Almost three years ago, a feminist activist committed what many not-so-impartial observers apparently see as an unpardonable sin: she was less than polite to a small squad of Men’s Rights activists at a demonstration in Toronto. At least one of these gentlemen caught her outburst on video, and uploaded it to YouTube.
You know the rest: the video went viral, and the activist, a red-headed woman known as Chanty Binx (or “Big Red,” to the douchebag army), found herself suddenly transformed into “The Posterchild of Everything Wrong with Feminism,” as one of her haters put it. Her face has become ubiquitous in antifeminist memes, and she’s endured nearly three years of harassment.
Earlier this month, antifeminist YouTuber Sargon of Akkad — who makes his living pandering to some of the internet’s worst lady haters — posted an animated video by another antifeminist YouTuber in which an angry Islamist and an angry feminist sing a song explaining that they pretty much believe all the same things. (For some reason, this nonsensical theory is something that a lot of antifeminists have convinced themselves is true.)
The angry Islamist in the video is a familiar racist stereotype, complete with “funny” accent. [Correction: He’s evidently supposed to be a parody of this guy, known as Dawah Man, a legitimately terrible person you wouldn’t think atheists would have to strawman in order to criticize..]
The angry feminist, meanwhile, isn’t a generic figure; she’s an especially crude caricature of Binx, spouting nonsense that neither Binx nor any other feminist actually believes: the video ends with her encouraging the Islamist to rape her, because it’s not really rape if a Muslim does it, dontchaknow.
It’s a vicious, hateful little cartoon made worse by the fact that these words are being put in the mouth of a real woman who’s been the target of a vast harassment campaign for years.
Yesterday, Richard Dawkins, apparently seeing this horrendous video as a clever takedown of some brand of feminism that he must think actually exists, shared it with his 1.3 million Twitter followers:
Dawkins, a well-respected scientist-turned-embarrassing-atheist-ideologue, has become notorious for his endless Twitter gaffes. But this is plainly worse than, say, his famously pathetic lament about airport security “dundridges” taking his jar of honey; his Tweet contributed to the demonization of a real woman who’s already the target of harassment and threats.
The awesome Lindy West pointed this out to him in a series of Tweets and linked to one of my posts cataloging some of the abuse Binx got after the video of her went viral.
In a series of eloquent and angry Tweets, she made clear to Dawkins how and why he was misusing his huge platform and contributing to an atmosphere of hate online. Dawkins, alternately indignant and defensive, ultimately took down the offending Tweet, but not before making other Tweets that were nearly as bad. Dawkins can’t even do the right thing without being a dick about it.
Let’s watch Lindy at work:
After what was apparently an unsatisfactory response from Dawkins — I couldn’t find his Tweet, if there was one — West repeated and expanded upon her basic points. [EDIT: The unsastisfactory respose, West tells me, was that Dawkins posted a link to one of the videos of Chanty Binx at the Toronto demonstration.]
Well, that got his attention:
So there you have it: when informed that a tweet of his will almost certainly worsen the vicious harassment faced by a young woman whose only “crime” was being rude to a couple of MRAs in public, Richard Dawkins, a one-time winner of the American Humanist Association’s Humanist of the Year Award, replies by saying that “she deserves nothing more than ridicule.”
West replied:
Dawkins then decided to suggest that perhaps Binx was, you know, crazy:
Dawkins ultimately agreed to take down his Tweet linking to the execrable video. But he offered no apology. And he went on to suggest that just maybe Binx had … threatened herself.
We’ve seen this, er, argument before.
Does Dawkins have any conception of just how much abuse women like Chanty Binx get? If she were sending herself all the threatening and harassing messages she gets, she wouldn’t have time to eat or sleep.
And I wonder if Dawkins thinks she drew the caricature of herself that was used in the video he retweeted.
Thoughtful as ever, Dawkins made sure to remind his 1.3 million followers that Binx still deserved all the mockery they could deliver. Just not the death threats please!
And he begged his readers to think about the real victims here — those people, like him, who might have to curtail their mockery somewhat because their terrible, terrible fans might be inspired to hurt someone.
RIP, Richard Dawkins’ comedy career.
Is Dawkins actually unaware that by punching down at a woman who’s already been the target of a three year harassment campaign he almost certainly is contributing to the threats he claims to deplore? It’s hard for me to believe that he could be so naive. But the alternative explanation — that he knows full well that he’s encouraging the harassers — is even more disquieting.
One good thing has come out of this ugly episode today: The Northeast Conference on Science & Skepticism has un-invited Dawkins from its event this year. A post on the group’s website today explains:
The Northeast Conference on Science & Skepticism has withdrawn its invitation to Richard Dawkins to participate at NECSS 2016. We have taken this action in response to Dr. Dawkins’ approving re-tweet of a highly offensive video.
We believe strongly in freedom of speech and freedom to express unpopular, and even offensive, views. However, unnecessarily divisive, counterproductive, and even hateful speech runs contrary to our mission and the environment we wish to foster at NECSS. The sentiments expressed in the video do not represent the values of NECSS or its sponsoring organizations.
We will issue a full refund to any NECSS attendee who wishes to cancel their registration due to this announcement.
The NECSS Team
Good for them. The atheist movement needs to stand up to the haters and harassers in its midst, including those like Dawkins, who may not directly harass or threaten but who use their huge platforms to amplify and embolden this hatred and harassment.
It would be nice if Dawkins were to actually learn something — a little humanity, a little humility? — from this incident, but when it comes to the subject of feminism Dawkins seems incapable of taking in new information, much less learning anything from it.
EDITED TO ADD: And now, as if to prov what I just said in that previous paragraph, Dawkins is now second-guessing his decision to take down his tweet linking to the video, because GamerGaters are telling him that Chanty and I made up the evidence of the abuse she got.
NOTE: Lindy West has a book coming out soon. Pre-order it below!
CORRECTION: I added a bit noting that the Islamist in the cartoon video is supposed to be a parody of a real person.
EDIT: I added a line about Dawkins tweeting a link to a video of Chanty Binx at the Toronto demonstration.
I just woke up and only sort of caught up on this. Not getting into deeper discussions here, but I’m just gonna say 2 things.
1. Both these trolls were obvious. Just saying.
2. When I talked about being ashamed of the label “atheism”, I also mentioned that by dictionary definition I am an atheist. That alone should make it obvious I’m not saying “all atheists” or “the entirety of atheism”. Without that context, I think I would make sure to specify “movement atheism” or “organized atheism”. I will say that I’ve met many, many, many wonderful atheists, and a general pattern is that almost none of them are involved with organized atheism. Or they used to be, and quit for obvious reasons.
@EJ
http://40.media.tumblr.com/16b965d3d3c1efa035253bf8ad651d35/tumblr_nw9aduJwwD1u8wmqco5_1280.jpg
@ I was going to…..
I’m curious as to whether anyone else watches that count down whilst they’re editing and pretends they’re de-fusing a bomb.
@EJTOO It may be an age/generational thing, since it seems like in general neither people my age nor my students have come across it, not even in Yorkshire 🙁 Would be interested in more data.
When we were expressing solidarity with Occupy Wall Street I attempted to be the voice of history, pointing out that these kinds of things have been going on as long as we’ve been taken advantage of by those with more power. The Pilgrimage of Grace shares some things in common with Occupy, as the monasteries provided free health care, public education and welfare services; in effect Henry VIII was cutting these services for the population. I had a sign that said ‘Robert Aske would be proud of you.’
@ guest
I was vaguely familiar with it. Then a friend lent me a series of books she likes about a Tudor era barrister and his horse (Together, they fight crime!!!) and it cropped up as background in the stories.
Wow! So many comments, so little time (for me to read them just now).
This might already have been discussed at length, but I’m going to say it anyway:
Richard Dawkins, WTF? A human life is vile?! Please stop tweeting.
I’m sure that your PR person offers a Remedial Tweeting course for suave celebs who, regrettably, find themselves embroiled in sticky Twitter unpleasantness. Enroll pronto.
***
Also, Lindy West’s smart, pithy comments kick ass!
@Alan Someone told me about those–haven’t checked them out yet, as it isn’t my period. There are only two actual books about the Pilgrimage of Grace, one ridiculously dense, the other ridiculously fawning, and neither considering its ramifications or part in history, so there isn’t any useful and accessible way for people to learn about it. Though as the hero of the story is a lawyer from Yorkshire I hoped you’d know 🙂
Slightly OT. Gotta like the irony of the author of “dear Muslima” kicking off about the tyranny of honey confiscation. I guess the Dundridge thing is a reference to the civil servant in “Blott on the Landscape. ” Personally, when I saw the TV series in the 80s I found the protagonists so unsympathetic that I wanted Dundridge to win.
I wanted to write a little more about the ’emotions’ thing–these dudes who claim that they’re all about logic and emotions are icky are exactly the ones who don’t recognise their own emotions, and thus let them run away with them. The rest of us learn to say things to ourselves like ‘I’m disappointed that that person isn’t interested in dating me’ or ‘I’m anxious that people with better qualifications in the field I’m interested in are competing with me for jobs that I want’ or ‘I’m upset that I’ve just discovered that something I always believed was true turns out not to be, which threatens my self-constructed identity as a smart, well-informed person’, can pull these feelings out and consider them, then choose an appropriate response. If you can’t even acknowledge you have them, you’re left with ‘arglebargle women suk’ at best or mass shootings at worst.
I’ve noticed that some atheists (I’m specifically thinking of Jeff Dee, not anyone in this thread), while opposed to the terrible things Dawkins have been saying on Twitter, keeps claiming that it’s all just misunderstandings, and it’s just because he doesn’t know how to use Twitter, or it’s just because you can only use 140 characters so there’s bound to be miscommunication, and all kinds of excuses. It’s time for everyone to just accept that this is what Dawkins actually believes. This is who he is.
@ guest
Weirdly, Aske was a member of Gray’s Inn, and traditionally Yorkshire folks don’t join that one, it’s the Lancashire Inn (their symbol is a Red Rose)
(I’m sure you know that the tradition is that the Wars of the Roses kicked off in Middle Temple gardens)
Gotta say, this thread is an example of NOT embracing the new rules about not bullying people and dogpiling and maintaining civil discourse.
I’ve found this blog very helpful in terms of really understanding my estranged husband’s ways of thinking and why his behaviour and philosophy changed and what he’s up against. And there are some really clever thoughtful people here, but there’s also a real cliquish and bullying approach to anyone new who might have slightly different views – even when views held are mostly similar. In fact, I’d say people who are feminist but not quite the same feminist are treated worse than the occasional MRA trolls who actually come here to cause trouble.
@Alan Thanks for telling me a thing I didn’t know! I was walking down High Holborn last night (wanted to pay my respects at Oliver Cromwell’s resting place before heading to a meeting, but it was already locked) and thinking about lawyers….
@Tessa:
I’ve rewritten this post about a dozen times, so please excuse the delay.
I’ve encountered people – I imagine most atheists have – for whom the mere presence of an atheist is inherently threatening. Likewise, I have met atheists for whom the mere presence of a believer is an affront. Fuck those people. I’m not discussing them here. Their hurt feelings are, to me, like the smell of sweet summer rain.
However, there’s a much larger category of people who are only comfortable around atheists as long as we don’t commit any acts of atheism. This means that as well as trying not to be offensive to people, I will also try to make religious people believe that they’re amongst fellow believers and not in mixed company. For example, I will not mention going to the pub on a Sunday morning, or not believing in a benevolent afterlife, or liking Satanic metal music, or (if the discussion goes that way and it’s appropriate) fess up to certain sexual activities.
In other words, they know that I’m an atheist, and they’re okay with that as long as the atheism itself stays invisible and I act like a religious person.
Likewise, there are things that I know that religious people would like to do but which they avoid doing in front of me because they don’t want to make me uncomfortable. Praying, for example. I am personally not bothered by people praying and if I was then that would be my problem, not theirs.
I feel that in a consent-based society we should all be able to indulge in our own harmless customs and not indulge in one another’s, and I’ll give you an example.
A few years ago, there was a protest in Nigeria against corrupt government. Te protestors gathered in their hundreds and stood in a major road, blocking it. The police tried to move the protestors but there were too many of them. Then prayer time came, and the Muslims in the protest grew agitated. They didn’t want to leave, and knew that if they broke ranks to pray where they were then the police would take the opportunity to move against them. However, they also didn’t want to disobey their duty to pray.
So the Christians and nonbelievers amongst the protest linked arms and formed a human cordon around them whilst the Muslims knelt and prayed; and when the prayers were done they stood and took up ranks once more. It was an amazing display of solidarity and, to me, a sign of what Africa could be.
We progressives could be that too.
@ guest
High Holborn always brings back memories of having to go into the Bar Council for a bollocking. 🙂
Is that cool tobacco shop still there? The one that looks like the Liberty Store, opposite Grays Inn Road.
Oh God, is it time for The RugbyYogi Show again? Ugh, I’m changing the channel.
(Short version for lurkers: RugbyYogi is pretty vocal about her disdain for the anti-ableism rules and has a long history of completely derailing threads in the name of her right to
freeze peachcall MRAs “Crazy.” Which is what her last sentence was snidely referring to. And after six months or so of this shit, I’m allowed to be snarky right out the gate. =P)– New commenter breaks comments policy.
– Commenter is recommended to read the comments policy.
– Commenter claims to have already read the comments policy, and gets snarky about it.
– Commenter continues to break the comments policy.
– Commenter is advised to stop lying.
^Not “bullying”
@ EJ
I know different people have different experiences, but I can honestly say that’s never happened to me. It’s not like I actively go around saying “I’m an atheist”, but when the subject crops up, say with my Christian friends, I can self describe as a ‘godless cur’ and everyone’s fine about it. Must say I’m surprised it is an issue in England for the reasons discussed previously (comparing US and UK)
My pagan sensibilities have never caused me trouble either (and I went to a school full of nuns). I’ve had clients ask things like “are you just making that holiday up?” when I’ve been unavailable (but there is a real thing called ‘Alantide’!!!!) and polite curiosity, but never any hostility.
You know, I wonder if this is a privilege thing? I tick all the standard boxes so I’m just given a free pass when I do ‘deviate’ from the norm?
You’re good at stuff like this; any thoughts?
ETA: See, honest 🙂
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allantide
@Alan No idea! And not sure when I’ll be back there to look…. (Today is Spitalfields, Islington, and Regents Park, tomorrow is Kew and then back to the gloomy and depressing west country.)
@ guest
Ah, happy memories of Spitalfields. My usual Sunday morning routine if I was staying in town. Lots of fun times in Islington too. Regents Park was just a short cut (liked the birds though).
Speaking of parks, I was told that Green Park didn’t have any flowers in it because Queen Victoria had them removed after she caught Albert giving some to another woman. You’re into history. How did this story originate?
Yep and I think the reaction to my post is exactly what I’m talking about. The anti-bullying, dogpiling is now just as much the rules as using words like ‘crazy’. But simply saying that and suggesting that the spirit of that commenting policy isn’t being embraced is enough to be treated in the same manner.
Yes, I don’t agree with the ‘able-ism’ language policing, but I’ve abided by it for quite a long time. I’ve never used a free speech argument here. Generally I’m in favour of it and think it’s pretty damn important for an enlightened society, but I have a nuanced view of what free speech means and where it’s ok to use it. I’d be happy to discuss it if anyone wanted to, but I think this is the first time I’ve ever typed out the words ‘free speech’ on this blog. (Could be wrong, but don’t think I have.)
Simply untrue. I think this has happened twice. Both times before it was actually part of the comments policy and the second time was actually a slip on my part – but man, did I get trounced on in a pretty aggressive way. But I didn’t derail any threads. What did happen is that I got a lot of slurs thrown at me. – including gendered accusations of “hysteria” and “nervous disposition” like “pearl-clutching” which is somehow ok (?).
SFHC – you’re welcome to change the channel any time you like, and I would vastly prefer if you simply didn’t engage with me at all as I feel that you use abusive tactics.
@EJ re: religious and atheists in the same spaces (on mobile, can’t be asked to scroll all the way up and find the quote but you know what I mean 🙂 )
In offline spaces I haven’t had much of a problem but it depends on the company. At work I’ve dropped that I tend to go to church on a Sunday and people have been somewhere between neutral and curious, but I have befriended a few individuals throughout my life who make clear noises about their disdain for religion/the religious and obviously I’ve kept my mouth shut and nodded along while seething that they think I’m a braindead moron for not sharing their beliefs. Normally I don’t mention I’m religious anyway and most people can go a long time before finding that out about me. I keep my faith private.
In online spaces: well, the only online spaces I really hang out are here, a Christian feminist blog and…Reddit. Reddit is the only place of these three where religion bashing gets upvoted every time, even in irrelevant subs. r/atheism tends to seep out all over the place, it seems. Soooo I’m not sure if my experiences really fit since I do so little browsing and Reddit is Reddit.
Ugh, my brain is jumbled right now so this post may or may not be useful to the conversation. The only thing I’ll add is that where a previous commenter mentioned that they have to clarify they’re not a Dawkins type atheist when they say they’re atheist, I always qualify myself with “I’m a very liberal Christian” if I ever do say that I’m one. Because of all the damage that fundagelicals have done and continue to do, and the rhetoric that seeps through the Church, I feel I have to make it clear that I’m NOT an anti-choice, anti-choice rights, anti-allsorts type Christian because sadly that’s the reputation we’ve given ourselves in this world.
Sigh. And sometimes I feel alone in my beliefs, since I’m more liberal than most Christians I’ve ever met (and only come across similar souls online, in passing), yet in the past I’ve tried to hang out in liberal Facebook groups or with super liberal people and there’s been so much religion bashing that I just can’t stay.
r/atheism is the reason atheists are generally disliked, I swear. The behaviour of people on r/atheism really is as bad as people say it is. It fits with the narrative that atheists are bad people and it resonates so much louder than the conduct of boring, decent atheist folk. Atheists are probably no worse behaved than the general public but they are predetermined as having something wrong with them and then shit like r/atheism comes along and reinforces everything people already believe about atheists being terrible and then I start hating myself for being an atheist. UHG.
I respond pretty strongly when I see other atheists embodying the stereotype because I so desperately want it to not be accurate. Even though people who behave like the idiots you see on r/atheism are the minority of atheists, when people do behave like the idiot atheists of YouTube, it resonates very strongly and is readily accepted.
@sunnysombrera I am an atheist (definitely small a, I’m not an Atheist). My ex-in-laws were part of the humanist movement in London in the 60s, of which Dawkins, etc were also a part. I don’t know if they know Dawkins, but they certainly knew other big cheeses in the humanist movement, which seems to have become Atheist Movement. I found many of these people insufferable, because like Dawkins, they felt zero compunction about saying really terrible things about Christians and even about the god (God) that they claimed not to believe in. They claimed that all those who do have faith were stupid or mentally unstable. Having been raised among both Christians like you (liberal, feminist, socially aware, justice-oriented) and those who were more evangelical and fundamentalist, I knew that they weren’t stupid (none of them) or mentally ill (some of course were – lots of depression in my family – but I don’t think there was any causation either way with their religiosity) and I felt deeply offended by the broad brush accusations. I know many Christians of both types (and some people from other faiths) who were great people, kind, considered and whose faith supported them in acting in very good ways. Heck, I’ve got cousins who are part of the really nasty misogynistic quiverfull type evangelism, but they aren’t stupid. They can be very kind and have reached accommodation with the rest of the family whereby they don’t push it on us and we can have a good relationship, even though I’m pretty sure they probably think the rest of us are going to hell and they would be very saddened by my lack of faith, which I don’t push on them. I think they reacted with kindness and tolerance to my grandmother’s constant jibes on their lifestyle which they must have found quite hurtful. (To be fair to my grandmother, it was from a place of deep concern about her favourite niece’s health as a result of bearing so many children.)
Anyway, I think it sucks that you feel uncomfortable in those spaces, and I’ve certainly seen exactly that kind of behaviour and even though I am not a person of faith or religion beyond Christmas carol services, I’ve definitely felt similarly uncomfortable.
After reading your comments policy, I have had to revise what I was going to say. So…..Nice day isn’t it? You don’t have to answer – I wouldn’t want to violate your right to silence. Ummmm……Girls are all really good. Boys are all really bad. The world should stop making girls feel bad. Boys should treat girls with respect and give them all their money. Life is so hard for girls – the world is just so MEAN!!!!