Huh. So some cranky anti-Watsonite scribbled up a petty screed against her on r/atheism, which is stupid and negligible, except then several people start complaining about the horrible Pharyngula people who just downvote everything right and good and manly.
There’s probably a large Pharyngula block vote around on /r/atheism; when the whole elevator shitstorm blew up, that whole crowd sided pretty solidly with Team Rebecca.
I had no idea! I’ve never even tried to dispatch a squadron of winged happy monkeys to reddit for such a thing! Without even lifting a finger, I’ve been skewing polls on reddit.
So here, let’s give it a shot. Go read the goofy thing (“Tl;dr Rebecca Watson is a bitch.”), make your own opinion about it, and vote it up or down. Right now, it has 87 points (70% like it). Go ahead, skew it one way or another — we’re going to get blamed anyway.
One of the first responses.
Who knows what kind of utopia we could be living in if women like Rebecca would just shut the fuck up. It is not patriarchal systems that is the problem, it is the people who point it out.
Could someone point out to people like big whale (Who I am assuming is an atheist.) that it is the atheists fault that dominionists try to push their agenda.
*scream*
I just took a look at that thread.
Ugh… Did they take a list of anti-atheist clichés and proceed to build a movement around them?
I don’t understand reddit so I can’t help.
I can make the popcorn, though.
Sorry, not voting on it. I didn’t think the letter was all that inflammatory, it should take more than questioning her standards on violent humor to get outrage. And it seems childish to vote the post down just because what random people said in the comments.
Eh, the original poster there has a point: decrying violent jokes while laughing about a violent joke is a type of hypocrisy. What she fails to consider is scale. I’m not sure why this is even worth noticing, though.
“Team Rebecca?”
Since when do the Twihards take interest in anything that isn’t a repressed mormon housewife’s violent sparkly sex fantasy?
Oh, wait. Hm…
Here’s someone who gets it.
http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/oavma/so_ratheism_even_with_the_juvenile_and_lowbrow/c3frlk8
Okay, so the context aside, if I could vote I would give the op negative whatever, just for the ambiguous and discombobulated writing. It took me 3 read-throughs to get at the point the op was trying to make. ReadItFail.
Unfortunately the world is never short of idiots. I just don’t understand why people still go on and on about Rebecca Watson and why they feel the urge to whine about her and cast her as a villain.
I’m so grateful that, around the time I decided to stop being such a milquetoast accommodationist of a non-theist, always worried that I might (gasp) offend someone, I found Pharyngula. If I’d found reddit or just about anywhere else instead, I would have figured that there really wasn’t any place for me in either the religious or the humanist/atheist world. Instead, I have a lot of real-life friends whom I’ve met through Pharyngula, I know that I’ll have people to back me up if I go to a conference and experience one of the skeevier denizens of the atheist movement, I’ve learned a ton about my own privilege fails and what to do about them, and I’ve gotten way more assertive about pointing out issues of -isms when I encounter them in meatspace.
Pharyngula has even improved my Homeschooled TeenSpawns’ ability to spot such issues and courage to point them out. The total irony, of course, is that I first read Pharyngula because an atheist homeschooling list linked to one of PZ’s screeds on homeschooling – I was appalled by both the OP and the comments and couldn’t keep my hands away from the keyboard to correct the more flagrant misconceptions.
I’m tired of being confronted with the great Sexism HoggleFest, but I’ll keep on because I know the Horde is out there fighting the good fight.
madscientist #9:
Probably for the same reason climate deniers fixate on Al Gore and antivaxers go after Paul Offit and Brian Deer. Instead of having to actually defend their position, they fixate on what appears to be a target of opportunity and hang a whole battalion of strawmen from them. The fact that the target is a woman gives them the added opportunity to vent their rage from all the girls who wouldn’t fuck them in high school and women who wouldn’t fuck them in college.
HA! We’ve learned how to dispatch ourselves!
We are unstoppable now!
I don’t even understand the OP, and my head hurts too much for me to even try.
The gist of that comment is valid, and does not deserve this sort of supercilious dismissal.
This relentless refusal to brook any criticism of Watson is really starting to stink of the most stubborn and blinkered hypocrisy, and it’s a damned shame.
Jack:
Watson did nothing wrong and is not guilty of the narcissistic behavior she’s accused of. This is nothing more than a raging hate campaign, and you know it as well as we do.
Just tossing this out there… I’m a guy and not sure where I stand on this (besides being tired of hearing about it of course)
I am trying to picture this flipped a different way.
Say some guy is in an elevator at 4am and an African American (btw I am just taking them as an example) man enters the elevator and begins to talk with the 1st man, which makes him quite uncomfortable.
Now in this case, if the 1st guy went publicly saying “hey black guys please don’t talk to me at 4am in an elevator because its inappropriate and makes me uncomfortable”, while that may indeed be the case, wouldn’t we (rightly) expect a backlash from African Americans saying how they aren’t all bad people and not to judge all by a few bad apples? How do we measure how much bad stuff from a particular group entitles us to tell the group as a whole “hey don’t do that”?
We know some guys are bad and hurt women, but not at all a majority, and some races (white included) hurt others, but not at all a majority of any.
So in both cases, I can totally see and understand the 1st person being concerned, but have a hard time condemning the other side for saying “but cmon, that’s not everyone”. If someone told me “hey white guys, stop it with the serial killers okay?” ok it maybe makes a funny comedy bit, but I, as far as I know, haven’t and don’t intend on murdering anyone so it doesn’t apply to me, next subject please. I don’t find this in any way validating or excusing those who do such things.
Thoughts?
Quoth PZ:
Oh, the rallying of Team Rebecca!
*For clarification, I meant “while that may indeed be the case that he feels that way” and not to suggest that it was indeed inappropriate or that it should make people uncomfortable.
My heart fucking breaks for you having to hear about this. Just imagine what it is like to have to live it.
@janine: For sure, this I couldn’t even begin to understand how bad living it. I’m just asking for some input, as there are many dangers in life, does this mean if someone is nervous in any given situation, regardless how often or how big an issue, that we can’t ever say “ok lets move on”?
You are pathetic, Rawlinson.
Skurys:
Exactly how many times have you had the concept of “privilege” explained to you? In a situation like that, the man is considered an aggressor because a) he thinks he’s entitled to get overly familiar with someone he doesn’t even know yet and b) because in our society men have more power than women. Your example is essentially the exact opposite, even more so because the black man in your example didn’t actually do anything that could be construed as threatening.
Honestly, you and Watson’s other detractors are utterly fixated on a fairly basic point of etiquette (one, by the way, which I’m acutely aware of as I’m terrible at knowing where the line is and therefore have creeped out women in almost exactly that way). All of this — ALL OF IT — comes down to “how dare she ever say no to a guy even in sketchy circumstances”.
In conclusion, I double-dog-dare you to go out in drag some day and see how people react. (It doesn’t actually matter if you pass or not; transwomen have similar problems only worse.) If you don’t find yourself a little uncomfortable when you get home and change back into your guy clothes, you need a lot more help than an explanation of privilege.
Even better, imagine this African American sees the first guy and decides he wants to fuck him, simply because he’s got a thing for white people.
Kinda racist, right?
Now, let’s go back to elevator guy and his comparable ‘thing’ for chicks…
Or they live in a very accepting and tolerant society/neighbourhood. :)
(I kid, I kid, not the face!)
skurys, I myself am one of those poor poor men who was so tragically wounded by Rebecca’s cruel cruel words. Every time a woman is sexually harassed, the vague implication that I am part of the problem (as misinterpreted from slightly ambiguous phrasing in an impromptu speech made six months ago) is like a thousand knives through my heart.
sumdum: Well, not everyone has a townhouse in the West Village or the South End of Boston :-)
Or join an MMORPG and create a female character.
If that African-American hung out in the bar watching me, but not introducing himself, then followed me after I announced I was going to bed, got on the elevator and started telling me how he found my wallet really interesting and would I like to bring it to his room, then yes, I would get uncomfortable.
Saying that you are tired of hearing about it implies that you actually read some of the past threads that have been talking about this. If that were the case, you wouldn’t be “just tossing this out there”, “this” meaning your comparing Rebecca Watson’s experience with that of a white guy feeling uncomfortable by the presence of a black guy in an elevator. This comparison was made fucking repeatedly, and the problems with it explained repeatedly. If you are not too tired of this topic (and your being here engaging in a conversation on it implies you are not), spend your energy educating yourself be reading through the past threads. Your questions have already been answered there.
skurys
We have “moved on” from Elevatorgate.
This is what moving on looks like when nothing has changed.
skyrys @ 16
Power dynamics are totally different in that situation. For example, I suspect that if you went to a security guard or police officer with your feeling (without specifically noting the man is black, just ‘he’s making me uncomfortable’), you’d get a response that was neutral to positive for you. At worst, the guard would shrug it off.
Now, in the anticipated future where men and women can expect equal treatment at all times, and a woman knows if the next person who shares an elevator with her is a Bad Apple, she’ll be able to get help without ‘what were you doing alone at 4 AM and where was your mace and what were you wearing and…’*, then, yes, being skeeved out by men talking to you alone, late at night, in a confined space will be more of ‘you’re biased’ than ‘that’s reasonable’.
But we don’t live in that world yet.
* Not all people do this now. Enough do that it is a worry.
No one’s objecting to criticism of Rebecca Watson. They’re objecting to the quality of the criticism.
Well, there’s a compelling argument! :eyeroll:
Whenever anyone uses race as an analogy to prove that I had no right to suggest someone in my position might have been uncomfortable in that elevator, they always make the aggressor the black person. I wonder why that is.
If you’re subbing marginalized group for marginalized group, the analogous situation would be this:
A black man attends an atheist conference in which he argues against what he sees as an undercurrent of racism in the community. He gives clear examples of it in his talk and also for many hours at the bar after his talk. At 4am, he excuses himself to go to his room. He enters the elevator and a white man he hasn’t talked to follows him. As the door closes, the white man asks if he’d like to come back to his room so he can show him his collection of confederate flags.
I mean, he was probably just joking.
@Skurys:
It’s around 5% to 8%. See: Meet the Predators
And, they generally act like this:
Source: Lisak quoted in Predator Redux
So when someone gets angry at a woman for stating an opinion, or thinks it’s okay to pressure, harass, insult, or bother women for their own reasons, how seriously SHOULD we all take that behavior as evidence of a potential threat? When a woman at an atheist gathering was hit on by 10 different men in a single evening (one commenter’s report), what are the odds that none of those men were real threats?
Note: I’m not saying this is you. I’m spelling this out because I think you may understand it. (I’m optimistic that way.)
if I had a penny for every time someone tried to make this point by blatantly reversing the power gradients of this situation, I’d be fucking rich.
If you want to know why this is stupid and inaccurate bullshit, read some essays about how minorities are weary of whites because they trigger them, such as “Gee, You Don’t Seem Like An Indian From the Reservation” and “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow”. Because I’m sick of quoting the parts where these two writers describe how they are wary of whites because of the potential hurt whites could do them/have done them in the past
Jadehawk:
No shit. I think we ought to start demanding money every time some douchebiscuit comes along with some utterly stupid ‘twist in the scenario’, thinking they are ever so clever, when they never bothered to read the thousands of times this shit was refuted in the E-gate threads.
@ skurys:
It would be nice to be able to move on. If only we hadn’t those crank Rebecca-haters who post on Reddit, for instance…
*rolls eyes*
Wait…Rebecca Watson is a black man now?
P.S. Jack Rawlinson, you are getting very tiresome.
Comming this fall to a theater NEAR YOU!
THE ELEVATOR
A tale of suspense and horror!
With Michael Clark Duncan as Rebecca Watson!
skyrys @ 16
If you really want to imagine such a dynamic, imagine a slightly different situation:
You are a female (often smaller, not as powerfully built, etc as a male of Homo Sapiens).
A male enters a confined space with you, after your stated intention of going to bed. You’re tired, you’ve had some booze. That’s life, it happens to all of us.
This male then confronts you, asking you back to their room.
Now, this could be perfectly innocent – I know plenty of men and women who are ignorant on social cues. On the other hand, it might not be innocent, and it could be a “why not come back to my room for some ‘hot coffee’ (hint hint)?”
So, we have two options here. We can try to educate those who can catch social cues so they say “huh, that’s a bad idea, I’ll try catching her at another time, in a more public space where she’s more comfortable, or even in email, and see if we can hang out some time”. Or we can say “well, not everyone can catch social cues, so why should I worry? It’s her fault for being uncomfortable because not everyone catches social cues”. While at the same time ignoring the fact that some people are perfectly aware of social cues, and still assault/rape others. Yes, an invitation back to a room might just be to talk. Or it might be to pop a date rape drug. This happens. I don’t want it to happen to my friends, or anyone in the world if I could help it. Putting my friends in that situation in my mind certainly helps me think about it in more dramatic terms, though.
Personally, I’d prefer to err on the side of caution. Maybe give a friendly smile, say “great talk” in the elevator, and drop someone an email later to see if they’re up for talking. Sure, I might not get that ‘hot coffee’ or even a pleasant discussion on the finer points of atheism that night, but by giving space, I might end up with a penpal I can talk with later, which is supposedly what the elevator guy was after all along.
I’m not Team PZ, or team anything other than Team “Treat people like people”.
Where are true skepticissizmers to argue that we don’t have any evidence that he didn’t merely want to share his love of his flag collection?
Meh. Just an idiot looking for attention. Reddit is just one step above /b/, and it’s not worth spending a lot of time on.
Maybe he’s autistic! Did anyone already suggest he’s autistic? If not, I’m totally going to suggest that he’s probably autistic! He didn’t mean anything by it. Why are ethnics so touchy?
Wait, maybe the whole South was! Did any of you ever stop to consider that slavery was just a symptom of widespread Aspergers?
Hmm, is this an example of black humor versus non-humor? I can easily recollect jokes about someone bludgeoning another person, but someone raping someone? No, it wouldn’t be funny, would it?
Well, I posted my cents on reddit, so I guess I’ll be wiser soon..
The One Skeptic:
Right, so it’s perfectly okay to ignore sexism now! Thanks ever so much The One Skeptic*.
*”Incidentally, anyone else notice the correlation between how strongly someone asserts their intelligence or skepticity in their username and the likelihood that they’re a puddle of dumb?” – Brownian
Here, I’ll try.
Hypothetical black guy is racist for not assuming that the white guy is a totally anti-racist collector of Confederate memorabilia!
+++++
How’d I do?
If it were a real meme that black men had bad elevator etiquette, people would never shut up about it. Chris Rock would have a funny routine about it, and a million lesser (mostly white) comedians would rip it off. Your annoying friends and relatives would say “I know it’s not politically correct to say, but what is the deal with black guys and elevators?” all the damn time. Every sitcom would have an “edgy” black guy in an elevator joke, which isn’t racist because it’s “ironic”. There would be a popular image macro circulating the internet called “Elevator Black Guy”. And in real life, black guys would dread getting into elevators because there’s always one white person giving them that look.
Stupid Brownian. He obviously has low self-esteem.
Cuz people with low self-esteem act in the world with lots of bravado, entitlement, and in-your-face threatening behavior. Yeah. That totally makes sense.
Love Moderately,
A very compelling case. As a True Skeptic, I cannot rule this out. However, Brownian’s hypothesis,
is undoubtably more truthy.
So uh, doesn’t this prove that Pharyngula is a “controversialist” blog now? I mean everyone knows that any mention of Rebecca Watson will start a shitstorm.
I mean once, she did something against the rules on a forum…
And she said some creepy guy was creepy on an elevator…
I think I even remember her making a video insulting apples even!
/sarcasm
Seriously though, I don’t understand how she brings out the crazies like she does… it’s like the worst superpower ever.
Josh:
It’s obvious that he’s an autistic person with low self-esteem who is socially awkward.
lol
seraphymcrash wrote:
She could call herself ‘Asshole-Magnet Girl’.
I think the first post more or less covered this. It is not patriarchal systems that is the problem, it is the people who point it out.
This issue continues to cause a split and I’m fine with that. People who seem to agree with me on some points but who turn out to be creepy in the bigger picture…yeah, I appreciate the chance to see them clear. I’ll take that split and welcome it.
I can’t do twitter, but damn ugly is ugly.
It’s the controversialest blog I know.
it’s the feminist hair color
You really need to read up on privilege and social inequality. You can’t draw an “analogy” for this kind of situation by substituting a member of an oppressed group for a member of a privileged group, and vice versa. Reality doesn’t work that way. Men are privileged in our society relative to women; white people are privileged in our society relative to non-white people; and that affects the power-dynamics of the kinds of scenarios you’re describing.
Even if we were talking about a scenario in which a woman had expressed an irrational fear of men (which Watson did not; her feelings were entirely rational in the circumstances, considering that women frequently do get assaulted in elevators; and in any case, she said nothing more extreme than “Guys, don’t do that”), it would still not have been equivalent to your hypothetical, because it would not have been reinforcing an existing systemic pattern of oppression.
For an explanation of why you cannot just interchange privileged and non-privileged groups in a scenario and pretend that the relevant considerations are exactly the same, see Tim Wise, Examining the Myth of Reverse Racism:
[Epithet asterisked out by me, just because I’m personally not comfortable with that word appearing under my ‘nym, even for purely illustrative purposes.]
And groupthinkiest. Can’t have controversy without everyone agreeing in lockstep.
*jaw drops* Fuck me, but I thought the “tl;dr she is a bitch” was PZ being facetious. Instead, that is actually the ending line of tkmlac’s whine on reddit.
P.S. I like the idea of Asshole-Magnet Girl, erecting her bitch statues across the world to lure the assholes out into the open.
And is probably too much of a Nice Guy anyways.
I disagree.
You_Monster:
Oh right. So, he’s an autistic person with low self-esteem who is socially awkward, but he’s a nice guy with good intentions who happens to be black and has a fear of confederate flag collectors and is exceptionally comfortable in elevators. Or somethin’.
Wait, somebody tweeted a pun to Watson and now she’s responsible for the content of that tweet? And not slapping it down means that a tidal wave of rape jokes that drive a 15 year old out of the community are now ok?
Justification leads to some weird-assed brain pretzels.
@rebeccawatson I think I am understanding this better. Honestly I was torn but didn’t wanna just be like “ok thats bad” just because a bunch of people said so.
Of course I am far from some macho guy (just ask my wife)… I’m your regular white guy and don’t have much first hand experience with these kind of issues, so I guess it is hard for me to look at the other side and understand where you are coming from.
As someone mentioned, I did indeed read about bits here and there talking about the whole thing. But without actually thinking too much about the matter, it seemed natural to just say “who cares” (especially with the tone of some of the comment threads).
I guess I just wanted to get involved and kick up a thought I had to get some counter points to think about and I admit that it is a bit dick-ish to reply with Dawkins-esque remarks. To say nothing about the uglier stuff that followed.
Thanks rebecca, brianx, pteryxx, makoto and others I think this is helping elevate my consciousness on the matter :)
Don’t forget the ghey sechs.
@skurys Thanks for at least trying. I guess. “It doesn’t happen to me, so who cares.” is at the very least honest. Although really fucking depressing. I know enough “normal, white guys” who are perfectly happy to ignore signs of discomfort or immediately take the side of the person causing it. “He didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just what he does when a new women comes in. After you’ve been here for a while, you’ll get used to him.” And then they go out for beers after the meeting.
And I don’t go back.
The author of the reddit OP has edited the original post,
Well, it was first what came to mind, but like I said I guess a little discussion got me to think abit more about it. I do see men and women as equals and am with a strong woman, and if something bad were to go down in an elevator, she’d probably have a better chance than me coming out alright.
And I suppose it would also be hypocritical for me to say “get over it” when that’s exactly what we want to theists to stop saying about us when we tell them to leave us out of their fairy tales.
@skurys Are you trying to hit every spot on the bingo card?
*sigh*
@kerfluffle ??
point of interest, skurys: your “thinking out loud” comments are skirting so close to assorted forms of derailment, you’re almost guaranteed to get people pissed at you. I get what you’re trying to do, but the middle of another elevatorgate thread is the absolutely wrong time and place to try to get your ass educated by posting various assertions and half-baked thoughts and getting them refuted. You want education, I’d suggest questions, and I’d suggest doing so in situations that haven’t already worn everyone’s nerves raw
skurys:
There’s this thing on the ‘net, called The First Rule of Holes. It would behoove you to heed it. Stop digging and shut the fuck up already.
Try educating yourself a bit instead:
The Male Privilege Checklist
Predator Redux
Things Happen to Men Too
Things Happen to Men Too
Intent it’s fucking magic
you monster:
Wha’? “Asking for clarification” is rude, now? And she thinks it’s wrong to dismiss women for having an opinion, but still wants to blame Rebecca Watson instead of the people who dismissed her opinion?
This person must have a corkscrew for a brain.
F— it, I’m no good at articulating my thoughts.
I was trying to explain why I think I had the reaction I did, not being exposed to it in my life, and say how I liked how people have given a different perspective to me and was trying to retract said opinion, I’d as easily dug up some articles via google to read, but I shared a thought here, as I figure the followers here aren’t shy at dishing out their opinions. Thanks again, guys and gals and sorry if it wasn’t well articulated, not the right time/place, etc.
Fuck me, but this pisses me off. I for one am so Cthulhu-damned sick of all the self-important, whiny menz who show up thinking they have something nobody has thought of to add to the conversation. “Yeah, but Webecca was WUDE! And anyway maybe the poor widdle man was just socially awkward! Betcha hadn’t thoughta that, you EBIL FEMINAZI BROWNSHIRTS!!!11!1”
Yeah, well, lemme tell you mansplainers a thing or two about social awkwardness, being an Aspie myself. Socially awkward people don’t approach people they don’t know in elevators. Many, including myself (and I’m male, so it’s not like I have Schroedinger’s Rapist to worry about) wouldn’t ever get on an elevator with just one other person, especially someone WE’RE ATTRACTED TO. Hell, it’s taken me YEARS to get to the point where I can even ask girls out at all.
And may I just say, I am FUCKING CREEPED OUT by how many men seem to be obsessed with Watson. They just won’t shut the hell up this, no matter how many times they get smacked down. See, this is why I admire the Pharyngula regulars – you lot somehow have the fortitude to deal with cretins who would have me pulling my hair out and screaming incoherent French profanity at the computer screen.
Urg, I just posted about the OP’s Twitter fight with RW.
Here’s the difference, dickface. 1 in 5 women are raped. Rape jokes create a culture in which violence is acceptable, in which rapists are given shelter and in which people tend to argue over the actions of the victim rather than condemning the victim.
I don’t see that happening with people who are assaulted and paralyzed. So that while yes, we can agree that both forms of violence are not okay, they aren’t equivalent because they aren’t equivalently viewed in our society. That’s RW’s point.
Loving the popups on this site!
Check out the one I got: http://c5.zedo.com//ads2/f/1060907/3840/171/0/305008637/305008637/0/305/1905/zz-V1-UK_1x1.html?a=s%3D1905%3Bg%3D171%3Bm%3D395%3Bw%3D1%3Bu%3DQapMTdtaBesh5R9ZebLWSCS8~020511%3Bi%3D0%3B;l=;p=;t=1326272754
As instructed, went to Reddit and tried to vote up or down appropriately. I must protest, though, at the horrible experience it turned out to be. Obviously our educational system is in ruins.
I would note that Rebecca responded to the outraged post by apologizing pretty comprehensively for being dismissive and snappy, not that it did any good, since she’s apparently still a bitch for having mean friends.
The OP on reddit is missing a big point with her comments. While it’s true that both the rape comments and the coldpay tweet are superficially similar in that they use violence in an attempt at humour, their underlying purpose is very different.
The rape comments would be almost the same if the commenters had found the girl unattractive and instead had make jokes about how she was too ugly to rape. The underlying message is the same: you are a piece of meat, your opinion is worthless and we will engage with you based only on your appearance. Shut up and let us make fun of you for our own amusement.
Whether the guys are doing it consciously or not, that is the message they were sending to the girl on reddit.
The Coldplay tweet has NONE of that subtext. It merely expresses a dislike of Coldplay, and while it makes a joke of violence, that joke is not an attempt to silence anyone – even the person actually playing the Coldplay next door.
It’s a pity that the OP on reddit missed this, as the intentions behind her argument seem to be good (making jokes about violence is bad).
Cyrano:
Do you suppose using a gendered slur helped your point any?
While you are, of course, free to use all the gendered slurs you like elsewhere, they are not welcome here.
Anyone want to explain what is/may be wrong with evo psy? I might actually listen to a well-reasoned explanation, but it appears the feminist element of freethought is always adamantly agin it. What could increase its accuracy, if it is so bad?
@skurys: You’re welcome. It’s a start.
*refills good-faith magazine and slaps it in*
Caine–I honestly don’t think that ‘dickface’ is in the same league as misogynistic slurs, but your point is well taken. I apologize.
…Damn, I reloaded that sucker JUST in time.
evidence for mechanisms; evidence for genetic origin; understanding of sociology; understanding of ecology; a diminished willingness to rely on just-so stories; a more thorough peer-review process that doesn’t let failings of any of the above through
just for starters.
Cyrano, thank you. While dickface may not be in the same league as other gendered insults, it’s part of the same problem. Any use of gendered insults is a basic statement that yes, it’s okay to use them. I know there are times when it is really difficult not to use them, but we’re all better off making an effort to use happily creative, non-gendered insults.
franklinbacon:
No. There’s a big ol’ internet out there. Try searching evo psych or evolutionary psychology here or at SB Pharyngula. Do some reading.
What’s your point with this anyway, besides attempting a derail?
I read the Reddit thread. Now all I can think of is “I used to be blissfully unaware of the sexism problem in scepticism like you, but then I took a Rebecca Watson to the knee”.
Does that make me a bad person?
Louis
It’s too often a bunch of people looking for a phenomena and concluding it must be of evolutionary benefit…without looking at genetics or physiology for one or bothering to correct at all for external variables like culture.
Take for example the “Why are black woman so goddamn ugly” paper.
Evopsyche is a bunch of people standing around a car talking about why it’s broken with none of them willing to look under the hood.
You know what would increase evo psych’s accuracy? Throwing out preconceived notions of gender roles and paying attention to data that challenges their conclusions. Without doing that, evo psych is no better as a science than parapsychology.
@46
I never said sexism should be ignored, but I honestly didn’t see sexist tones in that reddit post. All I saw in that post was some idiot trying to accuse Rebecca of being a hypocrite and only coming across as a forum troll that doesn’t deserve attention. I would have gladly turned both barrels at someone who made jokes about rape or tried to excuse that crap, but I didn’t see a sexist in that post, just an asshole.
Now if someone wants to tell me why I should see it differently I’ll listen, but I have no interest in making excuses for sexists and I don’t want to be seen as such because that reddit post didn’t set off my sexism-detector when I read it.
Reset your sexism-detector to go off earlier. If it goes off too late, you are essentially an accommodationist.
Very true! For instance, in the case of a 13 year old girl vs. potential rapist in an elevator… the power differential is overwhelmingly in favor of the 13 year old girl, apparently.
What in that post should have set it off? I reread the post but it still didn’t seem sexist. I saw asinine attacks aimed at RW’s character in that post, but none aimed at her gender. What comment in that post did you interpret as being sexist? I honestly want to know.
How about we start here:
Shouldn’t it be “supposed feminists” to balance with “supposed mysoginists” [sic], or is misogyny such a murky issue for this person? Perhaps this person has somehow beaten the odds and really hasn’t encountered much misogyny, or is completely ignorant and has no basis for comparison.
Maybe eventually we could get to here:
#92:
That sounds suspiciously similar to the approved standard of research in Austrian economics.
This gem really kind of sums it up:
If you can’t understand why this is unreasonable and inaccurate, you won’t have to say a single negative thing about women or any group. That by itself set off would more than one of my detectors, the one for disingenuous fuckwits in particular.
“That by itself would set off
would…”I haven’t seen much misogyny, but I’ll admit I haven’t been actively looking for it for long. I do see your point though.
Ok now I can see why I didn’t call this sexist and why I should have gone after this tool. I had blown the first comment above off as nothing more than the straw man fallacy and the second as a troll piling on insults and nothing more. I was too dismissive of the post to see what I should have attacked without mercy. Fair enough, it’s my mistake and I’ll own up to it now and try to pay closer attention in the future.
Privilege blinds us all.
Source – personal experience.
…Damn. *lowers good-faith cannon un-fired*
Learning from evidence: ur doing it right.
Are these wankers still banging on about how Rebecca’s polite request to “don’t do that” will prevent them from ever trying to talk to women, ever? As if they already were!
FFS, I’m only an ESL teacher-can’t you bloody scientists build a rocket and shoot these tossers into the sun or something?
You know, for science!
We Are Ing says:
10 January 2012 at 8:22 pm
That’s close. Better:
Evopsyche is a bunch of people standing around a car explaining that blameless market forces resulted in a design that causes the transaxle to be slammed into the gas tank, resulting in an explosion in the event of rear-ending, but it’s actually a brilliant feat of money-saving engineering, that ought to be retained, because it was caused by market forces.
Evopsyche is a bunch of people standing around a person dying of cancer, talking about how cancer is wonderful, because it makes way for the young and innovative, because it’s natural, and it might be genetic, rather than finding an oncologist.
Good for you!
Wait, I think I know what happened here. It’s not what you all are thinking.
See, modern high speed internet backbone cable is very tricky stuff. Sometimes, if an installer is not paying attention (maybe a little hungover), he or she can accidentally twist or kink it. In a horrible uncanny dimension beyond the usual four that we humans call home. When packets get routed through cables like that, sometimes Quantum happens, and they can pass between different universes.
Which explains everything. Tkmlac was probably just posting her twit packets from one of the of human-inhabited epsilon-epsilon-bobcat-zoofuzz-*-* series of universes — where Cold Play fans have suffered under a system of worldwide institutional discrimination for millennia. Dystopian universes where “jokes” about doing violence to Cold Play fans are part of a pattern of dismissing and downplaying the very real violence that they endure all too commonly. A pattern crafted to reinforce the privilege of the non-Cold Play-favoring class.
Some of Rebecca Watson’s twit packets must have passed over there† (or maybe the Rebecca Watson in that universe is actually just a musicalinistic jerk), and the justifiably outraged tkmlac responded, calling out what she perceived to be hypocrisy, and rightly drawing a parallel between the systematic oppression and violence suffered by Cold Play fans and that faced by women.
Of course, her twit packets ended up over here. Where they didn’t sound quite right. As did her follow up post on reddit, somehow…
Just a big innocent misunderstanding all around.
——–
† It’d be tempting to make a crack here about the slavering hordes of atheist menz also being native to some other universe. One of madness and darkness and non-Euclidean architecture. Unfortunately, the truth — that they do in fact come from our own — is far more horrifying.
The ‘real meme’ is called Lootie.
I had to laugh at that one, even though (for me) it denegate the family tree, part of which was owned by Southerners.
Wow. Lootie. Good Lack of Lord.
Don’t forget the cancer victim was born, grew up and then worked for 30 years in a Carcinogenics-Я-Us factory.
But cancer is sometimes somewhat genetic. So there’s no way it could be environmental.
*sticks head into thread*
An EG thread ? Srsly ?
All I want to say is that the 12 year olds who dominate r/atheism are a bit of an embarrassment to the human race.
Although it’s worth noting that the post where I embedded Rebecca’s video still gets 50-100 hits every single day.
Louis,
Oh man, I’m going to be cleaning burrito off my screen for days.
Brownian says:
There are two major problems with your suggestion.
First people can quit when they don’t want to pretend anymore.
Second guys have been doing that for ages to expressly make use of the other idiots who think they can chat up, that is behave in a way that women would (probably) see as harassment, a girl and get all kinds of neat items, and other benefits, from said idiots.
How bad is/was this? Someone coined the acronym girl -> Guy In Real Life.
i wasnt reading pharymgula or reddit at the time this originally happened so apologies if this has been brought up before, but can someone please tell me if i missed something? in the video by rebecca she seems to be talking about a man politely inviting her for coffee, admittedly in an inappropriate situation but still politely and in an unthreatening manner. the video i watched doesnt say either way but im assuming if he had been threatening or impolite at her refusal it would have been mentioned? im not defending the shit storm that has come from all this but can anyone point me to some explanation why a polite invitation constitutes being an entitled potential rapist? again, apologies if im missing something thats come out about this since, i would just like to know more
Situation and context. Enclosed elevator, no escape, was the situation. The context was that RW had announced she was tired and going to bed to the crowd in the bar. Both make the offer inappropriate. Inappropriate offers can lead to rape if the man won’t take no for an answer, so the potential was there. Something everybody should know, but apparently you don’t. Learn.
thanks for the answer, i just wanted to make sure i hadnt missed anything. personally i wouldnt have done that as im so bad at reading situations i always assume not to make an offer, to the extent that ive been told by women who were interested to be more assertive
Plus, as far as we can discern, the man had been in the same room(s) as Rebecca for up to 10 hours. In that time he had made no effort to speak to her while other people were around and she had an easy means of getting away from him. If she wished to, of course.
You’ve heard of stalkers, I presume?
And she had just given a talk that the proposer was at in which she said she hated being propositioned at conferences, and he had been sitting in a group with her all night without previously saying a word to her. She simply said it was annoying; however, given that he blatantly ignored all of her previous comments about wanting to be alone in order to try to get what he wanted (a private audience with her), and waited until she was in an enclosed area with no one else around to do so (impossible to just say no and walk off), she wouldn’t have been out of line to see that as two very real pieces of evidence that he didn’t respect her boundaries or desires, which puts him squarely into the category of potential threat.
I’m tempted to make an entire web site just explaining the stupid elevator situation, so we can just point to it every time someone says “but I’m just asking what was wrong with asking for coffee?”
And she had just given a talk that the proposer was at in which she said she hated being propositioned at conferences, and he had been sitting in a group with her all night without previously saying a word to her.
Thats the part i missed, the video i saw must have been a shortened version as it didntmention that. fair enough then
*groan*
Team Rebecca? Really? If you’re trying to accent your manly manliness, you probably shouldn’t be making pop-culture references to Twilight… Just saying.
You guys still care about Rebeca Whoever?
Never heard of her before the horrible “elevatorgator”, still do not care about who she is today. In fact, all this fuss only bores me.
But, hey, what do you guys think of Chris Brown getting back to the pop scene after beating Rihanna to a pulp, and not showing anything similar to remorse? What about Enrique Iglesias topping the charts with “Tonight I’m Fucking You”, a.k.a “The Date Rape Song”? Or Whiz Khalifa banging his girlfriend while she’s asleep in “5’o clock”?
Shouldn’t we discuss the degradation of women in today’s pop music? I feel that is more relevant to feminism than all this crap about sex in elevators.
Since you apparently lack empathy, let me put it to you in the form of a mulitiple choice question: You are in prison, minding your own business when a huge guy, wearing a pink T-Shirt who calls himself Stagger Lee, because “He’ll crawl over 50 good pussies just to get to one fat boys asshole” comes up to you and asks you if you want to come over for coffee, what is your immediate thought about what’s going to happen next.
Is it:
1) I’m about to find out what it fells like to be a woman.
2) Mr. Lee is awfully generous sharing some of his fine coffee with me, the coffee we usually get in here is really bad. I’m sure he’s one of those violent psychopathic lifers who don’t feel the need ton anally rape other prisoners to ascertain the chain of command and I have little to no risk of rectal prolapse.
I’ve lost respect for this community. I’ve followed this blog for a whole year and now I just imagine you and Watson sitting there yelling, “release the hounds!” Read the original twitter, it’s all there. I asked a question. I got a rude response and I retaliated on reddit. I was no anti-watsonite. Hell, I just thought that all violent humor was bad and she didn’t. Wasn’t a big deal to me until she started dismissing me and calling me names. But it’s okay for her, I guess, she’s Internet famous, after all. You and her have done a great job alienating and dismissing someone just because you don’t agree with them, which is the very thing you were trying to discourage in our community, was it not? Do you think it’s telling at all that most of your readers were assuming I was make out of the gate? Just because I disagree with the Great Skepchick? Mean, hurtful and rude was bad enough from Rebecca, but call your dogs off already, I’ve had enough. You’ve beat me into submission and I’ll never be an active member in the movement again.
tkmlactkmlac:
The community will get back to you with, no doubt, tears in its eyes, once it comes to grips with this devastating news.
@GrudgeDK Seems like accusing someone of being some kind of sociopath just because they didn’t get the whole story and–y’know, actually went so far as to ask for clarification instead of assuming that their first reaction was right–is a bit extreme.
Yes we do, thanks to the fact that people like that asshat on reddit STILL attack her over this shit.
If you people want all this to stop, don’t keep talking about it. Oh, and if “all this fuss” is boring you, don’t read any more threads about it.
You want to discuss it? Bring it up in another thread where you won’t come across as a threadjacking asshat who can’t seem to remember that Richard Dawkins found himself in rather deep shit with this community after he tried to do the same damn thing when all of this first happened.
Don’t let the door smack you on the way out, and don’t expect to be missed either, because it ain’t gonna happen.
Oh no! Someone I’ve never heard of before lost respect! How will I go on with exactly the same amount of aproval and personal support I had before!?
baronvonpenguin, I can understand that. My comment about making a website wasn’t snarky; I do kind of mean it (although it would seem way too stalkery if anyone but Rebecca did it, I think). You are unawares of it, but there are literally thousands of comments of discussion that happened about the whole situation, so some of us are already so full of having explained it thirty or forty times that when someone new comes along, we suffer from “oh good lord not this again” syndrome.
Thank you for putting it better that I could!
thomasvos
So…you were trying to find just the right way to totally misrepresent the situation, but some other dishonest asshat did the heavy lifting? How nice for you.
You also missed that going back to someones hotel room for coffee… is most likely not going to involve coffee.
What that means is that a guy followed her immediately to the elevator as soon as she left her friends and knowing she’d be alone… and then propositioned her for sex as the first thing he said to her.
THAT is creepy behaviour…
I also see that fabracioferreira’s brain is so tiny it can only handle one instance of sexism at a time. But no, unfortunately we can’t discuss those instances of song lyrics either because Dawkins Dear Muslima post says so.
I do not particularly care for Rebecca Watson and don’t read Skepchick regularly. Despite this, I have enough integrity to stand up against the rape threats, the violent name calling, and the insistence that “if you want women to participate in conferences, don’t do that” really means “all men are rapists.”
I’ll move on from defending Watson and criticizing her writing and ideas when the douchebags move on from threatening to rape her and calling her a cunt because they don’t like the ideas she expresses. Astonishingly enough, I’m fine with losing the respect of people like tkmlactkmlac and am pleased that I won’t be sitting next to him at a conference.
In Rebecca Watson’s case it was not a polite request. The man who asked her for sex (let’s not pretend an invitation for coffee in that situation was anything else) was just plain rude. When I first heard of what happened I assumed the man was just a clueless idiot. I thought it was obvious that men should not behave as he did. It seems I put to much trust in the ability of a significant number of other men to have a clue how to behave.
Sure, they were just misrepresenting the situation in a way that you for some reason don’t explain. Please, cut the childish “nuh-uh” crap!
Tkmlactkmlac appears to be female, as gleaned from the statement on the original reddit post:
and further up this comments section:
Eh, don’t worry about it, though. I know someone who has a hard time with gendered pronouns, too. Maybe it would be better just to do away with them.
Assuming the transcript/summary posted by Rikkety is accurate, the rude response was “@tkmlac If you seriously think that’s anywhere near the same, you haven’t been paying attention.”
Which seems about right.
(In case you still don’t get it, there’s more than a couple of posts above which should be enlightening. Roughly: it’s a category error to lump all “jokes about violence” together as the same thing. On the one hand, there are actual one-off jokes expressing minor frustrations with noisy neighbors. On the other, there is a widespread pattern of “jokes” about rape whose function is to excuse and cover up actual, all-to-common violence — forming an integral part of the system we call rape culture.
You’re obviously more than welcome to be against both if you like, but you do need to acknowledge that there is a difference. Trying to mash them together serves only to minimize the seriousness of the latter.
You also need to acknowledge that this difference means that someone else can be more tolerant of the former without being a hypocrite…)
Seriously, thomasvos? You actually think “This relentless refusal to brook any criticism of Watson…” even begins to accurately represent what has happened and continues to happen, to and about RW? If I hadn’t seen so many relentless MRAs in here since elevatorgate, slobbering at the first opportunity to add more stupidity to the fire, I might think you were simply ignorant of the situation.
But I have, so my default assumption is that you’re a misogynist with “issues”. Like the other dozen or so that pop up in a typical week in here.
@carlie- your comment didnt come accross as snarky, you explained the situation properly and without being insulting or condescending (unlike others) your answer is appreciated and for what its worth i think a site explaining the situation might be a good idea-it seems to be a major point of contention in the community that is very difficult to find out about the original incident without sifting through 1000 pages of people who weren’t there getting angry and shouting at each other.
@GrudgeDK- i can only apologise for my lack of empathy, i hadnt realised that the unknown man in the elevator was a violent offender who openly brags about his sexual conquests. im so glad you cleared that up instead of letting me continue thinking that not all men are the same.
Whew. Thank goodness fabracioferreira is around to tell everyone what are the important things to discuss when it comes to sexism etc…
I was concerned that no one here was capable enough to figure that out on their own.
What else should the people here be and not be discussing fabracioferreira?
If I forget, please remind me to vote for jack lecou for the January Molly.
I do not talk about Chris Brown and Top Forty songs because I do not listen to pop music. When I do stop long enough to notice, I find much of it to be very sexist. But I do not talk about it because I do not know enough about it. I will leave it to people who are younger and know and care more about the subject.
Yes, well, feminists certainly can’t be relied upon to determine the subjects important to us. Some men have helped so much with this little rule: the Issues of Real Importance are always those other than the ones feminists are talking about at any given moment.
If we accidentally stumple upon an Issue of Real Importance, we find another rule to guide us: the correct means to address it are always those other than the ones feminists are using at any given moment.
Do you even listen to yourself. Apologize for that.
Also apologize for poor spelling and grammar. I’m mentally hobbled in that field and still try to use the right click on the little red squigglies
So, carlie gets a cookie for being so polite.
Elevator Man also gets a cookie, because there’s nothing at all rude or intimidating about following a woman into an elevator at 4AM in order to get her alone so you can ask her to have some sex.
Silly SC. Surely you know by now that the most important issues are those that effect teh menz.
It is the inability to capitalise that irritates me. It has nothing to do with ignorance, just fucking laziness.
@Matt
Does that count as grammar?
Probably, but it is not one of the harder rules to learn.
@Matt
No I’m just wondering if it falls under formatting or grammar mistakes.
Pretty sure it is grammar, but it is a long time since I did this stuff at school.
brownian- no elevator man doesnt get a cookie, i was just pointing out that GrudgeDK presented a completely different situation to explain the point. nowhere has elevator man been revealed to be violent so to make the comparison with a violent psychopathic lifer is ridiculous. as ive said before i wouldnt have done what elevator man did, i think it was stupid and after hearing the full details it was definitely creepy. however i asked a question for more information and with the exception of carlie and 1 or 2 others every reply has either been exagerrated blustering or downright rude, but i didnt come here for an argument so i wont bother asking next time.
il just be happy that at least a few people on here are vaguely welcoming.
baronvonpenguin,
Have the shift keys on your keyboard stopped working ?
I’m terribly sorry. I’m sure you’re very busy, and the fact that we’re sick and tired of having to explain the situation yet again for some asshole too lazy to do his homework is no excuse for us not jumping with a “Yes sir, right away sir!” to provide a synopsis of the situation so you won’t have to wade through the 1000 pages like we had to do.
I’m sorry you haven’t found this place as welcoming as you’d like. We’ve got a group whose job it is to welcome newcomers with ticker tape parades and balloon floats, but they’re on break right now. Is there anything I can do to make your stay with us more comfortable? Perhaps teach you how sentences work?
no they work fine. im just more concerned with getting my point accross than pedantic shit like that. im not very good at typing since i havent spent much time on computers in my life. strangely i thought something like that might be overlooked by a tolerant inclusive community instead of being pointed out several times, guess i should stop wasting my time here and go find one eh? oh and by the way i might be in the minority but im not the only person on this thread thats not Capitalising Properly
So you are just a lazy fucker who does not understand that failing to use capitals makes it harder to read he writes. You claim to be concerned about getting your point across, but cannot be bothered to write using even the most basic concepts of grammar.
Since you cannot be bothered to write properly, why should we be bothered to read what you write ? You are just being rude.
Ah right I understand now, its rude to not be up to your standards of computer literacy but not rude to swear and start throwing insults at somebody who asks a question. Thank you very much.
Thanks to the people who werent insulting arseholes but i dont think il be back here. I live in England so I can have conversations with atheists that arent complete wankers anytime so I think Il stick to that from now on. Shame really there seems to be a few pretty cool people here but wading through an avalanche of shit is too much trouble.
It is also rude to demand to be spoon-fed information you are quite capable of finding out for yourself.
If is also rude to complain of being treated rudely when you are being rude yourself.
You have not made a good first impression here. The fault is yours.
I’m not sure why people write stuff like this. I understand that such passive-aggressive attempts at shaming are ubiquitous on the internet, but is the intent to inveigh others to conform more to your expectations, or simply a sarcastic snipe allowing you to feel superior? If it’s the former, does such a petty technique ever work? And if it’s the latter, that you think being wrong about the nature of reality makes you feel better about yourself as compared to others is probably why you write the things you do.
This is not about pedantry; it’s about being able to fucking read and understand what you fucking write. If you can’t be bothered to put a modicum of effort into conveying what you think (or reading up on the history of a situation in which you feel impelled to comment), then why the fuck should anybody bother with you? I mean, you’re pretty demanding of others just so your lazy ass doesn’t have to do a thing.
As a fellow country-man of baronvonpenguin I can only apologise for his lack of manners and literacy, since clearly he can’t.
Computer literacy?! Capitalised letters and proper sentence structure pre-date the fucking computer age, you goddamn dildo.
Do you mean ‘verbal’ conversations? You might be finding that your face-to-face interactions are much more effective because your borderline illiteracy isn’t as much of a hindrance.
ok last post, matt penfold i didnt demand anything, i asked in the hope that someone might clear things up for me (thanks carlie) but you are a fucking disgrace, doing exactly the kind of thing i see atheists accused of, but didnt believe until now. i hope you feel really good about your massive brain. fuck you
Bets on the flounce?
@Baronvonpenguin
Look, I’m dyslexic. I have trouble spelling because swapped letters or phonically spelled words look “right” to me and I have to focus to tell the difference between “thesis’ and ‘theisis’ or ‘punch’ and ‘pouch’ . I make the effort so others understand me and use technology as a aide.
Also, it makes it harder for ME because of dyslexia to read you without the capitalization cues. I rely heavily on context to compensate for the way I see characters and the way you write takes me about twice as long to read as everyone else for half the content.
I’m sorry your experience has not been positive. Complaints may be registered via email to [email protected].
Have a wonderful time with your non-wanker UK atheist community.
Oh For Fuck’s Sake get over yourself. Have fun being not here.
Whoops, you mean the Submit button’s the one on the right? My comment was aimed at baronvonpenguin, in case no one figured that out.
@Matt
You’re being kind of a juvenile, hypocritical asshole. I mean, I’m sure you don’t care, but… fyi. Get over yourself.
Baronvonpenguin,
Please stop it. Don’t do that. You’re making me want to make Star Wars parody jokes about butthurt and the pain of stopping myself is really severe. Think of the children.
For example I am trying not to type:
“The butthurt is strong with this one”
“Yessss, yesssssss! Feel the power of the butthurt flow within you.”
LOOK! I weakened. I has a sad.
Louis
Am I ? I note you have not offered any evidence to support that claim, so please excuse me when I tell you that you are talking bollocks.
The use of capitals is not a pedantic issue. The evidence that proper capitalisation aids comprehension is well documented. Someone who refuses to use capitals clearly does not care about being understood, nor do they care about those with condition such as dyslexia which are not helped by the refusal to use capitals. Such behaviour is just rude.
Sorry you think calling people out for being rude makes me a juvenile, hypocritical arsehole. I guess I have higher standards than you do.
Okay, but now you used too many capital letters. It wouldn’t be fair to baronvonpenguin if I didn’t give you shit for it.
Thanks to the people who werent insulting arseholes but i dont think il be back here. – baronvonpenguin
Oh, good. BTW, if you don’t stick the flounce, do please let me know which part of the UK you inhabit. It’s not such a big place and I’d like to be sure we don’t meet.
By comparison, I have no problem here because it’s typos rather than a systematic doesn’t give a shit. I can read this
For reference on why this irks me
“il be” looks a lot like “I able” or similar to me.
@ We Are Ing, @ Matt Penfold:
Even though I tend to be a stickler for correct usage, I’d like to thank you for the info on capitalisation, punctuation and so on being used as cues by people with dyslexia. I didn’t know much about that, and it’s useful to keep in mind. Next time I’m in a forum where people don’t care how they write and someone complain about how it makes it harder for them, I’ll have a clue about what’s going on.
Seconding what Irene Delse said.
@Matt
Ah, so you want me to clarify for you? I’m sorry, I assumed that given the vitriol everyone has laid upon a person who was rude enough to ask for clarification, you would prefer to be polite and find out for yourself.
Fine.
Your juvenile behavior can be outlined thus: on the internet, it is a very common “debate” tactic by people who have nothing of substance to say, but writing skills, to resort to “you can’t do English right; therefore, your point is invalid.” I noticed that this guy came on here to ask for simple clarification on a point which was confusing him. Amidst much bashing for daring to try to expedite his education rather than waste hours trying to wade through a shitstorm plus accusations of being a sociopathic misogynist, he finally got his answer and claimed to agree completely with everyone here’s position about the matter. Suddenly, I see a shift from the “Look how superior to you we are because we understand feminism” sentiment to “nyah, nyah, we’re not going to listen to you, anyway, because you fail at English, pthhhhh!”
You’re a hypocrite because:
Emphasis mine
Well, damn. It took me a minute to make sense of that. How rude of you.
And you’re an asshole because, as I mentioned above, this guy only came here because he hadn’t been able to find some information he felt was pertinent to forming his final opinion. I’m sure he thought to himself, “this is crazy and I’m not getting anywhere, but surely there will be someone with a little seniority and experience in this matter who will be kind enough to help me.” Unfortunately, what he got was people like yourself who engage in needless hyperbole, declaring that he is “demanding to be spoon fed” and this kind of crap. He asked a question. I ask questions that to which I could probably find that answer eventually, myself. I was made a key control officer a while back, for instance. You know what I did? Instead of leafing through mountains of regulations to first find the relevant ones and then find the specific info I needed, I asked someone who’d been a KCO before. When I had to set up Flight Ops in a brand new unit, I went to Brigade’s Flight Ops and asked an experienced person what I needed to know. You know what they said? “Of course, happy to help.” I’m sure they got the same questions quite often, as well, and they would’ve been within their rights to say “I’m busy, look it up,” but they certainly didn’t accuse me of demanding special treatment or being a lazy fucker. But, you know, they were decent human beings. Further, I understand that you’re dyslexic, and my heart bleeds for you, truly. My father is also dyslexic, and I’ve seen the trouble it’s caused him. He couldn’t even do the job he’d been doing for fifteen years after he got out of the Service because a civilian license required passing a test and it took him too long to read the mathematics word problems. However, here’s the thing. This the internet. Specifically, this is a blog. If it’s really too hard to read, you don’t have to read it. He’s not writing it for you, buddy. He’s writing merely in the hopes that someone will be able to respond. If you’re not that guy, you don’t have to say anything. I mean, at the very least I’d understand if he’d committed an amphiboly and you needed clarification, but this… this was just for no other reason than to shit on the guy.
You know the thing that really pisses me off about what you and these other folks just did? This guy was agreeing with you. Maybe you were too busy feeling superior to notice, but he was on your side. If you had done the decent, human thing and when he said “I’m lost, can you help?” actually give him directions without making fun of him and vilifying him for not being as fortunate as you to have already seen the map, he might have joined your ranks fully, become motivated by you, and gone out and done some good. Now… who knows? He might still, eventually. However, without the support or the education, there’s also a good chance that he might not be as vigilant as he otherwise would be or he might not have the confidence to say, not only “this looks suspicious,” but also “I should take care of it.” Maybe you don’t care if you educate and empower people to take action against discrimination. That’s on your head, though. I do, however, which is why reading your post made me feel dirty enough to note that you were, indeed, being a juvenile, hypocritical asshole.
@tkmlactkmlac, baronvonpenguin
Well, aren’t you special.
@michaelbrew
Look asshole, someone demanding effort on my part who after correction seems to format themselves out of spite to be difficult to read isn’t worth my time
Secondly, are you aware of what FAQing off is?
Sorry couldn’t tell between his attitude, entitlement and disregard for others.
JAQing not FAQing.
@Matt Penfold #154
Technically that falls under the category of conventions, but if you’re using the linguistics definition of grammar, as opposed to the lay definition, then yeah, it still counts as grammar. I think.
</cunninglinguist>
Irene:
I’ll second (or third or fourth) Irene here. I’m a stickler too, however, I didn’t know about the cues used by those with dyslexia. That is very helpful information to have and I’d like to be doing all I can to communicate clearly.
It was the evidence you thought supported your opinion I was after. Since only you would have been aware of what the evidence was unless you shared it with us, the only way of finding out was to ask. Which I did.
It seems you object to being asked to support your position with evidence. That is not a good start.
His refusal to write properly was insulting. Given that people with dyslexia can often find it hard to read sentences that are not properly capitalise he also showed as disregard for people with that disability that borders on wilful contempt. That is one indication he was not acting in good faith.
A second indication is the fact the information he asked for is readily accessible via Google. He had not done any homework. Someone genuinely trying to understand would have done.
Your talk of discrimination is laughable, given you see nothing wrong with deliberately making it difficult for those with the disability of dyslexia to read a comment. Indeed, you seem to agree with the idiot that to ask consideration be given to dyslexics is being pedantic.
Well fuck you. I hope you leave, along with your fellow cretin. Neither of you is going to be missed.
As I have already noted, it seems your standards of behaviour leave a lot to be desired.
Now, I actually asked for evidence that supported your position. I note you did not supply any. Your dishonesty is also noted.
michaelbrew,
baronvonpenguin’s first comment included this:
First, making a sexual proposition to someone you have never spoken to before, particularly in a situation where they cannot simply turn and walk away, is not “a polite invitation”, and it is disingenuous in the extreme to suggest that it is. Second, no-one on this thread, at least before that comment, had suggested that EG was a potential rapist. So where did baronvonpenguin get that idea? Clearly, he was not as new to this topic as he presented himself as being. Combine that with his arrogant refusal to take a little trouble to make his comments easy to read (and I’d note that even for those who are not dyslexic, proper use of capitalisation makes reading much easier), and the fact that most people here are sick to the back teeth of explaining the issue to people who mostly turn out to be misogynistic arseholes, and the hostile reaction he got is perfectly understandable. I for one will be pleased if he does not return.
Well whatever it is, all lower case (or all upper case) makes something harder to read, and for those with dyslexia it can be a real problem. So insisting on using all lower case is both rude and discriminates against dyslexics. I don’t imagine those who could not give a fuck about dyslexics are going to care much about women either.
Well, firstly, why insist on using such hyperbolic language as “demand?” Like he just walked in here and said, “Listen here, you cretins! You’re gonna tell me everything you know about Elevator Guy!” Secondly, and one of my points as to why this is completely ridiculous, is if he’s not worth your time just ignore him! Let someone who does think he’s worth their time educate him, and you’ve lost, like, two seconds skimming over his comment instead of the minutes it takes to bash the guy. Thirdly, no I’d never heard of it until now, and after checking it out, I don’t know how it could be said with anything resembling certainty that that’s what this guy was doing.
I’m sorry, maybe I should’ve said “/sarcasm” in there somewhere. I’m perfectly happy supporting my position with evidence.
I’m not entirely sure how you can find it willful contempt when it seems like that’s just how he writes. I mean, my dad has dyslexia, too, and guess what? He doesn’t capitalize when he types. My mom has never owned a computer, and I recently helped her get her first smartphone. With pen and paper, she’s impeccable in her grammar, but she finds it so much of a hassle to type that she just ignores the shift key as well to make it easier. Point is, the guy wrote that way the whole time, even before he knew you existed. And, if you didn’t notice, no one ever claimed a disability that legitimately made the use of capitals essential for comprehension. There was no reason for this guy to believe you were doing anything but being an asshole and picking on him. That’s sure what it initially looked like to me. Now, it would be great if everyone used proper grammar, spelling, etc. I admit I get annoyed with that kind of stuff as I’ve always been a bit of a Grammar Nazi. I used to go through the newspaper correcting their mistakes with a red pen just because it annoyed me as a kid, in fact. But you’re honestly acting like someone who just watched his puppy getting raped. Why take it so damned personally? It’s not all about you.
I can tell you from firsthand experience that you’re wrong. When I first came across references to “elevatorgate,” all I could glean from posts here was that it involved a male, a female, and an elevator and the male did something he shouldn’t have. I did Google it, and the information I found on a quick look through was exactly what this guy knew already: a guy in an elevator asked a woman named Rebecca Watson out to coffee at 4 am in an elevator after a conference, and she later said guys shouldn’t do that. Now, I was a little confused at first, as well, because I took the “coffee” thing at face value, assuming he had actually wanted to go on a coffee date somewhere which would have, to my mind, been reasonable. Now, I had no reason to believe that this wasn’t the whole story, and I doubt this guy did, either. If I hadn’t come across a chance comment that explained that coffee was “coffee” and other details the places I’d searched didn’t go into, I might have been in his shoes. I certainly don’t think that there’s anything so wrong with a guy who, not seeing the controversy with the story he’d gotten, would simply–upon coming across a relevant discussion–ask people he had reason to believe knew something and could get not only the information he was looking for but possibly an actual nuanced discussion of the issue. Now, if you think that’s a little lazy, fine. But people’s reaction to it has been like he just punched your collective grandmother in the face. Like he’s said something sickening and depraved. And… from what I can see… he really hasn’t.
This is a complete misrepresentation of my views. It would, indeed be wrong to deliberately make it difficult for the dyslexic to read a comment. However, as I’ve said, it doesn’t seem like he did it deliberately, especially as no one ever mentioned dyslexia until after his last post, as far as I saw. What I did see–people seeming to attack a guy for bad grammar in lieu of any kind of argument against his position when, for all anyone knew, he may have been the one with some kind of disability–looked completely out of line. Now, if he had continued to do so and made it obvious that it was specifically to screw with the dyslexic, then I would whole heartedly back you in saying he was being discriminatory and an ass. There’s no excuse for being discriminatory even if the specific target is being a tool.
I won’t give you the pleasure. I actually enjoy learning new things and trying to get involved with the feminist movement. I recognize that I’m a flawed human being and I certainly have biases that even I don’t recognize, and I’m here because I want to make myself a better person. I don’t think I or any other person who comes here deserves to be shat upon by the likes of you because we may not have reached feminist nirvana and may occasionally say things that are ignorant, because while I’m sure there are genuine trolls on here that play games of being ignorant to screw with you, not all of us are. Maybe, when you come across someone whose opinion you actually manage to change for the better, you ought to say “I’m glad we were able to change your mind” or “You’re one step closer.” Not “Yeah, you’d better apologize for being wrong, and for that matter this is another reason you suck!”
As I have already noted, it seems your standards of behaviour leave a lot to be desired.
If you couldn’t tell from my opinion of your behavior noted above, my irony meter exploded here.
Now, I actually asked for evidence that supported your position. I note you did not supply any. Your dishonesty is also noted.
Here I have to just let you know that I take accusations of dishonesty very seriously. I have trouble even making absolute statements because I was raised to take it so seriously. I’m probably a skeptic mostly due to that very core value that honesty is the highest virtue. So I would ask that you seriously reconsider this position. To start off, you just said
I kind of figured that. Which is why I gave you a breakdown of what I considered evidence to you, which you’ve in fact quoted in your response. Making fun of the guy for his spelling/grammar (which I can understand now that you’ve revealed your learning disability, but it hadn’t been mentioned at the time) seemed juvenile. Your complaining about his spelling/grammar when you made a mistake that caused me to have to reread your sentence a few times for it to register what you were saying gave me the impression of some mild hypocrisy. The asshole opinion comes from the fact that, when asked a question by someone, even when it’s one that the asker could probably find out pretty easily, the decent person would at worst ignore the person, maybe tell them to look it up, or if they’re quite considerate just giving them the information that they already know and don’t have to expend but a minute’s effort to explain. Instead, everyone began to bash the guy like he’d just said “it’s okay to rape everyone including your moms!” I don’t care how many times you’re asked this question, that kind of vitriol is just… ludicrous. Now, I will say that I would revise my opinion about you given the dyslexia, and give you and yours the benefit of the doubt that you didn’t intend the spelling/grammar stuff as making fun of the guy in lieu of making an argument. However, that issue and the former was still, from where I’m sitting, blown way out of proportion given the guy seemed genuine in his question. You may not have thought he was, but from my standpoint, I didn’t see him doing anything worth calling him a sociopathic misogynist over. Now, if you want something like a research paper detailing experiments objectively proving your assholishness… well, I can’t provide that, certainly. Given that it’s my opinion rather than a fact with a true or false value, pointing to the behavior that caused me to form my opinion is the only evidence I can provide.
In response to KG, I believe I pointed out that I also found similar information that he started out with when I tried looking up some things about it. One thing I should note is that I didn’t realize at first that coffee was a euphemism for sex. This guy’s later comments revealed that he was laboring under the same misapprehension when he was told that this was the case, and then he said that in that case EG was being creepy and was wrong to do what he did. Given that he did agree with you all once provided the information, it seems evident that whatever your initial assumptions about his integrity were, the hate was, in fact, unjustified.
KG:
michaelbrew:
KG pretty much explained why I and others are pretty hair-trigger about this issue, but I do feel like I was unnecessarily harsh on bvp. Hindsight being 20/20 and all that. I was being a dick. I’ll cop to it.
My apologies, baronvonpenguin.
Unrelatedly, Who Cares wrote:
Sure. All of that. But as to point number one; that problem still exists for the scenario I was responding to: dressing in drag for a day.
Someone else here mentioned that they suggested their husband play a female character in an MMORPG to get a feeling for how women are treated online. My suggestion is based off of this as well as my own experience playing a female character in an MMORPG. I’d never played an MMORPG before, and as I’m used to playing RPG characters who are unlike me (fantasy world), I simply decided to play a female in this particular game*. The difference in the way people treated me was baffling until I realised they thought I was a girl and were trying to hit on/creep me. In fact, an actual girl befriended me, saying how nice it was to have another female to play with. It broke my heart to have to tell her I was just a naïf playing in a fantasy world and had no intention of deceiving her (or anyone else), but I was at least a bit pleased when she’d said that I didn’t behave as a typical G.I.R.L.: my character wasn’t overly sexualised or anything like that, and I didn’t act creepy.
It can be an eye-opening experience, that’s all I meant.
*I mostly don’t play MMORPGs at all. When I’m playing games, I like running around and doing fantasy shit; I don’t want to make friends. It’s just not how I like to socialise. So, I kinda didn’t even consider the implications of my choices during character creation; I think I jumped out of my skin the first time another player character came up to me and started talking to me—I guess I’d expected a world populated with NPCs.
Ing said:
I wish more people thought about stuff like this, not just the people who have to deal with it directly. If you want to communicate your thoughts, you can’t put all the responsibility onto other people.
I do web design, and I have had to argue with co-workers about why it’s important to make sites accessible. They are incapable of imagining what it would be like to not be “normal” (paraphrasing their thought processes).
Sorry, going off on a tangent, but Ings comment hit a nerve.
Try lurking and learning before acting like chum in the shark tank that is Pharyngula, as you have done so far on this thread. I lurked for a month or so while reading the archives to get the feel for the place.
I don’t know about other games, but in WoW, I don’t see anyone assuming sex of the player based on their toon. Guys playing female toons is just too ubiquitous. If any assumptions are made, it’s that all players are male until told/shown otherwise.
Despite being a woman who plays a male toon as her main, I make the default is male error, as much as I’d like not to. I do however use pronouns to match the toon (if the sex of the toon is known).
So yeah, just saying that playing a female toon in an MMO is not going to get any sort of realistic experience.
A better option might be to join a guild and tell them you are female, and have a female friend talk on vent for you so they are convinced you really are female. THEN see what happens. Though again, I have been exposed to far worse misogyny in guilds where they assumed everyone was male. It wasn’t directed at me, but it was disgusting. They were probably right that it *was* all male, because I left again almost straight away, as would just about any woman, or guy who wasn’t an arsehole.
It may not be universal. I think most people didn’t care, or knew that the correlation between player gender and avatar gender isn’t that strong. But my experience was that there were a few who did make that assumption.
Well, yes, there will always be some exceptions. Especially I guess, new people who don’t understand the community yet, and say ignorant things. See how I tied that back into the original discussion?
I find it astonishing that Rebecca Watson is expected to laugh off and ignore some of the most denigrating things on line but the moment she becomes even vaguely flippant she’s an evil bitch who must be ostracized and hated by everyone.
My reaction to all this can be summed by Jon Stewart’s reaction to the result of the caucus in Iowa (paraphrasing):
“This is the most important test those candidates are facing… until the one in New Hampshire, then the one in South Carolina, then ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz”
Also, whenever people starts with “Team Schmuck” vs “Team Bait”, I immediately think of “Team Edward” and “Team Jacob”, and anything reminding me of Stephen Mayer shall be cast into the fires of Mount Doom to be destroyed once and for all.
If you’re ever looking for evidence that atheism has nothing to do with rationality or not being a feckwit, /r/atheism is the place.