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 do wish Dawkins would end up on an interview with someone who would ask him to spout off about the doctrine of papal infallibilty, let him go on about its idiocy for a while, and then follows up by asking him why he thinks he’s infallible. The sputtering could be amusing.
You know what’s amusing… Reading through threads from all the way back in ’11/’12, God knows how many comment policies and user turnovers ago, and watching them be derailed by accusations of cliquishness. Word for word. Nothing’s changed. Why, it’s almost as if it doesn’t matter how much we
prostrate ourselves before our superiorschange our behaviour to suit $TrollOfTheDay’s demands, their real goal is to distract us with infighting and the snipers are being played like fiddles…But what do I know, I’m just a meanie-meanie clique-pants.
http://i.imgur.com/R3YV5Tu.jpg
You’re so clickey-pants
(My goodness, could those guyse look more MRAey?)
Feminists are mean and cliquish. It’s true.
@Schildfreja:
Considering how they treat “their women” (all two of them)? I doubt it.
It always surprises me to see how some adults are so prone to hero worshipping. I naturally assume people would be smart enough not to place anybody above criticism, but this is clearly overestimating humanity.
Case in point: In 2010 I went to a Dawkins lecture/book promotion at Cooper Union in New York. During the Q&A, Dawkins got a question from a woman who he recognized. Before he answered her question, he said: “Do you, by any chance, go by the name [internet pseudonym redacted]?” The woman said yes, and seemed very excited that he recognized her. I assumed she was a particularly active member on his website or message boards or whatever.
While going through Dawkins tweets and replies these last few days, I’ve noticed this woman is still there. Following every tweet, agreeing with every word, mocking whomever Dicky mocks. I repeat, this is an adult human being behaving like this.
I just can’t relate to this behavior at all. Even if there was a public figure who I liked as much as this person seems to like Dawkins, I wouldn’t trace their every step and agree with every word. Why do people do this.
@ scildfreja
Now that I’ve seen your pic I’ve got that bloody Zutons song stuck in my head!
It’s easily one of the most detrimental habits we have as a species – deifying certain people to the point where criticism is equated with personal attack, promoting ostracization and harassment of said critic for completely unjust reasons.
I notice it with comedians these days. Apparently to their fans – just pointing out that they told a tasteless joke, whether it is lazily sexist or racist, must mean you are calling them a sexist or racist (which is weirdly over-sensitive, from people who complain about others being over-sensitive). They accuse you of trying to “censor” them (um, how?) and use FREEZE PEACH as some kind of everything-proof shield. Not realizing the irony that free speech involves criticism and mockery, but that they’re more than content when their oh-so-favorite comedian is criticizing and mocking others.
It’s like Papal Infallibility, but infinitely more stupid.
That’s because, unlike many, you realize people whose work or achievements you admire are still people – thus, they are bound to disappoint and lose your respect.
At least with fictional characters, you can actually have that paragon of virtue and not deal with inevitability that they’re actually terrible people. For all the flaws he has as a character, which are minor in comparison to many real-life individuals, I can look up to Captain Jean-Luc Picard when it comes to his words of wisdom.
Here are details of some of the discussions about dog piling and bullying that took place in this thread. There’s lots of strawmen including the accusation that this is about cliquishness. No. It’s about bullying.
To be fair, cliquishness and bullying can very easily be associated. Cliquishness isn’t inherently bully-ish though. It’s inherently exclusionary. It’s often closed-minded, sometimes bullying but not necessarily either.
@marinerachel
Cliquishness certainly enables bullying but by no stretch of the imagination were complaints about cliquishness responsible for “derailing” the thread. Neither were complaints about dogpiling and bullying for that matter. Most people ignored that conversation (which is fine). The debate about atheist identity accounted for most of the posts.
Oh, I agree. I didn’t see complaints about cliquishness prompting any derail! I can see how someone might argue complaints about abusive behaviour are about cliquishness though.
sorry guys and gals i was a bit busy
@Scildfreja
well if you insist then i shall say there is a planet of unbiased knowledge where this Ocean exists.
and if you don’t agree with me, then i assume that you don’t believe science is superior to many unscientific knowledges regarding bias, which is a very interesting stance for a scientist.
i agree definitely with this
and not entirely agree with this, because i believe women and people of color are denied some opportunities which they deserve, and this is why there should be more of them.also including more non-white male scientists can decrease bias in science, it won’t necessary happen, why?!because for example we know that many women hold bias against women too.
no, also this is helpful what truly can erase bias is staying true to scientific method and this is where many scientists fail(to different degrees)
if”introduction of conflicting opinions”could eradicate bias, politics would be free of bias long ago.
first even if science included all humanity and even if bias was totally eradicated, some of its conclusions would be inevitably wrong(because of flaw in our sensory data perception and processing)
and second all humans have bias, and even if they had totally conflicting biases, it wouldn’t guarantee bias free science.
so rather than increasing the number of non-white male scientists(which is a good thing) and hoping for the best! what can significantly reduce bias in science is more loyalty toward scientific method, be it woman / man / POC.
Uh, yeah, science is a tool kit. It’s a method of inquiry. It can’t have a bias. It’s not a person.
Results can be presented in a bias fashion. If the rigourous standards of the scientific method are upheld though, nope, no bias. That’s the whole point of those rules.
It’s not science that’s bias. Science is impartial. People are bias. People use science. As a result, the way scientific finding are understood and/or presented can be bias.
Not science though. It’s just a means of exploration.
STEM having a more diverse face won’t result in less bias as it will still be performed by people. It will result in more biases though which, hopefully, challenge and maybe balance each other a bit better than the biases of a bunch of white dudes currently do.
I’m a scientist.
@Tessa
interesting point but the purpose of this argument is to show that even if i disagree(it’s not about knowing) about “how bad” is her condition, i’m
still saying that her condition is bad and she needs help.
i said this because she assumed(as you can see) if i disagree about severity of this matter then i think it isn’t bad or necessary acting against it.
i was talking about science as a whole and not just “medicine” and if you think that our present science is not mildly sick and it’s akin a “dying person” then there would be no word for past science…oh wait maybe it should be called a “ghost”…hmm nope i don’t believe in paranormal 😀
i wasn’t aware of this, thanks.would you please provide me with some references for further reading?
Oh, the sealion is still here?
Arash,
My statements are both fairly common knowledge and very easily Googled. I’m not doing it for you.
This is very typical white guy science. Demanding feminists do your work for you.
Seriously. If you’re going to present yourself as Mr Science Rational Man, shouldn’t you already know that most research in medicine and often biology is carried out with male subjects? I knew that as a first year undergrad studying one of the dreaded soft sciences.
@Scildfreja
The darkest hour is just before the dawn.
staying true to scientific method is a task for “both individual scientist and scientific community”. otherwise what good is in scientific method if it can’t decrease bias in neither of them!
and if conflicts of biases and “diversity” was the primary force at work in science, then we could toss aside scientific method and hallelujah! we would be reaching the doors of “not very biased knowledge”
actually the only difference between science and other spheres of human knowledge is the scientific method and not “achieving diversity and conflicting biases”.
so yes science needs them but what is needs even more is activity protecting and promoting scientific method.
I’m not seeing why putting effort into making scientific fields more diverse and getting rid of endemic sexism and racism means we might as well just throw the scientific method out the window. They’re not mutually exclusive.
Shut up, Jock Itch.
I’m also not sure what sealion is even arguing anymore.
If he can show that the scientific method adequately eradicates bias, then Richard Dawkins isn’t an anti-feminist? Is that it?
So why don’t we do both? We pesky SJWs can do our bit of activism, and you can go and do yours: protecting and promoting the scientific method.
What does that actually involve, for you? Is it furthered by you popping up in the comments of feminist blogs to demonstrate your ignorance of documented biases, or is that something you do for a break?
@WeirwoodTreeHugger
I warned you not to get your hopes up too high.
Common knowledge?!so nearly everyone or even if i want not to be hard on you i assume you think nearly every feminist knows this?!very accurate :))
unless you are talking about scientific “facts” that are well known to all, other scientific information require reference which seems you’re oblivious to this practice.
stop whining, this is a very normal academic procedures and if in “softies” you can say “it’s very easily Googled” then they are surely fucked up.
no, my knowledge is finite and flawed and contrary to what you’re trying to prove that this matter isn’t a well known fact.
because you’re attacking a fucking straw man and that makes you blind.
i said concerning science what matters more is scientific method and not diversity contrary to what Scildfreja said(and you maybe thinking).
it doesn’t mean both can not or should not be done, i was just refuting the exaggerated importance put on diversity.
do you have the mental capacity to understand what i’m saying?!
now i’m not sure whether you’re stupid or deliberately twisting my words.
my defend of dawkins has nothing to do with attacking the concept of “white science” and oversized importance of diversity.
@Scented Fucking Hard Chairs
Thanks, but no thanks.
@Newt
again:
What are you even doing here? What do you want?
Haha. Somebody who doubts that medical research is usually carried out with male subjects has precisely 0 credibility. That is such common knowledge.