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.
@Kirbywarp
I’m torn, because part of me wants to say “I agree, and I am definitely embarrassed”; and, “atheism isn’t a church, Richard Dawkins isn’t our pope, we don’t have members, and none of us should be embarrassed to not believe in god just because some of the rest of us are horrible.”
@EJ
That’s fine, I’ll drop it — I’m just a visitor here. I just thought y’all should know, because I think this is a community that, for the large part, makes an effort to be inclusive.
@LinkxZeldaFan:
Or that they wouldn’t find such large and rabid audiences to appeal to… that’d be nice.
@WWTH
No worries.
I wasn’t trying to be helpful, but rather just expressing how I feel about the label “atheist”. I would rather not call myself an atheist, because the most prominent atheists are mainly assholes with whom I don’t want to be associated. And I know that when I call myself an atheist, I have to preface that statement. I don’t always have the time or motivation to do this. I suppose, if I’m honest, I don’t care that much about the atheist position anymore. The fact that I don’t believe in god is not one of the more important things about my beliefs and values. I tend to think my non-belief has very important implications, but the non-belief in itself isn’t central to anything I do (anymore).
I wasn’t necessarily trying to be “helpful” (to whom?). I’m only expressing my own feelings toward using this one label. If asked, I will say I don’t believe in god. I don’t say “atheist” anymore. That’s all.
That would be poorly worded. If someone asked, let’s say, “why are so many religious leaders in America so misogynist?”, while pointing to examples, I don’t think it would be a terrible question. I’m sure we could think of many answers to this. Something something religious conservatism something blah. I’m too tired to elaborate here, but you probably know what I’m trying to say. I wouldn’t be ok with someone saying “why are atheists so misogynist?” either. Did someone say that? In that case, I’ve missed it.
I would be fine with talking about that.
No, you don’t have to. I agree. I don’t have much patience with atheists playing oppression olympics, though.
@LinkxZeldaFan:
They’re not going to go away by themselves. It’s up to those of us who oppose them to drive them out. Sitting with fingers crossed and hoping that Carl Benjamin is going to stop being a hateful pile of shit isn’t a strategy.
If you don’t have the stomach for the fight then that’s fair, nobody is required to be an activist. But we do need someone to step up as activists, otherwise the assholes win by default.
Can we vote you President of Atheism? Because I like your platform.
@IN51P1D
My last comment on this.
Neither of those quotes say anything about rejecting atheism wholesale, or that all atheists are misogynists. They suggested there’s some sort of correlation between atheism and sexism, which may or may not be true. I literally have no idea.
Just for the record: I never said anything about rejecting atheism wholesale, either. I was talking about rejecting ATHEISTS wholesale. That might be a minor distinction, but you yourself have said that it’s a term you reject, so I think it’s meaningful.
If you don’t see how suggesting a correlation between atheism and sexism might be upsetting to an atheist, then yeah, we don’t have a lot to talk about.
@IN51P1D:
Yeah, I know… I was the same way at one point. But it’s not that different of a problem than any other group faces. Science labs can say that certain people don’t represent them, but at a certain point when enough important people come out as terrible and there’s enough evidence of a terrible environment, they have to start thinking about the problem as an institutional one rather than an individual one.
We don’t have to be a church or have a pope to be a group. 🙂 And our goal at this point should be to elevate the voices we want to represent us. Luckily I see that happening; a lot of conferences now are focusing more on making sure they have a diverse set of speakers and panelists rather than trying to get the few big names.
@ kirbywarp
It’s a paradox I’ve spent many house discussing with my colonial fronds. They have all that first amendment and separation of church and state. We have an established state religion, a monarch who’s head of the church and automatic seats in the legislature for bishops.
Yet, religion is no big thing here, whereas in the US it seems to permeate everything.
One thing that amused me was that row about the court and the Ten Commandments statue. In our Central Criminal Court (‘old bailey’) there’s a mural. It features Moses delivering the 10 commandments. No one gives a shit. It’s just seen as a general ‘history of law’ theme. The mural also has King John signing Magna Carta etc.
We have ‘openly’ atheist senior politicians; doesn’t affect their careers. Tony Blair and David Cameron are both Christians, but that wasn’t an issue either. They could comment about how their faith helps them or motivated them, but it wasn’t something they ‘relied on’ for votes. (“We don’t do god” as his spokesman put it)
It’s all very interesting to compare with the situation over the pond.
ETA: if we’re declaring affiliation I’m an atheist who’s also a hardcore pagan. I’ve never had any problem believing multiple contradictory things at the same time.
@ IN51P1D I agree with you. The term “atheist”, believing in no gods at all, has no sexist problem. It’s just a word and it’s stupid to associate it with anything other than its definition, just like how it’s dumb to associate feminism with “man-hating” when in the dictionary it simply means the social and economical quality of women and men and nothing else. The correct term here is that the online atheist MOVEMENT is sexist, not the thing itself. Using the movement to mean the word and vice-versa is what causes confusion.
And yeah, I seriously don’t think Bernie Sanders believes in that supernatural stuff…like really… It’s just to keep face since America is still very religious.
@Bryce
Have you ever heard of MrRepzion? I REALLY hate that guy, he’s the definition of a bigoted straight white male gamer privileged little brat. >.< Gamergate guy who called Sarkeesian a c*nt and threatens to dox other youtubers.
@IN51P1D
To clarify, I reject it as a label for myself. I’ve never rejected atheism as a whole, or all atheists. You can scroll back and re-read what I’ve already said about that, because I’m not repeating it.
@Alan Robertshaw:
We have the same sort of mural! And in fact, a couple religious extremists try to point to the image of moses as evidence that we are a Judeo-Christian nation (there’s a fun invented phrase). And yes, it has other characters as well from other beliefs and from history.
And those same extremists don’t understand why secular folks aren’t complaining about the mural, but are complaining about the literal ten commandments statues.
Some of the people I’ve read think there’s been some sort of cultural saturation with religion in the UK. It’s been established, the established church has gotten crusty, and so now it’s no big deal. Just now I’m wondering how the US wouldn’t have gotten a similar saturation… it’s not like we’ve only recently majority Christian…
@Alan:
Tony Blair, interestingly, had to conceal his Catholicism until he left office. In Britain we may not do God, but the God we don’t do is very definitely a Protestant/Anglican one.
@dhag85 We’re just not understanding each other. You think I’m not understanding you, and I know you’re not understanding me, because you keep extrapolating all the wrong points from what I write. Let’s give up.
Okay then. -_-
Taking labels is sometimes required to de-stigmatize a word though… Like how people who reject the word “feminist” but still believe in its definition? When you don’t use a word due to its negative connotations it becomes dirty. Which is why I’ll continue to call myself an atheist despite the scumbags currently pervading our movement. In time I hope more non-sexist atheists do the same to flush out the bad.
It’s… depressing watching some of my favorite atheist spaces basically burn to hell (as it were) over this.
I even have even had people not only tell me that feminism is the root of all evil or some such, and are just the vanguard of an Islamist Invasion, but that LGBT people are allied with Islamists.
Because… apparently, that makes sense to people. What the fuck is wrong with humanity?
@ Kirby
Ours also has the conquest of Everest! I enquired about this and it turned out it was just because it was painted in 1953.
(My fave thing about the CCC is that every time someone tries to blow it up they clean up but leave a piece of shrapnel stuck in the wall as a souvenir)
@ EJ
It was no secret though that TB had an interest in Catholicism and was taking ‘lessons’ prior to conversion. Notwithstanding the plaque on the London Great Fire Monument, Catholicism hasn’t been a bar to political careers since Wellington changed the rules.
@LinkxZeldaFan
I think there’s a difference between avoiding the label “atheist” because not believing in gods is frowned upon, and avoiding it because misogynists have hijacked it.
RE: Atheism in Great Britain vs the USA
Remember that it was Puritans who did a lot of the early settling of the American colonies from Europe. So we sort of took a lot the people who cared deeply about these matters off England’s shoulders and kept them here.
It varies with location, yes. In the US people are fairly unlikely to actually say they’re atheist if they aren’t actively anti-faith, though it’s not clear how many people just don’t admit they’re atheist. National surveys have the US at about 70% Christian and about 23% None, but some percentage of the None column will answer yes if asked if they believe in the existence of a god. The US has also historically been very Protestant, to the point where our first Catholic president had to give a big speech about believing in the absolute separation of Church and State to reassure people he wouldn’t take orders from the Vatican, but that’s shifted.
@ Kirby
He, I’ve just remembered that bit in “Yes Prime Minister” when they’re discussing the Church of England.
weirwoodtreehugger:
Actually, I don’t think it necessarily means they (Dawkins and his fans) aren’t faced with oppression for being atheists. I think it’s the only axis of oppression they receive, and for a lot of them, their atheism is so intertwined with a sense of how smart they are. Couple that with all the privilege they have, the oppression they receive is strangely the “the worst thing ever” and a badge of their greatness. They face the REAL oppression, so everybody else should shut up.
http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Stand+back+bismuth+the+true+edge+master+is+here_8be7c3_5396529.jpg
http://images.f169bbs.com/content/2014-09/official-f169-brony-fedora-thread-4004.jpg
@dhag85
Well then there’s two reasons to avoid the label. I personally don’t care if people think I’m a Satan-worshipping god-hater, but it does bother me that people may assume that I hate feminism because I’m an atheist.
But seriously…this is mostly an online thing IMO… I’ve never come across any atheists in real life saying they hate women or that it’s a requirement to be an atheist. It’s mostly these little guys sitting behind their computers ranting about women. Of course, if this keeps up you might see it in real life, which I hope not.
@IN51P1D
Since I was the one you called out as “anti-atheist”, I’d like to reply, even though it has been dropped. You don’t have to pick up again, certainly!
I am an atheist – probably a 6.5 on Dawkins’ 7 point scale. I said those things not because I like them, but because they appear to be true. Sexism is a problem in the community of atheists, and I presented some ideas on why that might be the case. They aren’t right, or tested, they’re just some thoughts on why it might be the case that we’re seeing all of the misogynistic backlash. It could very well be that I’m wrong, and there isn’t a link between the two. Heaven knows that covariates conspire.
I don’t mean to alienate you, or any other atheist looking for a place to talk about misogyny (mostly to poke fun at it, given the blog). I certainly don’t want to make this place unwelcoming for you, and if I did that I apologize without reservation! I have hope that these Deep Rifts of Atheism will help a new wave of positive, progressive secularism spread. This too will pass.
Sorry!
(EDIT: When I say that there’s a problem in the atheist community, I’m referring to the vocal backlash against feminism. Not every-single-atheist. For clarity!)