No, not that one over there. This one on twitter.
I have deeply offended a small group of indignant skeptics. But here, I’ll let you read their side of the story first, although I’m sure that while they have been complaining about not getting my attention, now they’ll start complaining about the horde of vicious winged monkeys I just flung at them.
Now my side of the story. On my twitter account, I get a daily barrage of comments, mostly welcome, but there are idiots and spammers everywhere, and I block them. It’s easy: I click a button labeled “block”, and boom, they can’t write to me anymore. I probably block, on average, one or two pests a day.
So some guy writes to me yesterday and says, hey, you blocked my friend. I said I didn’t know that I had (not surprising, there’s a gigantic pile of bodies trapped in the filter; also, sometimes I do make mistakes and block the wrong person). So I checked. I don’t have a record of who I blocked, but I can at least check the guy’s blog out and see if there was a reason.
And oh, boy, but there was a good reason. His friend was one of those toxic privileged dimwits who was totally unhinged by the idea that a woman might turn down a guy’s proposition in an elevator. He really, really despises Rebecca Watson (I think I want an amulet with her face on it — it would make an excellent asshole detector and moron repellent). Also, what do I see in the comments but the usual slew of misogynist slimepit denizens who show up everywhere someone criticizes Watson, and there’s the blog owner agreeing with them and cussing out those annoying feminazis who are tainting the one True Skepticism™.
It was a righteous block, man, a clean kill. I want nothing to do with this clown and his sleazy associates.
And then Rebecca Watson lets me know that this is a guy who begged her to unblock him before, and called her a rude name. Yeah, that all fits. No, I’m not going to unblock him.
Only now he’s all upset: he didn’t call her that specific rude name, he claims, and it was unjust and unfair that I blocked him over that. You know what? I don’t care. That wasn’t part of my decision. I saw just another boring deranged anti-feminist, and saw no reason to unblock him. I don’t know what all the slighted blog owner said to Rebecca, but I do know that “feminazi” is a damned good tell.
But of course now it has escalated: he and his friends are whining that I wasn’t fair, that I didn’t look at the evidence, I should unblock him. No, I’m not fair, I did look at the evidence, I judged him to be an ass I don’t want to listen to. Done.
So now, to add to the fun, I’m blocking all these privileged twits who are popping up on twitter to whine at me more. With no regrets or remorse, since I even warned them all that I was just going to block anyone who tried to tell me who I must listen to. Also, the ERVites are having a grand time joining in, and I do love pissing them off.
Just let it be known: I can and will block whoever I want on Twitter, just as I can ban anyone I want on my blog. It’s not as if I have a shortage of participants in either medium, and I think it helps to cull out the stupid. And one thing that marks you as especially stupid is when you bother to complain that I don’t want to listen to you. Where does this sense of unfounded entitlement come from? Because it just makes me laugh harder at you.
Are they hard-up for tummy rubs and head pats? Is it a “my atheism is bigger than your atheism” thing? Or do they believe that if they’re allowed to Tweet at you you’ll give them the “Myers Bump” and promote their writing/opinions/stuff?
I just don’t understand the butt-hurtedness here – I’ll Tweet you PZ, and you can block me. Behold my soul-crushing indifference!
I bet I can hazard a wild guess…
I find it comical that the ones who call PZ “PeeZus” are also the ones who lost their shit when people in general, and Watson specifically, responded to Dawkins’ “Dear Muslima” post.
That’s when your belly swells up and tentacle-shaped impressions writhe across the stretched skin.
It’s quite amazing.
I love the thought of them indignantly tweeting into the unheeding aether.
Ah yes, the right to be listened to. And its companion, beloved of pseudoscientists, the right to be believed. Perhaps the most common of the online pseudorights.
Yeah, really. Who gives a shit?
It’s this weird bullshit about how FREEDOM! means that every blogger and tweeter with an audience on the net somehow owes you part of their platform or Baby Ayn Rand cries or something.
You know, people are weird.
Obviously I don’t know the whole story and I’m not going to waste my time reading any more of this post or the twitter cretins. What I don’t understand is why do people get upset when someone blocks you? I could be blocked by a close friend and I wouldn’t go crying about it to anyone. Big deal… its fucken’ twitter! Man, get over yourselves.
Oh PZ, don’t you know that you cannot exercise your simple judgement about who you do and don’t want to talk to about some things by now?
Why are you discriminating against bigots? YOU ARE TOO MEEEEEEEEN!
Louis
P.S. I’ve always considered rational, evidence based discrimination to be a good thing. But then I’m an elitist scumbag.
Wow, that’s hilarious. It’s NiceGuy syndrome applied to Twitter. You’re not allowed to just have a personal opinion and a disinterest in communicating with someone! Oh no, no, no, you must listen to them and carefully weigh evidence and if you block them instead of realizing how splendid they are, you are a Bad Person.
Wow this is funny but also sad in a way. I don’t use twitter yet but perhaps I will start to so I can block certain people. On second thought… nope, not worth it. Besides I don’t think that most people would be interested in what flits through my mind. Even if I thought they might be interested I can’t imagine demanding that they be interested.
I’m having a grand time imagining all these angry people tweeting all slow, and then faster… and faster… and faster until they just explode in one big ragetweet of DOOM.
Sounds messy.
Wow. I didn’t realize that people expected to go through a mini-court trial before someone was allowed to block them on Twitter. That’s a new one.
They see you as an authority figure and authority figures are supposed to live up to the principle of free speech enshrined in the united states constitution like all other authority. Oh, was that a rhetorical question… I’ll get me coat.
I think maybe people like this belong to Generation ‘I’… see this link:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/i-want-out-of-generation-i-20120626-210ke.html
Oh and PZ, I have never written to you on Twitter and I don’t have a Twitter account. This is conclusive evidence you are a poopyhead.
Louis
Well, on the upside, they did inspire me to make this. Or maybe that’s a downside.
Louis, why do you hate Louis’ freedom?
Wow…these peeps are becoming obsessively nuttier than creationists. I am not even sure PZ gets this crap from Ken Ham. /sigh
@19 I think that is because ultimately the Judeo-Christian religions are an outcropping of male privilege. It’s an entire world view designed to control people and promote and preserve male privilege.
Brownian,
Because Louis is a very bad boy and deserves to be punished?
Oh wait….I’ve drifted topics again haven’t I?
Louis
Your tweets are fun to read. I’m deriving great pleasure from the series of zaps punctuated with “Buh-bye!”.
Caerie @10 is right on the money. I could easily see myself doing this during my “but I’m a nice guy” phase. It’s an amazing exercise in digging a hole and not even realizing that no one else is even around while you’re digging.
PZ blocks guy.
Guy asks why.
PZ looks into it – discovers there is plenty of reason to block the guy regardless of the comment incorrectly attributed to him.
Guy focuses on comment as if he had some entitlement to have that addressed.
It’s that nice guy entitlement about how if one thing about you is wrong it must be addressed and fixed in order for everyone to be able to move on.
No, no, you can move on without getting it addressed. It’s ok. Dal with it. It’s called life.
On behalf of the UK, facepalm. Being from the UK doesn’t magically make it non-gendered, genius.
Plus it’s really creepy to beg to be unblocked on Twitter. Whatever would people like this chap do with their time if there weren’t ‘feminazis’ to rail against?
Yeah, the slimepitters are already on Thunderfoot going into hysterics over this latest incident and the moppet from yesterday whom you chastised, Geraldmcgrew is also whining. You and Rebecca Watson certainly attract the obsessives. It’s almost as if these people crave your attention and want to impinge themselves on your consciousness some way or the other.
Yes, the slimepitters are now over on Thunderfoot’s latest post, ranting about how this means that the “Queen Bee” lied and PZ is covering it up and therefore everything either of them says is hypocrisy and lies and DOOOM and baboons and somesuch.
It’s mightily entertaining, as long as you can suppress your gag reflex.
Well, anybody who can inspire Chris Clarke to create … oh, never mind, Chris Clarke is already inspired.
I’ve been coming across this kind of behavior more, as I’ve come to realize that certain people aren’t worth my time, and have gotten better at not giving those people my time.
There’s a certain type of person that feels entitled to a certain amount of respect, regardless of how they treat you. Well, I won’t get into all the ways this can manifest, but one thing I’ve noticed is that these kinds of people HATE to be ignored.
You will leave them alone when they tell you to. You will listen to them when demand it. You will speak and explain yourself and justify yourself when they require it of you.
And when you don’t do so, the worst ones will go berserk. They may call you every kind of name in order to hurt your feelings, get your goat, whatever, just to get you to respond in anyway, because any response at all is better than being ignored. They may use force to MAKE you stay and listen to them rather than walk away.
I was assaulted by an ex-boyfriend just a month ago. We had gone to hang out, and he was supposed to be showing me that we could still be friends, but when things didn’t go the way he wanted them to, and I was leaving because I just wasn’t enjoying myself, he pinned me against my car, and proceeded to scream at me for 15 minutes. I’ve had two other men get physical, to lesser degrees, because I was refusing to listen to their bullshit.
Obviously, that’s worse than people whining on twitter that they get blocked. I just don’t have any tolerance for people he feel entitled to have whoever they want to listen to them listen. I, for one, know damn well that there’s very few people on Earth who must listen to me. But then, I’m a woman, and that’s the natural order, isn’t it? No one has to listen to what a woman says.
This is almost as delicious as watching the crazed Tea-Party contingent on Twitter who couldn’t figure out that posting one tweet every few seconds might get them blocked, and declared it a Liberal conspiracy. :D
Jeez the narcissism of people these days. I try to refrain from linking to my own writing in comments unless it is really specifically relevant to what is going on. The mentality of someone who thinks their tweets MUST BE ACKNOWLEDGED (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) baffles me.
I don’t have access to Twitter at the moment (it’s blocked here), but I remember reading the feed yesterday and I thought Rebecca corrected herself anyway?
It’s interesting how some people’s opinions on the word “cunt” went from “totally innocuous thing that isn’t sexist at all because Scottish people say it all the time” to “the mere suggestion on Twitter that you might have called someone that is unspeakably vile and defamatory and you should SUE SUE SUE!!!!!”
Yes, Rebecca Watson retracted her comment 2 minutes after she posted about it. She mixed him up with another person.
They even know this: it was cited in the comments.
Yeah, I had a little fun over there myself.
butbutubutubutubutub, Gerald was just asking questions and was concerned! HOWKANDISB!?
It’s so very meta! Next they’ll accuse PZ of tweet-flirting with them, and how dare he change his mind. If he didn’t want to get tweeted at by all and sundry, he shouldn’t have joined Twitter, and he certainly shouldn’t have worn that user icon.
Yes you did, Brownian. Yes you did.
Cigarette?
frog:
If he didn’t want to be tweeted, he shouldn’t be on Twitter. It’s a defacto consent! Everybody knows if you’re on Twitter, you’re there to take any and all tweets from any interested parties.
WHY AREN’T ALL OF YOU READING MY BLOG ABOUT HELLO KITTY?!?!?1
WHY????????????????????
Brownian, it appears that commenter JT (nothing to do with Eberhard) is making direct, possibly violent threats against your person.
Thought you’d like to know.
Imagine how awful it must feel waking up every morning and realizing you’re too immature for Twitter.
It is painfu…
oh you mean them?
brownian is my hero once again.
how long is the secks line now, anyway?
ThunderDunce allows personal threats on his blog? Interesting. I wonder if that would be true if someone was threatening him personally. I wonder if then, suddenly, threats should be taken seriously.
the threat hasn’t been up very long, thats for sure. He should be given some time to respond.
@PZ/32: “Yes, Rebecca Watson retracted her comment 2 minutes after she posted about it. She mixed him up with another person.”
I don’t want to get dragged the broader debate (I have no dog in this fight at all–people can block whoever they want, in my opinion), but I don’t think you’re reading this tweet correctly, PZ. I read the entirety of the comments on Coffee Loving Skeptic’s (the aggrieved party) post, and Rebecca apparently sent him a “penis bird” (whatever that is). So rather than being a retraction, that linked to series of tweets reads, to me anyway, as a reiteration of the original c–t accusation.
Am I a cantankerous old fart if I don’t understand why anyone would use twitter?
Skeptifem – Ah, I see. I retract that statement then. he does deserve sufficient time to respond.
“Does everyone have to like you, George?”
“YES! Everyone has to like me!”
I apologize to everyone around me for the Seinfeld kick that I’ve been on lately.
I know that threats should be taken seriously, but I really have a hard time believing that any of the slimepitters could beat up a fruit fly.
@Rey
Given their usual level I’d guess they’d roofie the fly first.
I’m confused.
1. Why on earth would someone assume that Rebecca’s post about blocking someone for calling her a cunt and then calling her a cunt again in a follow-up email assume that she was necessarily talking about him, when he didn’t call her that? I mean, shouldn’t it be assumed that Rebecca blocks people on Twitter all of the time for being arses, whether they call her a cunt in the process or not?
2. Why on earth does someone care if someone they hate blocks them on Twitter, anyway?
@Gretchen
Because then you can make a stink about how people are performing…bum BUM BUM TEH SENSORSHIP!
A whiny, privileged, coddled crybaby, so used to life on the easy setting that his hangnail is a bigger more important health crisis than someone else’s stage IV lymphoma.
Gretchen – I have no idea what is going on, and I’m trying to ask questions everywhere to get everyone’s take on it. From what I can tell, on your first point, Mr. Ryan’s name was used in a question from Dr. Myers to Ms. Watson that made the claim.
As to your second, I honestly couldn’t tell you.
What I can tell from my keyboard is that Mr. Ryan feels he has had words put in his mouth, words that are quite charged and inflammatory, and he wants it acknowledged that he did not use them. I think if everyone agrees on that, most of this goes away. The conversation regarding equality and harassment in the skeptic community (such as it is) surely needs to go on, but hopefully this incident will encourage everyone, on whatever sides there might be, to be civil and compassionate going forward.
I could be wrong, though. This is all so surreal.
He called Watson a rude name? How dreadful. Thanks goodness that sort of behaviour isn’t tolerated here.
Comment by jackrawlinson blocked. [unkill][show comment]
And nothing of value was lost
I do wonder how that’d play out. For reference, he wrote:
Have you seen the slimpit? It gets quite annoying to hear people whining about being civil here when we get yuckleheads from there making rape jokes, threats, and general jackassery.
*rolleyes*
yeah, because it’s only “kids these days” who are suffering from a massive overdose of entitlement. Explains the Republican youth-vote advantage, I’m sure (oh, wait)
so fucking tired of this shit
Okay, so this guy is upset because Rebecca Watson apparently said he called her the c-word, and he insists that while he may have treated her with misogynist disdain (well, he wouldn’t call it that, but that’s what it is), he didn’t use that particular word, and now she’d damn well better apologize! Because she TOLD LIES about him! About HIM!
What I want to know is, what makes him think anyone cares? So she misidentified him as one of the hordes of butthurt dudebros who called her the c-word while partaking in the netwide pileon to tell her that she’d better shut up, when in fact he’s a butthurt dudebro who just partook in the netwide pileon to tell her that she’d better shut up, but refrained from using that particular slur. What makes her obligated to care? It’s not like this is a court of law and he’s facing any kind of actual legal penalty; as for the social cost, well, who follows Rebecca on twitter and knows who this guy is? Or cares?
We Are Ing – I see everyone being uncivil and engaging in name-calling. I’m new, so I don’t know who allegedly started it. Maybe I don’t understand blog culture – maybe it’s something for some people to blow off steam.
But all I see is people getting attacked. Everywhere.
Tell me, do you over hear arguments in public and wedge yourself in, insisting that all you hear are people fighting and that they’re being uncivil? Or does your presumed privilege of referee only extend to this instance?
It probably goes away, anyway.
Also did you post this to TF or EVR? Telling everyone to lay off the bad behavior?
calling someone a cunt is a slur against women everywhere, and its a slur that insults someone based on what they *are*. see also: retard, faggot, nigger, etc.
If someone is acting stupid, and you call them stupid or a stupid fuck, they can choose to stop acting stupid, and it isn’t a slur against any group.
oranje:
Then opt for shutting the fuck up, reading and educating yourself, for fuck’s sake. Honestly, I am sick and tired of people going full court idiot using the “I don’t know anything about this, I’m fully unaware of the history, but that won’t stop me from nattering on about it!” excuse.
We are not the ones supporting misogyny. We are not the ones crowing about how great it is to be sexist. We are not the ones making threats. We are not the ones insisting rape jokes are funny. We are not the ones who are bitches ain’t shit.
Are you getting a fucking clue yet?
We Are Ing – That is the question about internet conversations, is it not? At what point can anyone comment? How long must we wait in a Burkian parlour before speaking up? If your point is that I believe I am somehow “privileged” or a “referee” because I am not immediately picking a side and point out that name-calling isn’t helping, that’s fine. You clearly have an issue with these other people, and I do not pretend to be able to empathize with it.
But I do not find your analogy to be apt. A conversation in a hallway is not analogous to an open internet discussion. There is no wedging involved. I’m not trying to be a discordant voice, though I would like to think that if I were, and I am polite about it, that would be okay, too.
If these other people really are the problem – and I am not denying that they are/could be – then I don’t see why ignoring them or simply not disparaging them is not the best path. Let them hang themselves… there are plenty of people already there who have done so and whose perspective I already will never take seriously.
Caine – Fine, I’ll leave. I would have hoped you could be more civil than that, but that’s fine. Enjoy your conversation.
I don’t know anything about the backstory. My fun theory is that they are running some kind of contest, and the first person who gets PZ to say “porcupine” wins a prize. And blocked dude is afraid that he has to be present to win.
Ignoring trolls rarely works.
Holy shit. this crap doesn’t even rise to the level of tempest in a teapot. get the fuck over yourselves and move on.
Unlike Louis, I have a twitter account, which I have not used since I created it in order to see a tweet about something that long since passed.
oranje:
You know who isn’t helping? You. We don’t need your tone trolling. https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2011/08/01/pharyngula-standards-practices/
Fuck off, Cupcake. The sexism problem within the skeptic/atheist community is huge and it will not go away by burying heads in the sand. You weren’t around for all the discussions on entrenched, toxic sexism. You weren’t around fighting the good fight. You weren’t around for 3D4K. You just want all the nasty words to go away.
Seriously, you. are. not. helping.
Perhaps its just me, but when i read posts like oranje’s criticizing the “uncivil” aspects of internet debate, what I actually hear is “I don’t like that I can’t intimidate/insult/scream at you into shutting up”.
It’s an idea that I’ve been kicking around since Elevatorgate: that (at least part of) the source of the unhinged misogyny we’ve seen lately is the result of the privileged realizing that the internet is the Great Equalizer.
They can’t tower over someone to initimidate them into silence (I’d wager nearly every woman on the planet knows what I’m talking about here). They can’t mock and insult someone into shamed silence. They can’t scream you down and scare you into agreeing.
At least, not in person, where such behaviors are at peak effectiveness.
And this pisses them off. Some double down on the unhinged bigotry. Others collapse into pants-pissing crying fits about how unfair it is no one cares about their papercut!
And, just for the record, I’m not accuding oranje of unhinged misogyny. That comment just brought to mind the latest dealings with the slimepit.
oranje
I waited until reading about 20.000 comments from several blog entries and forum posts on the subject.
And I still wouldn’t presume to know enough to tell most others here that they are doing it (this debate) wrong.
http://outofthegdwaye.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/an-open-letter-to-the-tone-troll/
Educate yourself, netnanny oranje
because they are doing something deplorable, and if people fail to say so it will seem like they don’t care about it at all. Caring about others causes one to become vocal about social problems.
I didn’t say anything about choosing sides. I asked if you posted to same complaint elsewhere. Cause otherwise your claims of neutrality ring hallow.
“Everyone in this debate is doing bad things…..*glares at one person*”
Btw imagine you are a teacher and see a kid being bullied. What do you think comes across if you tell him “just ignore them”. I’ll tell you what; it’s “They aren’t doing anything wrong, the problem is on your end. Why do you do this to yourself?”
That’s bullshit and so is your faux “civil” neutrality.
It’s not polite, it’s very very VERY rude
Perhaps then it would have been advisable for you to, you know, read the blog archives, and, you know, find out who started it, in the way an intellectually honest person would be expected to do, before opening your big yap and in the processing demonstrating just how stupid a fool you are.
You can wait as long or as short as you want to, but the more you actually know before opening you mouth, the more likely you’ll actually end up saying something informed and useful, rather than ignorant and idiotic.
The only thing on the line here is your reputation.
Oh dear. PZ has done a fine job of misrepresenting exactly what happened yesterday.
First of all, no one cared about being blocked. The only time that issue was raised was when we pointed out what an unreasonable response it was to being presented with damning evidence that Rebecca Watson lied.
Whether or not you agree with CLS’s views is irrelevant. You are absolutely entitled to block anyone you choose to. It is your feed and you get to decide who gets access to it. However, you are distorting the facts by painting CLS as some sort of anti-feminist loon. He was nothing but polite to you, while you were telling everyone who sided with him to ‘fuck off’.
What I would really like to know is why you seem to think that it’s ok for Rebecca Watson to spread an accusation that is demonstrably false? She told all of her followers that CLS called her a ‘cunt’, and then allowed you to perpetuate the falsehood. Is that the type of person you like to associate with?
Illuminata: Actually, there are several famous theorists who feel the same way (and a nasty debate in academia over the role of education and expertise– the internet is felt by some to be a serious threat to the respect given the educated). So, you know, you have backup on that idea.
Because of the fluidity of role, the internet provides a unique space for marginalized people. In fact, I’m pretty sure the gaining momentum of persons who are concerned with the issues of marginalized groups would not have been possible without the tubez. The tubez allow organization, greater community (for a different definition than typically used), greater potential scope for idea transmission and increased ability to compare experiences of oppression so that it becomes a thing which gains those oppressed the ability to circumscribe the isolation of being oppressed.
The internet is the vehicle for an increasing amount of social change, and you bet people who had the advantage are pissed off. (You’ll never guess who typically takes the ‘internet is ruining everything,’ eleventy1!!!11!!!!1!1 in my experience of these debates.)
DOES NOT COMPUTE!
Holy fucking shit are you people fucking for real? SHE RETRACTED IT! ABOUT TWO MINUTES LATER!
Proof: https://twitter.com/rebeccawatson/statuses/217691177791664128
She didn’t “allow” fuck shit!
She didn’t spread any fucking accusations!
She made a mistake as human beings do and retracted her statement!
Why can’t you assholes do the same? Oh right, because that won’t fit into your little “gotcha” game of one-up.
Illuminata:
Yes, complete with The Stance™.
She corrected that within two minutes. And nobody cared either way.
Who is CLS that he thinks he can demand an apology from someone he’s already insulted and ridiculed, anyway?
Illuminata, that’s a great point that makes a lot of sense.
Caine: You know, the times the Stance has been used on me are all very similar. I wonder if it’s a template which those kinds of men get in the mail?
Also, those guys have a distressing tendency to stand on my toes, creeping in when I keep staring at them. I’m starting to think I need work boots to teach.
jamesmacdonald:
Gee, for someone who didn’t care about being blocked, whining about it in an email to someone and then blogging about sure is an odd way to show off that insouciant indifference, eh?
@jamesmacdonald #79
I think that an unreasonable response would have been to send fifty tons of deceased and decaying squid to CLS’ door, payment due upon delivery.
Blocking someone on Twitter rates just below getting the stink-eye from someone.
I think it’s just natural instinct to make yourself look bigger to scare off a challenger. Evopsyche and all
Ing: Hey, at least if I have work boots on I can just kick them in the shins when they get too close. /kidding, of course. Sadly, even though they do the loom and threaten thing, it’s assault if I kick them in the shins, and damned if I’ll back up for them.
This second sentence is hardly relevant to the first.
OT lots of word salad today…
@Gen #82
She did not retract it. Read the exchange again. She was pointing out to Jamie that HE was referring to a different person. Did you follow all of this yesterday? I certainly wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t, but she most certainly did not retract what she said.
@Cain #87
All he did was ask his friend to find out why PZ had blocked him. As soon as he found out, the issue of being blocked took a backseat. It was entirely about what Rebecca had said.
@mythbri #88
It was an unreasonable response because it’s a sign of a closed mind when you try to avoid anything that might lead to the acceptance of an inconvient truth.
@Brownian #91
A loon tends not to be polite. In fact, CLS was completely in control of his emotions yesterday, while PZ was frothing at the mouth and telling everyone to ‘fuck off’. PZ’s Usenet troll persona made an appearance yesterday.
mouthyb:
All I know is that it creeps me out something fierce.
Not a bad idea.
Yep, as I suspected.
It has become so stereotypically predictable by now.
Whenever I see someone like jamesmacdonald post the “Rebecca Watson was lying” meme, I immediately know with 99.9% a priori certainty that the poster an intellectually dishonest liar who is peddling either a deliberately unfair exaggeration or an outright falsehood.
These are almost always the same group of people going “EG just made a mistake, cut the guy some slack, give the guy a break”, or a variation thereof. But Rebecca Watson? One tiny misstep, and it’s time to scream bloody murder, exaggerate, lie, and distort, distort, distort.
Pathetic, dishonest hypocrites.
Oh, I see. You use words differently than others do.
So, irrelevant.
Tone trolling too, I see.
Quite a specimen here.
You are the one who said no one cared about being blocked. Jesus Fucking Christ, pick one. Either the moron obviously *did* care, hence the email, etc., or it was bizarre behaviour for someone who really didn’t care.
You aren’t making sense.
I’m perfectly willing to be shown that Rebecca lied or was wrong and PZ didn’t do his due diligence. jamesmacdonald may very well have the right of it.
But I honestly can’t fucking stand to hear any more bullshit about politeness right about fucking now.
Kindly fuck off, dearie.
Oh noes DAMNING evidence. Not just “evidence” but DAMNING evidence.
Do you even hear what you write, you supercilious little twit ?
because of course the only thing that matters is that internet-dude was polite to another man on the internet.
Not that internet-dude makes a habit of being a creep, lies about whether “cunt” is a sexist insult in the UK, makes a typically insincere notpology to a woman (“apologise if she felt offenced”)
And all the fuck you care about is that he was nothing but polite to you.
Goddamn, you are a clueless sexist ass.
Go away. Your kind aren’t welcome here.
Umm, yeah, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I would rather associate with Rebecca Watson than people like you, any day. You can fuck right off. Take your internet-dude friend with you, too.
@Amphiox #98
You just assume that I’m being intellectually dishonest, despite the facts entirely supporting what I say? That’s interesting.
Rebecca lied and spread a pretty vicious rumour. Those are the facts. No amount of casuistry will change that.
Cry about it
@jamesmacdonald #93
“It was an unreasonable response because it’s a sign of a closed mind when you try to avoid anything that might lead to the acceptance of an inconvient [sic] truth.>/i>
…
Okay, so you’re trying to open PZ’s mind to an “inconvenient truth.” (Skeptical face.)
…
“In fact, CLS was completely in control of his emotions yesterday, while PZ was frothing at the mouth and telling everyone to ‘fuck off’.
…
Why, exactly, would you want to open the mind of someone who you think is apparently an emotional, frothing asshole? Is this one of those “GODDAMMIT I’M RIGHT!!! PAY ATTENTION TO MEEEEE!!!” things?
Lulz
@myself, #104
Alas! I borked my html. Sorry for that. :P
@hotshoe #101
I’m a sexist because I’m calling her out for lying? You have no idea where I stand on any issue. I’ll call anyone out if they are in the wrong, no matter who they are. Don’t make assumptions.
Oh, and try to calm down.
jamesmacdonald had you bothered to read the blog post properly (I know they are big words but do try) then you would have seen this particular line…
Also did you see how i was perfectly polite but still insulted you. They are not mutually incompatible.
I gotta say, that’s the thing I don’t get about this kerfuffle in particular, or about the slimepit generally. The one time I checked it out, it was full of posts about “PeeZus” and the other FTB (oops, FfTB) bloggers who are the targets of their hate. I mean, when someone really pisses me off like that, I try to remove them from my life. It’s not like PZ is the Lord of the Internet and is inhibiting their freedom to post whatever they want, ANYWHERE but on his blog. So why the obsession with Pharyngula, Rebecca Watson, Svan, etc.? Why don’t they just, you know, stop reading these blogs?
You do know that unlike Mormons, atheists don’t believe in a veil of ignorance right?
WTF? That’s ALL it’s been about! People asking me why so-and-so had been blocked, complaining about being blocked, telling me the reason I blocked so-and-so, etc., etc., etc. If no one cared about being blocked, why was I asked to explain why I’d blocked coffee bozo?
No, like I said, I read his blog to figure out why I might have blocked him. First thing I saw was a whine about Rebecca Watson. Then I saw all the usual Watson haters in the comments. Then I saw the “feminazi” comment by coffee bozo. Anti-feminist, check. Loon, check.
I don’t. She corrected her error two minutes after she posted it. I know from personal experience that in the usual deluge of crackpots and adolescent wankers that flood our mailboxes, it’s really easy to confuse any two of them — they all run together.
So some other kook complained about being blocked and called her a cunt. Coffee bozo was a different kook who complained about being blocked and called her a feminazi. Same difference.
My gosh, James McDonald, you are a dishonest one, aren’t you? How would you know this? Did you read my mind?
As I explained above, when I saw the question about why I’d blocked tpryan007, I wrote back that I didn’t know I had, and then the next thing I did was look to see if I’d done it by mistake. After looking at his blog, it was clear that I did have good reason.
It was only after all that that I saw Rebecca had said something on twitter about it, and as I pointed out, two minutes later she said that it wasn’t that guy, it was this other annoying guy.
What Rebecca said had nothing to do with my decision.
But keep on bleating that. It makes you look like an incredible moron.
@Brownian
Since you seem to be more reasonable than most of the crowd involved in this ‘discussion’, what more do you want as proof that Rebecca lied? Their e-mail exchange has already been posted.
And by the way, Rebecca is fully aware of this little mini-drama. If CLS really had called her a ‘cunt’, she could prove it in seconds and put the whole thing to bed.
@James
You do realize that ignoring that she corrected the mistake within two minutes is lying right?
“Oops my bad, no he was some other jerk.”
“ZOMG HOW DARE YOU TURN THE INTERT00BS INTO A HOUSE OF LIES!”
“Um I said it was a mis-”
“LIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES”
@PZ Myers
She did not correct her mistake. You misread that exchange, PZ. CLS even posted the exchange you are referring to on his blog. Rebecca was correcting Jamie for thinking of the wrong person, rather than correcting herself.
This needn’t even be such an aggressive exchange. I’m trying to keep this as civil as possible. I think the root of the issue is Rebecca’s response to you, which seemed to connect the two issues. If that’s the case, then that was a mistake. However, Rebecca did spread a pretty damaging lie throughout the skeptic ‘community’ and she most certainly did not correct herself.
I was Facebook friends with and a Twitter follower of ‘CLS’ up until quite recently, through ‘mutual friends’ in UK sceptic circles. I can say that he has firmly been in the Watson is hysterical camp since Elevatorgate – I recently unfriended him, blocked him, and removed him from my Twitter feed because of it. I watched his statuses in creeped out fascination for a few months but just couldn’t take the possiblity of being seen as a ‘friend’, even a Facbook one, any more. This behaviour is not new.
james
holy shit, being mistaken about a detail (but not the principle) is that big of a fucking deal? That instantly becomes a purposeful lie in your book? Where the fuck are you when people are continually misrepresenting what happened to RW or ophelia benson or when that douchenozzle from psychology today completely misrepresented what happened to elyse from skepchick? Do you really expect anyone with half a fucking brain to take your shit seriously in light of those events? It is obvious that you prioritize men over women from your behavior here, just like we know dudes who bring up male circumsicion in threads about FGM think that women don’t matter. Keep JAQing off though, I’m sure I’ll get a few laughs from the snark of intelligent posters.
*falls over laughing*
Yes, the vicious, vicious rumor that the antifeminist moron called her a different shitty gendered slur than he actually did.
I don’t know if I can ever trust her again after she’s made this GRIEVOUS ERROR.
He didn’t call her a cunt and she acknowledged that. WHY IS THIS AN ISSUE? But hell, even if she didn’t acknowledge it (and she did, your protests notwithstanding), is it better if he just called her a feminazi? Like that makes it less misogynistic and toxic.
Are we arguing about specific words now, as in NAH-UH, I’m not being sexist because I said she’s a feminazi not a cunt Y U BLOCK ME?
I mean, seriously, if that’s the only thing you can get your hands on in terms of arguments against PZ and Rebecca’s positions this is pretty pathetic, man.
@Ing
As I have already pointed out several times, she did not correct the mistake. She was correcting Jamie, who had thought of the wrong person. She wasn’t correcting herself.
No one is hiding the exchange that PZ posted. It was posted on CLS’ blog. You are misreading those messages, though.
Lol, y u mad bro?
@Ing
No? I’m just trying to keep things civil, since most seem to be resorting to insults and troll sp3ak.
Lulz, Bros be lying yo.
Besides bring it up with Rebecca. No one here cares.
But! But! It’s DAMNING EVIDENCE of whothefuckcares
Lol think I struck a nerve
So some woman says some man said something daft, got wrong man, apologised.
Some other man blocked said man on Twitter, someone else complains about it, this first “some other man” goes and has a look at the blog of the man claiming to be blocked unjustly and concludes, independently of the woman, that the block is worth it.
Internet doth explodeth.
Is that about right?
Fuck me, these are First World Problems. I don’t blame PZ for being pissed off at having to spend one second of his time on this shit. I’m pissed off and I have fuck all to do with it.
Hint: if I go and get a Twitter account, please, everyone, feel free to block me, justly or unjustly. Not a single fuck will be given.
I feel some heads need to be removed from some arses pretty fucking sharpish, what a bunch on entitled, whiny pissants.
Louis
I think we just have to admit a simple fact
Bros fucking lie. they lie about not raping. They lie about not harassing. They lie to ruin women’s reputation. They life for money. Think about the time someone ruined a bunch of people’s lives? Chances are it was some white bro lying! Bros lie yo!
well, where the fuck were you when women were being misrepresented? If you are fair and honest you could link to prove that you cared enough to say something then and put this whole thing to bed in a minute, right?
@Gen
You are lying to yourself. She did not correct herself. You would have to have an agenda to interpret that as correcting her mistake.
Look at the exchange again. Jamie asked if it was the person he was thinking of. Rebecca said no, that HE was thinking of someone else. In what sense is that a retraction?
Oops ^ not got wrong man (well I suppose it could be) but got wrong word.
Either way, this materially alters the fact that this is a pathetic ball of fuck all how precisely?
Louis
Your mind-reading powers are fucking stunning. You ought to get paid for that shit.
Lulz you paranoid. Time to go AFKB and get life.
u got too much free time then?
@skeptifem
I’m not a regular on the FTB community, so I don’t know what issues you are referring to. I only became aware of this little drama through following PZ on Twitter.
Bros lie
@James
PZ was pretty damned clear that your friends misogyny is the reason he was blocked.
It is not Rebecca’s fault that your friend is an asshole.
Oh and James I just read the CoffeeLovingSkeptic posts. And he is a fucking moron. Another guy pretending that “come to my hotel room for coffee” isn’t an invitation for sex (after leaving a bar selling coffee).
Dear lord, no wonder you guys are making so many social faux pas when you are so fucking clueless.
Ing Nono, clearly it can be seen that it’s that feminazi Rebecca Watson who is the lying liar who lies!
Didn’t you see all the DAMNING EVIDENCE? What about the horrific DAMAGE she’s doing, creating the impression that this guy is an anti-feminist asshat doucheslipper, which is SO TOTALLY UNTRUE… oh wait… what with all this vicious, vicous, malicious lying of saying this dood called her a cunt instead of he called her a feminazi?!?!?!??! LIES!
Nope. You’re lying. You have to have an agenda to be this dogged in such a stupid, trivial matter.
[/mind-reading]
She didn’t apologise but she did say it was the wrong guy. She should have called him a fuckwit moron with half a brain in addition to saying ‘I think that was another guy! This is the guy I sent the ASCII penis bird to.’. can you use ‘fuckwit’ on twitter?
I can’t understand why this would not count to you, even in principle it should.
me: the sky is green
some dude: the sky is indeed green
me *looks out a window*
me: hey dude turns out its actually blue
would I need to make a separate statement for you to understand that I too had discovered the truth? Is there any possible way for me to correct the mistake *without* having figured out the truth? most adults discuss facts as being part of an external, observable reality.
Oh, someone has an agenda, alright. Hint: it ain’t us.
Golly, it’s yet another Ignorant Iggy™ who doesn’t have a fucking clue, yet they’ll go on spouting bullshit. Eeesh.
@jamesmacdonald #133
This is not a little drama, this is a low-budget Punch and Judy show with one puppeteer who can’t remember half the lines and keeps poking his head up above the stage to see if anyone is even watching.
you don’t know about elevatorgate?
Seriously, even if Rebecca dishonestly fucked up beyond all recognition and is the most hideously evil person ever, and PZ is a baby eating fuck monster of epic poopyheadedness, so what?
Seriously. So fucking what?
What does ANY of it have to do with whether or not certain feminist ideas and claims are valid? Or if anti-harassment policies like those found as standard in practically every professional work environment the civilised world over are a decent thing to adopt in large international conferences? Or if…
Oh what’s the fucking use. I would not even care if Rebecca and PZ were more eminently punchable than Piers Morgan and Melanie Philips’ specially selected for punchability hate sexcrememnt.* Facts is facts. Shite is shite. And shoddy reasoning based on prejudice and privilege is still problemativ.
Louis
* A love child is one thing, but the truly annoying are the sexcrement of hate.
How in the seven fucking hells does this not count as an admission of “heh, nope, turns out WE’ve got the wrong doodbro here, this isn’t doodbro 1.2 it’s doodbro 1.3. same song second chorus” I mean, she has to admit that she was wrong in order to fucking correct him in the first place?
Fucking logic and grown-up communication, how does it work?
Borked!
Boy, you skeptics are fucking shit at assessing personalities.
Yeah, as far as I can tell, CLS (who I assume is ryan whatever) did not in fact, call her a cunt.
Is that a vicious rumour? I mean, saying someone called you a ‘cunt’ is in no way worse than being called a ‘cunt’ (how could it be?), and yet the skeptiosphere (particularly the part that hates PZ and RW) seems pretty unsure whether calling someone a ‘cunt’ is bad at all. No matter, I guess.
Anyway, PZ, somebody, can we get Rebecca Watson to clarify where all this ‘cunt’ business came from? I’m not really into the twitter fanfap.
CT,
Oh no, I was minisculely wrong about some footling detail of an episode of pointless fuckwittery fanned by whiny misogynists, however will I live?
;-)
Louis
Okay, so… I’d like to see if I have this right.
1) Someone called Rebecca a c-word.
2) Rebecca assumes it’s person A, who actually called her a feminazi.
3) Apparently, calling her the C-word is OMGWTFBBQ so damaging to Person A’s reputation that this HUGE DAMAGING LIE MUST BE CORRECTED ASAP.
I mean, aside from the fact that RW likely gets abusive tweets and emails and is called ALL SORTS of names on a daily basis, and probably has trouble remembering which douchebro called her what slur …. I think it’s pretty fucking laughable that some whiner who *doesn’t even like her* is totes upset that it’s being said he called her one misgynist insult instead of another. That’s wahmbulance and tiny violin levels of awesome.
@skeptifem
Yes, I’ve heard of it. At no point was I familiar enough with the situation to come down on one side or the other, though.
Ricardo:
Please stop spreading this little fiction around. It was not a matter of a social faux pas committed by a socially awkward guy. They know full well what they’re doing, and I’m damn tired of sexist crap being excused on the basis of social awkwardness.
A lot of people are socially awkward or inept, however, they tend to be more aware of social niceties than most.
I would imagine it came from being called a cunt so many times from so many various sources that she mixed em up. She should really have a chomsky-esque recall of who called her a cunt and who simply called her hysterical or a feminazi.
The drama and the feminist thing is getting really old really fast. I almost never post, but I just had to say something because it is becoming unbearably annoying these days. I will hide out at Jerry Coyne’s corner for a while and see if things clear up.
Illuminata:
Holy fucking shit, that makes so much sense. The only conclusion I could ever come up with was that they were a bunch of elephant-sized douches.
Louis:
But Louis! Rebecca and PZ hurt their widdle fee-fees!
And has been aptly demonstrated time and time again, there is nothing more important than men’s delicate fee-fees.
KAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNwait, wrong rage. /snork
Obviously, those two beasts would be epically interesting people to follow on twitter. No wonder they’re so upset at being blocked!
Lucky you, that you have the privilege to do that. Other people are actually concerned about how they’re not treated as people in this community.
Have fun over there elu1. I’d love it if we could all move on from this too but sometimes anvil’s need to be dropped, people need to speak out and the collective bathrooms of the atheist movement need to be given a good cleaning. It’s not pleasant or fun but its something you just have to do.
Oh no! Not elu1! What ever have we wrought?
Oh elu1, we hardly knew ye! We shall miss your en pointe contributions and rational arguments and witty replies so much! Seriously, I’m crying here*, can someone hand me a tissue?
See what you people have done? SEE?!?!?!?
(With laughter).
you should really look into it then, and see where so much “support” for CLS is coming from.
http://skepchick.org/2012/06/psychology-today-blogger-your-facts-are-irrelevant-woman/
http://skepchick.org/2011/07/the-privilege-delusion/
care to explain how rebecca correcting someone else for the same mistake she had made, and how that doesn’t count as a correction? Do you really think she needs to say “and i was wrong too!” when pointing out that the statement, in general, was wrong?
No, I see the part that they’re upset about. There’s all this other shit going on, and CLS seems to have a huge hard-on for Rebecca Watson, but as far as I can tell, her retraction is not a retraction of the claim that CLS called her a cunt, just a clarification that CLS is not this other guy Jamie Kilstein had an issue with.
elu1:
I see you don’t bother to note that most of the drama originates with those defending their right to be sexist assholes.
How nice for you that you can dismiss this “feminist thing” with a snotty handwave. Some of us don’t get to do that, because we have to live in the world every day. A world steeped in entrenched, toxic sexism. Privilege, it’s a wonderful thing if you have it.
You should switch your policy to “Never Post. Ever.”
Being called a racist/sexist/homophobe is way worse than racism/sexism/homophobia, because the latter doesn’t affect straight white males.
I know, right? All these silly cooz thinking they’re human beings deserving of basic common decency and respect. Soooooo BORING! If only they’d shut up to make you happy. That is why women exist, right?
@skeptifem
I would, but it seems I’m just beating a dead horse here. Actually, fuck it I’ll give it one last attempt.
Rebecca: Ryan called me a cunt.
Jamie: Is that the guy I’m thinking of?
Rebecca: No, you’re thinking of Dave.
You see how she fails to admit that she made a mistake? In other words, Jamie was thinking of the wrong person. Rebecca still feels she identified the right person.
I don’t it’s worth saying any more on the issue.
If anyone is interested, there’s an essay on the internet and identity by Donna Harraway called “The Cyborg Manifesto” which talks about the potential liberation offered oppressed persons by the internet.
James MacFuckwad,
Nobody and that means nobody here gives a flying fuck if Rebecca misidentified one misogynist asshole for a different misogynist asshole. So why don’t you just collect your decaying porcupine and shove it up your rosy red rectum? KTHXBYE
@Brownian
If my ‘reasonableness sensor’ is broken, then I’m really not sure how to fix it. You seem to be the only one who can see that Rebecca’s exchange with Jamie was not an admission that she made a mistake.
@ elu1
What the fuck is the point of a comment like that? Seriously, please come out from hiding and tell everyone what you were hoping of accomplishing by taking the time to type that out.
@’Tis Himself
Quite the freethinker, aren’t you? I have to say, you swayed me with your rational response.
hey now, I asked for his last post and it did answer my question.
thanks james, I can see how that was not a correction.
I did poke around CLS’s website though, and I am not sure if it matters a lot if he used that specific word. Its all pretty awful.
james:
And who the fuck cares?
How is this a bigger injustice than the misogynistic assholes that Rebecca deals with on a daily basis?
@Audley
It isn’t a bigger injustice. I would never suggest that it is.
Ha! Sorry, I’m just riffing on the fact that among those that tend to habitually disagree with PZ and RW, I’ve been described as one a specific commenter “hates most of all” and “more reasonable than most” all in the same day.
It would be kind of exhausting if what people whom I don’t know at all said about me mattered in the least.
There is a third option: NOT GIVING A FUCK. I don’t care if some whiny ass misogynist gets blocked by smarter people on twitter. I don’t care if that whiny ass misogynist writes 1,000 blog posts on his whiny ass blog about how mean everyone is to him. I don’t care if a woman who has been the focus of countless rape death and torture threats from your slimepit buddies isn’t playing nice with yet another whiny ass misogynist.
Just don’t care.
James, this whole thing is laughable ridiculous. proves what? That she got a couple of assholes mixed up?
Hell, I’d hazard that it’s really not an injustice at all.
I don’t know enough to take either side in this matter, but it made me realize there is something else to complain about here: the way Twitter’s blocking mechanism works.
Let’s say I were to tweet something at you that you disagree with. You then proceed to block me. I assume your intention is that you no longer want to hear from me. Fair enough. But then Twitter also prevents me, the block-ee, from following you. Your tweets are still public, so I can view them by going to your profile page, but I can’t see them in my customized stream of people I follow!
To use a blog analogy, it would be like you blocking someone from commenting here, and the side-effect being that they can no longer *read* your blog in their RSS feed. I can see how that would annoy me if I were on the receiving end of a block like that, because I’d still like to be able to read the content you post, even if I’m not able to respond to it.
Maybe you do want to *completely* block certain people the way Twitter does now, and you should have that option. But Twitter also needs an option for a one-way block of sorts, where you can no longer hear from someone who’s bothering you, but they can still follow you.
(And I apologize for going off on this tangent.)
I already said originally that the guy banned by PZ “pretended” to misunderstand “invitation of coffee”. The cluelessness i’m referring to in the 2nd section of my comment is that they think they are in the right and can make a big fuss over it. When in fact anyone with half a brain and basic reading skills can see exactly what they are. They are fooling no-one.
Sorry, looking back it is a bit of a tangled post.
Quickly, ‘Tis: Explain that you’ve only recently had your emotion chip deactivated and some of your subsystems are still operating outside of normal, functional parameters, and then quote some Sagan to restore your credibility!
james is just the latest sufferer of Watson Derrangment Syndrome to come by and feign civility while wiping his ass on the carpet.
@Audley
It doesn’t prove anything. I would just like Rebecca held to the same standards that you would hold others. By all means attack his ideas if you disagree with them, but don’t tell your entire following that he called you a cunt just to discredit him.
Yeah, you got it.
You only missed one little bit. DudebroA is (lying or at best pig-ignorant) claiming that “cunt” is not a gendered insult *. If he really believed that, even if he did happen to be the sexist bigot who called Rebecca “cunt”, how could it possibly be damaging to his reputation that he did ? If it’s really not an insult, go ahead and fling it around with abandon, right ? No harm!
The very fact that DudebroA (and the slimepitters who have now taken up his whine) claims it is this HUGE DAMAGING LIE proves that he (and they) know “cunt” is a filthy sexist insult and that using it is something that should destroy your reputation, actually. But of course they’re not capable of being consistent and honest about whether words matter, or whether they don’t.
Dudebro A is incapable of being honest about his motivation in this incident, and so is jamesmacdonald. They’re just looking for a stick – any stick – to beat Rebecca with, and any other feminist allies they can reach.
Bros lie.
*DAMNING evidence of this claim available on request ;)
After reading the blog and the back-and forth from CLS/PZ, I thought, well, it’s too bad for this guy that he was so publicly accused of calling RW a c***, I guess I can see why he doesn’t like it. But for the love of allah, take it up with RW. Why pester PZ about it?
Then I came here to read the comments to find that RW already addressed it. Like, pretty much immediately. WTF? And no mention from him or his crybaby echo chamber about that inconvenient fact. So he’s still acting like he’s been wronged. RW made a mistake, admitted it. No one is dodging facts.
Continuing to complain that PZ is blocking him is like complaining that you got picked up by the police for armed robbery, which turns out to be mistaken identity, but your fingerprints match someone who has been committing a wave a burglaries.
Brahs-Y U MAD?!? You’ve already told us there’s nothing wrong with calling a woman a cunt, that it’s not sexist in the UK (or at bandcamp, or at your girlfriend’s house in Canada) and that it’s “just a word.”
So what’s it to you if someone thinks any one of you called someone a cunt? For rillz? If “it’s just a word” and Rebeccah is FemSteryical, it makes bugger all sense for you to be this upset.
Y U MAD?
FIFY
Here’s a hint cupcake. Claiming your friend is not an sexist douchebucket because he only uses sexist insults, but refrains from sexist gendered slurs is not helping your case.
Dear Muslima:
Zero bad.
Hey, if Rebecca or PZ or Dawkins or my buddy Bob tweeted
a malicious liean embarrassing untruth about me to 25,000 or whatever followers, I would be righteously pissed off as well. I agree with the jackass that Watson owes him an apology and should publicly admit her mistake. I disagree with the jackass that anybody else, Myers included, ought to give much of a shit about it. But too late.@SidBB
You have a point. I’m sure most people block for the purpose of preventing a particular person from contacting them. Blocking them from seeing your content on their feed is just an added ‘bonus’, so to speak.
Ugh, I HAET Twitter, but now I can at least see the argument that she didn’t retract her misattribution.
Still not seeing the problem, though. So he called her a feminazi instead of a cunt? Same song different chorus.
Really, I don’t get it.
Seems my posting skills are lacking somewhat.
The first quote blok refers to Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottle
The second one refers to Caine, Fleur du mal
The third one refers to Gen, Uppity Ingrate.
@Tethys
I don’t know Ryan, nor is that relevant to my point.
Oy. How to tell when you’ve got a right clown on your hands.
Thank you for all your kind replies.
I tire of treating other people as equally valid human beings because I am an evil genius. I shall now kill you all with my brain wave powered mind ray. Expect to die at some point in the next thousand years. HAHA that is the evil of my mind ray, you never know when it will kill you, it is cruelly indistinguishable from a natural death.
I am now going to hang out on a part of the internet where treating you all as people is not mandatory. Before, of course, destroying the internet.
Louis
Well, maybe we should give a fuck. Not a big one, but some fuck. A fucklet, if you will.
Rebecca was wrong about CLS’ use of that specific epithet.
Wait, where? What am I missing?
PZ,
This Twitter thing, couldn’t one create a new account specifically to follow The Most Interesting People In The World?
And just not comment with it?
Or at least not call people “cunts” with it?
I don’t know. I have pre-blocked everyone in the universe by not having a Twitter account. Nor will I have one. Whilst I’m at it, could all you kids get off my lawn.
Louis
Ryan: Dudebrah, find out why PZ blocked me on twitter.
PZ: Your sexism is unacceptable.
James: It’s Rebecca’s fault!!wah11!
@jamesmacdonald
Your issue here isn’t with PZ then, and it never was, especially since PZ has explicitly stated that he found plenty of reasons to block CLS, some of which only tangentially have to do with Rebecca Watson.
I would tell you to take your issue, whatever the fuck it might be, to her – but she deals with a lot of crap not worth her time anyway. Instead, let me recommend switching from coffee to herbal tea. It might relax you.
Do you know what really distresses me about all this:
My friends in this thing we laughably refer to as “real life”* don’t much follow this, or indeed any, blog. They are blissfully unaware of this stuff and so I cannot take the piss with them. I would dearly love to mock online MRAs IRL, but sadly, I just have to mock IRL ones IRL. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THIS RESTRICTS ME??????!?!?!!?!?!?!?!
No sympathy, that’s your fucking trouble. Where’s my parade? Where’s my grant for lesbian placental basket weaving? FUCK YOU!!!!!
Louis
*Yes, yes I know but bear with me. Let’s just call it meatspace and cope shall we?
jamesmacdonald:
So why the fuck are you still here, whining about how mean-mean-bad-lying Rebacca hasn’t apolgized to your dudebro friend CLS – instead of over at Rebecca’s, apologizing on behalf of your friends’ participation in the year-long campaign of hatred against Rebecca ?
Fuck you, why aren’t you over at the CLS blog right this second, telling all the slimers to cut out that injustice shit they’re perpetuating ?
Bros lie. You don’t care about truth. You only care about a stick -any stick – to continue to beat Rebecca with.
It’s so hilarious/sad how much this guy is trying to make this a big deal. HOW DARE I not keep records showing the screenshot, date, and time of every idiots who says something shitty to me. How dare I!
So if I have this right, your buddy who Rebecca said had called her cunt in fact had not done, but called her a feminazi instead. And rather than take your buddy to task for being such a fucking idiot as to use the word feminazi, you think it is better to berate Rebecca instead ?
So not only is your friend who didn’t say cunt a misogynist arsehole, it seems you are one too.
“every idiots”? Yikes. Apologies.
@mythbri
I have already pointed out that I perhaps made a mistake by conflating those issues.
And let’s be honest, at any point during this thread have I appeared anything but relaxed?
Mythbri,
That’s an extremely charitable reading.
The alternative, that she has not acknowledged any error, is a more straightforward interpretation of the exchange.
Look, the guy is a douchehose who deserves slapping down for a variety of reasons.
Yet what RW actually tweeted about him was evidently not true.
The concept is that of intellectual honesty. If I say publicly that, say, “Josh called me a ‘twat'” and Josh replies that no he didn’t, he told me to eat my own shit instead, I should have the honesty to admit my error, even if I think Josh is being an unfair asshole either way and even if nobody but Josh gives a damn about it. I certainly wouldn’t reply that truth doesn’t matter because Josh is an asshole. But that’s been RW’s approach. It seems to me.
That’s funny ‘cos I allow people to make mistakes, especially when it comes to confusing a couple of assholey assholes.
Too late, Rebecca! Misspellings! A house divided against itself cannot stand (to only argue about inconsequential things like how stupid people are to believe in Bigfoot).
Yes.
Any other fucking stupid questions you want to ask us ?
@Matt Penfold
He’s not my buddy (only met him yesterday) and I wasn’t even aware that he had called her a feminazi. Is there a link to him saying that? I’d like to take a look. I didn’t see it in their e-mail exchange.
@Matt Penfold
When? I’ve been civil throughout the thread.
jamesmacdonald @ 166;
So, Rebecca Watson mixed up one misogynist, who called her a ‘cunt’, with another, who called her a ‘feminazi’?
I am not really seeing the problem here – both of these people are repugnant misogynists, and apparently don’t even think that ‘cunt’ is an offensive gendered insult, so why should anyone here care if their delicate feelings were hurt because one of them was incorrectly accused of using a phrase that (for some unfathomable reason) neither of them seem to think should be considered a problematic gendered slur*?
Watson may have attributed the wrong slur to the wrong bigot, but I think the fact that both of them were behaving in a misogynist fashion towards her is the bigger issue here.
Watson mixing up these two charmers is not the problem – the fact that such people think it is OK to denegrate women who speak out is.
–
* I am a Brit, and I can tell you that I, and I would wager most people here, consider ‘cunt’ to be an unacceptable gendered insult.
I’m always confusing them. They all go on and on not understanding the same things, they all have the same pathetic excuses and they all share a total lack of originality.
Is there a factory somewhere in China churning out misogynist fuckwits ?
Brownian:
Nothing. I’m using “you” in the general all y’all dudebrahs sense.
See! Lying liars who lie!
But on a more serious note: Sheesh. Do these doods not know that after a while, it all kind of blends together and it gets hard to separate “oh he just called me a feminazi that’s why I blocked him” and “oh, he called me a cunt, that’s why I blocked him (different him, in this case)”?
Doods, when you all start to sound alike, you start to blend together, too. Truefax, shocking though it may be.
@jamesmacdonald #206
“I have already pointed out that I perhaps made a mistake by conflating those issues.
And let’s be honest, at any point during this thread have I appeared anything but relaxed?”
…
Confused, then, given your initial (and somewhat persistent) conflation of two separate issues. So, now that you’ve made a mistake, is it okay if I harp on it for a while, even though it was a little thing that resulted in no more than a little embarrassment for you? Can I use it as an example to your associates (whomever they might be) that you “lie”? And then, when they refuse to accept it as such, can I sigh and shake my head and say that they’re just trying to avoid “inconvenient truths”?
what is there to be embarassed about? mistaking the *precise* insult lobbed her way by some irrelevant douchenozzle, when both drive at the *exact* same point?
“I said she looked like mr ed, I didn’t call her ‘fugly’!”
yeah, that shit really deserves an apology…
Well you have not said fuck at any stage, but you would be lying if claimed you have been polite. Being polite is more than just remembering not to say fuck.
You see, it is not very polite to think that mistaking one misogynistic arsehole who thinks feminazi is a cool term of abuse for another thinks cunt is a cool term of abuse is that big an issue compared being a misogynistic arsehole in the first place.
I think you might need to learn about this politeness thing, since clearly there is a lot you don’t understand about it.
Josh:
*snofle!*
Chas:
Okay, I see your point.
However,
1) Taking it to PZ instead of Rebecca is kind of weird and wrong
2) Expecting everyone one the internet to offer you an apology for besmirching your name is about as effective as tilting at windmills
And I would think of more, but apparently my oven is on fire. ‘Scuse me.
@Louis #207
You make me LOL IRL. For realz. ;)
Must be. They all sound the same. Strident. Evidenceless. Full of anger. Evidenceless. Arrogant. Full of lies. Arrogant. Evidenceless. Attempts to the “authority” with a busted hand. Amusing if they weren’t so loud, persistent, and consistently wrong.
Brownian:
Josh was referring to early days with the SPers, when they launched into a defense of calling women cunts. The arguments ran the gamut, which included the whole “hey, I’m in the UK, so…” gambit.
In fairness, the CLS person, while a whiny assclown in general, doesn’t seem to use cunt like the others, however, his use of feminazi instead isn’t really a step up. A step sideways, perhaps.
jamesmacdonanl
Goddamn, you’re a fucking piece of work, James.
You’ve tried to stir up this whole witch-hunt against Rebecca, and it’s not even on behalf of a friend of yours ? You don’t even have the excuse that it involved someone you care for ? You’re doing this just because you hate-hate-hate women like Rebecca so much ?
You are a completely pointless sack of shit, James. You disgust me.
You should disgust yourself, too.
he said he was unaware of that and asked for a link. I wanna give him the benefit of the doubt here, he seems genuinely unaware of a lot of relevant happenings.
Let him catch up and form an opinion afterwards.
What’s with the fucking civility fetish with these guys, anyway? Seems to me that participating in what is essentially an online terrorist movement against women (and feminist women in general) is evil whether or not you use words the New York Times wouldn’t print on the front page.
So does twitter play a little sound whenever you click the ban button? I envision something like the sound one of these a Bugzapper when it offs a fly or mosquito. Or that satisfying squish sound when you step on a cockroach. (man, I keep this up, I’m gonna be back in the backyard with my magnifying lens looking for ants.)
That sounds more like me anyway.
ChasCPeterson: I agree about intellectual honesty, but…
Given the response to Ophelia’s
admissionclarification that what she received wasn’t meant as a threat, what do you imagine the response would be if Rebecca was to clarify that this particular asshole apparently called her a feminazi and not a cunt?Chris:
It’s all they’ve got. For the tone-trollers, the only way that they can even appear to have the upper hand is to point out how awful our naughty words are.
Well speaking from a position of ignorance is not polite either.
…and now he has an opportunity to see why we are all so angry. Lets see where the info takes him before calling him a pointless sack of shit maybe? He seems genuinely interested in the problem, a rarity in these parts.
No, that’s not an appropriate analogy. This is more like: “That gay guy my gang and I attack every week said that I’m the one who has a knife! Randy and John have knives! I have a bat! How dare he lie about me!” (And even this doesn’t capture it, since these guys would have needed to have spent the past year claiming that there’s nothing harmful about using a knife on someone because…surgery or something.)
She’s acknowledged that she mixed him up with some other hater. She owes him no apology. This is obviously just the next act in their little anti-feminist play.
Nerd and Matt: A comic about the factory.
its a riot coming from the CLS dude when he doesn’t even pretend to be civil.
for james and anyone else, here is CLS saying rw promotes feminazism
http://coffeelovingskeptic.com/?p=582
Sorry, I thought we were talking about jamesmacdonald here.
CLS doesn’t use the word, because he’s one of those obsessives about bad language, not because he’s against sexism:
I don’t see where he called RW a feminazi either. Do I have to sign into twitter to figure all this shit out? Because I’m not going to.
Oh man and PZ, I only just did more than skim your post. Feminazi! I’m not positive on “cunt” but now I do recall he definitely called me a feminazi, instead of or maybe in addition to “cunt” (who can keep track these days?). Ah, good times.
Brownian:
Skeptifem provided the link in #236.
Ah, thanks skeptifem.
As I see it, inappropriate use of the word “cunt” brands the person as clueless. Quite possibly wilfully so. They might be an arsehole, but possibly not worse than the background misogyny radiation.
Use of the word “femnazi” on the other hand instantly brands the speaker for what they is. And there’s no question about cluelessness.
On the one hand, the use of “femnazi” brands the person as a worse human, one the other the use of “cunt” has more harmful societal consequences.
In sum, I would say that “femnazi” is a step down on the personal level.
On the societal level we should of course raise consciousness of misogynist (and otherwise bigoted and sex-hostile) language – but the efforts are fucking wasted on any nitwitted little fucker who use “femnazi”*
*Except for sarcasm of course.
Can’t we all just get along?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
No? Okay.
I think we can straighten this out pretty fast.
Rebecca, apologize to CLS for mistaking which reprehensible misogynistic epithet he routinely uses when referring to you.
CLS (as well as jamesmcdonald and others): Start life over, only this time grow a different head.
That should mostly solve the problem we’re having.
Remember the days when Naziism involved genocide, rather than being blocked from someone’s twitter? #straightwhitemaleproblems
She just did on Twitter, feral. Except she said he “maybe” didn’t call her a cunt, cuz who can fucking remember? There’s elebenty-billion MRAs hounding her.
So, now we can queue up for a new round of outrage.
Yes. They hate feminism and feminists, and her in particular, and our allies. They don’t genuinely care about civility, honesty, good faith, whether sexist slurs are the same as racist slurs, whether the email Ophelia received constituted a threat or not, how much sexual harassment there is at TAM, what happened on the elevator in Dublin, what happened at the student conference, whether writing open letters and declaring nonsupport is OK, that Zvan wrote “Dear Dick,” what Watson’s degree is in, whether the HPV vaccine is virtually 100% effective or not, what Jason Thibeault said about Grothe, what analogies Ophelia made or how she responded to criticism, what kind of a science student Jen McCreight is, or any of it. They hate us, and they want us to shut up. I think they’re having a grand old time in much of this, but they’re clearly afraid and have made themselves a laughingstock. What they fear most is coming to pass. The feminists will “win,” and everyone will win in the process, but they’ll experience it as a loss and be fighting it all the way, all the while showing the world what sad bigots they are.
Brownian:
Ah, the good ol’ days. *sniff*
I submitted the comment that follows to Ophelia Benson’s blog, twice, and it was deleted within minutes. The indented quotations are all from Ophelia’s post here:
https://proxy.freethought.online/butterfliesandwheels/2012/06/she-said-he-said/
“Threat-day”? What threat? You made it up, Ophelia. You yourself admitted that there never was a threat, simply an over-zealous, friendly letter from one of your own sympathizers concerned (ludicrously) for your safety. For goodness sake, we are supposed to be SKEPTICS. You hardly need any degree of skepticism to see that your “threat” email was no such thing.
WHAT was that, Ophelia? DJ stuck a metaphorical target on YOU? Such staggering hypocrisy!
Ophelia, I suspect that that is exactly what he did do. Will you publish your correspondence with DJ so that we can judge for ourselves? Or is it against the rules for a skeptic to ask a WOMAN for evidence?
No, Ophelia, any objective skeptic would agree that YOU triggered a shit-storm, you and your bullying colleagues: PZ Myers (who is so admirably skeptical EXCEPT when talking about this one ridiculous issue), Greg Laden (who tried to get Abbie Smith fired from her university, much to their amusement) and the Skepchicks (how can any woman complain of being “objectified” when she calls herself a “chick”?)
Incidentally, I don’t understand how you can honestly deny the bullying, when it is spread out in front of your nose, in comment thread after comment thread. The moment a commenter has the temerity to exercise a tiny modicum of skepticism and ask for a smidgen of EVIDENCE for anything said by a woman (other than a gender traitor or a sister punisher of course) the bullies all pile in with depressing unison, baaing like hysterical sheep. How DARE you ask X for evidence. X is a woman, isn’t that enough evidence for you? “Listen to the women”.
You triggered a shit-storm, Ophelia, when you invented a “threat”, and drama-queened it up to a level of manic hysteria excessive even by Freethought Blogs’ standards. Thank goodness, at least, for Thunderfoot – until that true and honest skeptic gets fed up with the company he finds himself in and goes elsewhere.
There we go. Problem solved.
Don’t try that here.
I can’t believe what a snivelling bunch of fanbois you pieces of shit are.
Have you no fucking dignity?
Greg Laden tried to get Abbie Smith fired from her university?
Wut?
SC, I think you misunderstand, what I meant was, that the response to Rebecca was likely to be along the lines of “See, she admits that she’s a liar! Now we can ignore everything she ever said!”
That’s because you’re a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.
So you thought you’d try trolling here instead? Well, I expect you’ll get the attention you’re craving.
Here’s a suggestion, emmelinepankhirst – as you seem to think highly of Thunderfoot and his comments section is chock full of people who would just love you, why don’t you take your post and yourself over there?
And with that, you’re already so fucking stupid that I have to go install killfile on this computer just to deal with you appropriately.
Christ.
emmelinepankhirst @ 247;
Victim blaming, silencing and shaming tactics, and placing Thunderfoot on an utterly undeserved pedestal as a ‘true and honest’ sceptic when he has proven himself to be dripping with unexamined male privilege and paranoid islamophobia.
Do you see that swarm of small, spiky objects heading towards you at speed? Those are all the metaphorical decomposing porcupines you will soon be invited to insert into various orifices.
Just a heads up.
@Louis #144:
Because Darwin was a racist who recanted on his deathbed! Because Dawkins’ ancestors owned slaves! Because PZ is fat and Rebecca Watson is ugly/dresses provocatively! When you disagree with a person’s arguments, the most valid response is argument to the person!
I love you so much right now.
I can’t believe how obsessed they are. And they’re not even embarrassed about it, you know? “Yeah, we have nothing better to do than to read blogs by bloggers we hate and troll them and lie about them and make a big fucking deal about anything any of them says that could possibly be construed as mistaken and offer handjobs to anybody who criticizes them!
We so cool!!!”
Twits.
Chris Clark:
Thanks for the link to your post. I have Coyote Crossing on my read list, but that one was a little “before my time”.
Sad to think, though, that we’re still fighting the same battles with the regressive motherfuckers half a decade later. Or, half a century later, in some cases.
@James Macdonald – just like to add my support than you are not completely nuts and it is clear RW was suggesting this Coffee bloke was the one who called her a c**t. Weird that so many on here are so keen to defend that they throw their brains out the window to such an extent that they could not read a simple bit of text and come to the obvious conclusion – Skeptifem managed it -but that is all I could see. (Weirdly PZ could not see it)
Having said that given what ppl call each other on here on a minute-by-minute basis its not earth shattering. There is some obvious background as to why Coffee bloke feels so bad about it – he posted he was taking a break due to all the trolls and flaming in the sceptic community and is feeling depressed – have to laugh at the irony of this coming along now :-)
Also what we do not have is any proof if he did or did not say that – only RW says he did and doesn’t have the screenshot or whatever. So not conclusive proof but who cares… Oh and all the blocking stuff is balls – they can block who they like, big deal.
BTW What the dickens is a penis bird and what does it signify?
Bingo!
No, I don’t. Your subtly calling it an “admission” and reference to intent are misleading. This was all discussed at great and supremely annoying length at her blog, and people don’t want it brought here. (I agreed with the gist of your comment.)
yeah, tweets for the tweet-record:
Pretty snarkily insincere, but maybe that’s what was deserved.
at any rate, moving on.
Wow. Are you actually this fucking moronic and evil, or is this one of those willful obtuseness things? Jesus.
Yay. Killfile is done installing. Without further ado…
Comment by emmelinepankhirst blocked. [unkill][show comment]
—
Everyone knows that. You’re either confused about what the argument is about or you are miscommunicating.
Most of us just don’t give a fuck. Doesn’t fucking matter to me that Rebecca confused one misogynistic fuckhead for another misogynistic fuckhead, in the fucking flood of misogynistic fuckery she’s been subjected to at this point.
SC, I never meant to imply that, on the contrary. I can see how it might look that way though. There was nothing for Ophelia to admit to, and she was right to treat it as a threat. I’m sorry for the confusion.
oolon, ever the terminal fuckwit. Do fuck off.
@jamesmacdonald
Oh please post more…you make an excellent chew toy. <3
ok…………! so this whole debate boils down to pz myers taking shots at irrelevant tweeters…
how mature of you…
The only thing that could make this
dramacomic operabetterworse would be for all of James’s posts to show up in Comic Sans.Dear James:
You are arguing about how to rearrange the deck chairs on a sinking Titanic. Your not-really-a-friend-friend uses language that’s abusive toward women and you’re pissing and moaning because he was blamed for using one loaded term, but he used a different one instead?
Your concern for women is noted.
Rev. BigDumbChimp:
Because… ponies.
Just sayin’.
Rebecca, apologize to CLS for mistaking which reprehensible misogynistic epithet he routinely uses when referring to you.
She acknowledged that she had the wrong guy. That settles it.
Anything more would be groveling. That’s what these scumbuckets want: Groveling, another manifestation of putting bitchez in their place.
Knock that crap off.
emmelinepankhirst – that nym rings a bell.
Anyone else recollect whether s/he was banned from sciblogs before the switch ? Now that NatGeo has broken the sciblogs dungeon link, I can’t check.
Something about sexist trolling, I’m sure …
It’s always fun to deal with someone so utterly lacking in self-awareness.
Ah. You must be new to how people work. Lots of skeptics seem to be.
Here’s a list of cognitive biases, so that whenever something seems ‘weird’ you can look it up, and say to yourself “Ah, so that’s how actual, living, breathing, flesh-and-blood humans work, rather than the fetishised mentats that are held up as a Platonic ideals despite never having existed at all.”
OK, I am, too.
First off, I whole-heartedly agree with PZ and RW on feminist issues, both broadly and within the skeptic community, so don’t be so injudicious as to tar me with the brush of people whose flavour of ill-conceived skepticism you despise.
However, although you have every right to tell these people to fuck off if you so choose, do you not think it’s a little pointless? Even self-defeating? It seems to me that the entire point of a skeptics’ community is to surround ourselves with people who *disagree* with us, not people who agree with us, and that includes atheists with irrational stances on social issues as well as religious morons.
It ought to be an obvious fact that not everyone who disagrees with you on these feminism issues is going to be either incorrigibly thick or deliberately trolling – some of them are, quite simply, going to be misinformed and a little slow, but arguing about it (sometimes but not always with obscene frustration) ought to be our primary goal. I think perhaps in your prolonged frustration with ceaseless misogyny, you’re so sick of seeing it that you’ve become occasionally willing to say “fuck you” even to those people who are just mistaken but otherwise amenable to reason.
Sure, it’s a personal decision to block whoever you like, but if we want to have any impact and want to actually change people’s minds, surely you ought only to publicly condemn people who are positively and repeatedly harassing you rather than people whose world-views you just happen to find repugnant. This reminds me of a short clip I saw of Richard Dawkins in a Q&A session where a Christian stood up to ask a really quite stupid question about DNA and the crowd started heckling. Rightly, Dawkins told the crowd to be quiet so he could generously answer the question. I think this is a moment when the crowd needs to be told to shut up so dissenting views can be dealt with in accordance with reason rather than stifling all opposing opinions so that the next person at the mic is someone who happens to already agree with everything you’re about to say.
@skeptifem
I read the post and can see the point where he undermined his credibility. I obviously don’t condone the use of that term. There are too many reasons to list why I don’t like the term, the least of which is probably the fact that it is barren of any real content. It’s an ad hominem.
Looking over my Twitter feed, it seems he is now apologising for using the word. At least that’s how I read it. I think I’ve been blocked since last night on Rebecca’s Twitter, but I understand she has gone some way to retracting her claim. Either way, it seems to be a dead issue now.
Nope.
It is not self-defeating to refuse to associate with people who treat you as less than human. It’s actually self-preserving.
I had the 45 of the theme song. :)
Chas
In matters of charity and honesty I tend to demand apologies from the people who are calling Rebecca names, rather than demanding that she apologize for accidentally confabulating the assholes.
emmeline pankhirst also took the time to post that whine @ Ophelia Benson over at the ‘pit. It’s getting a better reception there. Incidentally, Justin Griffith has been posting there too, as well as this coffee-loving-twitterguy.
Stop using Latin phrases wrong unless you want to see me reenact the end of Oedipus Rex.
callumjames:
FFS, we’ve been arguing our heads off, for fucking years. We know who we’re dealing with, thank you, and we know who might be responsive and who won’t be.
I’ll just point out that I haven’t demanded anything from anybody.
I could have sworn Internet Pig was banned already
@Cipher
Please enlighten me as to the true meaning of an ad hominem attack, if not a personal attack to undermine an argument?
Well, you did say “I agree with the jackass that Watson owes him an apology,” which is pretty close.
I imagine you could have looked it up yourself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
Insult does not equal Ad hom, yet we see less than stellar intellects claiming it does all the time.
Callumjames @ #277:
Oh hai. Please explain why a belief that women are inferior/irrational/lying liars is an opinion worth treating with reason and respect.
I will treat those people with respect when they demonstrate that they’re worthy of it…which will happen when they stop acting like misogynist fuckwits. I’m not their parent, and it’s not my responsibility to teach irrational jerkwads how to be decent human beings.
The word “feminazi” by itself is just an insult. (One of those insults that shows more about the speaker than about the person so insulted, but this is beside the point.) Saying that someone is a feminazi in response to their feminism-related argument would not be an ad hominem attack, it would be a situationally motivated insult. Saying “She is a feminazi and therefore wrong about X (especially where X is not actually related to feminism)” would be an ad hominem attack.
First of, when a commenter feel the need to start their screed with an immunizing strategy like this, it’s a pretty sure sign that they know their shit won’t fly.
Why do you feel the need to come here to say shit you know won’t fly.
Yup. Here it is. Look – we’ve been over this too ad nauseam. It goes like this:
You’re free to do things your way
You’re not entitled to people doing things your way
You’re especially not entitled to people doing things your way when you don’t lead by example.
In other words: Do or do not as you please, but shut the fuck up about it.
Confession time: I’ve been a borderline MRA asshole in the past.
Did reasoning lead me down the path of truly understandig how you treat others as humans (even when they are very sexually attractive). Reasoning didn’t bring me out of it. Shit like that is usually reason-proof. A few well-applied “fuck you”‘s on the other hand…
LOL
What’s he saying?
Well, that’s kind of the distinction: whether it’s used to undermine an argument.
Insults are ad hominems of a sort, though not the fallacy people mean. If I say “You’re wrong, So-and-so, and here’s why [explains argument]. And also, you’re an asshole.”* Then that’s not really an ad hominem fallacy. If I say You’re wrong, So-and-so, because you’re an asshole,” then that would be the fallacy.
So, you can insult people all you like.
jamesmacdonald:
Oh, it is, is it? Here’s where we are separated by a very wide gulf. I don’t think the issue of feminism dead. I don’t think the issue of sexists feeling free to whine about feminazis while swimming in privilege is a dead issue.
Your not really a friend is now wallowing in the nasty shit of the slimpit, being patted on the back for taking on the dreaded feminazi. Yeah, it’s a real dead issue.
That CoffeeLovingSkeptic dudebro is an unselfconscious asshole.
He posted this on May 24:
(emphasis mine)
Then he takes a break for a month. The next thing he posts is the anti-Rebecca/anti-PZ shit:
Oh, the ego, oh the manufactured problems of dear little CLS ! Poor little dearie, too bad he doesn’t have any real issues to be involved in right now.
Bros lie.
CLS, liar, liar, liar.
@Cipher
I disagree. I don’t think you have to follow up an insult with “therefore they are wrong” to be guilty of using an ad hominem. Really, how often do you see someone say, “He’s a cunt and is wrong as a result”? I’d say it is pretty rare that you get such an open and shut case.
You can infer the point of an insult, which is what I did. That’s why I called it an ad hominem, not through any misunderstanding of the term.
pretty close…but no cigar. I do think she fucked up. I do think he’s a dipshit. Apologies all around? (Just a suggestion, of course.)
Tradition-bound prescriptivist fuddy-duddies think that the adjective ‘ad hominem’ is only applicable to the noun ‘argument’. These verbal-luddite neanderthals think that ‘ad hominem attack’ is just a pompous term for ‘insult’. You and I, though, know that language evolves.
Unfortunately, most of the people who use “ad hominem” to mean “insult” (the evolved sense) are, because of its roots, not clear on the fact that in its evolved sense, it no longer constitutes a fallacy.
@Caine
When did I say that the issue of feminism is dead? You seem intent on twisting my words. Any fair-minded person could tell that I meant the issue of Ryan calling Rebecca a cunt is dead.
OMFG.
The clueless dudebro is now threatening legal action!
You go, dude!
It all depends on how they disagree. An evidence based argument, or emotional fuckwittery like JMcD. No cogency there.
Your tone trolling, and that is what you are doing, is offensive too. PZ runs a lewd, rewd, and crewd blog, as shown in his standards and practices thread. So, who the fuck are you to tell him how to run his blog. Take a long walk off a short pier, after you pick up your decaying porcupine on the way out.
Otherwise, shut the fuck up about our tone…
gross. Why would anyone expect ophelia to post this shit on her own blog?
Honesty? Integrity? Decency? All this post shows is that these are concepts foreign to Watson or PZ Myers.
This comment comes from Brownian, one of the biggest certified grade-A PZ fanbois on the net.
Karlvonmox, you creep, would you stop your hoggling about Brownian? It’s unseemly.
Yawn.
So, how many girlfriends in Canada do you have today, karl?
No, cigar, I think. “I agree that she owes him an apology” is close enough to demanding an apology.
Hey, callumjames!
This ^ is a fine example of a piece of shit who deserves little outside a fuck off. Go ahead and try your technique out on ‘im.
I’ll get the beer.
No, you accused Rebecca of intellectual dishonesty while insinuating that I was being too charitable towards her.
Where are your criticisms and accusations for the people being repulsive assholes to Rebecca?
Ahhh yes. Feminazi.
How to both belittle woman seeking equallity and the minimize the greatest example of human depravity all in one little Portmanteau.
Actually, its Brownian that seems to have a bit of a mancrush – he’s talking about me over at Thunderf00ts place.
Is that what that is.
I’m so glad that the travesty-troll doesn’t actually know how to spell Pankhurst. Emmeline and Sylvia would have been spinning in their graves.
Tethys, Chas’ comments have not been free of criticisms of him/them.
You are notably creepy and oblivious, so it doesn’t surprise me. I imagine he’s using you as an example of creepy obliviousness. Nonetheless, lay off. You continue to resemble a small, yapping puppy chasing around a Rottweiler.
What can I say? I’m a man, and I go after what I want.
You can’t let these opportunities pass you by.
Rev:
Lovely, innit?
But it’s totes cool, ‘cos demanding equal rights is EXACTLY THE SAME as committing genocide!
Then he’s a success as a PUA. See, before that he was the sad puppy. Now he’s yappy. That’s what ‘alpha’ means.
jamesmacdonald:
Goddamn your sexist dumbfuckery.
His name is Tony Ryan. Her name is Rebecca Watson.
You look like a pig when you refer to your-not-quite-bestbuddy as “Ryan” and refer to the other person, who should be on the same level as him, as “Rebecca”. It’s talking down. It’s patronizing. It’s stupid and you didn’t even intend to do it, but you did it anyways.
I know, you’re so steeped in sexist culture you don’t see anything wrong with that, even after I point it out.
Go away someplace. Study. Educate yourself. Purge yourself of some of the sexist bad influences like your not-quite-a-friend Tony. Come back when you’re not so toxic. If ever.
Yeah, I really don’t understand why they’re making such a huge deal about not being able to follow you guys on Twitter. Seriously, if they want to read what you have to say, they’ll come to FTB or Skepchick.
And anyway, individuals can choose to ignore others on the internet for ANY reason. It’s the right of an individual not to be harassed.
I’m lucky enough to be small in the community, and haven’t been messed with or had to deal with rudeness. I’m sure I will someday, since I’m pretty outspoken, but seriously, everyone has the right to enjoy their internet time.
So, no update in how many women you banged today, karl?
Can I start a pool? I’ll take 16.
So James MacDipshit finally figured out that his bestest buddy (who he met just yesterday) is actually a misogynist who doesn’t deserve anything but the rankest abuse from normal human beings.
@hotshoe and Brownian
Thank you both for the elucidation :) Admittedly, since I had to drive home from work and run errands it’s all over 100 comments ago. But still!
I’ll take couldn’t get it up without pharmaceutical help.
@hotshoe
The fact that I called him Ryan should indicate to you exactly how familiar I am with the guy. I thought it was his first name. You’re undermining your whole point if you scream sexism when someone has simply mixed up a first name and a surname. Get a grip.
No, Karl probably can’t count that high. I’ll take “many” since Karl counts “one two three many”.
Put the shovel down.
It is routine sexism, so routine as to be invisible to most, for men to be referred to by their surnames while women are referred to as their first names.
It’s not “screaming” to point this out.
Get a grip.
Okay, so I’ve got NoR and ‘Tis, so far. Anyone else?
[Wipes hands to get rid of the oil used for PZ’s 7:00 backrub, then takes a twenty each from NoR and ‘Tis.]
@Cipher
In this instance it was screaming. Rather than ask me why I referred to them as such, he just assumed that I was being sexist.
Hey! I found a picture of karlvonmarx by Googling the phrase “hundreds of girlfriends”!
Handsome fellow.
Please restrict yourself to common meanings of words, jamesmacdonald.
No. Not assuming that you’re above the routine, pervasive, minor sexism that most of our culture engages with on a daily basis still does not constitute screaming.
Oh, and assuming hotshoe is male is also – guess what! – sexist.
@jamesmacdonald #329
And you made the assumption that hotshoe is a man, by your use of the pronoun “he”. I have no idea if hotshoe is a “he”, but the assumption that the default gender of people you encounter on the internet is “male” is another example of routine sexism.
(I typed this as quietly as possible, so that you wouldn’t think that I was screaming.)
@Cipher
You got me nailed. I’m all about the patriarchy.
@mythbri
Yep, by using the more common pronoun ‘he’, you have deduced that I believe in male superiority.
Ok, honest answer please. If I had called hotshoe a ‘she’, would you have said I was being sexist? And why not?
Jesus Effing Christ, you were being sexist. Rather than digging, why don’t you aim those braincells at yourself and become aware of this in yourself?
It is every day, standard practice to refer to men by their surname while referring to women by their first name, even when they aren’t known to the speaker personally. It’s a way of treating women as children, as something other than an adult human being.
If that wasn’t an indication, this certainly is.
@jamesmacdonald #336
Nope, I pointed out an example of routine sexism. We live in a sexist society, and it’s ingrained in all of us (male, female, gender-queer, etc.). I’m a feminist and I catch myself in examples of routine sexism just simply as a matter of course. A lot of it is internalized, which is why it’s important to be aware of it.
Why do you think that ‘he’ is a more common pronoun, when half the world’s population is female? I’m really curious to know why you’d use the word ‘common’ to describe it.
@Caine
This is getting silly now. So I should go and make sure that I know his first name just in case someone thinks I’m being sexist?
Any more rules? This is turning into a bit of a minefield.
@Gnumann
‘He’ is the more common pronoun. It’s not sexist to say that. That doesn’t mean it should be more common, but the fact remains that it is.
James, there are several options for gender-neutral pronouns. Take your pick or find another way, but misgendering people based on the assumption that maleness is the default is, in fact, sexist as fuck.
*sigh*
jamesmacdonald, why is this your first response, instead of something along the lines of ‘sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed that hotshoe was male. I’ll avoid making that mistake in the future’
Reasonable people respond to being called out with an apology.
You responded by doubling down.
Remember, you shutting the fuck up is always an option. An intelligent person would have taken that option about 40 posts ago.
@mythbri
We both know it’s more common because we live in a patriarchal society. I didn’t say that it was right, but when we talk to people we make certain assumptions based on past experience. Given the way hotshoe spoke to me, I assumed they were male. And to be honest, I would still put money on that being the case.
Could someone answer my question, by the way? I’m wondering if it would have been considered sexist had I used the pronoun ‘she’?
mythbri:
I doubt there will be a cogent answer. Recently, I read The Tell-Tale Brain by Ramachandran. Ramachandran uses she as the default pronoun throughout the book and it was very jarring at first, given how the presumption and default always runs to the male side.
LOL NOT SEXIST AT ALL
How much?
Generally, jamesmacdonald, you’ll find you can steer clear of most trouble by avoiding gendered pronouns (unless you know the gender of the individual concerned) as well as racist, sexist, homophobic, or ableist slurs, though I suspect you’ll be mostly okay with the latter ones.
Further, the assumption on this blog is that we (like, all of us) are somewhat sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. as a result of the sexist, racist, homophobic, ableist cultures we’ve been raised in.
If you do find yourself getting called out, try to consider that you’re being called out for the act and examine it, rather than getting defensive. I know it’s hard (like, really hard), but the intent is not actually (well, not usually) to trap you into doing something sexist so we can scream “Aha! A sexist!” but instead to point out how casual and ubiquitous sexism is, right down to the pronoun we default to when we don’t know someone’s gender.
@adamgordon
Why don’t I apologise? Because I think there are far more important issues that are worth addressing. Because I think focusing on something like this turns the feminist cause into a caricature and undermines our (yes, I am a feminist) position on issues of real sexism.
Not to the same degree, given the difference in privilege between men and women.
But that’s one reason that many prefer to use neutral pronouns in situations of uncertainty, even though it’s initially awkward to English eyes/ears.
Bros lie
Oh? Please, O sexist arsehole, detail for us what malespeak is and how one can tell.
Unholy fucktoy of gods, Cupcake, you’ve gone well past doubling down. You need to figure out just how much of an idiot you’re being, stat.
Ing, Ing, can I have a shot?
Bros lie
jamesmacdonald:
Hey, assumptions happen. Internalized patriarchy pops out at odd times. Earlier today I realized I reflexively used the gendered insult “prick”. No one commented on it, but had they done so I would have admitted that, yeah, that was inappropriate and apologized. An explanation of how I had internalized my society would not have been welcome or appropriate. Just “Whoa, yeah. That was wrong. I’m sorry” and move on.
Dig deeper! I think you’re almost to the core!
See, that’s not going to work.
What’s the big deal about saying, “Oops, my mistake for automatically assuming hotshoe was male”? Instead, you’re going to dig in your heels and tell women their concerns about the myriad little ways in which they’re treated as less important than men are trivial?
I’m throwing you a lot of lifelines here. If you’re smart, you’ll grab them.
So, your argument is that because you’ve internalized sexism it isn’t sexism?
And you’re obviously an expert on sexism, since you use your time defending a user of the term “femnazi” – even though you don’t even know his name.
At this point, is there any good reason not to assume you’re not just another idiot rank misogynist trolling for S&G? And/Or a sockpuppet of Tony Ryan?
@Brownian
I absolutely agree that we are all to an extent sexist and racist simply because of the cultures we are exposed to. I’m a sociologist, so these concepts are hardly foreign to me.
That said, I think it does far more damage to the cause when we focus on the small stuff. And it is small by comparison. I am of the opinion that people are less likely to listen to what we have to say if we turn everything that could possibly be interpreted as sexist into an issue.
In other words, focus on the big stuff and deal with grammar later.
DOES NOT COMPUTE
Ah, that makes your sexism perfectly reasonable then.
@adamgordon
Am I expected to believe that you do not make any assumptions, even unconsciously, about the people you speak to online? If so, that would be an astonishing feat.
Also, “yes, I am a feminist”
and “Women, the concerns you have undermine the real issues of sexism, the ones I, a man, understand to be important”
are not compatible statements.
You’re not actually a feminist. You just think you are.
@jamesmacdonald #344
“We both know it’s more common because we live in a patriarchal society. I didn’t say that it was right, but when we talk to people we make certain assumptions based on past experience.”
…
We do live in a patriarchal society, which assumes that the default life experience is Straight Male, and that anything and everything other than that is some kind of deviation, even if it’s equally as common. It’s not right. But it’s because of that patriarchal society that “he” is assumed to be a “more common” pronoun (even though it’s not, in fact).
As for your question, I can only give you my opinion, which can hardly be considered a definitive answer. It still would have been sexist, but less so. It definitely would have been just as rude, but not necessarily with the same routine sexism.
wow he is like the neatest person in the world.
Liar.
But for those playing at home
http://www.cracked.com/funny-3809-internet-argument-techniques/
@Brownian
I’m not a feminist by your definition. That doesn’t mean I’m not a feminist. If I asked one of my female friends to come on here and tell you that she could not care less about gendered pronouns, would she also not be a feminist?
This isn’t just an issue of grammar. You assume people’s genders based on the ways they talk to you. That’s sexist as fuck and betrays seriously fucked up views on your part.
Unfuckingbelievable. The fact that you’re dismissing the sexism in yourself (we are all sexist, there’s no way to avoid it) hollers loudly to one simple fact: you are not a feminist. You’re not only not a feminist, you’re not an ally.
You’re behaving in a sexist manner and choosing to double down when it’s pointed out. Then you decide to tell women what “real sexism” is – don’t you think we might have a clue about that? Way to go, completely dismissing women from your “feminism”. Thanks ever so much.
Lol. Liar.
@mythbri
Do you think you would have called me out on it?
On behalf of my discipline, I apologize.
@Caine
Try reading my posts. I stated explicitly that we are all sexist and racist to some extent. I’m not sure how I could have been any clearer.
Old McDonald opened with this
Not a feminist. He’s a dudebro and as established bros lie.
Ugh. You’re reaching the point of disgusting and loathsome, James. Being a woman does not automatically make you a feminist. And yes, women are perfectly capable of being sexist.
Actually, people don’t listen to what minorities say anyway. This isn’t how social change happens.
What we do is make the issues less acceptable, and do this by jumping on the millions of ways in which we deny unprivileged groups existence and agency. Once we make casual, unexamined sexism, for instance, unacceptable, we begin to gain traction.
“Don’t say ‘That’s So Gay'” can happen at the same time that GLBT people fight for marriage equality.
Considering your sociology cred, you make the exact same arguments completely uneducated idiots do.
Yup.
I would never presume to know someone’s gender identity online without them specifying. If I ever did make such a mistake, I would apologize immediately.
Don’t worry. His so far staggering ignorance on subjects he should know leads me to believe he’s playing the false credential game.
I’m a professional trollogist btw.
jamesmacdonald:
Because one woman who may or may not exist totally refutes decades of feminist theory. WOO!
It’s ok SC -every field has it’s share of idiots. But it could also very well be a case of number 10 as Ing said…
You were upset that a woman called a man out and made a mistake that you jumped on, rather than that man was a sexist asshole to her. You are lying.
Why does this incessant shoveling by James Macdonald remind me of Monty Python?
The fact you didn’t bother to find out a whole lot of things (which are being pointed out to you) are the reason you need to stop digging, James.
@jamesmacdonald #368
Yes, I think I would have. I enjoy challenging assumptions, just as I enjoy having my assumptions challenged (it makes me think, and strengthen or abandon arguments accordingly).
Feminism is the radical idea that women are people, and should be treated as such. Society being what it is, there is a lot of work to do to make that a true reality. Entrenched, internalized sexism is one of those things that we have to change, and how can that happen if people aren’t made aware of it?
Brownian
*nods*
True, true. But I would think that anybody who was concerned with intellectual honesty would see the cognitive dissonance in saying that the victim of a yearlong bullying campaign should apologize to one of her harassers for making a mistake about which name he called her.
It is also possible that I missed Chas’s long screed against the menz, where he told them that acting like sexist arseholes was unacceptable, they owe Rebecca an apology, and that their outrage over the matter is unimportant.
You’re not a feminist because you still think that your experience and knowledge as a male trumps the experiences of the women here who are telling you what’s what based on their knowledge and experience of being women.
I don’t doubt that you desire to be one, but that’s not going to happen as long as you keep talking about what you think rather than shutting up and listening.
should I apologize, too, or am I exempt because I’m still in the larval stage (or possibly egg stage) of sociologist?
:-p
By the way, ‘I’m getting my MA in Social Sciences this year’ and “I’m a sociologist” are not equivalent.
Like, say, whether a woman correctly recalled whether a particular dude called her a “cunt” or only a “feminazi”? Small stuff like that?
@jamesmacdonald
Alternately, you could say something like ‘You”re right – that was sexist and it wasn’t intentional’. Sorry about that!
I’ve been reading this blog for 3 years now, and I find that when people admit their missteps they gain a lot more respect then when they double-down. Personally, I tend to lurk since I *still* feel like I am learning, and that perhaps I don’t know quite enough yet to post regularly without sticking my foot in my mouth.
And although you prefer to focus on the big picture (ie – Sociology), it should be obvious that through the internet, and especially a personal space like a blog, it IS something ‘small’ like the use of pronouns that conveys to people that you respect feminism. And, really that you respect people on an individual level.
@Cipher
We all make assumptions about people we talk to online. Based on what a person says, I may assume a number of things about them. I do it all the time. And guess what? So do you, whether you like to admit it or not. Is it right? Fuck no, but it happens.
My point is that focusing on these things obscures bigger issues. It’s like people who want the word ‘niggardly’ banned. When you make a mountain out of this stuff, people are less likely to pay attention to you when you talk about issues like sexual harassment.
She can tell me whatever she likes about her experiences as a woman and what she feels or doesn’t feel diminished by in this society.
You can’t.
Are you starting to understand?
They’re obviously foreign to you. Either that, or you prefer being willfully ignorant. You’re just the sort of person that gives sociologists a bad name. We have some outstanding sociologists among the regulars here and they wouldn’t dream of pulling shit out of their ass the way you’re doing.
@marismae
I have said it was wrong and I have recognised why it was wrong. The point I am making is that I think focusing on grammar does more bad than good. I think it makes people not want to listen when serious issues are raised.
You really need to provide evidence that this is actually what happens, as opposed to what straight, white males say happens.
Because nobody wanted to get the word ‘niggardly’ banned in the entire history of humanity prior to the end of the last century, and racism wasn’t eradicated.
Woman didn’t use the spelling ‘womyn’ at the beginning of the last century, and they still couldn’t vote.
This is a canard.
Comment by callumjames blocked. [unkill][show comment]
Hey! He’s right! Awesome! :D
@Brownian
I asked a simple question. You said my opinion on this issue is less valuable because I’m male. I’m asking if you woulds, for example, say that my girlfriend is not a feminist because she shares my view that focusing on the small stuff is just a distraction?
Is this happening to you? Are you caring less about the issues your female friends face because people here called you out for assuming hotshoe was a ‘he’? Is that how tenuous your grip on justice is?
Yeah, and when those assumptions turn out to be sexist or racist or ableist or ageist or anything else shitty and oppressive, I apologize and make an effort to do better next time.
Give it a shot.
Those people are sexist morons who were not going to give a fuck about my opinion on sexual harassment anyway.
How about you apologize for your stupid, shitty, sexist assumption instead of continuing to double down on it?
@Brownian
No, I’m saying that I have seen how people react when faced with this kind of issue. They switch off because they assume your agenda is radical. Whether that’s right or wrong, it happens.
The focus isn’t on the grammar. It’s on the assumption behind the grammar-usage. We’re all human, and we all make assumptions—the trick is to learn to second-guess your own assumptions.
This question of “grammar” FUCKING MATTERS TO ME.
It is one of the millions of shitty, sexist ways in which I am routinely assumed to be less than.
You’ve heard of microaggressions, right?
Ending them is PART OF MY CAUSE and I don’t think ignoring it is going to help that cause any.
screechymonkey:
+1 with a tentacle on top.
*wonders where it says that*
*checks the link in dude’s name*
oh, hey, indeed he’s not a sociologist. Also, poor Walton :-p
@jamesmacdonald
This is why it’s frustrating to try to have discussions about advanced feminist concepts with people who refuse to even grok the basic premise (that women are people who deserve to be treated as such). It’s like trying to discuss literary criticism with someone who’s still trying to understand what a metaphor is. It’s like trying to work through a calculus problem with someone who’s still pre-algebra. It’s like trying to discuss genetic sequencing with someone who still hasn’t learned basic cell structure. There are basic feminist concepts that inform discussion of more advanced concepts, and it seems impossible to move forward when people without a basic understanding quibble about the advanced stuff.
you’re right we’ll all shut up about this. Off you go now, your mighty penis is surely needed elsewhere.
…
Is he gone?
And I’ve given you several answers to relevant issues. I’m not here to play ‘gotcha!’ for your amusement, and I know more about these issues than you do, so I’m going to direct the conversation in fruitful directions.
We are not talking about your girlfriend, we’re talking about you.
I’ve explained why you are not a feminist, and it has nothing to do with your layman’s perspective of language.
It’s because of your dismissal of women’s perspectives in favour of your own comfort.
@Cipher
I don’t doubt that it matters to you. But I know plenty of women who do not care in the least about it, or they think it undermines their cause.
The person we’re facing with “this kind of issue” right now is you.
Stop being a disingenuous fuck.
[meta]
jamesmacdonald:
The reference was to an assumption of gender, and you should be astonished that so many here can manage not to make such an assumption about commenters.
(It’s pretty dim to go by the nym)
“Look kitten, I don’t give a damn what you think! If I say I’m a feminist, then by God I am one!”
Also, I note that in #387 James has pulled a ‘Dear Muslima’ by saying we’re only allowed to focus on the bigger instances of sexism, and must ignore the whole continuum of micro-aggressions of every size smaller than the big things.
So, to appease some fuckers who won’t bother listen we are supposed to adopt an agenda where women are not fully human?
Please go pick a porcupine of your choice from the pile marked “used by MRAs”.
@Brownian
It’s only a ‘gotcha’ if it would have got you. And it would have. You cannot dismiss my argument simply because I’m a man. I know plenty of female feminists who do not care about this issue. Do you want me to produce them on this blog so that you can verify that not every feminist on the planet shares your agenda?
And why the fuck do I care what they think?
Oh, so it happens to other people, not you. Good to know.
Is it also possible that these same people might seize upon those issues as an excuse to dismiss the issues of women’s rights, even if the issue of language is not brought up?
I’ve heard people say that because discrimination is not legal, racism and sexism no longer exist. Do you think they’d be all over stopping real sexism and racism if those uppities would just smile when they get called ‘cunt’ or ‘nigger’?
Well, you got the gender-neutral pronoun right in that sentence. Good on ya!
No, we’re dismissing it because it’s idiotic. You claim that we shouldn’t be focusing on this issue because “I have seen how people react when faced with this kind of issue.”
Your only evidence is anecdote? How very skeptical of you.
And given the way you talk James, I assume you’re an asshole.
jamesmacdonald:
I can when your argument is premised on knowing what it’s like to be a woman.
Kind of like how actual feminists react when someone insists on being a sexist asshole and continues to double down while chanting “I am too a feminist, I am, I am, I am!”?
You know, James, you already lied about being a sociologist. You’re obviously not a feminist. That sort of thing isn’t helping out on the credibility front. You could make a stab at self awareness.
and of course basing your own agenda on where society is, rather than where it should be, is totes the way to get the Overton Window to move in your direction, especially during times where Backlash dominates…
there are arguments to be had about framing, but “what you want is too radical, move your goal to the middle” is not even an argument about methods
Sure we can. Men are known to be prone to lying. Evolutionary psychology has observed and explained this. It’s a defense mechanism to make up for having such external and fragile genitalia within kicking range.
It’s worse than that! Apparently the fucking moron can’t be fucked to care that he fucked up, because other people will shut down when told they similarly fucked up.
1: They should. If you manage to learn something here, maybe you could educate them a little; spread the word.
2: On an issue as simple as this, I know plenty of people who’re pretty fucking far from being feminists who habitually use the singular ‘they’ or constructions like ‘s/he’.
@Gnumann
You don’t seem to get it. How do you expect to change things if you can’t get people to listen? It is a gradual process.
Right or wrong, you cannot inject your entire agenda into a fundamentally sexist society and expect them to accede to all of your requests. It won’t work.
wait. how do men speak differently, on the internet, than women? are their fonts in a higher register?
Your agenda?
Like I said. LIAR
I haven’t. Read more carefully. I’ve argued several points.
1) Based on your behaviour here, I doubt your claim to being a feminist for several reasons, primarily:
1.a) your dismissal of the perspectives of women;
1.b) your ignorance of how social change happens
Your maleness is only relevant to 1.a).
The reason I would be reticent to call your girlfriend a feminist or not (since I have no clue as to who she is) is because I’m a man, and so I’m on the wrong end of the power differential. I cannot justly decide that members of some underprivileged group are most effectively fighting for the privileges of that group. It’s not within my experience or ability to do so, and if I attempted to, I could only reinforce the idea that my perspective, as a straight, white, male matter.
As I said, jamesmacdonald, you’re not a feminist. You want to be one, but you’re unwilling to do any of the homework.
That makes you, well, that makes you a very average guy who’s not really helping.
Their “Y”s hand lower
FFS Brownian you’re better than this. Look at what he originally wrote. He’s lying.
considering that on the internet, feminist men are often assumed to actually be women, likely. Assuming a gender based on non-inherently-gendered information is by definition essentialist, and essentialism is sexism.
Exactly the way social movements have changed in the past; by uncompromisingly seizing rights, rather than asking.
You’re really unfamiliar with the history of social change, aren’t you?
Oh, and to add to james’s disingenuousness, he keeps pretending it’s about gendered pronouns in general when in fact he’s already admitted to the shitty sexist assumptions that lay behind his use of the wrong one.
Keep digging it’s funny
Now you’re dangerously close to whiny Menz™ territory. Your arguments are being shredded because they are wrong and stupid.
Also, you’re the blithely dismissing anything a woman says on this thread, so you’re hardly setting a sterling example.
@Jadehawk
How do you expect to get anywhere? Do you think it’s heroic to pursue a losing cause because ‘it’s where society should be’? I don’t. I think it is shortsighted.
Society changes gradually, not overnight.
Of course he is! He’s a sociologist damn it!
Oh yes…quite the feminist.
LIAR
Then we’ll have evidence that being nice doesn’t work, and I can go back to telling the entire internet that they’re all lousy pieces of shit.
Wait, did we just have a “my Canadian girlfriend says it’s totes not sexist??”
BINGO!!
I probably meant to write “lower”, or reverse men and women in the first sentence. but it kind of came out interestingly this way :-p
@Brownian
Yeah, just got that degree to wipe my ass with. I forgot that all change comes by force. Thanks for educating me.
I’m still waiting for you to tell us the relevance of “other people will shut down when they hear X” to us telling you X.
jamesmacdonald
Jesus fucking christ. Not assuming gender is one of the first things many people learn to do in online interactions, even if they don’t think it’s a sexism issue. It’s merely a polite acknowledgement of a lack of information.
This isn’t even feminism 101.
@Cipher
It’s a separate issue. Exactly how many times do you want me to say that it was wrong for me to use the pronoun ‘he’? I could concede that point a few more times if it’ll help you sleep tonight.
simply declaring feminism (or even, the fight against needlessly gendered pronouns) a “losing cause” and wanting me to accept that is a bit silly, don’t you think?
I find, however, that taking pronouns seriously isn’t a “losing cause” at all, since I see more and more people understanding the issue with it, and more and more people trying to find alternatives to default-male-gendering, to assumptions of gender, etc. (see for example the very awesome adoption of a gender-neutral pronoun in some schools in Sweden). sure, there’s backlash. But there has always been backlash and it’s not a reason to change one’s goals. Or even tactics.
Plus, the pronoun thing is an issue that’s intersectional, since blindly assuming gender and assuming gendered pronoun use is also a LGBT issue. I find it very much a battle worth fighting, and a battle we’re actually winning, whining from the sidelines notwithstanding.
You actually didn’t. You said this
And later, asserted that you had already agreed it was wrong.
I can’t see any other use you’ve got for it. You’re obviously ignorant about how societies change, which is Soc-101 information.
Ing, you got me laughing out loud with that one. Needed a little humor break, thanks.
indeed.
is this a new tactic? deflecting from having to admit that a criticism of one’s behavior, in the specific, was accurate by trying to make the conversation about the usefulness/effectiveness of calling out that mistake (or caring about whether people make that mistake) in general?
@Cipher
My “bros lie” theory is getting strong support from our test rat!
Well lord knows your teachers clearly didn’t!
“you were right, but you shouldn’t have pointed it out anyway” is not a separate argument, it’s a single-issue whine
@Cipher
Check post #390.
That’s where I said it was wrong.
Well, it wouldn’t be very skeptical of me to simply buy into your argument from authority, especially when you don’t appear to know what you’re talking about.
if you were taught that it was won by circumscribing your agenda based on what your opponents might balk at listening to, then yeah, that’s pretty much all that degree is worth.
Ah, the fallacy of the ever-present middle ground.
You know – it’s not some mild political disagreement we got going on here. It’s a down and out clash. Either you treat women as human or you don’t.
No-one here is expecting quick and painless change. Hell – at the moment it seems we got our hands full fighting self-proclaimed “allies” who just want people to sit down, shut the fuck up and watch things go worse.
Since you’re such an expert: Can you give me one example. Just one fucking example of a disempowered group that got it’s fair share by compromise and “playing nice”?
No, actually, James, that’s where you said you had already admitted to being wrong. Which is what I just said you did.
You never did. You could try something along the lines of “I’m sorry I assumed Hotshoe’s gender was male, I’ll be more careful not to do that in the future. Also, I won’t be so stupid as to say someone’s writing is “male” from now on.
Just a thought.
There we go. And you’ve admitted that this focus on grammar doesn’t make you less sensitive to the issues facing your girlfriend as a woman.
Sounds like this approach worked perfectly with you. Maybe you’re an outlier, but we’ll deal with everyone else using the best ways we know how when we’re dealing with them.
le wut? I see no retraction of this:
or, for that matter, this:
basically, james went from saying he doesn’t think he was inaccurate and he won’t apologize directly to claiming he’s already said it was wrong multiple times and why isn’t that enough yet. If I were inclined to generosity just now, I’d accept the whining about having already admitted to being wrong as an admission of having been wrong, even if stated in an impressively passive-aggressive manner.
@jamesmacdonald
I know you’re an expert at digging holes right now, but you seem to be having difficulty using only a shovel. Would you care to rent an excavator? My company rents several models (doll-sized, large-sized, even a walk-behind Dingo if you’re so inclined) for extremely reasonable rates. You can rent them for 4 hours, 24 hours, or set up a long-term rent for weeks or months. Would you like our rental department’s phone number?
No, jamesmacdonald apologized, eventually. I believe he’d like us to understand that he would have apologized earlier if we hadn’t pointed out his error or asked him to apologize, though.
But I thought talking about sexual harassment was a distraction from the Taliban! It’s all so confusing!
Where? Not in 390.
seconded. I searched his name to make sure I didn’t miss it before posting my last 2 comments, but if I’m wrong I’d gladly correct it
@adamgordon
Only just saw your post about my MA. Looks like you’ve been reading my old ‘About me’ page on FB. Nice investigative work.
Consider asking a sociologist how it works, and he’ll presumably give you the same explanation an oil-rig worker would.
In the comments you noted. The “I already did” ones. A notpology, of sorts, but that’s the best we’re gonna get out of him. He’s busy fighting the Real Sexism™.
Brownian:
There has been an awful lot of mansplaining going on around here today. Quite frankly, I’m sick of dudebros and their shit.
@Brownian
Or rather busy not worrying about the little stuff, like most realistic people.
The Real Sexism™ being Rebecca Watson’s egregious lying, of course.
Then again, whether or not CLS said ‘cunt’ or not seems to be a minor grammatical quibble.
It’s just words, after all.
I’m curious. What’s the ‘big stuff?’ What should we be discussing?
Brownian:
It’s not even a notpology. He didn’t apologize, he simply claimed he did.
“Rebecca Watson said CLS used the word ‘cunt’ when he did not, and though I’m not part of the argument, this aggression will not stand!”
Yeah, you sound like you’ve got a really full life.
*looks at what one can learn from JMcD*
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*crickets chirring*
Go fuck yourself.
@adamgordon
Hey, it’s my buddy. Go dig up some more old facts about me.
Bros, man. They always lying.
@Brownian
While you are changing the world by worrying about gendered pronouns. Preach on, my brother.
Way to dodge my question.
By the way, clicking on a facebook link that you provided is not ‘digging up facts about you’
I know: that using sexist language is a much less important issue than the issue of people getting called out for using sexist language.
Brownian has been a valuable contributor in arguments about misogyny for quite some time now.
Brownian is one of the people around here who I KNOW has my back as a woman and as a survivor of the effects of the Big Sexism that you’re so interested in fighting. (By the way? It’s all the same fucking sexism. If you think you need to go focus on Big Sexism, you fucking have at it, but shut the fuck up about what should matter to me.)
You? You’re just another fucking drop of slime in the vat of sexist, stupid, mansplaining shit we put up with around here.
It seems to be what you link to. I haven’t said you’re lying. I’m super curious: Where’d you get your PhD? What was the topic of your dissertation? I wouldn’t ask if you used a pseudonym, but you link to your personal FB page, so…
Also, you haven’t answered the question several people have asked: What about hotshoe’s comments made you so certain they’re male?
@Brownian
Or you could learn that intentionally spreading lies is not the most noble of pastimes.
jamesmacdonald: The unreasonable trying to argue with the reasonable.
Well, you’ve made the world safe for an anti-feminist today, so I guess that’s something.
How are we supposed to be brothers, though? We’re not on the same side.
[Citation needed]
SC:
I’ve been waiting quite a while to hear the answer to this. An actual answer, not more bullshit.
“old” eh?
guess between whenever in 2012 you got you MA and now, you managed to get your PhD in sociology. if that’s the case, my sincerest apologies for calling you “not a sociologist”.
if that’s not the case, then you’re still not a sociologist, any more than I am.
Yes Brownian, shame on you. I will not have you turn this thread into a HOUSE OF LIES!
James:
While you worry about some dude you don’t know kinda, sorta getting slurred on Twitter. The horror!
That really makes your ENTIRE FUCKING ARGUMENT look really stupid right about now. I bet you’re super red in the face!
Shut your fuckin’ piehole JD. Jesus you’re an asshole. People have been giving you quality assessments of why your position is wrong. You don’t have to like their tone; that doesn’t change the substance. And frankly you deserve all the vitriol you’re getting for being an entitled, whiny, ego-preserving dick (yeah) instead of a person genuinely interested in being a decent human.
Dudebros; deciding what goes in the feminism C Priority list since 1981.
Exclusive language has long been identified as a problem. Anyone who doesn’t realize that, and considers themselves relevant, is deluded on a gargantuan scale.
lol
Hey James – mr. esteemed and in no way utterly crap sociologist:
Where’s that example that shows that the chill-girl-school of social change is effective?
Too busy trying to explain away your lies about apologizing?
@SC
I didn’t intentionally link to it. I just happened to log on through Facebook.
And I didn’t say that I had a PhD. Surely being involved in the field is enough to consider oneself a sociologist. I didn’t realise I needed a PhD.
And as far as hotshoe goes, it was the aggressive, foulmouthed rants that led me to believe they were male. Can women be aggressive and foul? Sure. But in my experience, those people are mostly male.
Don’t forget everyone: I am claiming to speak for All The Brahs. I am putting words in their mouth even though I have no right to.
Cuz I’m Official. Peace out.
Refresh my memory; where, prior to 390, in which you talk about previous apologies, did you apologise again?
I know you must have, being such a noble creature and all, but I can’t seem to find it. One little quote would lay this sordid mess to rest.
Ask NASA how that worked out.
Oh I’m sorry. You’re used to women being submissive to you then?
Josh,
You make me wish I was a Brah.
. . .
(can’t stop laughing)
So that, what? Makes you not wrong, somehow?
I beg to differ. We have established that the truth about the twerp is worse than the tweet.
White-washing isn’t a slur – is it?
@Gnumann
I don’t recall claiming to have apologised. Could you quote me?