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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.
Thomas: This is a non-paid, volunteer position, important in the sense of the group he’ll be leading, but “career” implies a paid job.
When certain people try to enter a group and they are met with an overall hostile climate towards them, they are far less likely to join, which leads to the jerks continuing to dominate that group.
And then if the same people who feel uncomfortable in that group try to make someplace new to talk about their own issues, the jerks go after them and call them “divisive” and tell them they’re ruining everything, and why can’t they just deal with being oppressed, it’s not such a big deal, waaah, waaah, waaah.
Katz and thenatfantastic – well said! From what I’ve seen, ‘entitled whiny white men’ seems to sum up a LOT of the carryings-on, at least on the internet. I’m not atheist, these days. Used to be pretty close to it, but events have changed that – no, I’m not religious either. There seems to be such a sour mindset in a lot of the internet atheist sites, though I guess that says more about the ‘net than anything else. Mind you, the same was true of the Australian Sceptics’ magazine that I briefly subscribed to; it was very much the “We’re atheists, we’re so much smarter than anyone else!” sort of thing.
Strewth, that’s starting to read like a derail. tl;dr – finding out about the level of misogyny in the atheist movement didn’t surprise me.
Oh and Dawkins sucks.
Apparently, freedom of speech only applies to *them* and their supposed “right” to spread slander, yet it doesn’t apply to the people they disagree with. It’s so hypocritical and contradictory.
David’s also right about STEM: It can definitely lead to “I’m in the sciences because I have a MAN-BRAIN!”, hence all the disparaging attitudes towards the humanities and especially the social scientists.
Thomas: I think Vacula will tank his own “career,” no help needed from anyone else. He made his bed, he can roll around in it.
Recognize! m/
There was the time my mother decided to put me in a Catholic daycare, yet neglected to explain nuns to me. Since this was the early ’70s and these particular nuns still wore the full-on black robes with wimples, it scared the everloving SHIT out of my four year old self.
I know this post is about Vacula (who sucks), but I just wanted to say, it gives me the warm fuzzies to find a space where so many other people are also not impressed with Dawkins.
@ katz
Really?
Then, based on some of the most egregious examples, like Rebecca Watson, I see some of these chicks treating feminism as proof of their superior intellect and morality because they don’t think the patriarchy (and male, white, heterosexual, cisgendered, able-bodied privilege) are silly superstitions (in a Western society) like all those sheeples. So they define themselves as being superior to other people by virtue of being a feminist, and once one has accepted the premise “I’m better than other people because I’m an atheist”, it’s not a very big jump to “I’m better than other people because I’m a Westerner” or “I’m better than other people because I’m not a man.” See? It goes both ways. Unlike you, though, I don’t like false equivalences and logical fallacies. So that analogy there? Is shit. It’s shit and I denounce it.
Moreover, this line right here:
“I’m better than other people because I’m a man.”
Bugger off.
I was a leader of a secular group on campus for a short time. We had one complete and utter asshole. His idea of a fun joke was to draw Jesus raping humanity. he would also regularly bully his girlfriend and any other members. To my shame, I didn’t shut him down sooner.
Though, I take the experience as an object lesson.
I just remembered the one and only Dawkins moment I enjoyed: when Andrew Denton interviewed him on Enough Rope, and ended by mischievously asking him “What’s your star sign?” Dawkins’s expression was priceless.
Some of you are questioning who I am. I am new to the site, although I’ve known about it for some time. My husband is a regular reader. I am an atheist activist.
I did donate $5, because that’s what I had in my account. I can click a PayPal button. I work in non-profit. My husband makes a lot more money than I do. You should be more charitable in your assumptions.
Sorry for the chilly reception, and welcome ftpansy.
Ah hellkell, the penguin ladies would have terrified me. My parents didn’t explain to me who Jesus was before sending me to Lutheran daycare. And I was at that stage where small children just discover swearing… good times.
Re posting addresses:
Posting someone’s address in the context of a dispute is pretty widely understood as a “will someone rid me of this meddlesome priest” sort of move, regardless of if that information is available otherwise. Think about how anti-abortion nuts post lists of doctor’s addresses and claim shock when someone decides to shoot one.
Vacula’s intent really doesn’t matter. If he didn’t realize that this was a threatening move, he’s too much of a dumbass to be in a position of responsibility. If he realized this and decided to carry on anyway, he’s too much of an asshole. He’s an ass either way.
Oh dear. Friendly fire. Here ftpansy, have a chicken climbing a cat (I highly suggest turning up the sound, because omg cute):
I get so sick of people over using the word misogyny. Its becoming pretty pathetic now and soon the word will have little to no meaning (like the word troll for instance).
The atheist community is not misogynistic BUT I have no doubt that there are many anti-feminist elements present. It is important to note however that these are 2 totally different things.
Feminism is like Islam or Christianity. Its dogma, scripture and superstitions don’t jive well with people who are, can we say, skeptical at heart.
Feminism continues to show its true colors and people are waking up to what feminism is really about. I think most rational and intelligent people who sympathize with pure feminism or the women’s suffrage movement have to distance themselves from the label, “feminist” and for good reason.
Feminism is nothing but the fleecing of its own disillusioned supporters by marginalizing men and creating perpetual victims of women. Its really disgusting and it has to stop.
@ftpansey- Don’t take it too hard. I had a new one ripped for me when I first started posting and I was criticizing a troll. No hard feelings about it, just there are so many trolls and troll socks that pop by here, start off reasonable and slowly stir in the crazy the regulars kind of shoot from the hip. It’s kind of a comment mosh pit here, just roll with it.
By the way, David, Surly Amy’s “address” being posted? Was to her business. It was public information which anyone who’d Google Amy Davis Roth could find in a matter of seconds. Furthermore it was in the context of a 100-200+ comment thread about Justin Vacula being false DMCA’d by—or someone who claimed to be—Surly Amy. The issue of her address came up when someone said it would be a problem for Justin to file a counter-claim just to find out her address. That is the context in which he was operating. There was no malice aforethought, there was no threat. Not to mention that hours later, Surly Amy herself gave it up by posting it on Twitter.
Arguing that he “exposed” her address, as Zvan and others have claimed, is ridiculous.
However, at least he acknowledged it was a mistake, edited his post and apologised. I haven’t seen such forthright honesty from Greg Laden, who threatened a fellow blogger with physical violence and stalked Abbie Smith attempting to get her fired from her job.
So thomas is trying to use some sort of logic to explain why a group of people yelling louder and meaner than a blogger are actually protecting free speech, and they shouldn’t expect real world repercussions for their actions? And how googling and posting the personal information of a blogger to a group of people who a) hate that blogger and b) are known for taking personal information and using it to harass individuals was some sort of coincidence and not motivated by malice at all? Ah, these dudes, the Reasoning dudes. Give them a wiki list of logical fallacies and an ax to grind and they can convince themselves up is down and the sky is made of cats.
I have no problems with Vacula having a career. I don’t know what his job is, but I don’t want him to be fired from it (assuming that he’s doing a competent job at it). However, as an atheist, I get to have an opinion about who’s leading groups that represent me.
But the men’s rights movement, that is all about the logic, and that is why Vacula posted at AVfM, amirite?
@PG
lol at Rebecca Watson being “some of the most egregious examples.” Elevatorgate was just like being associated with a hate group, amirite?
Sorry, ftpansy! I guess I just had my troll glasses on and gave you the least charitable possible interpretation. I should have taken you at face value. /sinceritymode
Re sublbc:
Aww crap, there’s feminist scripture now? What is it? I hope it isn’t too long; I really don’t have room on my bookshelves.
Feminist superstitions, now that I’ll grant. I always make sure to make the sign of Venus when a man crosses my path and to throw a tampon over my left shoulder if I spill blood during the monthly ritual ball-busting.
@ Nepenthe
Sure, if you remove all context from the equation, then it would always be threatening to post an address that’s publicly available to everyone. However since we’re not supposed to be dishonest and deliberately neglect to include important information, for the sake of argument, let us do consider it for a change. With the right context at our disposal, the act of “exposing” Surly Amy’s business address was to prove it was public information, in a long, long thread concerning his falce DMCA from Amy (or someone claiming to be her). With no evidence to support your wild assertions of it being a “threat”, we know that without evidence it can be dismissed without evidence. In fact, repeatedly asserting it’s a “threat” or “threatening move” when neither Justin have said nor inferred as much, can be interpreted as projection and not an actual state of fact.
To state that he “realised this and decided to carry on anyway” is also a falsehood, when it’s been confirmed many times he later did, edited his post and apologised. But when all you have in your bag of tricks is distortion and childish name-calling (dumbass, asshole, ass), it’s not surprising the line between facts and fiction becomes blurry.