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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.
PG, here’s Elam’s article:
http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/government-tyranny/on-jury-nullification-and-rape/
Oh, and posting her address and a picture of her apartment building- that isn’t association, dude, that was a deliberate and malicious act.
So if I published a post about kitten therapy (it’s a THING, people) on Stormfront, calling me out for it would be a fallacy. And yes, I do consider AVfM to be similar to Stormfront.
Go look up the god damn guilt by association fallacy. It does not mean what you think it means.
Guilt by association is “Hilter was a vegetarian, Hitler was bad, therefore vegetarians are bad.” Or, “David Duke endorses Candidate X. David Duke is a racist fuckwad Therefore candidate X is a racist fuckwad”.
This situation is “Candidate X shares dinner with David Duke.* David Duke is a racist fuckwad; moreover there is no other purpose to David Duke besides racist fuckwaddery. Therefore Candidate X is cozy with racist fuckwads.” That’s not guilt by association fallacy, it’s just guilt by association.
*Situation intentionally hyperbolic for the benefit of dim bulbs.
Re the influx of fresh meat:
Ophelia Benson’s posted a link on her blog, the new guys are trolls from over there. I posted an explanation, but it’s in moderation for links and I imagine David’s asleep.
Technically, Elam doesn’t support legalizing rape de jure, PG, he supports jury nullification in rape trials because of the apparent epidemic of false rape accusations, which would be a de facto legalization of rape.
That may be why you are having trouble finding it.
I’m noticing that a lot of these Logic R Us misogynist “skeptics” tend to accuse people of fallacies, when it’s really just the thing.
Like, saying you’re ugly and therefore you’re wrong is an ad hominem attack and a logical fallacy. But saying you’re ugly, and you’re wrong is a little insulting, but it’s not a logical fallacy.
What I’m saying is, they use a lot of words in ways that suggest they don’t really understand what those words mean. And then they get all arrogant and superior and imply that they’re smarter than the people they’re trying to put down.
It’s mildly amusing.
Guilt by association would be “Bob is an arsehole because he and Paul Elam are members of the same yacht club. Even though the yacht club has nothing to do with anything but sailing, they are sometimes in the same room together, therefore Bob sucks.”
Not guilt by association “Vacula is ok with his blog posts being posted on a site which has the express purpose of promoting arseholery. He either is an arsehole or supports arseholery”.
See how that works?
Wait, David sleeps?!!?!??
David doesn’t sleep, he just goes back to obeying the whimsical commands of his cats. He posts here on his breaks, poor guy.
There’s nothing funnier than watching a bunch of guys who’ve made atheism their identity spout not even vaguely retooled religious dogma about women’s irrational nature without the slightest trace of self-awareness as to where they absorbed that particular idea from.
I’m another atheist from birth, btw. Both of my parents were raised Christian, so I was taken to church a few times as a child (for weddings, funerals, etc), but it was a cultural rather than religious sort of Christianity – neither of them were actual believers. “But I don’t believe in God, and neither do you really, so why do you want me to go?” got me excused from Sunday School, and that was the end of that. Maybe that’s why I never had the, um, zeal that some atheists demonstrate when they have their moment of conversion (after which they tend to behave just as irritatingly as any other new convert). The idea that atheists are actively persecuted in America is laughable – I’ve been here for 15 years, and have yet to see any evidence of atheists being persecuted. Not centered, sure, ignored, yep, but persecuted? If “everyone at my office is putting up Christmas stuff and they think I’m a spoilsport for not joining in” is your idea of persecution then you’ve led an unusually easy life.
The reason I don’t participate in atheist forums, other than the tiresome missionary zeal that some atheists display, is stuff like this.
The kindest possible interpretation of that comment is that the person who wrote it is a Poe attempting to parody what happens when not very bright people think that because they’re atheists they’re super intelligent and masters of debate. The less kind but more realistic interpretation is that the person who wrote that sentence is a barely literate imbecile.
My parents were presbyterians, and I still go to church around christmas because my mother’s church has amazing music (and to make my sweet mother happy), but I also have been an atheist since I was conscious of the existence of religion. My personal experience of atheist spaces in my area plus my commitment to feminism are the reasons I am not involved in organized atheism.
Yeah, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that people who call women “cunts” and “twats” are, in fact, likely to be misogynists. If believing this means that pretentious wankers fail to take me seriously, well, that’s just the icing on the cake.
Hahahah, OH WORD, they aren’t attacking women, they’re just being misogynist and advocating for domestic terrorism targeting women and legal officials.
Also, if you don’t think AVfM “explicitly perpetuates ideas of inferiority,” I’m forced to assume you have never read literally anything posted on AVfM.
@ Tulgey Logger
Logic fail. He said “disqualified from discussion concerning anti-harassment policies.” Which would make sense in the context, as fake jewelry cannot and should not rightly be considered harassment by any stretch of the imagination. Best if you read the whole thing, but even better if you read it correctly.
—
@ Unimaginative
…
Oh, and I suppose that’s what the FTB crowd has done, is it? Oh wait. That’s not actually true at all, is it?
And this is what the denizens of the Slimepit did, did they? They threatened with rape and murder, and Justin Vacula specifically posted her address on the Slimepit to facilitate rape and murder?
…
…
CassandraSays, your cat is my favorite cat. Good job.
-facepalm-
PG: But that’s… not our claim. Our claim would be equivalent to “my opponent for office used to volunteer for the Puppy Haters Association. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe he hates puppies.”
“My opponent published an editorial in the Puppy Haters’ Association about how Pro-Puppyists are censorious liars, deliberately misrepresenting the claims of a Pro-Puppyist, whom he also harassed. In conclusion, could someone remind me why this person is a candidate again?”
Pardon me, this is the equivalent of the “Dear Muslima” argument, no? Unusually easy life? I mean, I don’t have all the cards on the table, and I can’t know for sure if any atheist in the US have indeed been, as you say, persecuted or not, but if you wish to marginalise their plight of feeling persecuted to leading an “unusually easy life”, go ahead. I’m only being slightly sarcastic.
The issue was how people keep referring it to as a threat, when no such indication has been made by neither Justin Vacula nor the Slymepit and therefore the assertion should be dismissed as it lacks evidence to support it. The other issue being that if you keep referring it to as such without evidence, it could be interpreted as projection rather than fact. I don’t see what my being an atheist have to do with making such conclusions. Well, other than the fact I might be a barely literate imbecile. (Amazing how quickly one side resorts to name-calling, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you agree, Unimaginative?)
It was wrong to call PG “barely literate.” PG is clearly adept at reading the fine print tattooed on the inside of PG’s colon.
badandfierce: I know the story of which you speak, and the ending isn’t quite as happy as all that; there were some problematic interactions with him (on the part of people I know, and indirectly with myself) at another convention in the past month.
Of course they’re not going to *admit* it’s a threat, admitting it’s a threat will make them look bad. However, I believe there’s a common Internet norm that posting the name and address of someone on your blog will make them fear for their safety (regardless of how rational that fear is).
No, dear PG, the equivalent of the “Dear Muslima” argument would have to include the corollary that since the average atheist doesn’t experience a whole lot of of nasty discrimination, he or she ought to shut up and concentrate on fixing the very horrible problems faced by atheists in, say, Pakistan or Indonesia, to name two countries that have engaged in actual persecution of atheists recently.
The paragraph you were quoting from is simply explaining why the author is not convinced that atheists in the USA face significant persecution.
If you disagree, please, go ahead and argue your case, but trying to set it up as a “Dear Muslima” argument? That gambit’s been played out for months. You anti-feminist atheists need to get better programmers.
Now, to this whole guilt by association thing: NO. You are wrong, PG. The fact that Vacula chose to post on AVfM shows one of two things: 1. He approves of the misogyny that the site promotes as part of its mission or 2. He hates Surly Amy, Skepchick, and other feminist atheists so much that he is willing to overlook said misogyny. Either option does not speak well of his character. Either option lends support to the idea that Vacula subscribes to some misogynist ideas himself.
But then, let us not forget that we are talking to PG, the person who attempted to lecture Crommunist and other people of color about the really real dictionary definition of the n-word and why they ought not take offense at it. And, of course, why nothing short of proclaiming via megaphone on national TV one’s universal and abiding hatred for all women should be considered “misogyny.”
Hey, NWOdroppings!
He thinks that Rebecca is a bitch and Manboobz is a hate site.
…Dude, are you even TRYING anymore?