Or just sometimes?
It occurs to me that many (“ALL!” “Shh.”) of our problems around these parts viz every new conflagration, from our recent conversation with Mallorie Nasrallah, to the statement by DJ Grothe that we only blog about controversial topics for hits, to the pushback against a Rebecca Watson blog title as though it meant she hates all atheists, is the fact that we as skeptics seem to have a problem with blanket universals even when they are not intended as universals. They are the quickest single thing you can do to engender hatred amongst your commentariat.
Much of the problem with Mallorie’s open letter to the skeptical community has to do with the universal statement that skeptics “shouldn’t change for anyone”. While she claims she wrote the letter solely for the purpose of expressing her own views of the community, she presented it in the midst of a number of controversies wherein people have been demonstrably misogynistic to bloggers like Greta Christina or new women in the community like the 15 year old Lunam on r/atheism. This caused some outrage in the context of the greater fight we’ve been waging — the fight against entrenched sexism in our communities.
For context, I always use the plural for communities because neither atheism nor skepticism have a single overarching community, much less a greater community for either one. We have a set of loosely allied communities, each manifesting their own sets of values and beliefs. The commenters and bloggers at Freethought Blogs appear to have clustered around beliefs in humanism as well as skepticism and atheism, and will fight a misogynist comment as quickly as a creationist or woo-peddling one. I don’t believe that the levels of sexism in our collective online communities are very different from the background of the internet as a whole, no matter how much of a safe space we’ve carved out here. However, there are three things that are important and mitigating factors to that blanket statement about the levels of sexism.
1: The internet is, as a whole, a far cruder and crasser place than real life, owing largely to anonymity and the Greater Interent Fuckwad Theory.
2: Our real-life meatspace communities are very often being organized via the internet, so there’s a lot of overlap between what goes on in meatspace and what came from the internet to begin with.
3: we have experienced by my estimation a significant amount more pushback than most other communities built around other topics, against the very idea that people shouldn’t use sexist slurs at women, or treat women like they’re just there as dating pool material, because either of those are likely to result in women who might otherwise participate bleeding away from our communities.
DJ Grothe described our fight against this pushback as being solely intended to drive controvery, to drive a wedge in the community, done solely for the hits. What makes this a short-sighted blanket statement is in part the misidentification of the problem, the misidentification of what it is we’re trying to do about it, and the misidentification of what’s actually being said about the community as a whole. Stephanie’s post itemizing the times when he’s exhibited this sort of blind spot for ongoing fights was met with doubling down, and DJ declared that the whole episode served as proof to him that that’s all the feminist bloggers in our community want to do is to tear other communities apart over sexism. Of course that’s not going to be very well received, except by those who would rather have the right to call women cunts or feminazis or thought police or what have you — of which there is an actual faction, who are better organized than you’d think, and who explicitly argue against every instance of feminist thought on every blog they read.
When Rebecca Watson described an event that creeped her out (owing to the predatory behaviour exhibited), and suggested that guys should maybe not do that if they expect to actually pick up, one of the major pushbacks against the event — one of the major ways the otherwise obvious comment Watson made got turned into a complete and utter shitstorm — was that people felt she was describing a universal, that no man should ever flirt with any woman ever.
Barring the fact that Rebecca Watson said it and she has her own hate posse; and that “flirting” is being so often conflated by dishonest interlocutors with “cold-propositioning”, where the former involves a level of familiarity with your flirting partner and the latter involves asking for sex from a bloody stranger; the important factor here with regard to why this rankled so many people is in the perceived universal. It is, of course, a strawman argument to suggest that Rebecca Watson asked for anything like that level of restraint. She did, however, ask that men in general restrain what many of us apparently view as their biological and societal imperative — that they have an unalienable right to attempt to convince women to have sex with them without consequences and regardless of the situation.
In a way, the false perception of a universal proscription was being defended via another universal in this way. The idea that males have some kind of privilege that their “need to flirt” should override someone’s repeated suggestions not to flirt with her is so entrenched in the male ego, probably owing largely to the media narrative that boy must woo girl, that people lost all semblance of proportionality in their reaction to the Elevatorgate event, as proportionally as it was initially described.
When Mallorie Nasrallah wrote her open letter to the skeptics community, she evidently did not have the benefit of having lived through the various blog fights we’ve all had over the past few years with regard to sexism. Having not been exposed at all to the nascent anti-feminist Mens Rights Activism movements, the misogynist Men Going Their Own Way, or the splinter faction of people proclaiming themselves to be the True Skeptics who question feminism as some sort of dogmatic movement (in much the same way that some accomodationist atheists and theistic apologists call New Atheists dogmatic), she evidently did not recognize that her letter would be received the way it was. Her repeated defense that her letter described her own situation only, are given the lie when you read the actual take-away message and the thesis for her letter:
With all of my heart I beg you: Do not change. Do not change for me, do not change for someone else. You’re wonderful, just the way you are.
And this passage:
More recently I have noticed a trend among men in my communities, you seem to have been told that you’re awful and need to change. Again, apparently because your genitals imbues you with an inescapable assholism. Please never believe this lie.
And this:
If your jokes or teasing manner offend some people, so the fuck what? Someone will always be offended by jokes, never let them make you believe that you are guilty of something worse simply because of your gender. If you want to make boob jokes thats fine by me, you have after all been making dick jokes since you were old enough to make jokes. Plus they are funny as hell. If you want to go free and uncensored among a group of like minded people, if you want to try to acquire sex from a like minded person, awesome, do it, sex and friendship are amazing. You are not a monster for wanting these things. You are not a monster for attempting to acquire them.
The two passages together diminish and dismiss every instance of women being subjected to slurs or being treated as though they are only welcome in the community as long as they are attractive and put out to strangers. These two passages together describe a situation that is not happening — that people are being villified for making boob and dick jokes, or for simply being male, or for simply attempting to chat up a like-minded individual with whom you’ve already had some contact. If any of these things were happening, they would be wrong, and I would speak out against it. But it simply isn’t happening this way at all, in my experience. If it was, I should at least theoretically be a target of this misandry, owing to the fact that I am a public voice against sexism and have advocated for egalitarianism in areas that would benefit only men, like ending routine male circumcision or making sure that rape statistics include rape carried out against men. I do not see this misandry. In fact, when the trolls suggest that it’s happening, their examples given are specious or, at best, owing directly to the gender roles that I advocate against.
However, even if this supposed misandry was happening, the blanket statement of “if someone’s offended by your jokes it’s their problem” forgets that jokes can often form the substrate of a societal prejudice. Nobody would say “feel free to make jokes about blacks and if they’re offended it’s their problem”, because our collective consciousness has been raised enough that the majority of us consider racism to be counter-productive and antisocial behaviour. Women make up a very large percentage of the human race — more than half, even — and if we’re to achieve any sort of social parity between the sexes, it takes making the people with power understand that sexism isn’t cool. Like it or not, men have that power right now, because our significantly eroded patriarchy is still a patriarchy.
The fact that there are more males in the atheist community does not mean that they should be allowed to treat the women in the community with the sort of disrespect that they’re getting right now in aggregate. The corollary fact that any one woman, like Mallorie, does not feel like they’re being disrespected in any way is a data point in favor of our fight, not against it. If they are not exposed to blatant misogyny in our community, it is because we have collectively declared as a community that that blatant misogyny is universally wrong, and we fight against it when we see it.
That’s a universal statement I can get behind. It’s a shame that it is not true of all atheists or skeptics, and that any such universal statement is viewed with such suspicion as being dogmatic.
Bonus round: count the universal statements I made in this post.
I really liked the nuanced thoughts that you presented. I agree about absolutes. When my husband tries to sneak in an absolute statement, it’s like he’s trying to throw a pork chop past a wolf, I am all over his statement shredding it back down to a proportionate size.
I’ve been thinking that the counter argument about Reddit, that men are mean to other men on Reddit, bears some thinking about. Yes, the internet is full of obnoxiousness, (and some jokes that are sort of funny) aimed at everyone. However, obnoxiousness that is aimed at someone because of their gender (or other trait) is an issue for me. Not something we want to have in a community that is trying to work together to accomplish something. In conclusion “down with gendered obnoxiousness”. (For times when the word misogyny is too strong, but obnoxiousness is just right.)
I’m still in the air about drawing a line between emotional and physical pain. While physical pain may seem more objective honestly we know emotional pain exists and we know insults (among other things) can cause it. Why is it so much more permissible to emotionally or mentally harm someone than it is to physically strike even if neither ‘hurt’ is permanent or grave?
For example, someone calls me a spic. I respond by striking them across the face. Neither of us is particularly hurt, the stinging in their cheek is about the same as the choking feeling I get. Both will pass shortly although they might smart and make us a little more sensitive for the next few days.
But the physical injury is seen as more severe and I am seen as being the one at greater fault. Why? I understand the necessity for restraint and self control. I understand that an emotional wound won’t kill you where a physical one will. I get that. But in terms of damage what makes them different?
Anyway that’s all pretty off topic.
Do we know that? She seems perfectly familiar with those arguments and discussions. She just seems to generally fall on ‘their’ side of the issue. Namely that those instances don’t count as misogyny and that we, not being privy to the individuals thoughts, cannot call them misogynistic.*
*I still don’t understand the emphasis on ‘dictionary’ definitions like misogyny only means hatred of women. If I see another I’m going to insist on dictionary definitions for science terms. ‘Why do you insist on evolution? It’s just a theory.’
I think that some problem lies with what Pratchett calls “lies to children (or wizards)”.
When we speak in universals, we know most of the time that there’s a caveat, an exception. We rely on the people at the receiving end to understand that.
When we say that “mammals give live birth”, we know about the platypus. And we suppose that the audience does, too. So when the smart-mouthed person brings it up, we get annoyed.
I’m thinking about Greta Christina’s why “Yes, but” post. People who showed up there to demonstrate that they could indeed make a “yes, but” comment that would not derail a thread were doing exactly that: derailing, nitpicking, spilting hairs.
And I also think that Rebecca Watson has demonstrated that you cannot make a statement as explicit as possible without being accused of making universals.
If people want to be upset with you, they’re going to find a reason to.
I’ve been reading a whole bunch of your posts lately, Jason, and you’re rapidly becoming one of the FtBloggers that I most enjoy reading.
As for universal statements, I think one problem results from people reading general statements as if they were universal statements. Generalizations are a necessary evil when talking about complex situations, because we can’t infinitely qualify every statement. They’re also and an inevitability in groups that have similar conversations about the same topics over and over, because we develop shorthand phrases and become comfortable in assuming things that once we would have explicitly clarified. A person who is a newcomer to the community wouldn’t necessarily understand that these assumptions are generally made and acknowledged, even where they are not explicitly stated.
When Rebecca Watson said “Reddit makes me hate atheists,” some read it as “Reddit makes me hate ALL atheists,” which explicitly was not the intent, purpose, point, or even an accurate representation of her feelings. Arguing against the statement as if it were a universal was an exercise in missing the point.
As scientifically-minded folks, I think we generally tend to realize that reality is more complicated than it sometimes appears, and more than we’d often like it to be. But we’re also used to (as atheists and skeptics) arguing for that position, against people who often have an overly simplistic understanding of complicated things. That may be why we often jump to the conclusion that a general statement represents a universal belief–and not a qualified, nuanced position–even when discoursing with like-minded folks.
It could also be that there are people primed to ignore/rationalize/react strongly against certain ideas/accusations/people, such that they’ll (willfully or otherwise) ignore any nuance or subtlety that would make it more difficult to become enraged/dismissive.
In general, I think the intellectually honest (and safe) thing to do would be to ask for clarification rather than jumping to the conclusion that the person making an apparently general statement is actually representing a universal belief. It’ll make strawmanning a lot less likely, and backpedaling a lot more apparent, at the very least.
The problem with universal statements is that with them we’re making moralistic judgements. Sometimes they’re right, sometimes they’re wrong, and sometimes they exist in that grey area that we have a really hard time dealing with.
Claiming that Christianity is very problematic from a sexism point of view is a moralistic judgement. I think it’s fair because it’s accurate. The lashback we get from Christians who may not think they are sexist themselves and feel offended by my moralistic judgement, quite frankly, is worth the cost.
Elevatorgate was strange because it was the exact opposite, or at least that was how it was originally presented. It was ultra specific. It was just that feminism for some people has baggage with it. Don’t proposition women in elevators for “coffee” quickly becomes don’t proposition women for “coffee” becomes don’t proposition women quickly becomes don’t flirt with women quickly becomes live life a lonely virgin. Bit of an overstatement there, but you get the picture…and the rage becomes clear.
Now, I don’t think this is deserved baggage. I think this is privilege run amuck. But I also think that this is due to deep deep cultural norms, that may be impossible to change. Friendship then Flirting then Dating to me seems to be the pair bonding path in a gender-equal world…and I think that everybody knows this, deep down. People who like the “chase” don’t like that it might go away.
Another example of this sort of baggage is in terms of food. Often, just acting in a vegan fashion will be seen by others as making a moralistic judgement on the way they are eating. Quite frankly, this baggage is much more deserved than anything involving feminism, and even then you shouldn’t be assuming these things.
But we are humans, and we do live and thrive in terms of our pattern recognition. Which to my mind is the best way to really understand and come to terms with all this.
How to bend, then break the patterns. In order to reduce the amount of sexism in our society, that’s the question that needs to be answered. Unfortunately, I do think that in this case, making poor universal statements can reinforce negative patterns and as such make the job that much harder.
I wonder how much of this problem with general statements comes from the fact that many sceptics, having trained themselves to detect and counter logical fallacies, end up with an over-sensitive detector and start by dismissing any statement couched in general terms?
karmakin:
As someone who followed Elevatorgate since its inception, I can tell you that the feminists didn’t misrepresent what Rebecca Watson said in her video. What happened is that some people who disagreed with RW distorted her words (shall we say that privilege is a burdensome baggage?), and that other people reacted to this distorted view, not to what she said. Hence the escalation.
Oh my apologies if it didn’t come out that way. Yes, that’s what I intended to say.
I think karmakin was trying to drive home the point that people twisted Rebecca’s message because they think that’s what feminism is about — that feminism has cultural baggage saddled on it by all the folks who are opposed to it.
julian: I’d posit that emotional damage can often last a hell of a lot longer than physical damage, causing disability that you don’t even realize until someone goes rubbing up against that sore spot. It’s as possible to receive emotional damage as it is to receive physical damage, only more insidious.
As for Mallorie’s presence for the misogyny we keep pointing out, I suppose I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt. I know she was pointed to Lunam’s Reddit thread and saw no misogynist comments in the rape jokes made at her; but I don’t know what she knows about Elevatorgate, just that she feels qualified to make statements about it that don’t comport with the reality of the situation.
@karmakin:
That was what seemed most transparently problematic with Elevatorgate to me: “Coffee Guy” was using predatory techniques. Wait ’til the weakened (tired, had been drinking) member of the herd (people chatting ’til late at night) was isolated (alone in an elevator), then strike. I don’t know how much of that would have been intentional, and how much was the junior high “if I ask her to dance while she’s with her friends, they might all laugh at me” mentality, but it still seemed to me to be the creepiest aspect of the whole encounter. That we as a society tend to frame the quest for dates with hunting metaphors only legitimizes the behavior and possibly makes it less intentional.
@Jason:
That, and both have the chilling effect: once you’ve been attacked and wounded, chances are you won’t do the thing that gets you attacked again.
Why do you, Jason, and it would appear almost all Freethoughtblogs bloggers and commenters, dismiss and belittle any women who disagree with your rhetoric and ideology?
Why do you find it so utterly unimaginable that some of those women may in fact be right to one degree or another?
What is this massive degree of cognitive dissonance that disables you from seeing that in many instances many of these supposed cases of rampant sexism in the atheist / skeptic community are imagined; are, in fact, manufactured faux crises?
When asked for evidence of this rampant sexism in the community, very, very little meaningful evidence is brought forth — yes, yes, tons of apoplectic apocryphal anecdote appears, but scant fact.
Also, I have never witnessed you, or any other Freethoughblogs blogger or ideologically supportive commenter say, when confonted by a woman commenter that disagrees with your ideology, anything along the lines of “Oh, I’ve never seen these issues from that perspective; I will have to practice my critical thinking skills on this issue”.
Instead, you end up posting long blathers like this one wherein you state how those women are wrong, misguided, and are in effect the enemy, or as that raging misandrist, skeptifem, would say “gender traitors in action”.
Why is it that you consistently fail to even entertain the slight possibility that you may be, to one degree or another, misguided, or even wrong in your presumptions?
Why do you so completely avoid nuance, grey areas in your thinking, ranges of opinion?
Because you’ve brought it up yourself, I will feel free in making a point about the Elevatorgate nonsense. In the beginning of the EG nonsense, there were several women who politely, eloquently, and intelligently disagreed with Watson and Watson’s take on the incident. Watson’s, and Freethoughtblogs’ response to that disagreement was to shame those women, to dismiss them as MRA supporters, as women who wanted to play in the boy’s club, as supporters of sexist ideology, as gender traitors, and so on and so forth, an endless stream of dismissive shaming. And so, most of those women simply gave up on debating the issue.
I know you take great pleasure in carpet vilification of the ERV blog, Abbie, and all ERV commenters, without really looking into the range and variety of perspectives and opinions, in particular the large range of disagreement over many issues. You see, that’s what differentiates the ERV people from the Freethoughtblogs people: ERV allows for and encourages dissent, disagreement, debate, and argument. ERV does not encourage people to experience being raped by knives or porcupines, or in julian’s favoured terms to die in a fire or at the point of a knife.
It seems to me that Freethoughtblogs bloggers and commenters tend to encourage rather thoughtless and uniform aggreement, with some very narrow allowance for slight dissent in flavour and tone but not in any comprehensive sense.
Yes, I know we’ve had this discussion before, and yes you have Gish galloped like mad avoiding any substantive and critical-thinking based debate on it.
Jason said:
“DJ Grothe described our fight against this pushback as being solely intended to drive controvery, to drive a wedge in the community, done solely for the hits.”
Yes, if that is in fact what Grothe said, that is a somewhat over-generalized statement. However, your rebuttal is just as much of an over-generalized statement that completely denies any possibility of Grothe being right to any degree whatsoever.
And then you go on and state such ludicrous absolutes as:
“Of course that’s not going to be very well received, except by those who would rather have the right to call women cunts or feminazis or thought police or what have you — of which there is an actual faction, who are better organized than you’d think, and who explicitly argue against every instance of feminist thought on every blog they read.”
There are scores of men and women who are committed atheists, committed feminists, committed skeptics, who condemn the limits to language and thought that people like you ascribe to, but who nonetheless do not for an instant insist on calling women or men cunts or feminazis or thought police or what have you, but who at the same time do indeed demand the right to do so.
Contrary to what people like you, Jason, and Ophelia Benson, Stephanie Zvan, et al seem to think, constraints on language do not have much affect on how people think. You can have all the word rules you want and you are still going to encounter sexist thought, theist thought, anti-skeptical thought in the world.
I repeat, it is not so much that the so-called slimepit denizens insist on calling women cunts, etc. — in point of fact only a very small minority actually do so — it is the insistence of the right to do so. To constrain the right to do so only shows you and the other Freethoughtblogs bloggers and commenters as being supportive of the concept of thought crime.
Jason, you constrain thought and speech at your own peril.
Tim Foss:
Put this way, you have defined the Universal/Blanket Statement Fallacy: Claiming one’s opponent is making all-encompassing absolute claims when, in fact, they are not.
Wow, Jason, I didn’t know you even had a time-machine here.
By now their hate against the compound that is Freethoughtblogs has grown so much that they accuse you of doing things even before it existed.
Going over her comments here and elsewhere I doubt this is an argument that’s going to be settled by pointing to examples of misogyny.
Mallorie, going off my reading, seems to hold that misogyny, being hatred of women, can only be verified by knowing the ‘misogynist’s’ thinking. Furthermore she also seems to suggest statements made in anger or that the speaker later regrets can’t be held as evidence of misogyny as the apologetic attitude of the individual signals he clearly doesn’t hate women. Just a particular woman.
If this argument is to be resolved by coming to some mutual agreement it’ll have to wait until everyone agrees on what it means to be misogynistic. You (from what I can see) as well as the rest of FTB seems to lean towards misogyny being policies, attitudes and atmosphere’s that disproportionately hurt women more than men.
In her comments Mallorie argues that at least one policy we consider misogynistic (because of their impact on the majority of women). Employers wishing to know if a woman they are hiring plans on having a family, are being entirely fair and appropriate. They are only looking after their business and can’t have employees who abandon work for other things. (I realize that’s bunk. Single fathers are never treated the same way nor are men who choose to start a family.)
So there really is a huge gulf between everyone here and Mallorie in terms of what can constitute sexism and what can be considered misogyny. This looks like a start from square one discussion. Which has me wondering where I left that bottle of spiced rum.
@John Greg
Why do you find it impossible to ever actually address the concerns and criticisms of the people you’re trying to chastise?
I know I’ve, had a problem with universal and generalized statements simce I was a kid. Maybe because I tend to take everything to literally. Like, even if someone asks if my bed is made, and I literally just made it and walked out of the room, I have to say “it should be” instead of “yes” because something conceivably could have happened to mess up my bed in the mean time. Not that I never make such statements, myself, but that’s usually in the context of a joke or obvious hyperbole. Of course, even when you thimk your hyperbole is obvious, there will be those who don’t realize it. Them’s the risks.
On the “elevatorgate” thing, I actually thought it was an overreaction, at first, mostly because I only saw it referenced on this site as “a guy asked Rebecca to have coffee with him while they were in an elevator and she said this was sexist behavior.” Of course, that sounded like “asking a girl out in private is bad” to me, which seemed silly until I got the full story that he was asking for “coffee” rather than coffee, and other such details, which makes a big difference. I would say in that context I agree whole heartedly with her. Seems like the human tendency to summarize may be guilty of at least some of that controversy.
Gileill said:
“… they accuse you of doing things even before it existed.”
Quite right. I stand corrected. I should have clarified it by saying something along the lines of: “Watson’s, and Watson’s supporters’ response to that disagreement was… yadda yadda yadda”.
Thanks for the correction even if it was something of a fuzzy straw man.
Giliell also said:
“… their hate against the compound that is Freethoughtblogs….”
Well, one individual, i.e., me, is not a they or a their, so far as I know.
And I do not hate Freethoughtblogs, bloggers, or commenters, nor the “compound that is …”, I merely distrust many of them.
Your right to swing your fist ends at the point of another’s nose, John Greg. Or more proximately — you still have every right to do or say whatever you want, as nobody’s abridging your right to free speech by moderating or banning you on one website. Not even across THE WHOLE website, mind you, given how many other boards on FtB you’re banned on.
Interestingly, your boards which you’ve presented as being “the other side” moderate differently, quite a bit like the Pharyngula Horde, by making a chilling climate for anyone wanting to post there to actually discuss things. So it’s not like you hear dissenting opinions from yours in your own insular communities. Why don’t you return to them, instead of bothering us in ours? Why do you fight so hard for your right to curse at someone in their own home, when you still have the right to sling insults from the curb outside?
John Greg must not have seen Jason’s “Vilifying dissent” post on whether to use the word “misogynist” (which was just last week even!) or PZ’s bunny post, to name a few.
Bonus universalizing points for “I have NEVER witnessed…”
Why do YOU find it so utterly unimaginable that those anecdotes may in fact be right to one degree or another? Especially considering there are SO very many of them?
In sociology, enough anecdotes becomes data. Welcome to soft science.
Also, while people may have the right to call me a cunt, if they do it in my house, I have the right to throw them right the fuck out. How is someone’s personal blog any different, exactly?
Plus, while you also have the right to spout a bunch of racial and gendered slurs, that doesn’t mean the people seeing you do it are supposed to somehow withhold judgement just because they possess no psychic powers and therefore couldn’t tell that you were “joking,” and if you behave like an awful person, people will think you ARE an awful person. Don’t like it? Then stop acting like an awful person.
shoot, forgot to say my comment was directed at John Greg, and also that should be “anecdotes become data.”
Jason said:
“Interestingly, your boards which you’ve presented as being “the other side” moderate differently, quite a bit like the Pharyngula Horde, by making a chilling climate for anyone wanting to post there to actually discuss things.”
I am not 100% certain what you are saying here. Are you referring to the ERV blog as “making a chilling climate for anyone wanting to post there to actually discuss things”? If so, I guess we will have to disagree on that. Personally, I find the climate at Pharyngula, Butterflies and Wheels, Almost Diamonds, Laden’s blog, and here to be far colder. But then, that’s just me and my anecdote.
“So it’s not like you hear dissenting opinions from yours in your own insular communities.”
Again, I am not 100% certain what you are saying, but I think you are referring again to ERV?
And so, indeed I do hear dissenting opinions from mine [fellow commenters — is that what you mean?] in my own insular communities. There are many dissenting opinions at ERV. And I don’t think my community, whatever that means, is any more insular than yours. And seriously, what do you mean by my community? I range over many, many blogs and BBSs covering a wide range of interests and hobbie horses.
Pteryxx said:
“John Greg must not have seen Jason’s “Vilifying dissent” post on whether to use the word “misogynist” (which was just last week even!) or PZ’s bunny post, to name a few.
“Bonus universalizing points for ‘I have NEVER witnessed…'”
Quite right Pteryxx. I am open to being corrected when it is clearly pointed out to me. That was indeed disingenuous and wrong of me to make that claim in so absolute a fashion. I should have made the claim as a more general sort of behaviour thingy. And actually, I did read the Bunnygate thread. As a matter of fact I even agreed, to some extent, with PeeZus’s original post, before he changed his mind. And ironically it was that posted agreement that got me disemvowelled and eventually banned from Pharyngula. As for the Vilifying Dissent, I only vaguely recall it, so perhaps I’ll give it a browse.
Alukonis said:
“Why do YOU find it so utterly unimaginable that those anecdotes may in fact be right to one degree or another?”
I don’t. And if it appears that I said so, then I was in error amd mis-stated my case. I suspect that some of those anecdotes are indeed factual; I also suspect that some of them may be either entirely apocryphal, or perhaps expanded to fit the topic. I feel the same way about the dissenting posts I have read written by women who state that they have never experienced or witnessed any form of sexist behaviour at any of the various conferences.
More importantly, I do not think that either such anecdotes should be given carte blanche and a free pass from criticism just because they support the sexist / not-sexist trope.
Perhaps one of the challenges in such discussions is the range in defining “sexist” behaviour: As we have witnessed time and time again, one person’s sexism is another person’s social incompetence. For example, I am pretty certain that WMDKitty and skeptifem would have a somewhat more wide reaching, all-encompassing definition of behaviour they consider as sexist than would you, or I.
“Also, while people may have the right to call me a cunt, if they do it in my house, I have the right to throw them right the fuck out. How is someone’s personal blog any different, exactly?”
I think that that is a complicated argument. For one thing, I do not think it accurate to compare a blog with a home. For another, when that blog is hosted by something called Freethought, I seriously think it is critically important that any place self-describing as Freethought really must back that up with action.
“Plus, while you also have the right to spout a bunch of racial and gendered slurs, that doesn’t mean the people seeing you do it are supposed to somehow withhold judgement just because they possess no psychic powers and therefore couldn’t tell that you were “joking,” and if you behave like an awful person, people will think you ARE an awful person. Don’t like it? Then stop acting like an awful person.”
I do not dispute that, but it does not change my opinion regarding having the right to behave like an asshole under certain circumstances. For the record, I do not, in fact, spout bunches of racial or gendered slurs. But I am not willing to insist that others must not do so. If I find myself in a conversation where someone is so spouting, I can always just leave it, or make a request that the slurrer lighten up on the slurs — that is not a demand, it is a request. Nuance.
That’s disingenuous. It’s not just that you’re “not willing to insist that others must not” call women cunts and twats ad infinitum; it’s that you hang out (virtually speaking) with people who call women cunts and twats ad infinitum. Surely you’re not just putting up with it as opposed to actively liking it.
Well, it’s Freethought blogs, not Free-Pass blogs.
The problem here is that while you’re ascribing degrees of credibility to anecdotes, you’re doing so using your own frame of reference, biases and all. (Which is not a condemnation; all of us do the same.) But one of those biases, endemic to our culture, is that sexist behavior is normalized; and another is that women are seen as less credible than men. There’s plenty of research to back up both those statements. Hence, it’s reasonable to make a conscious effort to acquaint oneself with the research and to compensate for the inclination to disbelieve anecdotes in women’s voices.
See: Ouellette’s essay “Is it cold in here?” and associated references:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/2011/07/20/is-it-cold-in-here/
And the cases of Joan Roughgarden and Ben Barres:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/how-the-sex-bias-prevails-20100514-v4mv.html
Someone mentioned me?
John Greg, dude, I’m just now (like, within the past year) discovering just how horribly misogynist the internet really is. And meat-space ain’t much better.
I’m constantly on alert for anything that might even hint at predatory behavior, because I’ve had personal experience with being, you know, the “prey”.
That means I’m going to pick up on more of it.
I’m starting to think that maybe, we should get the kids while they’re still young, and teach them about predatory behavior and how to get away from someone behaving that way. In, you know, age-appropriate language, on a level they can grok.
I was not going to comment here but because I have just received an email from someone asking if I really said the things attributed to me in this post, I figured I should correct the mischaracterizations.
I would like to point out that Thibeault appears to have made the same mistake in this post that he is bloging about others making: he mentions a “statement by DJ Grothe that we only blog about controversial topics for hits” but links to another blog post that quotes no such statement (since none was ever made). He claims that I’ve said “all the feminist bloggers in our community want to do is to tear other communities apart over sexism.” He claims that I “described our fight against this pushback as being solely intended to drive controvery, to drive a wedge in the community, done solely for the hits.”
Each of these quotes or attributions is impressively incorrect. I never used the word “solely,” “only,” etc. I never made a statement to the effect that “all the feminist bloggers in our community want to do is to tear other communities apart over sexism.” It looks like Thibeault engaged in generalization and exaggeration to make his point stronger, which I hope was just unintentional. Nonetheless, he mischaracterized what I said, and I think he should try harder to be more accurate in the future.
What I really said was: some of these atheist blogs “often seem to present controversies, possibly unduly fomented just to drive readership” (in a comment on one of Christina’s posts) and that I know such controversy “may be good for blog hits, but it is bad for skepticism and in my view, is antithetical to our values” (in a comment on one of Zvan’s posts).
I also said in comments on that post of Zvan’s that some of these blog posts “seem to me to be deliberately controversialist, and focused on excoriating individuals for various things,” and “that fomenting movement controversy often seems to be prized over honest and sincere argument, that some folks are too quick to vilify and engage in destructive in-group/out-group thinking, that these online communities are exclusive rather than inclusive, and that unfortunately as a whole, the feminist and atheist blogospheres often operate quite separately from and counter the growing skeptical movement working to combat unreason and harmful pseudoscience in society.”
I stand by all of the comments I actually made. But note, again, that nowhere did I say anything about “only,” or “solely,” nor that anyone “only blog[s] about controversial topics for hits” or that “all the feminist bloggers in [y]our community want to do is to tear other communities apart over sexism.” Nor did I describe anyone’s “fight against this pushback as being solely intended to drive controversy, to drive a wedge in the community, done solely for the hits.”
Thibeault here is breaking a cardinal rule in honest blogging and in journalism, and that is that he misquotes and mischaracterizes someone to make his argument stronger, again, I hope unintentionally. His mischaracterization of me is sloppy at best and disingenuous and deceptive at worst.
I hope that bloggers on this network, many of whom I know personally to claim intellectual integrity as a value, would work to avoid mischaracterizing and misquoting people in the future.
Ophelia, don’t forget that you hang around (virtually speaking) with someone who wanted to “fuck somebody into the ground”. Plenty of others who you “virtually” hang around with have said nasty things, but I wouldn’t hold that against you.
Tim Groc, that too is disingenuous – by “hang out with” in Greg’s case I meant (as I’m sure you know) “post frequently on the same thread where.” Greg posts often and at length on the series of threads at ERV in which people call women cunts and twats and other names a lot. I don’t do anything resembling that – and I have, for instance, no idea who that someone you mention is or where or when it said that.
John Greg, do you insist on people’s right to call black people ‘nigger’ and gay people ‘faggot’ too? If not why not? If yes is the response to the use of sexist language all that different from the response to racist or homophobic language?
@DJ Grothe
I’m half tempted to pull the same stunt you’ve done twice now but will leave it at this
You were not misquoted. No quotes were attributed to you in that post. Attitudes and feelings towards certain groups were but not quotes.
@ DJ Grothe:
All righty; if only SOME blogs, OFTEN, SEEM, TO YOU, to present controversy for controversy’s sake with no greater purpose, can you give a counterexample? I’d ask that you name at least one blog post discussing sexism in relation to atheism or skepticism that you consider valid or worthwhile.
Pteryxx said:
“Well, it’s Freethought blogs, not Free-Pass blogs.”
Well, yes, okay. I guess we will just have to disagree with each other on that issue.
“The problem here is….” (Truncated for space.)
What you say is true, and I do not deny it at all, except for the fact that I am not so much ascribing degrees as I am stating that as critical thinkers, and skeptics, we should not be so quick to assume that all such anecdotes are true (or, for that matter, false), and that it is, I would think, most likely that their truth or otherwise lies somewhere within a range.
For critical thinkers and skeptics, anecdotal discussion, when presented as evidence, needs to be critically questioned; approached with a healthy degree of skepticism. And in my opinion, all of that applies whether or not the anecdote originates from a man or a woman. And for the record, I make a conscious effort to not sway my bias in favour of men over women. I am sure I do not always succeed — as you rightly point out, we all have our inherent biases — but I do make the effort.
Actually, I did read Ouellette’s essay. I also commented on it because she, Ouelette, told some porkies in it. She also made some false accusations and associations. If you click on your link you will see my comments beginning at # 25.
WMDKitty said:
“John Greg, dude, I’m just now (like, within the past year) discovering just how horribly misogynist the internet really is. And meat-space ain’t much better.”
WMDKitty, dudette, I agree about the Internet. The Internet can be a truly ugly place where really ugly people get to carry sway. And there are ugly people on all sides of all coins, to some degree.
I don’t know that I would agree with you on meat space being almost as bad though. I am not in any way, shape, or form dismissing or dimishing or denigrating your negative experience — being prey, as you say. But we are all influenced by our experiences, and therefore, through no fault of your own, you are probably going to perceive the world as a darker, uglier, more dangerous place than I am. Some of that may be due to what people keep calling my white, male “priviledge”. But I am in dispute with much of this priviledge theory as it is most commonly used on skeptic blogs.
“I’m starting to think that maybe, we should get the kids while they’re still young, and teach them about predatory behavior and how to get away from someone behaving that way.”
I would certainly not hold any disagreement with that sentiment; however, I suspect our methodology would differ.
Anat said:
“John Greg, do you insist on people’s right to call black people ‘nigger’ and gay people ‘faggot’ too?”
Good question. I would think that my answer is a qualified yes. What I mean by that is that in certain contexts, or in certain circumstances then, yes, people have the right to use terms like nigger or faggot. And if they do, then anyone who objects to that term has the right to so state — I do not agree that they have the right to unilaterally demand that no one ever use those terms.
To clarify my yes’s and no’s could be an endless process though. Suffice to say that in my opinion to use that term in a directed and specific instance of denigration and personal insult, well, I would be uncomfortable saying yes, but I would also be uncomfortable saying an absolute no. In my opinion these kinds of terms really must be dealt with, or defined and dissected on a specific case-by-case basis. I think any kind of all-encompassing general ban is somewhat dangerous.
Ophelia, it’s your pal Myers who said that in a discussion about the ice cream shop owner.
So DJ, if I were to remove all the absolutes as relates to you, but leave my impression of your arguments otherwise intact, you’d be fine with it, regardless of the complete lack of change to the substance of the post? Especially where your clarification of what you actually said modifies none of my conclusions? Because if that’s what it takes to make you think that I’m responsive to your needs, then I can do that. You know, despite your giving me all of half an hour to respond to your email stating that you weren’t going to comment, before cut-and-pasting your email to me into the comment field here and modifying it to work as a comment.
It is amusing that in a post where my general point was that universals or absolutes are often simplifications for the purpose of conversation, that you demand that I remove the absolutes. Especially the moreso that I pointed it out all meta-like in the last sentence that I used them myself.
@John Greg:
…I looked at your comment. Seriously, your reason for impugning Ouellette’s entire essay on chilly climate, for claiming she told lies and made false accusations, is that she’s supposedly saying Rebecca Watson got vilified for the wrong reasons?
What the heck has that speculation got to do with the phenomenon of chilly climate? How does that even address, much less counter, any of the data and evidence Ouellette discussed? Where do you get off calling her entire post “fundamentally dishonest” because you dispute the motivations of a single incident?
From your comment, ellipses and emphasis mine:
Not only do you have a huge problem reading for content, bud, I don’t think the effort you’re making to avoid anti-woman bias is having much if any success.
And as for universal statements… Yeah, I think you signally, spectacularly failed to apply a healthy degree of skepticism, consider a range of truth, or any of the other reasoned views you just espoused.
” If I find myself in a conversation where someone is so spouting, I can always just leave it”
I think the point is that people don’t want to have to leave the conversation on their own damn blogs.
And you’ve done this where for people who are arguing that sexism isn’t a problem in the atheist and skeptic communities? Funny thing is, you march in here claiming Jason is applying a double-standard, when he’s accepting stories from both–and merely pointing out that neither experience is universal.
John Greg,
I agree people have a right to use any word they damn well choose. But people also have the right to respond unpleasantly to language they see as promoting the denigration of certain groups. Whether the user is aware of it or not, allowing such language to go unopposed harms members of groups that have been historically and still are marginalized. People need to learn that such marginalizing is harmful and that contributing to it (even by passive enabling) is harmful.
The bloggers and posters on freethoughtblogs aren’t forbidding the language – they don’t have that kind of power. They object to its use on their blogs. The posters by pointing it out and explaining why it is harmful, the bloggers also occasionally by deleting posts or banning users who persist despite warnings. This isn’t the policing of thought – the ftbers can’t do anything (besides post rebuttals) about language used in other places anyway. It is about educating people about the harm they cause with their language choices and telling them such choices are unappreciated in certain places because preventing the harm done by marginalizing language trumps the ability to marginalize.
Ideally more people will catch on and stop marginalizing and stop tolerating marginalizing behavior.
Well, and that’s just it, isn’t it. The MRAs and their ilk certainly have the right to call women whatever they like and treat women however they please (within the boundaries of the law). And the rest of us have the same right to construct and enforce social mores that discourage the negative behavior. They can call women cunts and make unwanted sexual advances, and we can call them creepers and shun them, and encourage others to do likewise. We’ll see who has the better pub meetups and conferences.
Too often people confuse criticism with censorship and “taking away rights,” and it’s usually because people they disagree with are trying to exercise the same rights. See also: conservatives about gay marriage, religionists about atheists expressing themselves publicly, etc.
@Tim Groc: Speaking of disingenuousness, do you recognize that there is a difference between “fuck you” and “I want to fuck you”?
If not, I have to imagine that you are often confused on the highway.
Here’s PZ’s “into the ground” tweet, and Jen McCreight’s that he was responding to, for context (1, 2, 3).
Next, let’s tackle the difference between “to” and “into,” and the significance of “the ground,” particularly in the context of Yelp ratings.
You know what, if some blog commenter (or hell, anyone in meatspace, too) keeps insisting on their right to use sexist/racist/homophobic slurs against people, I will interpret that as “I am an idiot with a limited vocabulary that is unable to express themselves without resorting to the lowest possible slurs and insults, because I have no legitimate viewpoint and nothing worthwhile to say. That’s why I have to keep comparing people to women’s body parts, with the obvious implication that women’s body parts are gross and icky and wrong, because it is impossible for me to rationally defend my position using language that reasonable, mature adults would use, for example, in a televised debate.”
Try, as a mental exercise, to eliminate all gendered slurs from your speech. It’s harder than you’d think it would be, and really forces you to look at your own thought process and think about how to express what you’re trying to express.
Finally, @John Greg, if you don’t like how freethoughtblogs are run, go start your own blog. It’s not like it’s hard. Here, I’ll help you out: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=blog
And you can have whatever rules you want and let your commenters say anything they want and use ALL the sexist/racist/homophobic/ablist/classist slurs they want to! Don’t expect many of us FtB commenters to come visit, though. Most of us frown on that sort of thing.
Jason asks the question
Most of those “universal statements” are not universal statements. Both Rebecca Watson and I were chastised for referring to the “Atheist Community” as though we were painting all atheists with same brush. But we weren’t. A community has many parts, and if one or two parts stand out, are in your face, attracting all the attention and being a general nuisance, then that community, as a whole, is tainted, colored, glossed, by that component. I used the analogy of a neighborhood tainted by hoodlums standing around on most of the street corners. Like it or now, women are not likely to feel comfortable or welcome in a community where they are verbally raped on arrival. The complain about “universal statements” is usually a straw argument… the universal statement is not being made.
A second form of that argument misunderstands how we speak. A headline says something general, the very first sentence expands on it, the rest of the paragraph gives more detail. The complaint to which Jason refers is often about the headline and not the text. It is possible that at times one could have written a better headline or leading sentence, but ya know what? It’s a fuckin blogpost. Most people who make these complaints neither blog themselves or have ever been involved with any process of publication or production of text, and don’t realize that the perfected, refined modality is the product of more work than we invest when we blog daily, and more eyes looking at the product than happens on almost any blog, where we do in fact not employ editors. So, get over it. Imperfection is going to happen. If you don’t like it, stick with books produced by the finest publishing houses.
But I think there is something else going on other than misunderstanding the writing and reading process. Most complaints of the form to which Jason refers are mere distraction using the tool of senseless pedantry. There is a point being made that someone does not want to see explored, so they thrown a wrench in the process. Such pedantry is probably best ignored.
As Irene notes:
Jason notes that …
Yeah, OK, whatever But no. I’ll tell you what. Controversy arises from somewhere. Let’s take an example. Some guy says “I want to kick you in the cunt” and some guy comes along and says to that guy “Don’t say that.”
Which one was “causing controversy?” The one who made the threatening statement about phsysical violence, or the one who told the dickhead too shut up? Answer. The latter, not the former. So no. Jason expounds on a parallel example in much more detail. He also points out…
It’s funny to hear John Greg come along on a post about universals and say:
Hahahaha. Idiot.
In the same comment Greg says:
And therein lies the problem. No, you don’t have the right to verbally abuse people. Not without consequences anyway.
That’s because people who think that it’s perpectly OK to use sexis and racial slurs get a cold treatment.
You can’t have both: A place where women and minorities feel safe and welcomed and a place where assholes are allowed to spew bigoted shit without any consequences.
I see, it’s the old Free-from-consequences-Speech idea:
You want to be able to say such shit, but heavens forbid that people judge you for it.
As for skepticism: There is decades of research that shows that such behaviour does cause harm, that it does perpetuate ideas that directly translate into active discrimination.
At some point it’s not skepticism anymore, it’s stupidity combined with Dunning Kruger.
Just like it’s not skepticism to come to any of those blogs and proclaim that we must debate evolution openly and without taboos and that it has become dogma and therefore people aren’t freethinkers anymore.
That’s because you obviously don’t give a fuck about the demonstrable harm such behaviour causes and the people who are actually harmed by it. Because you value the right to cause harm higher than the right not to be harmed.
look for Jason’s post on being over-skeptical.
At some point you wander right into the realm of conspiracy-theory.
Yes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Ordinary claims don’t.
So, do you think that those anecdotes are extraordinary claims? Or do you think that we can check them back, not only against our own experiences, but also against the research and then conclude that, unless I want the much more severe claim that the person who tells them is a liar, it is true?
Or do you claim that in social science you can never know anything because we need to collect data from people who might lie?
If I say that people are driving recklessly and tell an anecdote I expirienced that day, do you demand court proof evidence that some driver cut my right of way?
Jason,
I enjoyed this post. It seemed to me, unfortunately, that the point of it – the question on the role played by universals (or perceived universals – was largely lost. At least that’s what I see reading the comments.
At one point, I’m pretty sure the comments got to talking about how to talk about the ways we talk about what others have talked about.
Really?
On the matter of universals. Sometimes, one might use a universal because one’s personal experience suggests it’s true. But others have different experiences and therefore see the one’s utterance as false (and possibly insultingly so). Both parties are at fault here, and for the same reason: neither’s thinking allows for people who just haven’t had the same experiences.
We can only see differences if there are alternatives. A fish doesn’t know it’s wet; we can’t necessarily tell if our thinking is right unless we compare it to other people’s thinking. Yet it seems that any time anyone tries to think out loud, it gets slammed as being somehow inappropriate.
Well, sometimes it is. In this discussion, for instance, I found John Greg’s comments far too adversarial and confrontational. But I also found most of the comments seemed to me (and my admittedly limited experiential base) to be too unequivocal.
Many of the issues raised here have not to do with concepts like misogyny, but rather with the boundaries of those concepts: when does an utterance become misogynistic, and for whom? These boundaries are the transition areas. We will all agree that certain statements are always misogynistic. These are statements solidly within the scope of the term. Its the fringes where things get confusing. Except many people seem to be missing the inherent confusion and assuming there is confrontation at work. (Likewise for every other issue besides misogyny.)
Let me suggest this: thinking of boundaries is not particularly useful if those boundaries that thought of a crisp demarkations. There’s a lot of gray here. The boundaries are really boundary layers – that is, regions of change. It’s at the boundary layers that universals will distinguish themselves as troublesome.
It’s important to understand what happens at the boundary layer, but not so important that we forget how much we actually do agree on.
^This! I’ve observed this and chimed in a few times, and my issue with Mallorie was and remains the fact that after she said, “I’ve had a great time so don’t change for me,” she went on to call those who haven’t had a great time “silly assholes” (her words) and say “don’t change for anyone” (emphasis mine, but again, her words).
On the topic of absolute statements… I think they’re necessary for black-and-white issues where any compromise or middle ground would in fact severely harm people, education, or the movement as a whole, or would in-effect be capitualting entirely: Threatening people with death or physical harm because you disagree with them is never okay, homeopathy should never be presented as if it’s real medicine, teachers in general should always have background in the subject they’re teaching, creationism should never be taught in science class, and so on.
On the other hand, when you’re dealing with a scenario where personal experience and background play a big and subjective role (like, I’d say, >90% of interpersonal situations), absolute statements should be avoided, lest you accidentally tar and feather someone who doesn’t deserve it.
For example, someone who says “asking any woman to get coffee ever is sexist!” and someone who says “all women who think being asked to get coffee is under any circumstances sexist are silly!” are both probably wrong: there are situations where being asked to grab coffee isn’t sexist… What if I’m going to grab coffee anyway and so it won’t inconveniance me at all? What if we’re both women? What if the man in question and I take turns grabbing coffee? What if I’m within arm’s reach of the pot? On the other hand, there are situations where it would be sexist: If I’m in the middle of something and there’s a person of a different gender who’s free, if a pattern of only asking women to interrupt their day to grab coffee emerges, if the boss in question admits sexist motivation (“You can be the Coffee Queen! Such things are women’s work, after all.” – actually had a boss say that to me once), and so on.
Regarding discussions of sexism, when the blatant stuff is out of the way, a lot of the rest comes down to context and nuance, and if you haven’t experienced or seen a given situation, you might not know it exists (for example, I recently explained to my boyfriend the whole coffee thing – he had no idea that there are people who will ask a busy woman over a free man to go grab coffee, just because the woman is a woman, or that there are people who think grabbing coffee is women’s work, and by contrast I didn’t know about a lot of the BS he experiences as First Nations until he started telling me – segregated classrooms in the 21st century as just a start). So for such discussion, I think it’s best to leave the absolutes at the door. By all means, still disagree and argue and so on, and if possible settle on a right answer, but I don’t think absolutes contribute much, if anything, and they do have a tendency to cause shitstorms to erupt.
@45 – To clarify my opening paragraph of my previous comment(why writing before morning coffee is a bad idea, I just realized that it could come off the wrong way) – I take no issue with Mallorie saying “I had a great time, so don’t change for me.” That’s fine. Wonderful, even. I – and, I think, most people who took issue with her letter – take issue with the fact that she then went on to say all the other things that are pretty much the source of the shitstorm. “Don’t change for anyone,” “silly assholes,” etc.
Also, the higher proportion of teenagers with autistic spectrum disorders amongst the active participants… A lot of the problems I see seem to arise from people being unable to imagine that people might not be talking about them, and a profound inability to grasp nuance in social interactions. Hence the repeated demands for precise rules-based systems for social interaction and the frequent recourse to argument via dictionary definitions and etymology.
I disagree, for the most part. In fact, with the possible exception of sexist slurs (more on this in a second), my experience has been that this “communities” is a helluva lot less tolerant towards casual misogyny than others I have experienced online. Like, significantly so.
I mentioned the one possible exception is sexist slurs, but that I think has to do with rationalists’ rejection of linguistic taboos and some confusion about what that entails. The vast majority of other online communities I have dabbled in, you just can’t swear. If you can’t say “fuck”, of course you can’t say “cunt”. It’s not that the slurs are discouraged/banned because they are sexist, they are banned because they are perceived as swear words.
Around here we pride ourselves on saying whatever the fuck we fucking want, and most of us wouldn’t have it any other way. And this is even true, and in a very positive way most of the time, when it comes to sexist/racist slurs: This “communities” tends not to have serious difficulties with the use/mention distinction, so I can talk about words like ‘cunt’ or even ‘nigger’ without having to splatter my prose with asterisks or use schoolyard expressions like “the N word”.
I think that explains why there is a surprising and unusual amount of pushback in this “communities” against avoiding sexist slurs: Other communities which even nominally ask people to be “nice” to each other tend to ban swearing altogether, so there’s no amibiguity. Around here, we understand that the idea that civility and profanity are mutually exclusive is bullshit.
But that also means we ask people to have a deeper understanding of why sexist slurs are inappropriate. They aren’t just banned words; they are to be avoided for a reason. That’s more challenging than other communities where they are either avoided “just because”, or else they are simply not avoided.
In regards to just about every other measure of feminist awareness, etc., however, I feel like this “communities” is a lot more sensitive than most online ones. (Which shows how far we have to go, eh?) Just my experience, though…
Maybe another way of saying what I said in the last paragraph of my previous comment…. I feel like in other online communities I have participated in, there is no pushback against requests to make women feel more welcome because there are no such requests to begin with.
At a homebrewing forum I participated in, despite there being a handful of high-profile long-term female contributors, not a second thought is given to characterizing wives as nagging homemakers, to making sexist jokes, etc. None of it seems to be meant maliciously, but there is also no apparent worry about what kind of cumulative effect it might have. The idea is just not even considered.
On the other hand, nobody calls anybody a “cunt” over there, cuz it would get you banned in about two seconds flat. But that has nothing to do with sexism; they just don’t tolerate profanity.
This post at manboobz is relevant to the discussion of people fighting for the right to call women cunt. An actual MRA, complaining bitterly about how it’s all about a lack of reverence for women, sighted in the wild.