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 have no idea what is going on in this thread at this point but I read this exchange on Skeptic Feminist.
Skeptic Feminist:
Prototypical Online Anti-Feminist Atheist Self-Parody (Note: not actual twitter handle):
He’s only claiming philosophy and logic? What about reason and factual truth?
@arash
as you see most of primary results use the meaning i advocate and yes some use it to bash liberals (which i acknowledged earlier).
Uh… yes? Well, no, not yes, but…
I am not projecting my mind (which is an interesting topic, since this is the only way anyone has to model the universe, as it turns out, so I am sort of, and so are you, and everyone else, but that’s all beside the point…). I am making a value judgement. Did you read the post you’ve quoted there, in which I said that, yes, that’s the definition? What I went on to say is that the only people I see who use the term are mendacious jerkbutts, and that it is used as part of an effort to smear and deride progressive values. Maybe not even consciously – I’m an optimist and doubt that people are as nasty as they can sometimes be made out to be! But that is the effect.
As for your “let’s look at the googs for answers”. The Pagerank system Google uses is largely considered an industry secret, but we do know a good amount about it. Pages bubble up in Google’s indexes according to link number, visit number, and the ranks of adjacent pages.
This is not how to determine truth. This is how to determine popularity. Google “astrology” and see how useful google ranking is in determining truth.
I’m done talking about this “regressive left” nonsense. Take it or leave it.
So you’re admitting openly that you use the term for no other reason? Do you understand that attempting to degrade is by default attempting to silence?
I’m not really keeping up with this thread. I just don’t trust nor like anti-vaxxers like Bill Maher because they spread misinformation and lies which are putting people in danger. A whole slew of kids got the measles because they weren’t properly vaccinated do to anti-vaxxers. Like I’m gonna trust someone who puts kids at risk because they THINK something might do more harm than good when it’s PROVEN that vaccines help. I don’t trust anyone who thinks polio and small pox vaccines were a bad idea. Those people probably don’t understand actual science and instead search for information that confirms their biases, which is why every anti-vaxxer cites literally the ONLY paper that has EVER said vaccines are bad. (Which was poorly written and researched and everytBill.)
I am being slightly hyperbolic, but that’s my opinion. My own. I dont know Bill Maher’s politics beyond him leaning to the left. All I know is that I don’t personally like him because he’s a smug-ass anti-vaxxer. I’m not gonna stand by an anti-vaxxer, whether liberal or conservative or whatever the hell a “regressive left” is.
Vaccine your fucking children.
@Pandapool
Practically speaking, Maher is an American-variety (which is to say right-) libertarian, although he’s less deliberately shortsighted on environmental issues than most of that lot. He’s also into a wide variety of what I can only describe as crankery; anti vaxxing, assorted conspiracy theories of varying degrees of ludicrous silliness, and of course the bigotry that always seems to end up accompanying so much of that crap.
@Dalillama
Shows how much I ever paid attention to Bill Maher.
And even if anti-vaxxers didn’t literally kill children (which they totally do), they’d still be horrible excuses for so-called human beings, because they’d rather be the parent of a dead child than an autistic child. Holy shitsplats, there aren’t even words for that level of bigotry. It’s not just deliberately-faulty pseudoscience, it’s not just murder, it’s fucking eugenics.
(*raaage*)
@isidore13
nope, it’s an attempt to “change” and “describe” a phenomenon and of course not a friendly one.
when i think something is stupid i feel the obligation to try to change it and i’m not using any form of violence or threat, i’m simply showing contempt.
generally i don’t trust anyone who holds stupid beliefs (and this put me at odds with many aspects of multiculturalism) for example i can argue anyone who thinks that abraham was “good and logical” cannot be trusted,(which are a large portion of population) the man wanted to behead his child because he heard things!
but again this distrust has nothing to do with truth value of what people say, people have the ability to hold both true and false opinions and so we can’t automatically discard what a person says even if he/she is the most stupid person in the world.
i’m not demanding that love or admiration for these people, just don’t prejudge everything they say because that they say something that is not true(or we don’t approve)
i will, you have my word 😉
@Scented Fucking Hard Chairs
well they don’t believe that vaccines are effective, so to be fair they don’t prefer a dead child to an autistic child.
anyway they are dangerous enough to be considered a real threat to public health.
and about the islamophobia thing:
guess who said “Islam was never a religion of peace. Islam is the religion of fighting”?
the problem is that this person is not islamophobic.
Are we ok with letting this thread die now? The trolls can teal deer at the void forever.
This comment section is almost painful to read… How can one support such a extremist ideology like modern feminism. All I hear is feminists complaining about how those who oppose them are still afforded the right to free speech by The U.S. Constitution and European code, Article 10. And you moderators, you understand that with your moderation policies you are proving that you don’t believe in your ideas enough for you to allow them to stand up to criticism. Simply reading your moderation policy should make anyone cringe to be part of an organization who’s only defense is silencing their opposition. You should be ashamed to run this comment section like it’s in China. At least the Chinese people are somewhat informed…
@John Doe
this site is not public domain, and so the owner has every right to do as he pleases.
and you can criticize the rules or moderation but there is no obligation to accept your criticism.
Where in the US Constitution does it say David Futrelle needs to run a blog and provide a platform for misogynists in the comment section?
This is either a bad parody or the IMAX screen of right-wing projection.
Right-wingers, literally and without a shred of hyperbole, believe the First Amendment only applies to other right-wingers. I’ve had them, again, literally and without a shred of hyperbole, respond to “Dude, liberals are allowed to have opinions and boycott things too” with “No they’re not.” So. Go eat a cactus made of Legos and chase it with a banhammer made of Ex-Lax, fucko.
Also, obligatory XKCD:
You’re on form this morning, M.
@John Doe:
Comrade Mao says make more
steelbonbons?Less facetiously, what does this commenter indicate about internet masculinity in general? Here’s my analysis:
There’s always people who take umbrage at the thought that they might be held to some sort of standard. Whether or not they meet this standard seems almost irrelevant: the thing that they take offence to, IMHO, is that they’re expected to take account of other people’s feelings. It’s about power: they came here to exert power over others by making those others read their bullshit, and when they realise that instead they are expected let others exert power over them by holding them to community posting standards, it feels like the literal worst thing in the world to them.
I feel I need a nanotech violin to express my sympathies here. If you’re on comment boards in order to exert power over others – nonconsensually – and you get verbally abusive when you aren’t allowed to do that, then what sort of person are you in real life? Seriously.
If the concept of consent in communication is an affront to you, perhaps you need to fuck off back to 8chan and take your horseshit with you.
This is a genuine question, but is there any objective source for what Chanty actually did that led to the appalling harassment she’s received. I’m not trying to justify it, but all the sources i’ve seen from google are dodgy mra biased accounts. All i’ve seen on Youtube is her shouting at Paul Elam.
Further proof that feminism has nothing to do with equality or gender roles or even women, that it has become just another Leftist scam without any intellectual credibility whatsoever.
@Drcruel
Can you elaborate on that or are you just talking out of your ass?
Awesome, Lindy West! More power to you, girl!
Personally, I would have underlined 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 *by white men* for years.”
Those alt.right white critics of ‘rapefugees’ always seem to inflict 10x more damage on the women whose ‘racial heritage’ they say they are protecting, than the islamic ‘woman haters’ do. Case in point, really.
Translation: You have only seen ugly things, so you are going to stick my head up your ass until you see something truly beautiful.
Explanation You not likely to see anything to the contrary if you insist on conclusively prejudging everything that you see.
Just as the term “Islamists” is a term coined by progressive Muslims to describe folks that want to use state and/or violent coercion to enforce supposedly Muslim principles, the term “regressive left” is a term coined by progressives to describe self-identifying progressives who use supposedly progressive end-goals to justify decidedly UNprogressive methods such as suppressing freedom of speech and assembly.
I concede that like the term “politically correct” (which was also coined by progressives), the term regressive left has often been appropriated by right wingers for purposes not entirely different than what you describe. But I suspect that you would have seen contrary examples if you had your eyes open. I don’t think you could distinguish a progressive who misliked your ends-means analysis, from a right-winger, if they sat on your face.
Like Christianity and Islam and every other human movement, Feminism has its demagogues who subvert and betray the movement’s founding principles in order to justify their whims and interests. Christianity had its dark ages; feminism and Islam seem to be in theirs at this time. Who knows what the future will bring.
I referred to Chanty as “big red” on previous threads because I erroneously believed that was her handle. I avoided “Chanty” because I thought that was a name she didn’t want to be dragged through the internet. But “douchebags” is a bit gynophobic of an epithet for a supposed feminist to use, is it not?
Oh look, a necromoron.
Hi necrodork
Hi yourselves, necrophobes.
Hey, check out Ms Red Entitlement during the two year period where she was supposedly “in hiding” and terrified for her life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH2cceoyIMg
There’s a peaceful, quiet and polite counter-protest by I-dont-know-who against a zombie fest and a gay pride parade, and if I hadn’t seen Red’s vicious assault on the MRA’s freedom of speech and assembly, or her claim that she was in hiding during this time, I’d be quite sympathetic to her. But her question of why the fundies are protesting zombies and gay pride in a parade down a public street, should very well be asked of her and the rest of her thugs that block the MRAs from even being able to meet and talk behind closed doors.
Yes, yes, of course you would have been sympathetic. What luck that you didn’t fall for her lies!