Does vocal atheist = sexist? (And the Rebecca Watson debate)

[TheJerkStore]

Why is it so many vocal atheists are also vocally sexist? That seems to be a trend I'm noticing. (Even Dawkins and his "You should be FLATTERED that a stranger sexually harassed you in the elevator" crack).

[erik]

It could just be observer bias. Vocal people may inherently be more offensive since they already seek attention and think you need to hear what they're saying. The ones who say bad things get noticed all the more and likewise whatever bad thing is said is amplified when a celebrity says it.

[Chamomile]

Because of Dawkins, I'd guess. Not that his one comment has inspired widespread misogyny or even that it's indicative of a particularly sexist perspective on Dawkins' part. Unless there's more evidence that I'm not aware of, Dawkins was kind of a dick that one time, which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who's made peace with the fact that all humans are fallible and there are no paragons of ultimate virtue walking among us.

But what Dawkins' comment, and the reaction to it, did do was turn atheism into a battleground. If I had to guess, if you asked atheists whether they were on board with feminism before elevatorgate, the overwhelming majority would've said yes, because that's society's default answer and probably most of them never put much thought into it. But once Dawkins made his comment and it became a big huge controversy, suddenly it was a fight and there were two sides, and one side was calling for a boycott of Dawkins' work and the other was calling for the downfall of feminism, and a lot of atheists felt compelled to pick a side, Dawkins was someone they'd defended before, and feminists weren't. Since the more reasonable "Dawkins said something dumb but can we please just let it go" argument never gained traction, a huge number of atheists began wearing sexism as a badge of honor.

This is mostly just guesswork based on having observed the events unfold from a distance. If you asked me to bet money on this being true, I wouldn't, but if you put a gun to my head and told me I had to pick a guess, this is what I'd go with.

[Kaelik]

a huge number of atheists began wearing sexism as a badge of honor.

I think you are overstating the proportion of atheists who took that position, but aside from that, probably pretty much what Chamomile said.

[Username17]

The problem with the elevator example was that it was a bridge too far by feminists. Dawkins was in fact, completely right. If someone hits on you in an elevator and you aren't interested, you should be flattered, tell them you aren't interested, and move on with your life.

People have a fundamental human right to ask other people for casual sex. Flipping out that a man asked for casual sex with a stranger is no different from flipping out that a gay man asked for casual sex with a stranger or that a black man asked for casual sex from a stranger. We can instantly identify "gay panic" as a violation of human rights. We can instantly identify lynchings as a violation of human rights. And you know what? Heteronormative white males may not be an oppressed minority, but they have the same human rights!

Now, people also have the right to say "No." And they have the right to have that refusal accepted. Refusing to take "No" for an answer is harassment at best. And it can easily be assault or worse. And it's not OK. People also have the right to their own person. Touching people without permission is not OK.

But you don't have the right to have people you aren't attracted to not express romantic interest in you in the first place. They have the right to express romantic interest in you. And they have the right to expect that the worst thing that will happen is that you'll say "No." You have the right to refuse, but they have the right to ask in the first place.

So all kinds of patriarchal douchebags came out of the woodwork to join in on the "elevator fight." Because it's a fight they can win. Do you understand how fucking rare it is for mansplainers to have human rights on their side in any argument? It almost never happens, because men get preferential treatment in almost every aspect of our society. To have a prominent feminist draw a line in the sand and then publicly stand on the wrong side of it was a dream come true. You had men's rights advocates who weren't even skeptics jumping on board, because unlike almost every other fight with prominent feminists, in that fight the upper hand was on the other foot.

The other issue of course, is that when people are offended they say stupid shit. Rebecca Watson's position that people she doesn't like shouldn't proposition her in the first place is in fact an attack on peoples' rights of free expression and personal sexuality. But a lot of people have a hard time expressing that. Heteronormative males don't often have people attack their human rights of free expression and personal sexuality, and they don't necessarily know the language to express what that outrage actually is. This is not a thing they have to deal with every day of the year like people who grow up as homosexuals do, and they don't have finely honed means of discussing it with other people. So a lot of people go directly to the language of enraged Youtube comments, because it's a language of outrage that comes easily to people.

-Username17

[TheJerkStore]

..., in that fight the upper hand was on the other foot.
...

I don't agree that expressing sexual attracting is a "human right", but this line made me laugh way harder than it should have.

[Prak]

[fundamental human right to request casual sex]

Thank you Frank for expressing what I wanted to say much better than I probably would have.

Exactly, it should be flattering. Being flattered, and refusing unwanted advances are not mutually exclusive.

[Username17]

..., in that fight the upper hand was on the other foot.
...

I don't agree that expressing sexual attracting is a "human right", but this line made me laugh way harder than it should have.

Gay Panic is a violation of basic human rights. Why?

It is a violation of human rights because people have a human right to their own sexuality. And because people don't have the right to "not be offended." So if a gay man propositions a straight man, that is the gay man exercising his right to his own sexuality, and the fact that the straight man is offended is not a violation of the straight man's right to not be offended. Because he doesn't have a right to not be offended. So if the straight man does anything to the gay man because of "gay panic," he has crossed the line. The gay man was acting within his own rights, and the straight man's rights had not been violated.

Now it's hard to bring that back to straight men in normal conversation, because the rights of straight men to express their sexuality are so rarely attacked. Most of the time we're still trying to get across the idea that men's rights don't actually extend to coercing your employees to have sex with you or raping drunk teenage girls.

Which of course, is why the elevator controversy is actually still a thing. If it had instead been that the man actually violated someone else's rights rather than staying firmly within his own, maybe by threatening the woman, or touching her breasts without permission, or following her to her room asking for sex repeatedly after a "No" answer had been given, then it would have been drowned in the news cycle long ago. There's a violation of women's rights every seventy five seconds in Congo. Actual violations of men's rights are so rare that we're still talking about this one incident from more than two years ago.

-Username17

[DSMatticus]

This is the core of Rebecca Watson's complaints:

My concern is that she takes issue with a man showing interest in her. What’s wrong with that? How on earth does that justify him as creepy? Are we not sexual beings? Let’s review, it’s not as if he touched her or made an unsolicited sexual comment; he merely asked if she’d like to come back to his room. She easily could have said (and I’m assuming did say), “No thanks, I’m tired and would like to go to my room to sleep."

I pointed out that she posted a transcript of my video but conveniently left off the fact that I had already expressed my desire to go to sleep. I also pointed out that approaching a single woman in an elevator to invite her back to your hotel room is the definition of “unsolicited sexual comment.” But those are unimportant details in comparison to the first quoted sentence, which demonstrates an ignorance of Feminism 101 – in this case, the difference between sexual attraction and sexual objectification. The former is great – be attracted to people! Flirt, have fun, make friends, have sex, meet the love of your life, whatever floats your boat. But the latter involves dismissing a person’s feelings, desires, and identity, with a complete disinterest in how one’s actions will affect the “object” in question. That’s what we shouldn’t be doing. No, we feminists are not outlawing sexuality.

Now, there are three statements there:
1) "But I already said I was tired! Clearly a person who said they were tired would never want to have sex!"

2) "It was an unsolicited sexual comment." Well, no. It wasn't a statement in the same category as "nice tits, babe." It was a statement in the same category as "would you like to sleep with me?" It's more like an unsolicited request for consent. You can complain about that, but the only complaint you can muster is one about your offended sensibilities ("it bothers me when strangers proposition me, no matter how politely and understandingly of my negative response"). But you no more have a right to not have your sensibilities offended than the fundies who don't want to see gays holding hands. The correct response to people trying to moderate behavior based on how much it offends them (as opposed to whether or not it violates their rights) is to tell them to go fuck themself.

3) This is the most important one (to her and me): "it was sexually objectifying." She thinks men politely asking her for sex and (presumably) accepting her refusal is a reduction of herself in their minds to little more than a fleshlight. She believes it is impossible that this man was both attracted to her AND thought of her as a living, breathing human being. That is deeply offensive to men. It is honest-to-god misandry. And it's depressingly common in feminist blogging, and it provides anti-feminists a fuckton of ammunition they use to discredit the movement as a whole.

Sexual objectification is a legitimate social problem, and it's a social problem that frequently occurs alongside sexual attraction for obvious reasons. If your beer commercial promises "drink this, and hot women like these will sleep with you," that's objectifying, and men will probably find those women attractive. But those women would be exactly as attractive if you saw them on the street minding their own business, and the commercial would be exactly as objectifying (though less successful) if it promised men they could "have" unattractive women. If you're going to objectify women in order to get attention, you're going to objectify attractive women. Objectification generally implies attraction. But if you're attracted to a woman, that doesn't mean you're objectifying her. Attraction does not imply objectification. And to suggest otherwise is to have a view of male sexuality so cynical as to be sexist.

[Blade]

The right to ask someone for casual sex is like the right of hosting a party.

If you host a party every single night, play music loud with windows open and don't clean after all those who've puked in the hallway, you're attacking the other's rights to sleep and live in good conditions.

From what I've understood, the problem is not that people have the right to ask someone for casual sex. It's that too many people are abusing that right.

Have you ever been to a touristic street or gone our of the airport in a place where you're easily identified as a foreigner? Remember all the people asking you if you'd like a taxi, or if you wanted to buy this or that? And those who'd keep on pestering you after you told them "no" for the tenth time?
Imagine that it's the same everywhere you go. And that when they finally give up, they insult you. And that those who don't walk up to you just say some variant of "hey look at that rich foreigner! I'd love to grab his money." as you're passing by.

That's not so far off what some women are living in some areas.

[Kaelik]

Have you ever been to a touristic street or gone our of the airport in a place where you're easily identified as a foreigner? Remember all the people asking you if you'd like a taxi, or if you wanted to buy this or that? And those who'd keep on pestering you after you told them "no" for the tenth time?
Imagine that it's the same everywhere you go. And that when they finally give up, they insult you. And that those who don't walk up to you just say some variant of "hey look at that rich foreigner! I'd love to grab his money." as you're passing by.

That's not so far off what some women are living in some areas.

The thing is that while it might be acceptable to be minorly annoyed by a bunch of people asking you questions, at no point do you get to call them morally wrong for doing so. And the correct response to some people asking you and some people asking you after you have said no is to only be mad at the people who have done the wrong thing in asking you after you have said no. Or at least, to only publicly call out as reprehensible those people who asked after you said no.

The bottom line is that Rebecca Watson believes that by saying she was tired she had already publicly announced that she did not want to have sex with anyone. I don't think that is the case in the moral sense. While practically, it might be clear that she didn't want to have sex with him based on intonation not being suggestive and whatever else, his failure to understand that does not turn genuine unsolicited sexual offers into harrasment the same way simply saying "I do not want to have sex with you" or "no" would.

[sabs]

All men are rapists in waiting is in fact, incredibly sexist thing to say. That's exactly like saying all women are just gagging for it, but need a little encouragement.

What if you host a party once a month, but your neighbor hosts one every other day. He never cleans up after himself, plays loud music. But you don't do any of those things. You do clean up after yourself, and you've had your apartment soundproofed so the music doesn't cary. But the Tennant Association evicts you because you've been known to throw parties, and the other guys parties are so bad, that they've decided to evict everyone whose ever thrown a party, or thought about throwing a party.

That's your analogy there.
Just because Sam is a jack ass, that does not mean you get to kick Robert in the balls for being born.

[name_here]

Asking someone to your hotel room rather politely and accepting a "no" is an entirely reasonable and acceptable thing to do. Even as part of a larger pattern, that guy did nothing objectionable, which is why this exploded into such a large story, because it's an actual instance of a feminist saying something unreasonable. I would suspect a lot of the people involved aren't actually atheists.

Also, she was the target of large-scale harassment and death threats because she said something on the internet and people read it. That sort of thing happens to basically everyone regardless of what it was they said. There's a reddit somewhere containing a sample of the staggering number of death threats directed towards a guy who rebalanced SMGs in Call Of Duty.

[Maj]

I get why Watson was scared - she was in an elevator. While Dawkins' counter was that she could hit a button and get out, that's not necessarily true if the guy stands in front of the button panel and/or the door.

And while the guy may have waited until she got on the elevator to ask because it was the first opportunity he had to talk to her away from a bunch of people, it's exactly that isolation that's intimidating. Especially if it's the middle of the night. In an unfamiliar location (like a foreign country).

I suspect that if the proposition had been made in a hallway, or if she had had friends with her, she would have just dismissed the incident as gauche. But because she was boxed in alone, she got scared.

Now, I personally think that modern feminism spends too much time training your amygdalae to freak out more when men are present, but I understand why Watson felt fear - even if I do also feel that the fear was an overreaction to the threat.

[TheJerkStore]

To me, the difference is that I've never heard or read about one credible account of gay men attacking other men for refusing to have sex with them, and maybe once when a straight woman offered a man sex then attacked him when he refused. However, every woman I know has at least one story where they refused casual sex from a straight man they didn't know and the man attacked her afterwards. When a man asks a woman for sex, he's putting her in a terrifying position that she has a nonzero chance of coming out dead. Fair to men? No, but I still wouldn't trade positions where I get unsolicited requests for sex at every turn, each one having a chance to turn violent with someone I can't overpower.

[Kaelik]

To me, the difference is that I've never heard or read about one credible account of gay men attacking other men for refusing to have sex with them, and maybe once when a straight woman offered a man sex then attacked him when he refused. However, every woman I know has at least one story where they refused casual sex from a straight man they didn't know and the man attacked her afterwards. When a man asks a woman for sex, he's putting her in a terrifying position that she has a nonzero chance of coming out dead. Fair to men? No, but I still wouldn't trade positions where I get unsolicited requests for sex at every turn, each one having a chance to turn violent with someone I can't overpower.

Except that the same thing doesn't work when white women get upset every time a black man asks them for sex. Or for that matter, every time a white person gets asked for change by a black person. Muggers do in fact often ask for change first for a variety of reasons, IE, the person sometimes pulls out their fucking wallet right then and there making subsequent robbing easier.

But it is still racism when you assume that just because a black person asked for change that he is going to rob you, and it is still misandry when you assume that any guy who asks for sex is going to rape you.

Again, your logic is fucktarded. Oftentimes men rape or attack women without asking for sex first. Therefore:

Man does X (Where X is ask to have sex).
Men who do X might by some remote chance that is actually really fucking low attack and rape you afterwords.
Therefore: It is appropriate to get mad at men and insult them for doing X.

But look, statistically speaking, X could just as easily be (not ask to have sex) and all the same things would be true.

So what you are actually saying is "Because some men rape women, it is appropriate for all women to hate all men all the time."

If the exact same logical chain that justifies hating me who ask for sex also justifies hating all men regardless of what they do, that is a sign that you are wrong.

[DragonChild]

So what you are actually saying is "Because some men rape women, it is appropriate for all women to hate all men all the time."

Keep in mind we live in a society that blames and punishes women for not being prepared, defending themselves, etc, if they're raped. They're told it's their fault for not being more on guard when they're attacked, and then they're told they're evil bigots for being on guard.

Edit: I do agree that, unfortunately, a ton of popular atheists are sexist assholes. I wish they'd just go away. See thunderf00t and theamazingatheist for two big examples.

[Maj]

Yeah. The great irony of this thread is that Watson had spent a large portion of the day of the elevator incident trying to get the sexism out of atheism. The whole thing just polarized a problem that people had already identified.

[Kaelik]

Yeah. The great irony of this thread is that Watson had spent a large portion of the day of the elevator incident trying to get the sexism out of atheism. The whole thing just polarized a problem that people had already identified.

The problem is you want to polarize an issue with a striking point that has you in the right. As Frank said, this particular issue becoming the focal point means that many people decided to attack Watson, who otherwise might have quietly supported her if it were about for example, a circumstance where she said no, and someone kept asking.

[Maj]

If the situation were that obvious, it wouldn't have been nearly as polarizing. She would have made her point, asshats would have dismissed her, and everyone would pile on the asshats with pretty much universal acknowledgement that they were asshats.

But because the situation was not obvious, and because people don't know what it's like, people made light of her fear. Those who could empathize, did - feeling like those who couldn't were insensitive, sexist jackasses. And those who didn't empathize felt the other side was being overly sensitive and irrational.

[Username17]

If the situation were that obvious, it wouldn't have been nearly as polarizing. She would have made her point, asshats would have dismissed her, and everyone would pile on the asshats with pretty much universal acknowledgement that they were asshats.

But because the situation was not obvious, and because people don't know what it's like, people made light of her fear. Those who could empathize, did - feeling like those who couldn't were insensitive, sexist jackasses. And those who didn't empathize felt the other side was being overly sensitive and irrational.

The thing is that it actually doesn't matter whether her feelings of discomfort were reasonable or not. If you're alone in an elevator with someone who outweighs you by twenty kilos, they could mess you up pretty bad. It is not unreasonable to be uncomfortable being in an enclosed space with someone who is considerably bigger than you. But we live in a society with hundreds of millions of other people, and we all have to use the same elevators and if that makes you uncomfortable that's tough shit!

Because people have a fucking right to use the elevator. And they have a fucking right to talk to people in the elevator with them. And they have a fucking right to be as suave or awkward as they are and still fucking talk. And you don't have the right to not be offended. And you don't the right to not be uncomfortable. If someone isn't actually threatening you and you feel threatened because of something that is not their fault that is tough shit!

Rebecca Watson has been a net negative to the feminist movement, and will continue to be a net negative for her entire life. Because she drew battle lines on the wrong side of someone else's civil rights. That means that every anti-feminist in the entire world can attack her with impunity forever and will. Nothing she has ever said or will ever say will ever matter for shit in the grand scheme of things, because that one piece of over reach was such a catastrophic strategic blunder that she can never recover. That she didn't immediately figure out that she'd fucked up and how means that her tactical senses are dreadful.

She probably could have walked that shit back at the time. But by doubling, tripling, and quadrupling down after it was pointed out a hundred or a thousand times that she was in fact on the wrong side of someone else's civil rights? No fucking way. At this point she has probably convinced thousands of people that feminism is "wrong."

-Username17

[Maj]

I find it utterly unreasonable that this...

Rebecca Watson's Original Statement[/url] (transcription errors are mine)]You were all fantastic, and I love talking to you guys. Um... All of you except for the... the one man who, uh, didn't really grasp, I think, what I was saying on the panel because, um, at the bar later that night - actually at four in the morning - um... We were at the hotel bar. At four AM I said, "You know, I've had enough, guys. I'm exhausted. Going to bed." So I walked to the elevator and a man got on the elevator with me and said, "Don't take this the wrong way, but I find you really interesting, and I would like to talk more. Would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?"

Um... Just a word the the wise here, guys... Don't do that. Um... You know... I don't really know how else to explain how this makes me incredibly uncomfortable, but I'll sort of lay it out that I was a single woman in a foreign country at four AM in a hotel elevator with you... Just you. And, uh... Don't invite me back to your hotel room right after I've finished talking about how it creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable when men sexualize me in that manner.

...can be called drawing a line on any side of anyone's civil rights. If someone does something to make you uncomfortable, you most certainly have the right to ask them not to do it.

The fact that it turned into such a shitstorm is a travesty. Anyone who's ever flubbed asking someone out thinks that Watson wasn't being very understanding of how awkward and embarrassing that situation was for the dude. And anyone who's ever been cornered and propositioned thinks that the guy wasn't being very understanding of how intimidating and creepy he was.

And they're both right. The feelings of each person involved doesn't invalidate the way the other was feeling, and the only thing that will prevent this shit in the future is putting forth the effort to understand the other person's perspective. Unfortunately, by drawing lines and taking sides, the only thing that happens is a stalemate and communication fail. It's a lose-lose.

[shau]

Thanks Maj, you said that better than I could have.

[DSMatticus]

For fuck's sake, Maj; I quoted Rebecca Watson on this. You can read her justifications right here in this thread. Even in the quote you selected, there are gems like "the one man who, uh, didn't really grasp, I think, what I was saying on the panel [about sexism]." She believes the thing that happened to her is sexist. That she is wrong is trivial and obvious.

The feelings of each person involved doesn't invalidate the way the other was feeling

Neither we nor Rebecca Watson are talking about feelings, because giving a fuck about people's feelings is not how you make moral judgments or social policy. When fundies see gay couples holding hands, they are offended and uncomfortable. Yet the fundies are clearly in the moral wrong and the social policy that would result from protecting their feelings is deeply abhorrent. Rebecca Watson can be as afraid of men as she wants to be. But when you make prescriptive statements ("hey, men, don't ask me for casual sex, it's scary," "hey, black, people, don't wear hoodies, it's scary") using your personal fear you're actually being incredibly offensive and committing a blatant act of prejudice.

[Maj]

But when you make prescriptive statements ("hey, men, don't ask me for casual sex, it's scary," "hey, black, people, don't wear hoodies, it's scary") using your personal fear you're actually being incredibly offensive and committing a blatant act of prejudice.

Those two things are very different. One of them involves an interaction, and the other one doesn't. I have every right to ask you to not interact with me. I do not have every right to tell you how to do your own thing.