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UPDATE: Vacula has resigned.
As most of you are no doubt aware, the atheist and skeptic movements have had just a teensy bit of a problem with misogyny in their ranks. You may recall the unholy shitstorm that erupted last year when Rebecca Watson of Skepchick casually mentioned in a YouTube video that it might not be such a good idea for dudes to try to hit on women in elevators at 4 AM. The assholes of the internet still haven’t forgiven Watson for her assault on the sacred right of creepy dudes to creep women out 24 hours a day, every day.
Watson is hardly the only skeptic to face vicious misogynist harassment for the crime of blogging while feminist. Last month, Jen McCreight of Blag Hag announced that near constant harassment from online bullies was wearing her down to such a degree that she felt it necessary to shut down her blog – hopefully only temporarily.
I can no longer write anything without my words getting twisted, misrepresented, and quotemined. I wake up every morning to abusive comments, tweets, and emails about how I’m a slut, prude, ugly, fat, feminazi, retard, bitch, and cunt (just to name a few). If I block people who are twisting my words or sending verbal abuse, I receive an even larger wave of nonsensical hate about how I’m a slut, prude, feminazi, retard, bitch, cunt who hates freedom of speech (because the Constitution forces me to listen to people on Twitter). This morning I had to delete dozens of comments of people imitating my identity making graphic, lewd, degrading sexual comments about my personal life. In the past, multiple people have threatened to contact my employer with “evidence” that I’m a bad scientist (because I’m a feminist) to try to destroy my job. I’m constantly worried that the abuse will soon spread to my loved ones.
I just can’t take it anymore.
McCreight’s harassers and their enablers were delighted in this “victory,” taking to Twitter to give McCreight some final kicks on the way out the door. “Good riddance, #jennifurret , you simple minded dolt,” wrote @skepticaljoe. “I couldn’t be happier,” added @SUICIDEBOMBS. “Eat shit you rape-faking scum.”
One of the celebrators that day was an atheist activist named Justin Vacula, who joked that “Jen’s allegedly finished blogging…and this time it’s not her boyfriend who kicked her off the internet.”
So here’s the latest twist:
Justin Vacula has just been given a leadership position in the Pennsylvania chapter of the Secular Coalition for America, a lobbying group for secular Americans whose advisory board includes such big names as Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Susan Jacoby, Wendy Kaminer, Steven Pinker, Salman Rushdie and Julia Sweeney.
It’s an astonishing choice. In addition to gloating that bullies had led McCreight to shut down her blog, Vacula has harassed atheist blogger and activist Surly Amy, including writing a post on A Voice for Men (yes, that A Voice for Men) cataloging all the sordid details of his supposed case against her. At one point he even posted her address, and a photo of her apartment building, on a site devoted to hating on feminist atheist bloggers.
Blogger Stephanie Zvan has set up a petition on Change.org urging the Secular Coalition of America to reconsider its choice. You can find further examples of Vacula’s questionable behavior there.
As Watson notes in a post on Skepchick, Vacula’s position with the SCA is likely to “drive progressive women away from the secular cause.” She adds,
I will never, ever get involved with SCA so long as someone like him holds a position of power anywhere, let alone in a state I live in. So Vacula is actively driving people away from SCA. …
It’s all a real shame, because SCA fills an important role in our movement and I’d like to give them my support. … I don’t believe secular organizations should reward bullies and bigots with high-level positions, even if those positions are volunteer-only.
I recommend that everyone here take a look at the petition.
I’m a bit disappointed that the thread has turned into a theism vs non-theism debate. The blog is about harassment of women in the atheist community.
@Thomas – dude, you need to get over this idea that arguing about semantics is going to change anything. It won’t. Finding what you think is some sort of tiny evidential flaw is not going to render the overall opinion null. I still think this guy is a douche and I signed the petition just based on the contents of this blog post, and there’s no argument, no deconstruction of anything, that you can put forward that will change that.
@ftpansy – feel free to talk about something else and see if that changes the conversation? Nobody’s stopping you from chiming in. Of course, nobody’s required to respond to you either if they really want to talk about theism v. non-theism.
@ftpansy: That is par for this course. Stick around. It’s not always theism vs. non-theism. Sometimes, we talk about Doctor Who. Sometimes, there are memes. On rare occasions, we glimpse the gleaming opulent horse of superior Aryan intellect. And all those on third shift then at work shall think themselves unfortunate they were not here, and ask for links and recaps in the threads when any of us say, Hey, this was a thing.
I think NWO already belongs to that church.
We atheists and secularists have enough poor PR. Really don’t need bigots infiltrating positions of power in our organizations.
Urg, I heard about this thing earlier, though didn’t hear that the troll identified as a secular humanist. Honestly, I sometimes think asking “why are there so many misogynist douchecanoes in xyz movement” is like asking “why are there so many flies around the garbage bin?” Misogyny is rampant in our culture, it’s totally normal, usually seen as welcome, encouraged even, for dudes to write letters to famous ladypersons who they do not deem appropriately attractive to their standards, or write dozens of blog posts bashing her, etc, etc, etc. It’s therefore deeply depressing, but not surprising, that the same kinds of asshats who think lady anchor = there to look good for me, can range from Priests and Pastors to athiest bloggers and just about anyone in between.
That Livingston’s troll specifically was all “think of the little girls in particular” is pretty telling. He may as well have incoherently raged “Y R U FAT IN PUBLIC WHILE BEING A LADYPERSON!??!? LITTLE GIRLS MIGHT THINK ITS OK TO EXIST WHILE FAT AND LADYPERSON-ESQUE AND THAT WOULD BE TERRIBLE BECAUSE BONERS WOULD DIE!!11!1!” It’s pretty much the same argument, but souped up in “BUT HEALTH” concern trolling. If that guy actually, legitimately gives two farts about a total stranger’s health, I’ll eat my hat.
@pecunium
Well, Wikipedia says this: “Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour intended to disturb or upset, and it is characteristically repetitive. In the legal sense, it is intentional behaviour which is found threatening or disturbing. ”
I’m not convinced that what happened fits this definition. But I’m not really interested in arguing over the word harassment. So let’s call it a draw.
Apart from that, David’s post is tendentious. He depicts Vacula as the villain. The reality is much less black and white. I’m a casual observer of the drama which goes on in the atheist blogosphere since the elevator incident. Watson, Myers et. al. are by no means blameless for the escalation. This attack against Vacula is another political move from their side.
Everyone should inform themselves and listen to the other side of the story before they sign the petition. I think that’s a fair request.
Everyone wants to call it a draw right after they’ve said their piece. I think that’s a “let’s call it a you don’t get to reply to what I said.” And dude. Stop quoting definitions.
@Thomas
Lol, it’s the intelligent design argument! “You have your beliefs, and I have my beliefs, and talkjing about the things that are fucked up in my beliefs makes me uncomfortable, ergo both our opinions are equally valid.”
Have you rationalized how Vacula is still a good person even though he submitted an article to a hate site?
I might have missed it in all the shuffle.
@Skyrimjob
‘Christian privilege is a thing; of course, there’s a difference between that and being “persecuted”.’
This is a good point. I know ‘privilege’ has been done to death, bit one of the signs that you’ve got it is that, when it slips away at all, it often feels, for the first time, like persecution. So if you’re living a relatively comfy life in every other way, being the target of any prejudice whatsoever feels like the worst thing ever. Not that that is the same thing as ‘Dear Muslima.’ American atheists don’t need to be imprisoned for their non-belief before they’re allowed to complain about prejudice against them (I’ve never felt it, but I know it exists in certain communities. Though I’d argue that they’ve got an even better chance than gay kids of moving to a big city and being accepted). But if their status as a human and basic respect are granted to them based on their race, class, skin color whathaveyou, then not being able to check one box in a form (religion) will stand out.
I’m feeling that the odds of Thomas being sgbwys are looking pretty good. He’s just here because David is only telling one half of the story? Why won’t he let hateful assholes tell their side of the story?
Also, can we start a pool on what Thomas’ rationalization for Vacula posting of avfm will be?
I’m thinking
2 to 1 he ignores it entirely
3 to 1 some variation of “A Voice for Men isn’t hateful, all those things they say about rape and abuse are just foolin'”
4 to 1: “Yes, it’s a hate site, but they make some pretty good points, so maybe Vacula was there for those. Just like how people who are into States Rights sometimes find themselves through no fault of their own publishing white supremacist newsletters”
5 to 1: “Where else would he have been able to publish? Using WordPress on your own is SO HARD.”
Re duck: don’t worry about the worms. There are relatively few ones in ducks that infect the tissues that people eat and those are all killed by cooking. If you eat meat you’ve definitely eaten a lot of parasites.
Farmed ducks are still full of worms, which is pretty much what vets take care of. One of the most efficient ways to transmit a parasite (or any pathogen really) is to group a whole bunch of the same animal together in a small space. Bonus points if they’re coprophagous critters, like many, many farm animals.
I remember a secularist saying that women were an evolutionary joke. It’s sad that there’s misogyny everywhere.
Speaking of when privilege slips away, even slightly…
There’s a guy who was so upset that people other than white/cis/straight men were listened to during the Occupy movement that he has now become an MRA & friend of JtO.
It’s a really long, terribly written blog post, but this was my favorite part:
WHY DO FEMINISTS HATE JUGGLERS?
The ending is also pretty hilarious:
BALLERINAS ARE THE MALE FERTILIZING ORGANS OF PRIVILEGE!
The r/mr discussion is here.
Thomas:
The whole thing blew up because of a completely unreasonable reaction to a reasonable request that happened to come from a woman. How the bloody blue fuck could Myers, Watson, or anyone on the FtB/A+ side be responsible for escalating harrassment when there was no imaginable justification for the reaction to Watson’s original statement to begin with?
@katz
Everyone wants to call it a draw right after they’ve said their piece.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhEw7nD9C4
😉
I am so over these “let’s consider all sides” trolls. I’ve considered your side, and it’s odious. Next.
About the whole idea that faith is a cognitive flaw (or the result of a cognitive flaw? that would make more sense from a psych perspective). Can you link to the study/studies that found this? Because if you can’t, or there aren’t any, what you’re doing is just asserting an opinion that happens to slot perfectly into your view of the world, which is its own kind of flawed thinking.
Please note that I am an atheist too. I’m just not convinced that any psychologist has ever done actual, peer-reviewed research that “proves” that religious faith is “a cognitive flaw”.
(Admittedly the fact that this is being phrased in a way that psychologists wouldn’t normally phrase things is not helping in terms of me believing that this is the result of actual research.)
@Skyrim
I’m very open about being an atheist, and I’ve never been “attacked”, blacklisted, etc. Upon reflection I can see how this may not be the case in other parts of the country, like the Bible Belt, but in the lefty parts of California? Nope, not really much of a thing in my experience. I’ve certainly had debates with religious people here, but none of them have led to discrimination against me.
(Also, remember that California is a very big state with a lot of differences between different areas. The social climate here is not “liberal” in a uniform way – the Central Valley is not like the Bay Area is not like the rather rural north is not like LA. I’m in the heart of the Bay Area, and in the 15 years I’ve been living here I’ve encountered more atheists and agnostics than religious people. Some other parts of the state, otoh, are really quite socially conservative. Remember when there was a proposition trying to ban gay marriage? You could actually see the breakdown in terms of liberal/socially conservative areas, right there on the map. LA was a firm “no”, Orange County much more fond of the idea, and so on.)
THE BALLERINA IS A STAMEN OF PRIVILEGE!
THE BALLERINA IS A STAMEN OF PRIVILEGE!
THE BALLERINA IS A STAMEN OF PRIVILEGE!
THE BALLERINA IS A STAMEN OF PRIVILEGE!
Ugh, now I’ve got to go read the whole thing. Thanks, Cloudiah!
(I actually mean that thanks sincerely. I just wish these dudes weren’t so fucking longwinded.)
I like that one of the r/mr commenters has declared that post “a masterwork.”
David, that’s only because he couldn’t spell “masturbatory.”
Also I’m curious what you mean by “confrontational”. Obviously people shouldn’t be discriminated against no matter how confrontational they are, but I can see how being very confrontational towards religious people would probably lead to them not liking you very much. As an example, Sally is being confrontational here, and even other atheists are being put off by it.
I just hope he never fixes that “juggler” typo, ‘cos it’s hilarious. I’ve screencapped it and will look at it whenever I need a laugh.
I used to write like that. When I was 13.
Is Ballerina, Stamen of Privilege the new Alpha Cock Carousel?
Cloudiah: Ha, I missed “juggler.” Is that next to the carroted?