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.
here
and here
and for the Google deficient
It took me longer to copy the links than it did to find this. Just saying.
But seriously, we need an IP check between Jock Itch and Kool-Aid Drinker. The only difference between their writing styles and “But $Misogynist isn’t a misogynist because I said so!” wharrgarbl is that the former swears more.
@dhag85
i’m not sure whether joking about suicide is against the rules or not, but i’m pretty sure that i don’t need to explain my intentions to you.
so in short it is not your business at all.
@WeirwoodTreeHugger
laugh all you want, but Poisoning the well is a fallacy and you can’t refute everything i say based on my perceived credibility.
@Drezden
dear Drezden, thanks but i already googled that(and sorry for any trouble). i was trying to understand how much she considers herself an authority that doesn’t need reference for her claims.
But maybe you can do it anyway? I would like to know what point you’re trying to make.
… ???
“Hey, how’s the weather today?” “Black Forest cheesecake.”
@ drezden
Those links were interesting (and a little disheartening)
Do you know if this is a universal problem or a US one? The reason I ask is that a friend over here was supervising some research at the (NHS) hospital where she worked and finding as suitably broad group of subjects was one of the things she commented on.
I was wondering if its because over here we have an NHS, so medical research has to look out for all the population, whereas in the US it’s probably insurance companies calling the shots (as they’ll be funding the treatment) so they concentrate only on those people in a position to be likely to pay (although would that disproportionately affect women?)
I think basically I’m asking, why the disparity over there?
@WWTH;
Here’s one that demonstrates what you’re saying:
http://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2011/03/29/research_controversy_male_mice_used_to_study_diseases_that_affect_women.html
Lots more out there. The reasoning I’ve run into for the use of male-only cohorts is “it’s more reproducible”. Which it may be, but I haven’t run into a proof that the outcomes are the same.
@arash,
I’ll reply in a bit, I’m working at the moment. Probably won’t be able to write nearly as long a reply, so I’ll try to make it compact.
@Alan I haven’t read Drezden’s links, but I’ve read a few books on the subject (will look up links if you want), and while your arguments make sense my understanding after having read these is that it’s related to the fundamental idea that men are people and women are some kind of abnormal outlier. Researchers often claim that women aren’t appropriate research subjects because we have periods, might get pregnant, and have weird medical quirks that actual (male) people don’t have.
@SFHC
The previous time I commented at arash, he replied with some weird ramblings about how I might commit suicide.
This reply was some sort of callback to his previous ramblings. I have no idea what he’s trying to accomplish with this. Very curious as to what the fuck he’s doing here.
@ guest
Well my friend worked at the London Chest Hospital, so maybe ‘below the waist’ issues are less important for them. It was interesting to see the project. She’d spend the day on the OR and the evening huddled over Excel spreadsheets.
Can’t pretend I understood what they were trying to find out. One thing that did freak me out was that the ‘alive 5 years later’ was the last category. I thought that wasn’t much of a target, but then she explained after that time people getting run over by busses and the like skewed the results so they didn’t bother monitoring. Phew.
@Alan Oh no, it’s not that people are studying reproductive issues, it’s that the fact that women have reproductive systems (and men apparently don’t, because men have ‘normal’ bodies) rules us out as suitable subjects for any kind of medical research.
@SFHC
For context, this is what happened earlier.
I said:
In response, he said:
So yeah, Black Forest cheesecake indeed.
I move that “Black Forest Cheesecake” be made the WHTM term for a non-sequitur.
http://hostedmedia.reimanpub.com/TOH/Images/Photos/37/300×300/exps34490_BOTH1753668A11_04_3bc.jpg
@marinerachel,
I think we agree on that! Maybe I was unclear. I think the raw scientific method is unbiased. It’s when humans get involved and start making choices that bias starts creeping in. Adding more diversity presents more biases, but those biases are hoped to cancel one another out. Right? I think we’re saying the same thing. I am a scientist too!
@arash,
You’ve written a lot, and I’m going to write a more thorough reply when I can, but in the meantime, a question:
What do you mean when you say that scientists need to spend more time protecting and promoting the scientific method? In which ways do scientists regularly fail to follow the scientific method?
regarding religion what i actually believe is a bit different from what i said before, i believe there are original and and non-original versions of ideologies and religions.original version is the first definition and since meaning can change if majority of adherents of an ideology or religion perceive it differently then we can accept the meaning is current interpretation also original meaning is not lost but is considered old fashioned.
so it doesn’t matter how many people think someone is muslim/christian/feminist/communist unless they are the majority.
@katz
everybody’s can decide based on perceived meaning by majority.
we can judge according to what a person says and does.
and this diversity is threatened by islamism, sure any cafeteria muslim
think he/she is a muslim and i have no problem with that.
but as an ex-muslim i should clarify this matter:
doing “haram” things won’t make you Kafir (non-muslim) but according to muhammad and quran and overwhelming majority of muslims there are Six articles of faith and if you don’t believe just one of them, then you are not a muslim simple and clear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iman_(concept)#The_Six_articles_of_the_Islamic_faith
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/07/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/
as you see about half of muslims want sharia law which is a very nasty one and well if islamism is not stopped it would be majority soon enough.
@RosaDeLava
questioning is perfectly fine, but assuming because i’m “ignorant” or “bad” then all my arguments are automatically wrong is Ad hominem.
@dhag85
funny that you accept there could be different “valid” interpretation of Bible and christianity which are opposing in many subjects but when it comes to feminism a person is either a feminist or not and even if that person states he believe core values of feminism, some patricahial sins will make him a non-feminist.
@weirwoodtreehugger
yep, i am.
i believe all sexes should have same rights, opportunities and freedoms in every aspect of human life.
any generalization when in fact majority is different is flawed and wrong, a minority of feminists actually support islamist groups but that video aim was to blame feminism as a whole.
if you paid attention you could see that i mentioned he does occasionally shows signs of misogyny and is not “yet” a full anti feminist but to my knowledge he hasn’t denounced any core values of feminism.
it’s like calling somebody a non-muslim/christian because he occasionally sins.
@ arash
Are you sure about that? What definition of ‘Islamist’ are you applying?
I don’t want to get into ‘no true Scotsman’ territory but I find it hard to believe there are any feminists who support Islamist groups.
There are Muslim feminists, and of course they’ll generally be supportive of Islam, although they may address areas of Islam they find problematic.
But the definition of ‘Islamist’ is to distinguish them from mainstream Islam. Islamists subscribe to a particular form of political Islam that could never be compatible with feminism by definition.
There are women who subscribe to Islamist views, but they’re on a par with the whole submissive wife thing, and I don’t think there are any feminists who would support that either.
Yeah, I never said any of that stuff. Yawn.
arash, at this point you’re just arguing for the sake of arguing. Please stop it.
Actually, no, cancel that, let me ask something: are you a scientist? What’s your field? Because Scildfreja, M, marinerachel and myself are scientists, and if you’re not one I’d ask you to please not splain science to us.
@Drezden
you can do many things that islam disapproves of and be still a muslim(also not a very consistent or devoted one), as long as you believe and act upon core principles of islam.
i think same is true about feminism.
No, it’s like calling him a non-Muslim/non-Christian because he’s a Rabbi.
I’m calling it right now: arash is a class of sociology students.
Yeah, that’s a bit of a mischaracterization. This is neither academia nor a debate. In an informal discussion, which is at best what this exchange might be called, it is perfectly acceptable to both expect a certain level of basic comprehension on the subject and forego citation on points commonly understood by people familiar with the subject.
Neither of those constitutes an appeal to authority.
WWTH is well within their right to question your credibility on the intersection of bias and scientific method with regards to medicine if you are expressing doubts about a very easily researched topic.
Additionally, your insistence that strict adherence to the scientific method is the preferred method for eliminating bias has the distinction of being trivially correct without being practically applicable.
People perform science. People have biases. Even the best of intentions are not going to completely stop those biases from making their way into the conclusions drawn. Challenging bias is a necessary and critical part of the scientific method. When the majority of scientists hold to a certain set of biases, that step is subverted.
Alan,
I really can’t speak to how widespread the problem might be. Medical research isn’t my particular area of expertise.
To clarify, if one has not denounced the “core values” of a philosophy/religion/book club,should they or should they not be counted among the membership of said group?
ETA: Regardless of religion/philosophy/ideology, should it be said that adherents do not, as a matter of principle, make defamatory statements regarding said religion/philosophy/ideology?
@Alan Robertshaw
simple, a person who wants to “impose” his/her favorite version of islam on society
me too, before i saw this shit!
http://goldfemsoc.tumblr.com/post/134396957048/goldsmiths-feminist-society-stands-in-solidarity
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3353973/University-s-Islamic-society-president-resigns-tweet-saying-homosexuality-disease-heart-mind-account.html
Maryam Namazie is a human rights and “feminist” and anti islamism(and not islam) activist.
a feminist group standing in solidarity with a bunch of homophobes and assholes that want to shut down any criticism of islam or islamism
http://www.gspellchecker.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/image7.png
and if you want to know there are islamist or not, here is goldisoc twitter account:
https://twitter.com/goldisoc
Arash demands to know what makes us authorities on science, but he expects us to accept him as an authority on feminism.
And we’re back to “feminists don’t get to decide who is and isn’t following the tenets of feminism. Only internet randos can decide that.”