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.
Well, as they say, to be damned by the devil is to be truly blessed. I’ll wear that tag as a badge of honor, thankyouverymuch.
You can still fuck off, BTW.
@ gavan
Nope, boringly happy childhood. Really left me short of material to be a novelist I can tell you.
I certainly don’t see all women as victims; just a depressingly non trivial fraction. I do however see all women as at risk of being victims; hence their justified concerns.
But back to the point in issue. I’ve explained my rationale for the viewpoint I’ve stated. Like I say, if you disagree, it’s now down to you to provide some evidence for that. And remember, ‘assertions are not evidence’.
Let’s simply call them a Gavan.
@Paradoxy, all:
Speaking as one of the atheists who wrote upthread about how I feel I have to couch “Yes, I am an atheist” with some explanation of how I feel about Dawkins, et. al.:
I do blame Dawkins, Harris, and the attractiveness of atheism to relatively privileged white males for this. But I also think it’s important that we choose our language carefully.
The “great schism” happened, largely over Elevatorgate, and in its wake what I have seen is the marginalization of the feminist voices within “movement atheism” — people like Greta Christina, PZ Myers, Rebecca Watson, Richard Carrier, Heina Dadhaboy, Jason Thibeault, Alex Gabriel, Zinnia Jones, etc. Part of this is due to the toxic misogyny that was dwelling but dormant in the hearts of so many movement atheists. But another part of this marginalization comes from how we (as a society), and more particularly, how we (as progressives) view and talk about atheism.
In much the same way that how we talk about the problem of misogyny within Islam matters, I think the way we talk about misogyny within atheism matters.
Not in the sense that atheists face the same kind of discrimination that Muslims do. We don’t.
I don’t fear violence, and the way I look and dress doesn’t give me away, so I don’t have to deal with everyday discrimination, which is a huge deal. But just because I can choose to live in silence, for the sake of not upsetting the apple cart and throwing nearly all of my personal and professional relationships into disarray (especially professional), does not mean it is not a heavy weight to bear. Not being able to be your authentic self sucks.
And here is where I think how we dialogue with people who feel hurt by the way we talk about a problem with misogyny within a group does matter: Consider how the language we use to describe the problem of misogyny within Islam either empowers, or alienates and disheartens, liberal and moderate voices within Islam. When a Muslim asks, “Please be careful about the language you use, because I can’t stand these people and it hurts to get lumped in with them,” we gracefully (and correctly) oblige, for reasons that matter — chief among them the fact that we want to lift up the feminist voices within Islam and help them to challenge the notion of Islam being a safe place for misogyny.
If our response was instead, “suck it up, I don’t care about your fee fees, stop concern trolling, I will talk about misogyny within Islam how I want, thank you very much, and fuck you for telling me how I can talk about misogyny within Islam and trying to silence me” — we would be empowering the wrong voices. We might at that point very well see a liberal Muslim snarkily write, “Fuck this. You don’t want your beliefs challenged, I’ll go.”
IN5IP1D’s desire for more careful language did not come across to me as very different from that of WWTH’s. What they were saying did not strike me as combative or aggressive until the “fuck yous”, sea-lion labeling, and allegation that they suggested that atheists face the same discrimination as transgender individuals, were posted.
I admit that that blow-up made me feel a little less welcome. This is your space much more than it is mine, and you are of course free to style it how you see fit. But I also want to say that I certainly don’t feel unwelcome, either. Just a little sad and discouraged today.
With this level of debate – you are doomed.
@ lost in lindsey
Yeah, perhaps ‘role models’ would be a better term. But at least now, with the civilising influence of the Humber Bridge, you’ve stopped painting yourselves blue and hiding from eclipses. 🙂
(Our colonial friends must be wondering what the heck were on about!)
@Gavan
Have you even read Alan’s comments? Where does he ‘perpetuate the myth that all women are victims’?
He’s providing anecdotal evidence from his many years of experience in legal matters, as a self-defense instructor and assomeone who actually talks to women, that many women have experienced and/or fear sexual and physical assault.
And really, making comments about a person’s hypothetical childhood is a poor argument. Just go away, you’re clearly hearto cause trouble and you aaren’t adding anything to the conversation.
@Alan
That damn bridge has been more trouble than it’s worth. And didn’t you know, we don’t worship the moon anymore because we started worshipping the great dragon of the Humber and sacrificing live humans to Them every year, usually yorkie cum-fers.
OMG WE’RE DOOMED
Long time reader and first time poster. I see some familiar names from FTB. *waves*
I’ve been active in the part of the atheist community that people like Dawkins have a problem with for years and I have absolutely no problem with the atheist community (or movement atheism) being referred to in terms that connect atheism and sexsim, or misogyny, or racism, or transphobia, or homophobia and more. Like other communities we legitimately have a big problem with those sorts of xenophobes and bigots. We should own up to the problem and confront it. The last several years have been an education in how atheists and religious people are the same and I have little but contempt and scorn for those atheists who want to pretend that these issues require religion to be focused on. The common denominator is independent of religious belief or non-belief.
It was amazing seeing people flip the fuck out over a relatively tepid and reasonable statement about how people should behave in elevators. From there watching Dawkins and others jump through fallacious hoops to claim that we should ignore bad behavior in our community was even more amazing. I’m frankly proud to be part of a group of people willing to criticize their own group members for bad behavior because the world needs more of that right now.
I’ve seen some people express confusion at how it is that so many awful people could end up in the atheist community and I have some ideas about that. The movement was attractive to authoritarians chafing under religious rules, people of the sort that might be common in corporations and Wall Street. It’s been noted that we have a large contingent of libertarian conservative types. Some of these authoritarians were also cultural authoritarians who were role-modeled to treat disagreements as conflicts and role-modeled or enculturated to treat a relationship like a conflict. Your spouse was someone to be controlled (but also other races, LGBT+ people…). That kind of culture also encourages harassment because that is essentially a behavior meant to keep people compliant (microaggressions too). All this bullshit has a rational behavioral reason that is informative in seeing it and fighting it.
Now for the fun part.
@Gavin
That is because you are being responded to in kind. Your first comment was nothing but insults and when you got around to something more specific it was substanceless and pathetic. There was simply nothing to respond to in any substantive way. Let’s have a look.
This implies a set of things that we need to face today since it’s an accusation that we have no perspective when it comes to social problems.
Which slights? You offer none. Nothing but insults. Personally I don’t care about insults, I am on the masculine white male side of things, but when that is all that is offered it’s pretty sad. It implies that you can’t effect social change without a group that essentially beats the other side into submission instead of discuss anything.
More insults. Some might say “insulting characterizations”, but as we will see you don’t get with the characterizing.
Pathetic. A simple assertion that the PEOPLE (there are more than women supporting things here) here are over relying on government, which in addition to not being supported at all is not even relevant to the situation with Dawkins! The situation with Dawkins and his ilk is about criticism from others in society below the level of government (unless you want to call the rules and policies set up by conventions, websites and similar “government”, which the freeze peach whining is about).
What do you think needs to be sacrificed? Since you leave it to us we might as well start by assuming that you want women to sacrifice the right to not be harassed for offering opinions in public, or raped, we can go all sorts of places with this which we are allowed to do since you are the one that came in here in an insulting way.
You are simply getting what you dished out.
@ lost in lindsey
It is a weird bridge isn’t it? I wonder what happened at the planning meeting.
But if the eclipse sees them then they’ll lose their souls and have to move to London!
The antitheist position is that faith-based belief in a god or gods is inherently harmful to society and will always be harmful. It doesn’t matter what the other aspects of a religion are, so civil society must take a strong stance against all religious belief. This has been a minority position among atheists historically but people like Dawkins accept it and it’s the dividing issue between “New” and “Old” atheism.
There’s also a trend claiming that left wing ideologies are equivalent to a faith based religion. So the video makes sense in a twisted sort of way (though I still think Sargon is playing off his audience’s emotions and he’s smart enough to know the video is bullshit).
Gavan
You have a very interesting mindset. How does what Alan said equate to “all women being victims”? Actually, how exactly are you using the word “victim” for that to make any sense?
Now, women are often under threat of rape. I know you reject this, but let’s look at this logically.
Let’s take the woman in the video parody. In the video that Dawkins saw in which made him to conclude she is a vile human, what exactly was her crime that makes her vile? She lost her temper at someone talking over and trying to prevent her from speaking. So she insulted him. In response, Dawkins thinks she’s a vile person, and other men have tried to silence her with an avalanche rape and death threats. The threat of rape in this case is being used as a silencing tactic. Do you deny this? Even the video that Dawkins is cheering has her encouraging her own rape. And Dawkins advertises this.
The fact of the matter is the threat of rape has been used to “keep women in their place” for centuries. A woman must walk with a male escort or she’ll be raped. Don’t wear this or that or you’re begging to be raped. Don’t get too drunk, or you deserve to be raped. And because this historical mindset has made it the woman’s responsibility to not get raped, it’s of course her fault if someone does rape her. Look at Stubeunville, the rape was video taped and the townsfolk rallied around the rapists in support. In Missouri, a girl was raped and dumped on her front lawn, and after reporting it, her house was burned down. So often after a rape the question in news stories is more about what the woman could have done to prevent the rape, or what she did to deserve it. When reporting a rape to the police, women are often not believed at all and discouraged from reporting.
How exactly is acknowledging these fact and trying to change them playing the victim? What is your alternative solution? Do you think I’m just making stuff up? Do you think the people sending out all those rape threats to the woman in the video don’t know the cultural view of rape and using it to their advantage to attack her? Why else do it?
For there to be a debate, there has to be good faith. Sorry, Gavan, but nobody suspects you of arguing in good faith.
@EJ(TOO),
Shudder, London! Curses on you for mentioning that place
😀
@Alan,
I don’t know about you lot over that side of the river, but we use the bridge to get to the ferry to the Netherlands. It’s funny though, Cleethorpes gets a lot of visitors from Yorkshire; I suppose to yorkies Lincolnshire counts as exotic.
@ lost in lindsey
I think the bridge is best regarded as a rather large piece of public art; it is very beautiful. You probably know it’s 2 inches further apart at the top than the bottom because of the curvature of the Earth; I love that fact.
I like Cleethorpes; and let’s face it, compared to Bridlington it’s bloomin’ Monte Carlo.
ETA: I do also like Bridlington.
Bigots see real women really being raped & threatened with rape, and try to undermine this serious oppression by saying its all a myth.
Gavan, I’ve lived through WWIII and the Ant Uprising, (yes I’m a time traveler, get over it you sook) and I can tell you that your opinion is worthless in the face of my future war experience. Have you ever had to pry the antennae off an aggressive giant radioactive ant? No? Then shut up.
First we get linkxzelda,then IN51P1D,then gaven followed by hokutoshinkenwamutekida. Are the trolls starting to call in reinforcements or are we dealing with a gowning sock puppet army?
Was “ooh look, shoes” supposed to be a “women and shoe shopping” reference? I thought it was just because shoes are the only thing he can see. Because he’s a sock.
@ tinyants
I salute your (future) service on behalf of a grateful species. Just for you:
http://youtu.be/-2mmTDT6W7E
Richard Dawkins is about to turn full GamerGater.
Just go, Dicky. This is your audience now.
@Sylvia
As a lapsed catholic/mainly athiest individual in a country that until fairly recently was massively catholic (I.e we only unbanned contraceptives in the late 70s) I must admit I’ve never felt ostracised online for my lack of belief. I grew up in a country where taking communion and confirmation is totally expected and being baptised is basically necessary to get into state schools, the majority of the country takes part in these ceremonies out of habit. Very few people I know are practicing Catholics, a lot are athiest but would still be shocked if its suggested not having a baby christened or having a communion for the kids. It’s funny because its almost become a nationwide joke how we all on the face of it are RC but barely anyone attends mass any more,besides rural areas. I only knew one athiest who really loved Dawkins and he was an abusive, egotistical shit pigeon with a large streak of misogyny and who liked to gaslight his wife who suffered from severe depression. Him and his sons used to say she wasn’t rational, was not that smart, way too fragile and made up “Cra*y” stories. Basically all those men ticked all my boxes for movement atheists.
BTW thank you whoever came up with that distinction, movement athiests are the asshats like Dawkins, Thunderboot or whatever he’s called and their ilk.
EtA my actual point, I don’t feel picked on or unwelcome due to my atheism here. Asshats like MRAthiests are not. I thought that was fairly obvious from everyone actually commenting here, bar trolls.
It’s ironic that you take offense to this cartoon. What other Ideology is it that is known for getting particularly offended by cartoons…….
Also, your logic that you shouldn’t mock this person for their very mock-able behavior because of what you think some one else might do as a result is one of the most dystopian things I’ve heard for a long time.
In a fair and just society you don’t hold people responsible for crimes they might commit. You hold people responsible for crimes they have committed. And you most certainly do not hold someone responsible for crimes another person might commit. That’s a level of Fascism that Mussolini would be proud of.