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.
By reading the comments policy. It’s really really clear about this.
LinkxZeldaFan
It’s cute you think the rule is to protect the likes of Dawkins. It’s like this. Calling his views and statements “crazy” links his poor behavior and views with people with mental illness. There are many people with mental illness who do not share his views or beliefs and to equate the two is insulting. Basically, it’s wrong of you to insult the perfectly nice people of the world who go through their lives with mental illness by associating them with Dawkins.
@LinkxZeldaFan
FFS. You just said you DID read the comments policy, and you even got all snarky about it. And now you wonder how in the world you were supposed to know what the comments policy says. Jebus.
@dlouwe
Thank you for that Onion article. They really are America’s finest news source.
@EJ
Isn’t David Silverman a Republican? Or even *shudders* a libertarian?
Thanks to everyone who’s been posting links! Please keep doing so! Especially if you see any incipient MRA-ness from Dawkins, or more examples of people tweeting MRA stuff at him. He has me blocked on twitter so it’s kind of a pain for me to track all of his comments.
There are some very loud atheists who are also very loudly sexists. Their misogyny is not representative of atheism. It’s a totally separate thing.
I wish people didn’t have the impression that those philosophies are linked. Atheism in America is, for the most part, a rejection of Christianity specifically and mysticism in general. It’s absolutely compatible with feminism. But in articles and comments sections like this one, people seem to feel very comfortable making gross generalizations.
It’s very upsetting to me, frankly. Atheists in America are ostracized enough as it is. Openly-socialist Bernie Sanders is in the process of pretending to believe in a god, because it’s a given that no atheist can be president. We’re reminded every day in a million ways that this is a Christian country, and our presence is barely tolerated. And on top of that, we’re rejected wholesale by feminism because of a few loudmouths who don’t represent our views? Why is that okay?
@davidfutrelle he’s got you blocked? Why? That in itself is MRA like!
@Tess “It’s cute you think the rule is to protect the likes of Dawkins. It’s like this. Calling him “crazy” links his poor behavior and views with people with mental illness. There are many people with mental illness who do not share his views or beliefs and to equate the two is insulting. Basically, it’s wrong of you to insult the perfectly nice people of the world who go through their lives with mental illness by associating them with Dawkins.”
No I don’t think the rule was made to “protect Dawkins”, please don’t put words in my mouth simply for the sake of insulting me. I simply gave my honest thoughts about Dawkins. It was wrong what he did.
And no, I wasn’t insulting mentally ill people by saying Dawkins’ misogynistic tweets were crazy. Crazy is a word that can also mean “full of flaws”, it’s not just for the mentally ill. Now that I know the word is banned I won’t use it anymore but twisting my words to make up lies about what I said is what’s wrong. I hope we can get along. ^^
@dhag85 “FFS. You just said you DID read the comments policy, and you even got all snarky about it. And now you wonder how in the world you were supposed to know what the comments policy says. Jebus.”
As I said, I was defending myself not getting snarky about it. I knew Ableist language wasn’t allowed, just not the specific word “crazy”. I apologize to David Futrelle for this…I’m very sorry, Mr Futrelle.
@David Futrelle “Thanks to everyone who’s been posting links! Please keep doing so! Especially if you see any incipient MRA-ness from Dawkins, or more examples of people tweeting MRA stuff at him. He has me blocked on twitter so it’s kind of a pain for me to track all of his comments.”
Wow, I didn’t know Richard Dawkins blocked you…I’m sorry to hear that.
I have to say, seeing Dawkins crash and burn like this makes me even more annoyed that I failed in trying to trick him into signing a creationist book at a book signing back in 2010.
THIS. I think it’s been pretty clear for a while now, since elevatorgate, that Dawkins’ misogyny can be attributed to malice, not stupidity. I’ve been done with that fucker since elevatorgate.
http://45.media.tumblr.com/8acab0c78ba76e7884cb1e22ae340e40/tumblr_mlb767M5Q81qlvwnco1_500.gif
@Linkx
Read.
The.
Comments.
Policy.
Ugh, this is what really sickens me about those masculist Freeze Peachers. They started all this by shouting at her, trying to drown her out — and then, when she told them to STFU, out came the death-threat brigade. Which is STILL brigading her, as far as I’m aware. She’s had to disguise her identity to get even a modicum of peace.
Meanwhile, where are the death threats and violence directed at Dooshbag, Ratty Matty, and Shartiste? I’m not seeing them. At worst, Doosh got his wig shampooed with beer and his ears with insults, and this only when he got grabby with a young woman who wasn’t having his attempts to “seduce” her. Maybe because there is no “both sides do it” to this? Maybe because there are consequences to things you say when you’re advocating rape, but much harsher consequences to advocating an END to rape culture? Maybe because one of these things is NOT like the other?
Things that make you go hmmmm…right before you barf.
There’s literally whole sections titled specifically with notes about the specific word “crazy,” in nice bold letters, complete with a whole discussion on its history here and justification for its banning…
Granted you have to scroll a little, but it’s pretty hard to miss.
@IN51P1D
It isn’t okay. But I also don’t see it happening here. I haven’t seen anyone here (although I got a little overwhelmed on the last page, so I might have missed one or two posts) tarring all atheists as misogynists. Most of them, myself included, are just disappointed that so many vocal atheists are also vocal misogynists. Nor has anyone been writing on atheism wholesale as being a misogynist movement. People have discussed whether Dawkins really is a misogynist (if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…) and theorizing about what it is about atheism (or the most vocal portions of it) that seems to draw misogynists. But it is disingenuous to say feminism is rejecting atheism.
No…no one said it was? A lot of regulars here are atheist and manage to be feminists/not be sexist just fine.
As opposed to those of us who are religious, who aren’t compatible with feminism because…?
Like what? All I’ve seen are people pointing out that atheism has a huge problem with sexism, and many of the faces of it are misogynists and/or openly anti-feminists.
It’s not a “generalization” if it’s the truth. Quite frankly, it’s what put me off of atheism.
However, again, some people here are atheists and manage to not be misogynists just fine.
Last I checked, there wasn’t any real indication of his religion or lack there of, beyond the fact that he’s at least ethnically Jewish.
Just like same-sex couples, Muslim people, transgendered people, people of any other religion, ect.
No offense, but Atheists aren’t that special in terms of “What groups does Christianity despise?”
And how is this not making “gross generalizations” about a whole group of people based off of a few prominent members?
Again, people here are expressing dislike of those people and their views, and how they’re the “faces” so to speak of the Atheist movement. Plenty of people here are atheist themselves, even if they reject that label or have to preface it because of what other people have done/said that has tainted Atheism for them.
Please stop #NotAllAtheists-ing all over the thread. No one here is hating on Atheism as a whole, just the toxic beliefs that have permeated it thanks to douchebros like Dawkins.
EDIT: Forgot to say: KIRBY’S BACK! WELCOME BACK! YOU WERE MISSED!
http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view5/3195310/tackle-hug-o.gif
@IN51P1D
First of all, let’s not assume you know what people secretly believe. Some people still like to claim Obama is a secret atheist, just because he seems like a smart guy. This is not a reliable method.
Secondly, many of us commenters are atheists, myself included. Nobody is saying that atheism = misogyny or “rejecting atheism wholesale”, so you can drop that strawman immediately. We are (or at least I am) saying that movement atheism has to a large extent been hijacked by misogynist and racist assholes. I don’t know if those attitudes are more prevalent among atheists than in the general population, but when so many of the most prominent atheist speakers and writers keep expressing hateful views it doesn’t seem like a movement I would want to have anything to do with. Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, Mehta, Mason, TAA, Maher, and many many others fall into this category.
I am an atheist since I don’t believe in any gods, but these days I would rather not mention this to anyone. Dawkins and the others have ruined whatever movement once existed.
And lastly, I don’t think you will get much sympathy for that bit about how ostracized atheists are. It’s true that atheists in the US are a minority, but I suspect most of us would argue other minorities have it quite a bit worse. What with being murdered by the police and all. Or, you know, being harassed and threatened by large mobs for years because someone put a video of you on youtube once.
EDIT: Dammit. I refreshed the page before posting, just to make sure I wouldn’t get ninja’d, and I still got ninja’d!
I don’t wish to dogpile on the ‘comments policy’ thing, but by the time I’d located this clip others had already referred back to the relevant section.
Here it is anyway:
http://youtu.be/cm5_wqNEY3c
Actually, just realised it wasn’t that clip I meant, it was the ‘Robot Wars’ one. Ah well, Duncan is a funny horse anyway.
@Kirbywarp
I apologize. *sweatdrop*
@dlouwe
Yeah now I see it. Sorry, dlouwe.
In other news, Thunderfoot and other atheist douchebags are trying to get Bill Nye not to attend the NECSS conference to protest for Dawkins. >.> https://twitter.com/MrsVickyCaramel/status/692650987622928385
Bill Nye is a much nicer guy and I don’t think he’ll fall for it.
@LinkxZeldaFan
Ah yes, another case of “Douchebros thought that this prominent celebrity was on their side, but it turns out that not everyone thinks the way they do, contrary to their own fevered projection, because they’re assholes and everyone else knows it”.
Being “charitable”, it’s tempting to assume Dawkins is vainly attempting to remain in the public eye pronouncing on issues he can’t be bothered researching or listening to anyone else about.
Sadly it’s more a case of lacking judgement, taste, and empathy, as indicated by the pitiful lip service condemning harassment while fueling it with more ridicule. As if this woman hadn’t already endured enough of that.
@Paradoxical Intention
Last time I checked Bill Nye was a feminist and wanted more women in STEM. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWOW452duZc
He really admired his mother too. ^_^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXqXfv2yVx4
Various rappers have been acting weird lately. Did anyone catch that epic Kanye rant that was just based on a very stupid misunderstanding? B.o.B. came out as a flat earther. And now Ghostface is having a beed with Martin Shkreli? What the fuck is happening.
By saying that atheism is compatible with feminism, I did not mean to apply that non-atheism was not compatible with feminism.
That’s a bit of a mixed message.
I don’t want to get into a debate about that, but I think it’s fair to say that some proportion of our elected officials have to hide the fact that they don’t believe in god to keep their jobs. Sanders seems like a pretty secular guy. I’m not the first person to consider the possibility, if that means anything.
How am I supposed to react to that? I’m coming to you in the most honest way I know how: I see this happening. It hurts my feelings. “Shut up about that” is not a helpful response to me.
The atheist movement needs to be about educating people, encouraging open mindedness, being cooperative even with people who are theists, just general open mindedness and education, in a nutshell. That’s what I always thought it was, how f***ing naive was I! Such a shame to see someone I looked up to do this kind of thing. It’s awkward for me, because on one hand, I am a feminist (and believe in equality for everyone, for me feminism is the gender part of humanitarianism/egalitarianism), but on the other hand, I’m an atheist who loves researching religions, not as fact, but as a really interesting part of history and culture. But a lot of these “atheists” in this new movement are racist, misogynistic, homophobic etc. Being an atheist just means you don’t believe in a god. I don’t like it when people assume I’m a dick for being an atheist, because that’s absolutely ridiculous, but I can’t side with most of these people who are horrible and call themselves atheists, because they’re often so bigoted. Nothing to do with the fact they’re atheists, they’re just not good people. I feel the subject of atheism and its relationship with feminism needs to be cleared up. Atheism/freethought and feminism are some of the most compatible things as far as ideologies and beliefs go. Ugh. I hope that made sense.