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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.
Yeah, I just copied and pasted the piece from Vacula’s blog and the AVfM piece. The AVfM piece is a solid 2k longer than the one on his blog, and none of the added material hits on google as having a source outside of AVfM. Meaning it didn’t come from a subsequent clarification on his blog. The only what you’re saying can be true, PG, is if he went back and re-edited his post on his own blog.
But that doesn’t really change things, does it? He’s totally fine with his article being published alongside cries for rape to be legal.
Stopped reading, started laughing.
Yes, let’s not forget the slur “gender traitor” preceding the slur “femistasi.” Because “gender traitor” doesn’t at all sound like something out the handguide of McCarthyism. Only in this case, I suppose McCreightism would be more apt. (Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all night.) Let’s also not forget that feminist theory have redefined misogyny to epic proportions. Misogyny means the hatred of women. Misogyny does not include criticising a feminist because of her vapid opinions and awful mindset. Say it with me: a misogynist hates women. If you want to make the extraordinary leap of saying that people who criticise feminists or people who call women “cunts” or “twats” are misogynists, that’s your prerogative. You just would have to accept the fact that not everyone would take you seriously.
I can see why you like Atheism+ so much.
OH BOY we got a dictionary troll!
Define more words for us, PG!
ooh ooh I got a good one: racism against white people is just as bad as racism against black people because the dictionary defines racism as prejudice based on skin color! I like that one.
My goodness, what an EXTRAORDINARY leap that would be. Golly whiz, I just can’t fathom how calling a woman a “cunt” or a “twat” could possibly considered misogyny. Nope indeedy.
Oh yeah, because people who cal women cunts or twats really, really LOVE women.
Oooh, was this the first time he broke out the wiki-list fallacies, or did I just miss it earlier? It’s like giving a kid a puzzle with several mismatched pieces and a hammer- the damn piece is going to fit whether it makes a bit of sense or not. Oh, PG, before you go ‘but you didn’t address my arguments and ad hominem I’m telling my mom!’, you kind of already got tuned by posters who care enough to read you reliving your high school debate days. And before you go ‘Show me where exactly I got tuned’, just scroll up and reread- that’s you getting tuned.
I love this game! “Homophobia” means the fear of gay people. I’m not afraid of them! I just think they’re disgusting and shouldn’t have the same rights as normal people!*
Alternatively, when you break it down to the Latin, “homophobia” means fear of sameness. And I don’t fear sameness! I want everyone to be just like me!*
*Not meant to be a factual statement.
I should really refresh more often. Unimaginative, you ninja’d me!
Next we’ll be suggesting people who want women to leave the workforce and give up the vote are misogynists! What a wacky bunch we have here.
Well, let’s give our new toy a little credit with the not figuring out the provenance of Vacula’s AVfM piece. The intro was written with the standard of grammar I expect from MRAs and was thus a bit ambiguous and difficult to parse.
Translated for the benefit of the toys: you and your friends are dumb.
Cloudiah, it bears repeating. At least I think so- that’s why I took a dig as well.
@ Cloudiah, I’m like a silent knife in the darkness. I move like smoke. Invisible, magic smoke.
The people that are running the smear campaign against Vacula are trash talking media grabbers. PZ, Laden, Watson, Jen, Ophelia… they have decided to run their own little coffee clutch of chatty playground bullies called A+. Of course, they will do whatever they can to destroy other people’s reputation so they can get more hits on their crappy blogs. Shame on you all!
I think that one of the things that atheism and secularism tend to attract are the “logical” assholes- people who think that as long as they act like a real life version of Spock, they can say whatever horrible, nasty thing as long as they act all composed and use big, pseudo scientific words they want because donchaknow it makes them OBJECTIVE AND STUFF.
Every movement has people like this, but I think that the “Spock types” rise to the top because they play into the idea that if one appears rational, they must BE rational, and since men in general tend to already have the sort of privilege on their side to be PERCEIVED as automatically more logical/rational/authority, it basically unfairly favors men.
My husband used to be more of an “anti-religious” atheist (I think this comes from him growing up going to Catholic school all his life). I’m more of a soft-atheist and I still enjoy a lot of secular versions of religious holidays. It got to the point where I was afraid to sing certain Christmas carols because he would be all grouchy and ranty and it really bugged me a lot.
So I finally discussed it with him and he toned down the religiosity hate thing, and eventually, he really mellowed out about it and we both really only complain when we see overt religious bigotry.
So yeah, I know that secularism is something that I tend to enjoy more than religiosity, but there’s problems there too, and as far as I’m concerned, I can’t stand assholes, regardless of whether or not they believe in some deity(s).
@John D, [gah did this get posted on some troll-board?] Have you considered providing some content in your comments? I dunno, just a thought. Granted that we are all about mockery here, so I am happy to mock your posts even though they lack any substance — it’s just that it’s such an EASY target.
Ok, difference between telling the world about bad shit that some guy did and a smear campaign- a smear campaign usually involves telling the world about bad shit people did, but it can be exaggerated and is usually motivated by something other than Wanting people to know about the bad shit some guy did. Like two people competing for the same office or something. In this instance, people are just floored that an internet bully and a man who makes the effort to communicate personal information about someone in a transparent attempt to open her to harassment has a position of any type of prestige or authority. Look, the man may not have done something illegal, but he did something disgraceful and he does not deserve to be in a position of trust. That’s not a smear, that’s a fact.
What is up with bullies lately? Getting all whiney, behaving as if they’re victimized, and calling the people they’re bullying bullies. It seems to be an internet thing lately.
If somebody says “Hey, I don’t like the vibe here. I’m going off to do this other, similar thing but with a groovier vibe”, that’s not bullying.
If somebody says “Hey, you said something that I disagree with, and I don’t like you, and I think you’re ugly and stupid, and I’d really like for you to be raped or killed, and in order to facilitate that, I hereby reveal your general whereabouts”, that’s bullying.
They are not in any way similar actions.
It’s that projection thing again.
Here’s Vacula’s piece on AVFM. I like this bit:
I love the irony of this. Propose banning items of clothing with targeted, harassing messages? She must be disqualified from the discussion, I say! But posting on a hate site where a link to Thomas Ball’s call to violence is accessible from the front page under the “Activism” drop-down? Whoa whoa whoa, slow down, that would be, like, guilt by association, man, don’t try to disqualify him from participation in some kind of, like, atheist group.
I stand corrected. The added commentary seems to be written for AVfM specifically. My mistake. In any case, again, it doesn’t matter. The subject matter has little to do with blasting feminists, and the language composed are not inciteful or inflammatory. It’s to do with Surly Amy and the DMCA claim.
Let me get this straight. None of you are judging Justin on guilt by assocation with Paul Elam who supports legalising rape*, yet you are saying he has no qualms with contributing to a website run by Paul Elam. Which means what? If the principles of guilt by association does not apply here (which it shouldn’t), what are you implying?
*Again, I can’t find the article where he says this. Is it a paraphrase? Has he removed it?
Cloudiah, Ophelia Benson linked to this post on her blog (“The sacred right of the creepy dudes“). PG and John D are regular anti-FTB trolls whose most recent notable work was crapping all over The Crommunist Manifesto. *waves at the familiar toys*
timetraveelingfool described our influx of
people just using Reason And Logic to question our feminist dogma and scripturestrolls quite well:It’s also pretty much the whole last year since Elevatorgate in a single sentence.
Actually, PG, I believe people strongly suspect Justin knew full well his piece was being published in AVFM and encouraged it. Which isn’t guilt by association, he is actually help building what is, for all intents and purposes, a hate blog. Scroll up, a poster responded as much earlier.
Why is guilt by association NOT enough reason to reject this guy?
This dude wrote something for a horrible blog that contains horrible shit. That’s enough for me to decide I don’t like him. I don’t have to present a case Sam Waterson could deliver in court complete with emphatic hand gestures to make that decision, or to conclude any dude who wants to associate with AVfM is not someone I would want to know or have in charge of anything.