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.
Yeeeaahhhhh. There’s some of that. It’s kinda the result of the “fallacy of the median” feeling that, if we make rules against bad behavior, we also have to make rules against people objecting to bad behavior, or else it’s not fair. Honestly, there doesn’t seem to be a way to please everyone; one side seems like they’ll only be happy if everyone is always treated as though they’re making a valuable contribution and no one is ever rude, snarky, or dismissive to anyone else, regardless of how they’re acting.
The kind of dogpiling that seems like an actual problem, and that’s specific enough to identify, is when someone says “crazy” and like 25 different people pop up to give them long explanations of why they shouldn’t when it would be more helpful for a single person to link to the policy.
But that didn’t happen here. What people are wanking about here — indeed, what people always seem to be wanking about — is someone defending an unpopular or vaguely suspicious position, and a whole lot of people disagreeing with them. Also known as “having a discussion.” In order to stop the “dogpiling,” we’d have to let those people continually barge in and say their piece…and then not let the vast majority of the people here say their piece. They all have to let whoever showed up first speak for them, and the whole conversation gets presented like the rando with the tedious opinion and the entire rest of the community have equally valid positions. How is that fair?
TL;DR: “Dogpiling” is just what happens when you express one opinion in front of a bunch of people who hold a different opinion and they shouldn’t all be forbidden from contributing just to make you feel comfortable.
http://lovemeow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/031D8D7F-AC33-4117-B9B0-903957FAF506.jpg
::snicker:: Perfection.
@moocow you’re welcome, and it is a shame the article’s not online. I’ve never felt drawn to true-crime stories, but I’ve definitely been inspired to check out some of the books it mentioned.
@pandapool awesome, we agree 🙂
Tedious trolls are tedious. And kinda cranky, despite their oh so rigorously objective rationality.
Oh my god, does this guy actually think quoting Fist of the North Star at us is intimidating? Is this what qualifies as a sick burn in MRAtheist World? Did Voltaire pray for us too?
I get the impression that a large number of the people here that were participating in the (movement) atheism and sexism discussion were, in fact atheists, and known to the rest of the regular commentariat as non-believers. So to my eyes the conversation being carried out was more of an in-group-plus-allies discussion: “we atheists need to own the problems of misogyny”, and so on.
This, I think, is different to an unsympathetic audience of theists loudly demanding apologies and disavowals from all atheists for the misogyny of what I hope is a small but vocal group. And refusing to acknowledge the fact that the moderates within atheism have, in fact, disavowed misogyny repeatedly.
I’m not sure this is a fair characterisation, is what I’m saying. Particularly as most people have already agreed that the earlier discussion, where ‘atheism’ was used as short-hand for MRAtheism and movement atheism.
@IN51P1D
When you first commented I replied to you in good faith and you ignored me to reply to people who didn’t see you as charitably. If you wanted to have a good faith conversation you blew it two comments in.
I missed the appearance of a 7 dot ellipsis? Beautiful. Is that some kind of record? What is it that trolls have against 3 dot ellipses? Are they misandry? Is 3 a girly numerous or something? I don’t get it.
@WWTH
Three is a magic number!
Kahlo, yup.
It’s already been said multiple times than many of us are atheists who are talking about misogyny within atheism.
A more appropriate comparison would Muslims talking about problems of misogyny in Islam, and I’m sure there are plenty who are (I’m not familiar with those circles, but I do know that Muslim feminists exist).
I wasn’t reading the argument carefully so I don’t have an informed opinion on who is right or wrong. However, I do take issue with this statement:
Disagreement is one thing but when it’s delivered with contempt, insults or name-calling, that’s when it’s a problem. That’s what dogpiles look like and why I continue to denounce them.
This is the same disingenuous argument made by manosphereans who conflate harassment or threats with disagreement. At least be honest about what is taking place or you’re in gaslighting territory.
loquora,
Yep. He’s ignored my replies too. I specifically instructed him on how he could disagree and argue his points without seeming to be in bad faith. It fell on blind eyes.
This seems to be a pattern lately with trolls.
WWTH:
I think it’s a lot easier to just take the negative examples and say “well everyone is being mean to me!” And I know it’s hard to ignore when someone is taking a combative tone with something you didn’t mean to be contentious, most people want to respond in kind. But doubling down doesn’t solve anything.
Katz,
Agreed; right now dogpiling is only invoked by outright trolls or people who are definitely not going to fit in, so I wouldn’t be sad to see the rule deleted and replaced with nothing.
SFHC,
I do think there exist troublesome dynamics that I would call “dogpiling,” but they’re actually unrelated to the number of posters involved. I wouldn’t say there’s an upper bound on how many people can speak up on an issue; if someone’s position is abhorrent to everyone here and we all say so in unison, that’s not a problem. At the other end of the scale, I think as few as 3 people can dogpile someone, depending on how they engage.
I can elaborate on request, but for now I’ll hold off of describing the kinds of dogpiling that trouble me since (a) I’m not sure you could make an enforceable rule against them and (b) we’re not really supposed to debate policy anyway.
Orion et al
Perhaps we could ask David to open a “Policy Comments Review” thread?
We’ve had a bit of time now to field test the current version. Seems to be working pretty well; but maybe a few final adjustments might be worth chatting about. There’s the responding to breaches thing obviously and it may be there are other issues people would like to mention.
Or maybe even necro the original thread? (Ironically, I don’t know what the policy would be on doing that!)
This not only undercuts Dawkins as a public figure and a human being, it damages his credibility as a critical thinker, scientist, and intellectual, in my mind irreparably. If he is willing to play he-said-she said games instead of doing proper research, to blindly accept the words of noted hatemongering liars with lists of outrageous behaviour as long as my arm, to refuse to just look at screenshots upon screenshots of proof, all while flapping his uninformed mouth and abusing his platform, I see no reason why I should take anything he says on any topic seriously. He has proven that he puts ideology before proof, and will eschew evidence if it means he can continue to believe what he wants to believe.
Remember all of that high minded discourse about “I believe passionately in what is true,” and “We must have evidence to accept any belief” All of that went out the window.
This is why it is so important for the humanities to be taught alongside the sciences. Because when a person is so blind to their own ideological biases, they make foolish and uninformed judgement calls. Coming from the assumption that this woman is lying or that everyone who challenges him must have an ulterior motive is unscientific, and it has caused him to make a public ass of himself. He is making calls based on faulty information. Just the same as any religious zealot is.
Dawkins is an embarrassment.
@Tabby Lavalamp and others:
This reminds me of a time I saw a clip from Boondock Saints where, in an alternate timeline, Martin Luther King Jr. was still alive and awoke from a coma to see the modern world. I had this speech where MLK was using the n-word and criticizing black culture.
I thought that was… really bizarre… so I started a thread asking about it. The bottom line in the responses? There’s a world of difference between people outside a community talking about problems within it and people inside the community doing the same. Even if they might say superficially similar things.
Yes, I’m aware; I’m one of those atheists, and the wording of “needing to own” misogyny within atheism came from Brony, someone I admire, who stated that they were an atheist.
I happen to think that it would be slightly problematic for a feminist Muslim to say that all Muslims “need to own” the misogyny of misogynist Muslims.
In the same way, I think it’s problematic for atheists to say to other atheists that they need to “own” the misogyny of the misogynist atheists.
I don’t really agree with the idea that there is something about atheism or Islam that makes them more compatible with misogyny, and for me, that’s sort of where “need to own” language leads.
On the contrary: I don’t feel like Dawkins speaks for me, I would “excommunicate” him if I could, and I would like all of the help I can get.
I do think there’s something about Dawkins and Harris followers, etc., thinking themselves immune to the folly of human emotion, that makes them susceptible to building giant castles around irrational positions. But I don’t think this is something that I, as an atheist who has never felt this way, and who has consistently fought against them “flying my flag”, so to speak, need to “own”.
But I might just be seeing that phrasing differently than how it was meant.
@ kirbywarp
I don’t want to derail *this* thread but I’d really enjoy a discussion about this issue and related issues sometime, in relation to “intervening”/”sticking your nose in” generally.
I am an interventionist you see. I can see the arguments for staying out of other communities/countries affairs; but if actions affect someone negatively within that community, is it always the moral choice to not interfere?
I see a parallel with domestic violence and abusive relationships generally. Until relatively recently the attitude that “it’s none of our business” was pretty much the standard response to the extent that the phrase “it’s just a domestic” is used as an excuse in all sorts of contexts as a justification to sit back and do nothing. The Rwandan genocide was described in those terms and it gets applied to all sorts of conflicts generally.
We do of course have to be careful to tread lightly in matters that genuinely don’t concern us, but I am also guided by the principle that to do nothing in the face of an injustice is to side with the oppressor.
I’d love to hear all your thoughts on this, but it’s a wider issue than just what this thread is meant to be about, so we can wait for the right opportunity when a relevant thread pops up.
@littleknown The thing is though, if people within the in-group – in this case, atheists who at least superficially share some some characteristics with Dawkins et al, and who can frame a discussion in credibly non-theistic terms – refuse to “own” the problem of misogyny in atheism, how does it get fixed?
Ditto if feminist or pro-feminist men refuse to recognise the sexism baked into traditional masculinity.
Ditto for nerd culture and gatekeeping. These subcultural issues aren’t inevitably linked to the core defining characteristic of the group, but surely the group has some responsibility for policing or discussing their own norms and behaviours?
Edit to add: obviously nobody is obligated to be an activist and actively fight toxic ideas in the groups they’re associated with, but I do think it’s important to at least take a neutral stance, i.e. let the discussion happen.
NECSS posted a tweet showing that self-same video, giving the title, etc, presumably intending to justify their no-platforming of Dawkins. When Lindy West was informed of this, did she ask them to delete their tweet? Was she still as concerned about “fomenting further abuse”, “amplifying the voices of our harassers” and so on as she said she was when she asked Dawkins to delete his tweet?
No, not a word from her to NECSS (whose tweet is still up). Which leaves the unmistakable impression that her claimed safety concerns were little more than an ideological cudgel she could use to bash Dawkins.
Tribalism before principle yet again.
@Josh As one of the comments on Myers’s post says, she looks a lot like a woman who was an astronomy graduate student at UT Austin in the early 1980’s and had a bachelor’s degree in physics from Oberlin College. She supposedly spent a lot of time with Tyson and ended up leaving the graduate program and becoming interested in astrology.
She says the rape happened in 1984. Tyson finished his master’s degree in astronomy in 1983 and dropped out of the Ph.D. program because he wasn’t spending enough time on research. It’s possible (I’m being strictly speculative here) he ended up leaving because he wanted to avoid getting caught.
I don’t think there’s enough evidence at this point to say he definitely did it. Maybe if other accusers come forward. Personally, I would feel really disappointed in him if he did it.
On the other hand, there’s definitely a preponderance of the evidence that Michael Shermer engaged in behavior that should be sexual misconduct under any good conference policy.
LinkxZeldaFan
A big part of it here in Yankeeland is the major overlap between atheism, and especially public commentary about atheism, with right-libertarian/Randism, which in turn are basically justifications for privileged people staying that way, and mostly subscribed to be privileged people who want to stay that way.
Kirbywarp
Thing is, that was really wrapped up in the same old bigotries, because the people who got to be professional intellectuals were mostly white cis het dudes, who are really cranky that other people want into their old boy’s club.
Alan Robertshaw
Yup, there’s a huge, huge correlation. Basically it comes down to social safety nets. In the UK, there are some, and they mostly provide for most people’s needs. In the U.S., this is not really the case, and private (mostly church-based) charity takes up some of the slack (although not nearly as much as proponents of private charity claim.) This means that being openly atheist is often not an option for people who aren’t already middle-class and/or otherwise privileged; if they separate from their church community, they will lose access to childcare, food assistance, etc, the provision of which is necessary to keep their heads above water. You will often hear conservative religious leaders in the States talk about liberals wanting to ‘replace god with government’. What they mean is ‘liberals want a social safety net that’s open to everyone, not just the people we decide are deserving and who are willing to toe our line on religion, morality, etc.’ This, in turn, is why such a large proportion of American atheists are obnoxious douchebros with right-libertarian politics: They arrived at atheism not through any particular process of rationality but through extreme You’re Not the Boss of Me syndrome; They reject religious codes of morality because they reject any code of morality more complex than “I Do what I Want”. ( I say this as an atheist who arrived at that position not through any particular rational process but through not being raised religious).
That’s certainly part of it.
Pandapool
I’m certain quite a lot if them did anyway.
Josh
Yup. In the States, there’s a lot of places where being openly atheist means you’ll take a lot of shit from the religious, and that kind of thing can make a person kinda bitter.
@Kirby
I got confused for a second because I didn’t know Boondock Saints had its own series.
But, yeah, there’s a huge difference between an insider and outsider speaking about the problems within a community, mostly because an insider would have a more nuanced and full-picture view of what the problems are rather than an outsider who would only have maybe a half idea on what’s up, to be generous.
Basically, talk about what you know, not what you think you know in that sort of situation.
@Alan
There is also a difference between community views and violent conflict. Obviously there’s a difference between intervening when people’s lives are in danger and intervening about a discussion about the community being held within the community.
For instance, people coming in here, seeing one thread and saying, “damn, people, maybe you should have more strict rules about derailing threads and you won’t get so much conflict.” But, of course, we derail threads all the time with insightful tidbits (one reason I really like this place) so they probably shouldn’t talk about what they don’t know about in this situation.
Meanwhile, yeah, you should totally call the police when people are being beaten and intervene when genocide is happening.
Two hugely different things there.
Hey, I’m not saying that they didn’t have sex, I’m saying that was the reasoning behind why the church was okay with gay marriage within its own ranks. I didn’t word it that way but that’s the reason.
@littleknown:
Your point is a good and a well-made one. If I may, let’s try to switch the phrasing around to see what it looks like in other situations:
Women need to own Christina Hoff Sommers.
Feminists need to own Cathy Brennan.
English people need to own Nick Griffin.
Americans need to own Amon Bundy.
Jews need to own Meir Kahane.
Christians need to own Westboro Baptist.
Yeah, it doesn’t really work. I agree with you.
(Note: I’ve picked people here who use hateful rhetoric but, in order to be even, consciously stayed away from anyone who’s actively carried out violence. No English person needs to own Lord Kitchener and no Christian needs to own Quiverfull; those are the world’s joint problems.)
Kirby actually meant The Boondocks, an animated series based on the newspaper comic of the same name, which frequently tackles race issues.