How is it that when Rebecca Watson says something essentially unobjectionable and otherwise a no-brainer, like that when people make misogynist jokes at a fifteen year old girl, and others reward same with upvotes, they might just be creating a chilling atmosphere for women in general, a total fucking shitstorm ensues?
Only one point made in r/atheism’s defense is worth considering at this point, in my estimation: terrible people exist everywhere. Those terrible people — and the excuses made to let them keep being terrible in your space — color the perception of the group as a whole. Reddit’s r/atheism subreddit is filled with lots and lots of good people, a bunch of very vocal douchebags, and too little self-policing. So when poisonous elements are allowed to fester such that a fifteen year old girl trying to excitedly join a community of fellow atheists by daring to post a picture of herself with her new Christmas present — a copy of Carl Sagan’s Demon Haunted World — she gets a full-on assault for daring to be a girl on the internet. People are going to get turned off by that kind of behaviour. People like Jen McCreight, John Loftus, Ed Brayton, PZ Myers, and myself.
So if your group is colored by the perception that you’re allowing douchebags to mistreat newcomers to the community, you’re either responsible for doing it, or responsible for letting it happen. Yes, that’s right, you let it happen if you do not register a dissenting voice. I’m talking about moderation the only way it can exist in a place with no moderation powers — by shouting down the assholes. By punishing bad and antisocial behaviour. By punishing if not by silencing the assholes who think rape jokes about a fifteen year old are fine and dandy, by at least telling them that those opinions are not welcome, are not the majority, and are not acceptable.
What’s worse, I think this particular incident only blew up because it was Rebecca Watson who pointed it out. Since her startling and bold claim, of which we should be so very skeptical, that someone might have thought their privilege to cold-proposition strange women overrides a woman’s right to feel relatively safe, she’s somehow managed to gain a magical superpower to make mundane and obvious revelations huge conflagrations.
Every time she points out anything that should be a no-brainer — as one anti-Watson commenter said somewhere (crowdsource a link?), she often sticks to Skepticism 101 topics, which I suspect is an intentional strategy to facilitate newbies to the cause — she’s completely drowned in effluence from anti-Watson posters who are so drenched in privilege they can’t even recognize that there are people out there who might actually suffer from the things she points out. And what’s worse, they have a tendency of doubling down on the horrible things that were pointed out by Rebecca, by posting horrible terrible things about Rebecca for all to see.
And you know what? GOOD.
Maybe not so good for her, but for all of us. These magical superpowers of hers are probably a curse for her own sanity, but they are a boon for our society, for our respective communities. It’s excellent that she can draw so much attention to the problem, and can draw out the people who are, in essence, part of it, where they can make examples of themselves. The “touch of boorishness” that she can draw out of complete strangers just by mentioning this nonsense is exactly the type of attitude we need to cleanse from our systems, to keep from becoming an entrenched part of our culture. We have to draw this venom out of our skeptical communities’ bodies somehow.
I only regret that she has to wade through that effluence in making herself a huge target just by, you know, daring to talk about the problem while being a girl on the internet. She needs all the support she can get if she’s going to keep touching off firestorms just by prodding at that one raw nerve that so many atheist and skeptical men seem to have where even addressing our problem with privilege. Because that raw nerve needs to be prodded until we manage to do something about it. Having girls as part of our movement, with all the attendent concerns that brings, is too important a goal to let the MRAs and the winged monkeys screech at us until we give up on it. We must not cede the privilege of being part of the movement without an uphill struggle toward acceptance to be a male privilege only.
This should be a no-brainer too. But since it was Rebecca Watson who said it, of course we’re seeing so much pushback.
Just remember, she isn’t the only one saying it.
Not in the same way, no. (Cf my Sam Harris remark above.) But in a way, all the same. People who can’t do empathy at all are psychopaths, and thus dangerous.
You weren’t asking me, but I’m here at the moment.
aspidocelis:
So, in your view, there is absolutely no difference between believing in a substantiated, reasoned position like feminism, evolution, physics, the world isn’t run by shapeshifting lizardmen, etc. and things like the Nicene creed? It’s all just dogma, all the same?
Clearly, you have a VERY different definition of freethought than the rest of us.
…and if you think feminism ISN’T a substantiated, reasonable position, THEN MAKE A FUCKING ARGUMENT. Engage in discussion. If your position (that everything should stay status quo in regards to gender and sex or whatever) is the better position, than it will win out. If it’s idiotic, then you will be chewed out. That’s what’s happening… the process of debate, discussion and thought…NOT dogmatically clinging to a concept held to be above discussion, like religious belief.
Ophelia, why do you have to wander in and say interesting things right after I’ve decided I ought to just leave it alone?
Ah well.
But does anyone have empathy because they are told to?
Do you cure psychopathy by informing psychopaths that empathy is a lovely virtuous thing that they really ought to engage in more often? I don’t think that’s how it works.
My understanding (which is certainly too simplistic and possibly just plain wrong) is that moral exhortations to feel virtuous emotions like empathy can have a few effects: 1) they may cause the person to feign the desirable emotional state to gain social acceptance; 2) they may cause the person to feel guilty for not being virtuous, or not being virtuous enough; 3) they may have no effect at all if the person just doesn’t give a damn how you think they ought to feel (and probably some “4” or “5” that I’m not thinking of at the moment). I don’t think inducing the desired emotional state is one of the possible, or at least not one of the likely, outcomes.
As for why I’m suspicious, I suppose the pop-psych answer is that I was raised Catholic and I know a few people who’ve been deeply damaged by reaction “2” above. I know it happens; I know it causes harm.
That becomes clearer by the comment.
No. People who don’t have empathy don’t suddenly get it because they’re told to. Sociopaths and psychopaths remain thus even if they learn to fake it.
That’s not what we’re talking about here.
Regular people, non-sociopaths, generally experience empathy, even if they limit it an in-group.
Feminism encourages men to stop viewing women as de facto out-group members and start treating them as human beings deserving of the same empathy they’d automatically accord to a man.
Bigotry doesn’t work by erasing the capacity for empathy, and anti-bigotry doesn’t work be creating the capacity for empathy. What’s actually happening is that people are learning to regard women (or people of color, or atheists, or whatever) as human beings rather than something else that closely resembles a human being but doesn’t warrant extending one’s empathy to.
So sorry you missed that when I already said it, but I guess you were too busy complaining about the possible groupthink aspect of feminism with ever FUCKING SUBSTANTIATING YOUR COMPLAINT.
I’m starting to think that julian was right.
So kneejerk attacking Watson over everything—-and acting like one of the original misogynist trolls from Elevatorgate—-is okay but responding to that kind of crap is not. And a fifteen-year-old girl getting threatened with rape is something to be brushed aside in favor of strawmanning about feminism.
I can’t read anything Horace and Acido yell about wihthout hearing the original shrieks of outraged from Elevatorgate: “How dare she ask us to give a shit about her!”
What Sally said. Exactly. No, of course I don’t think you can get empathy-free people to have empathy by telling them to; I think you can tell people who do have empathy to expand the circle. I know you can do that.
It’s sad that anyone has to be told that women are people too and should be as empathizable as any other people, but there it is.
I just want to repeat this, because it sums it up in a nutshell:
Feminism encourages men to stop viewing women as de facto out-group members and start treating them as human beings deserving of the same empathy they’d automatically accord to a man.
It’s perfectly consistent with free inquiry and critical thinking to insist on that core of feminism.
Benson,
there are a lot of mind sets that treat women as human. Feminism is distinct in that it minimizes the difference in roles between woman and men. This may be a good think, but you should not pretend that non-feminists think women are sub-human.
An example, the Titanic went down in prefeminist days and being female was a good predictor of survival (at least among the 1st class passengers). You may dislike the attitides of this era, but women were not considered subhuman. Not fully adult perhaps: but not subhuman.
@158 Ginmar
criticise me for what I have said, not for whatever memories my posting trigger for you.
aspidoscelis at least, and possible Horace as well, seem to need this statement to be justified. If you cannot identify a self-evident truth when you see it, I am afraid there is no hope for you. There is no valid reason to demand skeptical rigour here. To ask for supporting evidence is to ask for evidence that women are human beings, in which case – fuck off, you are not a “skeptic” you are a “misogynistic asshat”.
The Reddit thread at the start of this was filled with threats of rape and kidnap against a young woman. (As an aside, the only date I saw was in the screencap provided by RW and was 1997 – that would make the young woman 14 until at least tomorrow, just saying.) If you need justification for why this is wrong, you are simply a horrible human being.
There are times when threats of violence may be justified. As the one threatening violence, it is on you to provide that justification, not on your interlocutor to justify NOT threatening violence. It is the same when you make a claim; justify the claim, or accept that it will be dismissed.
There is NO time when threatening rape is justified. Ever. If you are involved in a situation where someone is threatened with rape, you should, as a decent human being, say something.
If a woman tells you that threats of rape in an online forum about atheism is likely to drive women away from organised atheism, shut up and listen. If you were unable to figure this out on your own, then you are a horrible human being.
And finally, on that other debacle; if a woman tells you that men hitting on women in small isolated spaces tend to creep them out, shut up and listen. As a decent human being, you should be interested in at least avoiding making the people around you uncomfortable. At the bare minimum, as a man interested in spending time with women, take this at the same level as a suggestion that showering regularly is likely to help you in your social interactions. You have the right not to shower, but others have the right to tell you that you smell bad and avoid you.
While on the Lusitania it was a good predictor of drowning.
Cherry-picking, I call it.
I think what aspidoscelis wants is responsibility-free armchair humanism and feminism.
Something that makes me quite suspicious is why people who say that it’s asking too much to say that if you want to keep your Decent Human Beings Card*, and all you have to do is to invest 3 seconds in clicking a “vote down” button after you just invested considerably more time in reading rape threats against a teenage girl on the other hand think it’s absolutely worthwhile and necessary to spend hours defending those three seconds of inaction.
That’s at least fucked up priorities.
*I’m not even talking about the Feminist Card.
Horace, I’m still waiting for evidence on your assertions. When can I expect it?
“Not fully adult perhaps: but not subhuman.”
Uh…………………………
That would be another example of what it is not part of free inquiry or free thinking to dispute: that women are fully adult. Disputing that is not part of free inquiry, it’s political.
Giliell,
Maybe. I think it’s kinda fucked up that you’ve set up this rather petty arbitrary hoop to jump through to be a ‘Decent Human Being’ (not to mention the more serious conceited fuckupedness of appointing yourself arbiter of ‘decent human being’). Is it really so much for me ask you to stop the next person you see walking their dog and spread the word how important it is to get your pets neutered? Don’t you care about the suffering of animals? Apparently not since you’re taking the time to comment here. Instead of registering on a site I never go to (uh-oh, now I’m part of the reddit community and am ‘responsible’ for all the comments that are left there) and leaving a me-too comment, may I please instead drive down to 8 Mile and give a little money to the homeless people hanging out/living under the overpass? How many required down-votes does that get me in exchange, or do those humans just deserve less empathy?
While you’re typing away here, you could have taken a minute instead and donated $10 to help alleviate hunger. Oh and if you don’t, then you’re not decent and not a humanist since your priorities are fucked and you obviously don’t care about hunger. What, you only have so much money to donate? That’s a sensible excuse. So why do you think time is any less finite? Why is it clearly bogue for me to presume you have $10 to donate to what I want you to, but it’s not when you presume to tell me how best to spend my limited time instead of letting me use it in a way that I think does the most good for the humanist and feminist causes that are important to me?
Yes the bar here is very low, as it is for a vast number of things that you could be ‘helping stamp out’. How long does it take to donate some clothes or canned goods? Does that do more or less good than what you’re asking to be done here, even if you were to spend the same amount of time downvoting the pretty much endless misogynistic comments.
Jason’s main post is spot-on and I think Rebecca and especially Stephanie have made good cases that indeed there is a problem in the ‘atheist community’ with sexism. I just find the ‘reasoning’ above, that he seems to be somewhat supporting, to be hypocritical and just pompous. You’re seriously comfortable questioning the humanism and decency of people based on whether they take the time to downvote on a comment thread you want them to, that’s the position you are defending? From a position of total ignorance of what I may instead be doing with my time. That’s a little, ya know, polarizing.
No, I think the argument goes that in the time aspidoscelis has spent here rules-lawyering about why he deserves the feminist monicker even if he’s unwilling to go downvote misogynist comments, he could have gone through every single post in the first three pages of the r/atheism subreddit and downvoted every misogynist comment and still had enough time to come back here, read this thread, and say “yup, did my part”.
If you’ve got limited time on the internet, why do you think arguing that you shouldn’t have to spend a very tiny chunk of it beating up on misogynists is a good way to further the feminist and humanist causes?
Horace: please make sure to answer both @76 and @103 when you finally get around to answering Stephanie’s specific requests for evidence. Thanks!
@169 Jason,
I replied at @105.
To repeat, no one has said that I am not a freethinker for my opinions on feminism.
I am saying that you are not freethinkers because you treat self proclaimed feminists as above criticism or debate and automatically assume that they speak for all women. This is why Rebecca Watson is so polarizing, she and many others of the feminists on these threads take anything less than 110% agreement with them as evidence of mysogeny.
Complete utter bullshit.
None of the examples you give resembles the scenario even closely.
A similar example would be to tell somebody who brags about letting their non-neutered dog running wild that this is absolute irresponsible behaviour. Be assured that I do so.
Wow. Just Wow.
So, you find “condemming rape threats against a 15 yo”
-arbitrary
-obviously too high a standard to reach.
Says a lot about you, much less about me.
Horace, you cannot answer in comment 105 questions that were asked in comments 109 and 111. When can I expect answers to those?
Jason Thibeault 168:
If my goal were to gain social approval with the least amount of effort, yes, my actions would be poorly chosen.
Spartan, 167:
Yup, that is the basic underlying issue here.
Jason,
You are being a little presumptious about how others parse their time. I don’t parse mine by on and off the internet; I parse it more along the lines of doing things I enjoy, work, and things that help other people (or animals) or further the causes I’m interested in, which yes includes feminist causes. If I have a 3 hour block of time and $100 to put toward a feminist/humanist cause, is your recommendation that I spend that time expressing my disagreement at misogynistic comments, that’s the best use of my time? Because I could probably spend 3 straight hours doing that on reddit alone. If maybe you can think of something else that can do more good (I prefer to put my efforts towards pro-choice causes), then how about you let me make that evaluation and choice. You know, the same latitude you I assume demand for yourself. Or explain why my saying, ‘you’ve done nothing to help shelter animals yet you spent time watching a movie; and you want me to think you have empathy…’, because I personally think trying to give a handful of pets homes does more good than me spending a month leaving comments, isn’t equally applicable and damning to you.
Well my examples do resemble this scenario insofar as they are trying to further an empathic cause; for you, it’s combatting internet comments so that women are treated equally and respectfully, for me it’s urging people to get their animals neutered so there are not so many suffering and dying alone in shelters. Both our ends may not technically be ‘humanistic’ since I’m talking about pets, but they are both good and I don’t think you have any way of arguing that your preferred cause/tactic is a ‘better’ use of my time, just as I wouldn’t in converse. But I’m not saying that you don’t care about animals because you won’t do this one specific thing that takes almost no time; what’s the difference in these scenarios that justifies your judgments on who is decent and a feminist, based on what you well know is a gigantic lack of information.
But fine, your analogy is closer to this scenario, but still not close enough. A better analogy is I notify you that I found a forum on the web where several people are bragging about letting their dogs run around un-neutered, and demand that you spend a few seconds registering your disapproval or deem you uncaring. But I wouldn’t do that for many reasons, not the least of which is for all I know Giliell, you spend most your week volunteering at a shelter.
The arbitrary hoops that are set up is not, ‘condemning rape threats against 15yo’s’, it’s ‘you are obligated to condemn rape threats against 15yo’s whenever you are notified they exist’ or lose your feminist/humanist cred. If that’s the bar, then I can provide lots of links to equally vile racist comments, I’m sure some directed at minors, that you should likewise feel obligated to counter.
@spartan 176 and aspid @174
Well ok, then. Maybe this can clear it up for you. Everyone is free to determine his or her definition of what makes a Decent Human Being. The vast majority here seem to agree that part (and only part) of that definition includes a willingness to argue against threats of rape. Most seem to agree tha another part (and again, ony a part) is to consider women to be wholly human and equal to men.
Now, you say that that sets the bar pretty low, and you would be right. It is a pretty low standard to meet. Then again, being a Decent Human Being isn’t that hard. My question is, why are you fighting so vociferously to avoid meeting even that standard?
As “freethinkers”, we are free to define the characteristics of decent human beings for ourselves, but that does not mean that we cannot find community with like-minded individuals who have come to similar conclusions for fear of losing our “freethinker” cards.
@spartan – read RW’s original post. She didn’t ask anyone to go Pharyngulate Reddit. She said that it is horrible behaviour, that the members of that forum should be ashamed, and that people who justify the behaviour are likewise horrible.
That does set a low bar. How exactly is it that you disagree with this assessment?
I’ll give you the benefit of doubt that you might not notice that you’re moving the goalpost, but nobody said you should go and run over to every case of SIWOTI.
The argument is that when you notice that shit, just like when somebody in my company mentions that they let the dog fuck/be fucked without preventing offspring, and you are there, then you have the somewhat moral obligation to say something or just click the “down” button.
Nothing else.
And that, if you don’t do, but go on arguing why you still absolutely care about feminism, people are not going to believe you.
You don’t have register at reddit (neither have/do I), or skepchick, or be an activist.
You know, it’s like saying you’re an environmentalist and not even closing your own fridge door. Or caring about animals and not having your own dog neutered.
I find that stupid.
Sure, you can defind “decent human being” as somebody who kicks puppies and steals lollipops from children, but that’s not a definition that has any value. That’s like the Palin definition of feminism and Sally has dealt with that already.
I’m willing to argue against threats of rape, and I see none on this thread. I already know that there are rape threats and an almost endless number of comments all over the web that deserve to be disputed and disapproved of; why are you being so selective of the things you know exist that you want everyone to take a minute to combat? I would think a Decent Human Being would be a feminist, care about hunger, care about animals, about helping find cures for diseases, kids in hospitals, poverty, respect the liberties of others, and be willing to argue against racism, anti-gay bigotry, sexism, anti-religious/anti-atheist bigotry, and so on. What I would never do is call into question whether you were decent if you failed to meet my personally chosen battle, care of animals let’s say, out of this large number of things DHB’s do and care about, especially when it’s largely based on that great wealth of information about a person that can be gleaned from a handful of freaking internet comments. Let alone criticize you for failing to participate in one specific chosen tactic (combatting shitty internet comments) within my preferred DHB cause (feminism). Maybe you put you efforts toward feminist causes for example which would be great, but just don’t have much time to alleviate hunger. Even though there are some very simple things you could do to that end that take less time than it takes to read this thread. That doesn’t mean you don’t care about hunger, and it doesn’t mean you are not a DHB.
I agree, I haven’t said anyone should lose any ‘card’, that’s exactly what I object to. I have, probably poorly, tried to make counter-analogies directed back at people who are questioning other’s decency, using their same logic to show that they likewise aren’t doing enough to keep their ‘cards’ if that’s the standard that is being set.
Fair enough, I may have misunderstood what is being requested; I’m not on reddit, so I’m not ‘there’ and have no obligation to vote them down.
I disagree, it’s like saying you can’t be an environmentalist if you don’t tell your neighbor to close his fridge door.
@Giliell – Forgive me, but isn’t making up your own mind about morality and how to be a DHB the whole thing in thinking freely? Absolutely, you can decide that kicking puppies is a decent action. Actual Decent Human Beings would ostracize you for such conduct, but you could decide that it is the case. Much like actual feminists take issue with Palin’s definition, in fact.
@Spartan – there was an implication upthread that if you associate yourself with like-minded individuals and exclude people who do not meet your expectations of DHBs you are no longer a Freethinker. It may not have been you, so I apologize for painting you with the same brush.
I did say that it was only part of the definition of being a DHB. The point is that no one really asked for much action except for those who are on the threads already. Inaction was not the original issue so much as actual negative actions, such as making the comments or actively justifying the comments.
It’s funny how the only thing that gets certain dudes enraged is the idea that they have to acknowledge that women are human. Oh, noes, oppression! Tolitarianism! They have so little regard for women that months later they’re still carrying a grudge—-and telling immense whoppers about and against Rebecca Watson, for simply saying, “Guys, don’t do that.” Ergo, any guy who has a problem with simply being asked to give a shit about womens’ feelings—-as Watson asked—-is not a freethinker. Telling lies about a woman making a very simple case in order to make her look like a screeching, false-rape-accusation-making (a very popular accusation with anti-Watson trolls) or referring approvingly to those lies, or attacking Watson in the same way that the trolls did indicates that one shares a mindset with them, in that just giving a shit about womens’ feelings or thoughts is just too fucking much to ask.
Not feminist, in other words.
As for Horace, once he conveniently self-selected out the first class women, he was able to ignore the fact that the only ways to get onboard a ship like Titanic were: to be rich, to be employed, or to have saved up enough money to buy the cheapest berths possibly. He did not mention that men outnumbered women four or five to one, and that women in steerage and second class suffered incredible casualties, which meant that ‘women and children first’ didn’t apply. And frankly, giving up rights to be fully human all your life in case there was a shipwreck on a ship that most womens’ jobs didn’t enable them to so much as dream of, was not a good bargain.
Horace’s arrogant dismissal of the importance of womens’ human rights gives the lie to any protestations he might make.
Yea, after rereading I apologize, and am relieved, if I misunderstood. I think I missed a key point that it’s not being asked that we combat internet misogyny whenever Rebecca or Jason for example bring it to our attention (although actually the occasional organized comment bombing to make a statement might not be a bad idea). Just in case you didn’t hear it the first thirty times, I don’t think failure to do that calls any cred into question. If you’re on and participating in a thread already, although there are some exceptions (I’m not going to tell the head of Amnesty Intl that they are obligated to combat misogynistic comments if they encounter them, or hell even Jason or Greta or other feminist bloggers here, you’ve done your part), you have a point that if you can’t take a few seconds to register your disapproval it does raise questions. Don’t know if it rises to the level that I at least would feel justified calling any ‘cards’ into question, but it’s certainly a different animal than what I’ve been ranting against. Sorry about taking your time, but thanks for the comments.
Spartan: yes, I tried to explicitly say that nobody was asking everyone to hit this Reddit thread on the penalty of losing their feminist card. It’s somewhere upthread, though I’m on my phone now so it’s a little difficult to search for it now. What was said, and what both aspidoscelis and Horace were arguing against, was that if you consider yourself a feminist, and you happen upon such misogyny (systemic anti-woman trolling or otherwise making a chilly climate for women), and you have the ability to do so, you should register your disapproval since the bar to doimg so is so low. This has been called an enforcement of groupthink (the opposite of freethought), and dogma, and judgmentalism, and all manner of fucked up — that someone should be judged as an ally for whether or not they actually do something when they’re present and able to do something about it.
A better analogy would be if you personally witnessed your neighbor pouring motor oil into the storm drain that leads directly to the river, and were within speaking distance when it happened. Or if you’re on the internet and you see some commenter repeating the lie that AGW is a hoax. Do you take steps to counteract actively anti-environmental actions or what? If not, why not? Is it inconsistent with freethought values to assume that if you’re a DHB and an environmentalist, these are things we can expect you to do?
Jason, you definitely did say that, but I got thrown by the sentence immediately after:
‘This kind of thing’ threw me and I failed to define that in context of your first sentence. That phrase was vague, but my bad for assuming it still meant something like what you explicitly said it didn’t.
Sally,
If you’re an environmentalist I think you have a responsibility to counteract actively anti-environmental actions, you’re just not obligated to counteract every such occurrence or any individual specific one, unless the case can be made that countering that particular specific one will be more beneficial than others. I think decent environmentalists justifiably can ignore claims that AGW is a hoax on the internet and still be environmentalists; there are many ways to work for that cause and many anti-environmental actions that need combatting, and absolutely no one can do them all. But in general, yes, ‘these are’ the types of ‘things’ you should expect them to do.
Jason Thibeault, 186:
Part of what gets my ire is that it goes beyond “You ought to do this if you’re my ally.” Instead it’s, “If you don’t do this, you’re responsible for these bad things that happen in the world,” (stated in your original post); “If you don’t do this, you’re not a decent person; you’re a misogynist; you’re an asshole; you’re a psychopath [etc.],” (stated pretty plainly in various of the ensuing comments).
Whether you (and Natalie, Ophelia, SallyStrange, etc.) consider me an ally, that’s up to you. And if that’s as far as you all want to go, well, leave it there and don’t go further. Maybe I’m not your ally; that’s OK with me. Is it OK with you? Are you willing to have decent people in the world who are not your allies?
Why would anybody want an ally who can’t agree on the lowest of bars and the tiniest of requests? And what’s wrong with having a definition? How hard can it be? Lost in this sea of whining is the fact that some of these guys are so angry over Rebecca Watson saying, “Guys don’t do that”—meaning, could you give just the tiniest shit for women?—–that mouths later they’re still attacking her for their own paranoid fears. And it’s not shit they’d attack a guy for. How hard is this? And how come it’s only women that causes this difficulty?
Just want to take a moment to point out the misdirection that’s happening here… the conversation has suddenly been tilted in regards to “what, I’m not a feminist and am a misogynist and a horrible human being just because I don’t directly fight against the rape-jokers?”
That’s a sneaky tactic.
Although inaction and complacency are definitely big problems, and not something I’m keen on, the bigger deal here, and what pisses a lot of us off about Horace, Aspidocelis, that new person CBH or whatever, etc. is not inaction.
It’s not what you’re not doing.
It’s what you ARE doing.
Which is making excuses. Redirecting the focus. Distracting from the issue. Shirking responsibility. Blaming the victim. Focusing on the rhetoric instead of the message. Ad hominen misdirections about the character of Rebecca, Skepchick, Skepchick commenters, feminism in general, etc. Suggesting that “being skeptical of feminism” is a more important issue than dealing with the horrific misogyny that has taken place (the rape jokes). Pulling EVERY tactic in the book to do ANYTHING but acknowledge the legitimacy of the complain.
That is not simply a failure to take feminist actions. That is to TAKE actions that are counter-feminist, undermining of the discourse, and supportive of misogyny.
@Natalie – I think I am the “CBH” to whom you are referring. Could you please point out where I have said anything that would have you lump me in with the others just now? I’m pretty sure I said just about the exact opposite of what you have accused me off saying.
Chris (18) … “calm”? Excuse me, but your admonition that I have a certain tone or mode of reaction is utter bullshit, feel free to kiss my ass. “rational”? Is this your usual reaction to things you don’t understand or agree with? How 2011 …
The comment thread in question was unmoderated. It should have been moderated. If this happens with any frequency with this subreddit, what I suggested is true. Post hoc babbling about how reddt works do not impress. Reddit needs to get its house in order.
Stephanie (35) yes, exactly, and I can see how my earlier comment may have suggested otherwise.
The larger group of (mostly) men, w/ their unexamined priv, is the larger issue, and the main issue. The others are of little consequence even if their incessant screeching is, well, incessant. And screechy.
Natalie … FTW
cmv
Sure it is, it just doesn’t mean that your result is going to have any value.
I’m not saying that you do this, but the usual way the “I’m a freethinker(TM)” strategy goes is as follows:
-I’m a freethinker, I’m against all dogma, I question everything
-Feminism has a central dogma which therefore must be questioned
-Feminists being upset about this proves that it’s just dogma therefore wrong and must be fought.
There’s a difference between a dogma in the religious sense and the tennet of feminism.
Sure, one could argue that “women are people who deserve equal rights and value” is basically based on not much, and sure people question that, but that is true for the observation that people of colour are people.
And there’s a fundamental difference between saying “rape jokes are not jokes and actually cause harm” (because we can point to scientific studies to support that claim) and “women must not speak in the church because god gets mad”.
You also don’t have to invent the wheel anew in what a DHB is, and make up shit as you go along, there’s nothing wrong in subscribing to well thought out ideas of other people if you’ve checked them and found to be OK.
This was a poorly written article. It doesn’t honestly attempt to answer the question, but just pretends to in order to get people to read and find out it’s more blah blah blah defense of Rebecca’s behavior. You actually say that Rebecca has superpowers. This is what’s wrong with the SkepChick crowd. Skepticism and critical thinking end where the Cult of Rebecca Watson begins. The shitstorms occur because Rebecca starts them. She makes a mockery of real affronts to women. Nobody has been assaulted. There are real issues that women face today. SkepChick would rather create shitstorms for page hits and announce her believed successes of doing takedowns of Richard Dawkins and announcing in a histrionic way that she hates all atheists. She said right there that she lurks the Reddit boards angrily just to find something to be upset about and then finds it.
Second shitfest of the year thanks to Rebecca. People aren’t looking at atheism from outside and judging that Reddit thread. They’re seeing these shitstorms Rebecca instigates. Those are what made the magazines this past summer. Thanks, SkepChick. Did they find the Elevator Guy yet?
So you folks know, the Sam at 196 is evidently the same fuckwit who tried to false-flag things he thinks Rebecca Watson believes over at Cuttlefish’s. Never mind that he’s missed the point spectacularly, he’s also got such a huge rage boner for Watson that he can’t actually consider that she might have a point about things like “don’t make rape jokes at 15 year olds” or “don’t cold-proposition girls in confined spaces or it might be viewed as predatory”. It’s all about Watson to him.
Natalie: cmv is definitely on our side in this fight. Everything else you say at 192 is, well, perfect. It’s exactly right. And it’s what I’ve had so much trouble expressing in all this.
It’s never been about whether or not certain individuals rush out and act as “our personal army” on penalty of losing their ally status. It has, however, been about each individual’s actions — what they actually do — reflecting on them. Making excuses, chiseling out border cases and loopholes, demanding that one must be skeptical of any test for who might be considered a decent human being by others in a particular group, all of that is distraction and derailing.
The real point is that if you are able to stamp out a piece of misogyny so damn easily, and you do nothing, and people know that you did nothing (primarily because you spend a ton of time making excuses for your inaction instead of just silently watching), then you’ll be judged as an unworthy ally by the people who consider social cohesion to be important when building a community. It’s not about “do what we say or be shunned”. It’s about “walk the walk if you’re going to talk the talk, or people will point out your hypocrisy.”
“So you folks know, the Sam at 196 is evidently the same fuckwit who tried to false-flag things he thinks Rebecca Watson believes over at Cuttlefish’s. Never mind that he’s missed the point spectacularly, he’s also got such a huge rage boner for Watson that he can’t actually consider that she might have a point about things like “don’t make rape jokes at 15 year olds” or “don’t cold-proposition girls in confined spaces or it might be viewed as predatory”. It’s all about Watson to him.”
Let’s recall the name of your post: “Why is Rebecca Watson so damned polarizing?”
So, I’m a “fuckwit” with a “huge rage [sic] boner” while another dissenter is a “sociopath’ with “no feelings” who should kill himself who is also treated to f-bombs, various other epithets and all caps tirades, ironically alongside declarations that others who dissent don’t have “empathy” and aren’t actually feminists or humanists. If I made this stuff up, no one would believe me.
People are failing to establish how the uncontrolled hatred and dehumanization of dissenters is making the place more accommodating for anyone, especially given the alleged concern from Watson et al that the atheist groups are not especially women and the only way to change this situation is to feed the trolls or be an apathetic unhuman misogynist.
Assuming though that Watson et al really are concerned about the “chilling effect’, why are none of the egregious remarks here made by followers of SkepChick being called out? One can only assume that it that julien character were to say that he wished aspidoscelis were raped and this system had a rating system, that it would be uprated. It’s obvious. You people are out of control with anger, and you’re destroying the community.
*” given the alleged concern from Watson et al that the atheist groups are accommodating and scare people off, especially not accommodating t towards women
julian hasn’t been called out? There’s some selection bias.