If you do nothing else today, read this excellent post by Greta Christina. All of it. Right now. No, put down Tiny Tower. Stop reading my previous post. This is important shit that needed to be said, and no one can say it more eloquently than Greta.
And for what it’s worth? I get emails like the one Greta posted frequently, especially after these shitstorms. It’s working, people.
I often comment that religious people don’t have the right to never be offended when someone questions their beliefs. Their ideas – theistic, supernatural, cultural, or otherwise – are still ideas. This is because I strongly support the concept of a marketplace of ideas – that “the truth or the best policy arises out of the competition of widely various ideas in free, transparent public discourse.” A religious idea must defend it’s worth just as a political idea would, and offense is sometimes an unavoidable side effect of this discussion.
After the many, many feminism or diversity related internet kerfuffles, I usually get at least a couple comments along the lines of “Why is it okay to offend religious people but not women/blacks/homosexuals?! Hypocrite!”
Let me try my best to explain.
Like I said, religion is an idea. Gender, race, and sexual orientation are not. They are (for the most part) immutable biological traits that a person has very little choice in. There are certainly bad ideas out there, whether they’re wrong for factual, logical or ethical reasons. I have no obligation to completely avoid offending you when all I’m saying is “I disagree.” But there is no inherent “wrongness” or inferiority in being a woman, or a racial minority, or gay. To suggest such a thing while lacking any logic or rationale is exactly what causes sexism, racism, and homophobia.
It’s one thing to demand intellectual honesty of intangible ideas. Blasphemy is a victimless crime, after all. Offense aimed at intrinsic human properties is hardly victimless.
Temporarily ignoring concepts of privilege or -isms, a lot of these kerfuffles boil down to people lacking common human decency. While I don’t think religious people have the right to avoid all offense, I do think we should try to minimize the amount of offense we cause. Now, that’s not the same as saying “Don’t be a dick” ala Phil Plait. I think dickishness definitely has it’s place and can be an effective way of getting a message across in certain situations. But we have to ask ourselves “Can I accomplish the same goal while being a little less of an asshole?”
If accomplishing your goal requires offense, unapologetically go right ahead. Otherwise unpopular ideas would be silenced into oblivion. Because really, you’re always going to offend someone. Atheists can’t even say we exist or that we’re good people without pissing people off!
But when you’re needlessly enraging people with no goal in mind, that’s not equivalent to being edgy or snarky or a firebrand. That’s being a fucking asshole. Or if you’re doing it because it gets your rocks off – a troll. And if someone points out you hurt them, it’s a little troglodytish to insist that you didn’t or that you don’t care. I think a lot of this can be explained by the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, but it’s still disappointing.
I could go on about this all day – but I’ve given a whole talk on the topic, so watch it if you want more details and examples about minimizing offense.
Practically speaking as someone within the atheist community, it’s even more important that we try to tone down offense when it comes to minority groups. Diversity matters. It’s not just unrealistic to tell minority groups to suck it up and be stronger – it lacks compassion. We’re not saying they’re inferior or need coddling, but that if you put up with this shit constantly, why would you voluntarily join a group that adds to your frustrations? It’s precisely the reason why one of my rules of comment moderation is that I’ll ban people who use hateful speech. I could tell other commentors to suck it up, or I could make a safe environment where people feel comfortable contributing.
Even if I think you should do it out of the goodness of your heart, Greta Christina often suggests a purely Machiavellian reason for such a tactic. That making more people feel welcome in this movement will only help us grow even larger and more powerful. So if we want to succeed in our goals of promoting rationalism and humanism, we first need to make sure we can get as many allies as possible.
We simply can’t afford to make the same mistakes of every other progressive movement before us.
I know – no one cares anymore, right? But I think this needs clarification, and my blog is the only place I can do it. So if you’re sick of all this (like I am, honestly), no one is forcing you to read or comment.
After reading thousands and thousands of comments about this Elevatorgate kerfuffle, I was honestly surprised how people were interpreting my statements, or the statements of those who agreed with me. People said I was calling Richard Dawkins a misogynist, a rape apologist, and an all around horrible human being. I use certain harsh language when I’m passionate about an issue – but others seemingly interpret that as raging hatred.
So let me make it clear.
Having privilege is not intrinsically a bad thing. It does not make you a horrible person. From the amazing parable explaining privilege (which please, please read if you haven’t already):
Every single one of us has some kind of privilege over somebody. What matters is whether we’re aware of it, and what we choose to do with it, and that we not use it to dismiss the valid and real concerns of the people who don’t share our particular brand.
That’s why I was upset with Richard. Because while he is someone who supports many great feminist causes and issues surrounding women’s rights, like fighting against female genital mutilation, that specific thing just wasn’t the issue in this case. So even though his heart was probably in the right place, he was being dismissive. But more disappointing than his initial obliviousness about his privilege was his stubborn denial of said obliviousness when called out on it.
But honestly, it’s understandable. No one likes being told they’re wrong in general – but people get especially uncomfortable having their privilege pointed out. I sympathize – it took me a long time to understand white privilege and not feel like it was somehow attacking me or calling me racist. So I don’t really expect Richard to turn on a dime and instantly understand why what he said was hurtful. Because understanding privilege is hard. And it’s even harder when you’re a public figure who’s being made example of – you don’t have the leisure of slowly figuring things out.
So, I do disagree with Rebecca Watson on one detail. I don’t think it’s time we boycott Dawkin’s books or lectures. I think we need to give him the time to wrangle with this drama, since understanding privilege is not easy or comfortable. And that’s why when I offered to talk with him at TAM, I wasn’t being flippant – I was being honest. I still greatly respect him as a fellow atheist and evolutionary biologist, but I’d respect him even more if he sincerely attempted to understand why he was wrong.
And if he doesn’t want to chat, or doesn’t read the letters from atheist victims of sexual assault, or never issues some sort of remark or apology… Well, yes, I will be disappointed. But it’s not like Dawkins primarily writes feminism books. I will have to come to grips with the fact that my heroes are not perfect, but I’ll still happily chat with him about atheism or my research.
I don’t think Dawkins is a terrible human being. I think he just proved he’s human and made a mistake.
Unless some clueless cad is impersonating you, in which case ignore this post. EDIT: PZ confirms these comments are from Dawkins.
But I’m fairly certain it is you making these profoundly ignorant comments on Pharyngula (mainly because I’ve seen you say similar things before, in both style and topic). You began with:
Dear Muslima
Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep”chick”, and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn’t lay a finger on her, but even so . . .
And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
Richard
Thankfully another Pharyngulite said exactly what I was thinking:
Did you just make the argument that, since worse things are happening somewhere else, we have no right to try to fix things closer to home?
And that’s when you tried to backpedal with a clarification, but just ended up digging your hole even deeper.
No I wasn’t making that argument. Here’s the argument I was making. The man in the elevator didn’t physically touch her, didn’t attempt to bar her way out of the elevator, didn’t even use foul language at her. He spoke some words to her. Just words. She no doubt replied with words. That was that. Words. Only words, and apparently quite polite words at that.
If she felt his behaviour was creepy, that was her privilege, just as it was the Catholics’ privilege to feel offended and hurt when PZ nailed the cracker. PZ didn’t physically strike any Catholics. All he did was nail a wafer, and he was absolutely right to do so because the heightened value of the wafer was a fantasy in the minds of the offended Catholics. Similarly, Rebecca’s feeling that the man’s proposition was ‘creepy’ was her own interpretation of his behaviour, presumably not his. She was probably offended to about the same extent as I am offended if a man gets into an elevator with me chewing gum. But he does me no physical damage and I simply grin and bear it until either I or he gets out of the elevator. It would be different if he physically attacked me.
Muslim women suffer physically from misogyny, their lives are substantially damaged by religiously inspired misogyny. Not just words, real deeds, painful, physical deeds, physical privations, legally sanctioned demeanings. The equivalent would be if PZ had nailed not a cracker but a Catholic. Then they’d have had good reason to complain.
Richard
Actually, yes, that was the argument you were making. But you chose to cover up that argument with an even stupider argument. Congratulations!
Frankly, this is disappointing for a number of reasons. One, because it was so refreshing to read PZ’s post and knowing a guy out there “gets it.” Two, because you’re kind of an idol of mine, and it makes me want to cry a little when you live up to the stereotype of a well-off, 70 year old, white, British, ivory tower academic. But let me spell it out for you instead of just getting mad (though I’ll do that too):
Words matter. You don’t get that because you’ve never been called a cunt, a faggot, a nigger, a kike. You don’t have people constantly explaining that you’re subhuman, or have the intellect of an animal. You don’t have people saying you shouldn’t have rights. You don’t have people constantly sexually harassing you. You don’t live in fear of rape, knowing that one wrong misinterpretation of a couple words could lead down that road.
You don’t, because you have fucking privilege.
And you’re not going to “get it” until you sit down and actually put forth the effort. I know you’re a busy man, so here’s a quick little parable on why you currently don’t get it. And if you still don’t get it – which is probably true, since these things take a long time to understand – I will happily sit down with you at TAM and try to explain it. I’m sure lots of other Skeptical ladies will be happy to help me.
Yep, my rage isn’t directed at Indiana for once. The Ohio House of Representatives approved three anti-abortion bills yesterday.
The most controversial piece of legislation, known as the “heartbeat” bill, would prohibit the procedure after a fetal heartbeat is detected. Another ban targets late-term abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and the third bill would restrict insurance coverage for abortions.
The heartbeat bill, which still would require the Senate’s approval, would give Ohio one of the most restrictive laws against abortion in the country. Heartbeats from inside a womb can be detected as early as six weeks of gestation. The bill does not have an exception for rape or incest.
Six. Weeks. Some people are just figuring out they’re pregnant then, let alone having the time to make the decision to have an abortion, find a place to go, take off time from work to travel there… There’s no sugar coating this. This is Ohio’s attempt to outlaw abortion outright. And having no exceptions for rape or incest is just despicable.
Ohioans, don’t let this pass in the Senate. Write, email, and call your senators now and support a woman’s right to choose.
When Dan had me on as a guest of the Savage Lovecast, one of the questions I fielded was on circumcision. I knew that circumcision had been shown to reduce HIV infection rates in at least one study, but I also knew the reduction wasn’t that huge. And frankly, that’s all I knew about the research, so I didn’t want to assert any more. I hadn’t read the paper, so for all I knew, it could have it’s flaws.
Turns out it does. PZ explains:
Now Salon has followed up with an article that suggests that circumcision may actually have some health benefits. I am not impressed. They cite a couple of incomplete epidemiological studies in African populations for HIV infection, and they come up with some astounding figures: a 50-60% reduction in infection rates. Wow, with that kind of advantage…sign me up.
However, these are deeply flawed studies. None of them were completed: they all abandoned the protocol and stopped the research as soon as preliminary results gave them positive values. This is like shooting craps and announcing that all your dice throws were practice…until you get a good roll, and then, yeah, that was the real deal. That one counts.
They all overstate their results. That 50-60% reduction was in relative rate, in comparison across the two groups. The actual calculated protection in absolute terms conferred by circumcision was a 2% reduction in the likelihood of infection. That doesn’t dazzle me, either, and given that the studies were terminated when they got their best results, I’m not persuaded.
And finally, give me a plausible mechanism for how circumcision would achieve these remarkable gains. Tell me how it is supposed to work. If it’s something to do with hygiene, it seems to me that better sex and health education should have the same or better effect than lopping off bits of skin.
Again, the jury is still out. So don’t be using this questionable study in the name of “science” to justify chopping off foreskin. And frankly, it would take a lot more than a 2% benefit to outweigh the concerns of autonomy in my mind. That’s not even touching on the fact that most people do it thanks to religion (which is bollocks ) or “tradition” (which is also bollocks).
And while I’m against circumcision, I’m also with PZ on his final paragraph:
I also say as I always have that I oppose circumcision, think it is a pointless and petty bit of suffering to put children through and ought to be discouraged, but I also don’t think it’s as hideously damaging as the obsessive nuts want to claim. Also, in the context of the original post, I consider it a prime example of selfish privilege to invade discussions of female genital mutilation, which does cause serious sexual and medical problems, with demands that we pay more attention to the lesser concerns of males getting lightly scarred penises.
What he said.
Rebecca Watson recently made a video about a situation that made her feel very uncomfortable at an atheist conference.
tl;dr: At 4am after a night of drinking with conference attendees, Rebecca said she was going to bed. A man followed her to the elevator, and once in the elevator, invited her to his room. This made her very uncomfortable. To spell it out for you, a potentially inebriated man sneaking off to follow you and only propositioning you once you’re alone and unable to escape sets off red flags, even if he was totally benign and had the best intentions in mind.
And this is all sort of ironic, especially since Rebecca had just given a talk on sexism and making women feel welcome.
Unfortunately, Rebecca is receiving some shittacular comments about how she’s hypersensitive and oppressing male sexuality, and how men are the real victims here because they can’t flirt without seeming like sex crazed rapists. I get the same sort of comments whenever I make similar observations. So I want to spell it out very clearly:
I am not anti-flirting. I am not anti-finding a significant other. I am not anti-casual sex. Hell, I’m single and incredibly interested in finding someone who’s also interested in atheism and skepticism. I’m trying to flirt and find a significant other when I go to events (I plead the fifth on the casual sex part).
But context matters.
Do not come up to me right after I give a talk on communicating skepticism and tell me a perk of my presentation was that I’m easy on the eyes.*
Feel free to say I’m cute when I’m rocking my black cocktail dress at Penn Jillette’s party at TAM 9.
Do not interrupt an intellectual discussion on diversity in the atheist movement with a unrelated sexual joke.*
Feel free to tell raunchy jokes when I’m having a beer at post-talk social. I’ll join you.
Do not reference my looks, boobs, or sexiness when introducing me for a talk or panel, especially when you would not do so for the male participants.*
Feel free to say you think I’m attractive in casual conversation and tweets, especially if it’s in addition to my intellectual accomplishment. I fangirl over people too – it’s okay.
Do not make numerous comments about my looks in an intellectual blog post that happens to contain a photo of me that’s not meant to be sexy.*
Feel free to comment away when I post photos from my Skepticon pinup calendar. You have the green light.
Do not follow me around the Skepchick party insisting that I drink your bottle of whiskey, after repeated “No thank you”s.*
Feel free to approach me or offer me a drink if you’re okay with the chance that I may not be interested. Sometimes I am!
And finally – if you miscalculate the context of the situation, if you accidentally make someone uncomfortable, if you come off as a creep but you really just had a brainfart and said something incredibly stupid and unintentionally demeaning – it’s okay. It happens. We’re human. It doesn’t mean you’re an evil misogynistic beast, even if we publicly discuss it so others can learn from your mistake.
But recognize said mistake, apologize, and learn from it.
*Yes, all of these “Do not”s have actually happened
Greta Christina has a fabulous post over at AlterNet on “The Impossible Ideals Men Are Expected to Meet.” It’s a must-read. Not just because everything Greta writes is a must-read, but because it illustrates how sexism also hurts men. Which I’ve said a billion times before, but apparently not as eloquently since people still think I’m a hyper-sensitive libido castrating feminazi spider monkey.
Yeah, I didn’t get the spider monkey comment either, until I did a bit of research. Apparently the spider monkey mating system consists of females approaching the males! How utterly backwards. Those goddamn feminist monkeys.
The lovely Hooters Girls of Springfield, Illinois, provided Dawn and Rob Sherman with a free car wash, on Thursday, to thank us for asking the State Board of Education to not force school districts around the State to implement the unconstitutional Student Prayer Act “Moment of Silence” law. The girls had asked us what had brought us to Springfield. When I told them, they all said that they agreed with Dawn and me on that subject. They then offered to wash our car for free to demonstrate their appreciation, proving that there are certain rewards to this job that you just don’t get with every other line of work.
[…]Dawn and I went to the Springfield Hooters for lunch after making our presentation, that morning, at the June monthly meeting of the State Board of Education. I often eat at Hooters, either in Springfield or Bloomington, after conducting business at the Capitol. The food and service, at both locations, are always fabulous. Obviously, a sign of great management by Eric and Mike. The fact that the
food and service come with a generous helping of eye candy is merely a convenient and pleasant bonus.
Haley and Tara discuss strategy on how to wash a convertible while the top is down. Haley is the girl speaking to me. Tara is the girl with the big sponge. (What did you think I was going to say?)
Answer: Ponies.
Gee, thanks, Conservapedia! Now that mystery is solved, my new investigation will be why any women would consider themselves conservative when they’re treated like brainless 5 year olds.
Brought to you by the same people who claimed all atheists were fat. I so wish this were a Poe.
