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.
@dhag85
I haven’t watched Kanye since he did that weird stunt where he took the microphone from Taylor Swift. Not that I hate him for it, he usually just doesn’t have anything interesting to say.
@IN51P1D Agreed, atheism itself is naturally compatible with feminism. There is no contradiction to disbelieving in the supernatural and also believing that men and women are equal.
Two things I won’t link to:
1. Sargon of Akkad’s bullshit video response to the backlash, and
2. Breitbart’s bullshit article about the controversy: Atheist Civil War: Angry Feminists Get Richard Dawkins Disinvited from Skeptics’ Conference.
I will link to a tweet by Christina Hoff Sommers:
https://twitter.com/CHSommers/status/692785459467042819
Asshole.
You did accuse us of “rejecting atheism wholesale”, even though many of us are atheists. No wonder you’re getting confused when you make such wild assumptions.
No. That doesn’t mean anything. It means nothing.
Good thing nobody said “shut up about that”, then! Your fee fees should be okay.
Do you honesly not know what is meant by #NotAllAtheists? If so, you can ask for an explanation instead of whining.
Yeah, that’ll work.
Why do they need HIM to validate them, anyway? They’ve already got enough assholes on side, one would think. One more isn’t going to help them any.
Also: Misogyny ≠ science. Misogyny isn’t even supported by science. But trust them not to grasp that very basic concept.
At first I was like >_>
and then I was like “eeeeeeyyyyyy” 😀
also, all these mentions of the ThunderChrist remind me, I must watch Kevin Logan’s latest parody video about him.
@Bina:
It really, really hurts their feelings to have someone they see as “their” person disagree with them. They remember Nye from their childhood, dammit, and that means they own him! How dare he have opinions of his own! It’s utterly unacceptable and really offensive to them.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41zQZOfqigL._SY300_.jpg
I could quote stuff directly from this comment section that explicitly says that atheism and misogyny go hand-in-hand, but I don’t know this community well and I don’t know who’s part of it and who would tend to be disavowed, so I won’t. But there’s a soft prejudice even in the article: Dawkins is described as a “scientist-turned-embarrassing-atheist-ideologue”. I know, I know, I’m almost certainly being over-sensitive about this, but…
Going into any article about Dawkins, you know the word “atheist” is going to come up. It’s generally just a question of whether that word will be used in a neutral way, or a negative way. Here, Dawkins isn’t just an embarrassing ideologue; he’s an embarrassing ATHEIST idealogue. It could have said “atheist-scientist-turned-embarrassing-ideologue”, which would honestly be more accurate. But here it reads like atheism is part of the embarrassment. For a lot of people it probably is.
It’s that kind of thing.
@Bina
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I will NEVER understand how the online atheist movement got wrapped up in this anti-feminist agenda. It makes NO f*cking sense.
@AuntieAlias
The only people this hurts is feminists. More hatred directed and stewed at feminists over a stupid straw cartoon that wasn’t even true. It’s like the fake tweets they made up about Sarkeesian just to justify harassing her. The only people this hurts is feminists and their lives are even more in danger by misogynists. >.>
The cartoon insulted Muslims too yet this is only about feminism. >.> This Gamergate sh*t ain’t over.
Please do. That would be great.
I do know what it means. I know what “fee fees” means too. You’re insulting me, and you’re insulting me for feeling insulted. It’s obnoxious.
And furthermore, how dare he have opinions that were shaped by actual, nonpatronizing interactions with women! He’s upsetting the whole applecart!
(Never mind that the apples were rotting to begin with, and that someone’s gotta dump it and rinse that thing out with hot, soapy water before filling it again with sound apples…)
Your previous comment suggests you have no clue what it means. Now I don’t know what to believe.
I don’t mean to pick on you specifically because there are similar comments here. This type of comment is rampant in progressive spaces and I’m just wondering how it’s in any way helpful. Isn’t that just ceding the high ground to the MRAtheist types? And doesn’t it actually kind of prove IN51P1D’s point that atheists aren’t entirely welcome in feminist/social justice spaces?
It’s not that people say “atheists are bad and not welcome here.” It’s more that we’re acceptable as long as we don’t bring up our atheism too much and as long as we are apologetic about our atheism and walk on eggshells around non-atheists.
I have zero problem with someone asking “why is misogyny so rampant amongst atheists?” Because it is. But, I also have zero problem with asking the same question about any religion. Because it’s also rampant in every religion I can think of off the type of my head. But if an atheist asked “why are people of faith so misogynist?” around here, they would get ripped a new one.
There’s a huge double standard in progressive communities where intersectionality never applies to atheists and even though Christianity is very privileged in the western world, we are never allowed to talk about Christian privilege the same way we talk of male, white, cishet, class privilege.
There are certainly a lot of atheists who have many kinds of privilege and have not personally faced oppression for being atheists. Dawkins and his fans would be among them. But that does not mean atheist, or irreligious in general is not a marginalized class. I can dig up links to show this, but I really hope I don’t have to do so.
Ugh, look, I told you I didn’t want to do this and I explained why. Here, have a sample. But I really would prefer that you engage the quote from the article instead.
Sadly, this is true. And these asshats are trying to whip it up all over again.
Meanwhile, I’ll also note that there are people in this world who are both Muslims AND feminists, and who don’t buy into the idea that scripture is a sound basis for unequal treatment of women. And who are using scripture to counter the misogynists, even. (As well as non-scriptural material, because shockingly, they’re not prejudiced against unbelievers!)
They’ve co-opted reason/rationalism to mean whatever they want it to mean.
Same thing with the Randites and Objectivism. There’s nothing objective about it as a philosophy, it invariably serves the interests of those it appeals to.
I do think this is too over sensitive though. When David writes about the misogyny of Vox Day or Dalrock, he’ll mention their religiousity because it’s part of their persona, just as atheism is part of Dawkins’ persona.
@EJ
That’s at the heart of so many of the weird dogpiles you see. Gaming is ours, women were never involved in gaming! Rationality is ours, women are never rational! Geek hobbies are OURS, OURS, OURS!
When women and girls have always been there, and have always been involved, but the basic assumption at the time and ever since is that this thing was solely for them…
I wonder where they got that idea, hmm?
@IN51P1D:
Atheist here, extremely keyed in to the current issues of sexism in the atheist community, or as much as you can be as a person who doesn’t attend cons and meet big names.
Atheism has a sexism problem. We atheists *should* be embarassed by how many of our members come out in favor of this garbage. I don’t know anything about you, but I remember back in the day when intellectualism was seen as the primary advantage of atheism; we were supposedly the people who could see past the bullshit, past the nonsense propped up by tradition, and look at the world with clear eyes and sound methodology.
It was a thing, and people like Dawkins contributed to that thing. And we have to own it, because now it’s clear that it doesn’t matter how smart you are; everyone suffers from bias. Intellectuals are just better at rationalizing their beliefs.
Talking about this doesn’t disparage atheists in any undeserving way; atheists themselves are the ones saying this. The ones that actually care about progressive values and want to see their fellows in disbelief improve.
That’s how I see the conversation, anyway.
EDIT: Also, hi ParadoxicalIntention, and thanks! I’m hoping to stick around for a bit. 😛
@ WWTH
Well put; totally agree with your very astute analysis.
I wonder if there’s also a geographic element to this.
In England atheism is a pretty neutral thing. It’s about as relevant as whether you collect stamps or not.
I’ve noticed though that with my USian friends it’s very much seen as taking a political position. It seems less an absence of faith and more being actively anti-faith.
I wonder if that’s a factor that has some influence in whether there’s a correlation with other political stances?
@IN51P1D:
The last time we had the grand atheist vs non atheist throwdown in this forum it offended a lot of people and led to some harsh words and hurt feelings. I would really be grateful if you could simply drop the issue. This is not the place to press the point that you are attempting to press.
If it helps you to contextualise my position, I’m a straight white cismale STEM person who, because I am a stereotype of myself, identifies as a movement atheist.
@IN51P1D
If it helps, I momentarily felt the same way about the phrasing of “atheist ideologue” but I think it’s an accurate description, given that Richard Dawkins spend more time on his Atheist activism these days.
Personally, I feel the issue with the New Atheism (Dawkins, Harris, etc) is that many of them seem to be under the impression that by denying religion, they have somehow ridden themselves of ALL bias.
What gets me mad is that atheists ARE a marginal group. They still ARE discriminated against and treated like they worship Satan, mostly in the real world. Yet here online we see them fighting with eachother, acting like they know everything about social issues when they don’t (not all of them, just the more prominent ones on youtube) and kick out other activists like feminists etc out of their little online clique. People like TAA, Thunderfoot, and Sargon have convinced me that you can be an atheist and still be a bigoted woman-hating hatred-filled piece of crap. I still support atheism, I just wish these people would go away and stop representing us.
I gave IN51P1D a shot and answered him calm and straight and what do I come back to?
http://media.mnn.com/assets/images/2010/04/oregon-sea-lion.gif
That’ll teach me not to give the benefit of the doubt.
http://www.tonyxprice.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/perot-hat-punch-simpsons.gif
@Alan Robertshaw:
I understand that the UK has a much smaller population of evangelicals.. I think that contributes to the issue. The blogs I follow have new stories at least every week on someone saying that America is a christian nation, non-believers can’t be president, we should base law around the Ten Commandments, and so on.
I think it’s a political position over here because it pretty much has to be.
We also have never had a blasphemy law or a state-sponsored church, and it’s kind of a big thing in terms of our identity as a nation, so that makes the issue even bigger.