (since “creepy” is subjective term) he was, at that point in time, being creepy. That doesn’t make him a creep.
She even said that, all things being as they were, she didn’t feel threatened, just put off (see again, all the things the EG failed to pay attention to).
Was rape a “distinct possibility”? Not as described. Was it a zero possibility? No. See above, in this post, where “smacking them around” is the “appropriate response” for women sharing their opinions of men.
Look at all the people, in response to various things she has written have said she ought/deserves to be raped. Could she know he wasn’t one of those people? No.
There is a security/military aphorism, “One cannot plan for what the threat/enemy will do, so one must plan for what they can do.
And, as keeps being pointed out; when a woman fails to act as if all men might be rapists (which, again, she; nor we, have said EG is,was, or aspired to be), she gets shamed, and villified, for not being proactive in her defense. So there isn’t any winning this one; engage in reasonably proactive thinking (and try to help guys out who might want to know how to approach a woman they are interested in, by telling them what sort of clues they might need to avoid being seen as creepy) and they are exploiting their, “privilege” (which privilege is the privilege of anyone to have feelings, and share them in public. I don’t see any rash of MRA types telling each other that ripping on the “skanks” who won’t put out for them is a bad thing: So there is some hypocrisy, and no small amount of “do as we say, not as we do” going on in this sausage fest of ire).
Ignore the creepy, and let guys think this is acceptable, and then get hit on more often; in ways that cause them to reject men, and be “cold bitches”, and “prickteases who won’t ‘put out’, after they get a guy all hot and bothered”.
Pretend that rape only happens in dark parking lots, and back alleys (while being mocked for not thinking any guy who approaches them is just curious about the way to the nearest 7-11 for a late night snack), and so get told they asked for it when they do accept the offer for a cup of coffee, and discover that coffee was a euphemism, and accepting it = wanted sex.
So do good-looking men never get told no, Ion? No matter the circumstances? Because that seems to be what you’re driving at, here. Circumstances never matter, just looks.
I mean, I already provided a link to [Michael Fassbender’s][http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2010/03/23/michael_fassbenders_ex_requests_restra] bad behavior and its consequences, but I can do it again.
Ha, code fail. My mind forgot to switch between the forum and the HTML needed here. 😛
Except that leaves out every part of the story leading up to the elevator exchange, including the “please don’t hit on me” part and the “I’m tired and going to bed” part.
Except we both know those things only apply to the unattractive, aka ‘creeps’. Can’t count how many times I’ve heard a woman say she wants to be left alone when she actually meant she only wanted certain people paying attention to her.
Oh, it’s more than mild annoyance. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here so often, talking out of your ass. We really get under your skin. Heh.
Whatever you need to tell yourself. By the way, don’t you and your friends have 50 more posts to write telling me how inconsequential I am and how you’re just laughing at me and in no way trying to have the last word in some kind of sad attempt to feel superior and get to high-five each other over your arguing prowess? No way, you’re just laughing at me, really! It must be true because you keep saying it!
“Except that leaves out every part of the story leading up to the elevator exchange, including the “please don’t hit on me” part and the “I’m tired and going to bed” part.
“Except we both know those things only apply to the unattractive, aka ‘creeps’. Can’t count how many times I’ve heard a woman say she wants to be left alone when she actually meant she only wanted certain people paying attention to her.”
Damn, now we’re back to the old “women never actually mean it when they say “no” argument. Is this really where you want to go, Ion?
Pecunium: If I am walking home, late in the evening, through a less-than-reputable neighborhood, say one where people have been robbed before, and a black guy asks me for a light, should I be feeling threatened? Should that black man be admonished for approaching me?
Molly: 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.
Also, the last I heard, Rebecca Watson is married, and as far as I know her marriage is monogamous. So, leaving aside the (very important) fact that women have the right to accept or refuse any proposition for whatever reason, and leaving aside everything she’d previously said about wanting to go to bed and not wanting to get hit on at conferences, all this “She totally would have done him if he was better looking” stuff still doesn’t ring true. At all.
That also leaves aside the fact that nobody, including Ion, knows that Elevator Guy wasn’t good looking.
“No way, you’re just laughing at me, really! It must be true because you keep saying it!”
I mean, the tagline of this blog *is* “Misogyny. I mock it.”
Has anyone here ever been on /b/, or spent a good amount of time on 4chan? I haven’t, but I think their existence argues that it’s entirely possible to post about something often and still be doing it completely for the lolz.
Pecunium: If I am walking home, late in the evening, through a less-than-reputable neighborhood, say one where people have been robbed before, and a black guy asks me for a light, should I be feeling threatened? Should that black man be admonished for approaching me?
It’s interesting how often racism and sexism go together.
“a black guy asks me for a light, should I be feeling threatened? Should that black man be admonished for approaching me?”
Better safe than sorry. Say you don’t smoke and keep walking. That way, this black guy won’t feel like he asked a light from a racist, and you can be safe in the knowledge that you won’t get knifed in a dark alley.
What’s black got to do with it? What does less than reputable have to with black? If I am in the neigborhood I grew up in, and I saw a black man late in the evening, I’d be worried for him, because (for all that it was less than reputable; for those who didn’t live there), it wasn’t a black neighborhood.
If I am in a bad neighborhood (such as the one I live in… two murders in the past year in walking distance of my house… on about 100 meters from my front door; while I was home), and someone is approaching me, at a time when situationally I am vulnerable, I am going to pay more attention to him.
If he crosses the street to ask me for a light, I’m going to tell people about how it. I might even make a blog post about it. I’ve done just that, in fact, about stupid drivers who didn’t know they were being stupid to motorcyclists.
Black is irrelevant in the scenario.
Black =/= Male in the equation. Yes, women can rape women. Statistically it’s almost a null set for the situation in question. But had the same scenario taken place with a women… creepy.
Propositioning people in elevators – high likelihood of creepy. Doing it at 0400, much higher. Doing it after they have said they are tired, and going to bed to sleep, higher still. Doing it after the person have a presentation on how that sort of this is creepy? Much higher Doing it when all that includes a discussion; for which one was present, after the presentation, about that very topic…. creepy and rude.
Johanna: Thanks for the lecture. Really I know all that. The point was to show the person doing something innocuous, and common; which isn’t appropriate for the context.
Johanna: Sorry, I made the mistake of thinking you were talking to me. Ion… well he might not know all that (though he will explain that he isn’t racist, which may be true, despite using a racist trope to make his example).
Haha. The lecture was for Ion. He seems to be really struggling with this issue.
and more apology for misspelling your name.
Well, Ion has just shot to the top of my personal “Men I Never Want To Be Alone With, Ever, Regardless Of The Circumstances” list.
That comment, Ion?
Pretty rapey.
A few things…
1) I see what you’re doing here.
2) The colour of the man’s skin is irrelevant. Everything else in your scenario there? Yes, you should feel threatened.
3) If you’re going to attempt to create scenarios where we’re either going to come across as racists or hypocrites, then you might want to compare statistics of black man on white man crime versus man on woman crime to see who has a more reasonable cause for concern.
Molly: 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.
Maybe the answer isn’t that women suck; but that your personality is so repellent that many people, women included, would prefer to avoid you. I know I would drop any RL friend who was as bitter, hateful and misogynistic as you. In fact, I’ve done it several times.
Pecanium: Lol.No worries. People tend to put in the “h”. I never understood why. It’s kind of a European thing I guess.
Can’t count how many times I’ve heard a woman say she wants to be left alone when she actually meant she only wanted certain people paying attention to her.
Funny how you can read all women’s minds there Ion. Like you know that a woman wants to be left alone but when Stud McStudlington shows up she suddenly change her mind.
When it could be that the guy who looks like this is no less likely to get polite “no thank you” response then the guy who looks like this. What could be the key difference is one looks like he wants to kill you-the other does not.
By the way, those are both Anthony Perkins. Funny how much a difference an expression can make in a person’s visible perceived scary factor.