Next time you’re in an elevator, don’t stare at the other passengers—especially if they’re strangers. Even if you think you’ve noticed some spark of connection and that your unblinking gaze conveys only warmth and friendship, don’t stare at them. However you intend it, it will come across as creepy and possibly threatening. It’s just not cool.
That doesn’t sound very inflammatory, does it?
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Ever since Rebecca Watson of Skepchick and the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe spoke about being accosted in an elevator, she has been showered with repulsive reactions, some of the worst of which came from the evolutionary biologist and atheist icon Richard Dawkins. Fortunately, posts at Pharyngula, Bad Astronomer, Shakesville, Pandagon, Greg Laden’s Blog, Bug Girl’s Blog and countless other sites have risen to her defense, and Rebecca has of course been more than capable of taking care of herself, too. What’s clear, beyond the fact that Rebecca’s remarks brought out a lot of people’s unrecognized misogyny and anti-feminism, is that most of them seem not to understand her point, despite Rebecca and others having explained it repeatedly. However redundantly, I thought I would take a crack at it, too.
For the purpose of my explanation, I’m going to leave out sex and male-female dynamics. Not because those specifics are irrelevant—they are obviously central to the experiences of Rebecca and many other women in elevators and elsewhere—but because they seem to be red flags distracting her critics from the deeper principle involved.
The principle is: be sensitive to others’ feelings and don’t make them pointlessly uncomfortable. Simple human decency, not some special consideration that some of us should show to the rest of us. Consider the advice with which I started this post. The idea of not staring at strangers in elevators is something that all of us learn or intuit as part of our normal social adjustment. We learn that staring at strangers is a generally bad idea, and that people may be extra disturbed by such attentions in closed confines.
So the natural reaction that socially adjusted people would have to my advice not to stare would be a nod or shrug of acceptance. Someone who instead responded by shouting “Why shouldn’t I be able to stare at them? I’m not hurting anybody!” likely wouldn’t come across as merely weird; he’d come across as a little psychotic.
Yet that was the overreaction that some people had to Rebecca’s remarks. She didn’t denounce all men as monsters. She didn’t say men should never approach women. She didn’t say the act was criminal. She made the unexceptionable point that most women would find it creepy to be propositioned, even discreetly, by a stranger in an elevator at 4 a.m., so men shouldn’t do it. Somehow, her message is being misinterpreted as unreasonable or anti-male.
Broadly speaking, the critics’ arguments seem to fall into categories. The first is that Rebecca’s expectations are unreasonable because it’s impossible for men to know whether their attentions might be welcome unless they try, and then it’s too late. They seem to want some set of absolute or fail-safe guidelines that will absolve them of blame for acting on their attractions.
Sorry, but such rules don’t exist for any human relationships. You can’t reduce personal interactions to a set of robotic commands (“IF A= FEMALE AND LOC=ELEVATOR GO TO 23…”) in the absence of feedback about the feelings of other people. It’s pathologically narcissistic to treat people like machines, to act as though their feelings and autonomy don’t exist or matter. Good social rules of thumb can steer you away from some kinds of trouble but they are always incomplete. Social cues offer all the important refinements, and for the most part, people are exquisitely good at picking up on others’ feelings if they want to be.
Therein lies the problem. Many men who don’t think of themselves as misogynists have a blind spot: they become obtuse about women’s feelings that might conflict with their own desires. The rancor they’re directing at Rebecca now suggests they don’t like being called on that flaw. Moreover, they’re making a hypocritical argument—accusing Rebecca of laying down some inflexible, inhuman rule when they’re the ones shutting out the feelings of the women with whom they presumably want to strike up a relationship. Guys, if you’re looking for advice about how to meet women, Rebecca just gave you some: stop creeping them out in elevators. Say thank you.
(A few of Rebecca’s critics, including some women, have said she is wrong to be generalizing and that she isn’t entitled to speak for all women. No kidding. Still, from my conversations, I think it’s disingenuous to argue that Rebecca’s feelings about being approached in an elevator at night don’t reflect those of most women—certainly enough to justify the rule of thumb. If anybody wants to pull together an empirical case to the contrary, knock yourself out. And if you happen to find yourself in an elevator with an appealing stranger who’s drooling for your attentions, have fun. But most of the time, Rebecca’s advice holds.)
Some people have also protested that Rebecca’s position penalizes innocent men who are socially awkward or inexperienced, and consequently poor at picking up on women’s feelings. Again, she didn’t accuse the guy who bothered her in the elevator of committing a crime; he disturbed and offended her. Yes, people are sometimes going to make mistakes—all the more reason to thank Rebecca for the heads-up about the wrong way to introduce yourself. It’s not doing the socially maladroit any favors to encourage them to blunder through encounters inattentive to others’ feelings.
The other strain of criticism of Rebecca’s stance seems to be a quasi-libertarian argument that, especially at a free-thinking venue like a skeptics and atheists conference, people should be able to speak candidly, clash as they will and not worry about bruised sensibilities along the way because they simply exchanged words. But even if we ignore all the other reasons why one should still care about others’ feelings, how is being purposefully blind to women’s feelings not counterproductive to these men’s goal of striking up a relationship with them?
Are there times when one shouldn’t be afraid to offend others? Of course. Rosa Parks offended white people when she sat in the front of the bus. Married gay couples apparently offend plenty of straight conservatives who think they own the term “marriage.” They are standing up for rights that are more important that the hurt feelings of people aligned with an injustice. Sometimes any of us may need to set a principle ahead of others’ discomfort; if we’re then judged harshly, so be it. But what exactly is the principle that men hitting on women indiscriminately are defending: that their desire for sex trumps women’s rights to be left alone?
Again, the fundamental idea—”be sensitive to others’ feelings and don’t make them pointlessly uncomfortable”—is a matter of simple decency, not restricted to dating advice. Rebecca was right in her explanations to highlight that for many women, these kinds of clumsy advances by men are fraught with entirely realistic worries about violence, rape, and worse. Men owe it to themselves to avoid stupid misbehaviors that might lump them in anybody’s eyes with predators. But this isn’t a matter of how men should treat women, or of how people of any group should treat those of another. Individuals need to recognize and respect the feelings of other individuals. Anything less is inhuman.
Updates (added at various times): The web is full of good commentary on this subject, but here are a few links that I find particularly relevant or entertaining:
Rebecca Watson herself, writing about The Privilege Delusion and Frequently Answered Questions. (Honestly, everybody attributing certain attitudes and actions to her ought to check out these.)
And (via Pharyngula) Rebecca’s speech for the Center for Inquiry where she supposedly savaged a woman who had disagreed with her. As PZ Myers writes, she in fact discusses that blog post “civilly and without victimization.”
Lindsay Beyerstein’s concise and cutting Attention, Space Cadets: Do Not Proposition Women in Elevators.
The evergreen humorous wonder of Derailing for Dummies: Making Discrimination Easier.
Jennifer Ouellette’s brilliant Is It Cold in Here?, which not only all the right intelligent points about this Elevator Guy incident but also connects the attitudes Rebecca is encountering to ones that discourage women from staying engaged with scientific and engineering careers.
And this, just for fun: Gynofascists are Invading the Manosphere, which seems to capture the rhetoric of many of those commenting in opposition to Rebecca’s point.
This all seems to come down to a little tactic known in our autism circles as “perspective taking.” Seem as though quite a few people need to practice that a bit.
About elevators….in teaching my non-majors students about vertebrate aggression and how organisms naturally distribute themselves, I always used the elevator as an example. I ask them, “When you enter an elevator and a stranger is in there, where do you choose to stand? Do you go over and stand right next to the other person, perhaps snuggling up shoulder to shoulder? Or do you place yourself strategically as far as possible from the other person?” That question about physical placement and distance translates just as easily to verbal communication. Don’t get too close–verbally or physically–with a total stranger in a small, enclosed space, especially at 4 a.m. It’s really not that complicated.
Excellent example, thank you.
One of the reasons any of us can fail to recognize our own misogyny (or racism, or other -ism), I think, is that when it comes into play, we stop making the kinds of social accommodations that we would in all other situations. And then we blame the objects of that prejudice for being too demanding.
Brilliant example, Emily. Thank you ! Have never re-quoted the comment of someone I don’t know, but would like to in FB discussions because the “in your face” crystallizes the feeling of threat and/or discomfort which many men might identify with easier than they do with verbal implied sexual attention as unwelcome(ime most men claim they are flattered not threatened by any attention from women, especially when it’s just the two of them & there’s no exit/witnesses).
Is it okay to quote this and/or are you writing more in a public site ?
I could not agree more. I also like Emily’s analogy.
I read Rebbecca’s initial post after seeing PZ Myers’ blog about the incident.
As a person who has been assaulted, Rebbecca’s post had my palms sweating just reading about her feelings and thoughts.
Yes, it’s important to realize that if Rebecca had not handled the immediate situation exactly right , with respect and caution, but simply told him to leave her alone, or confronted him about why he was in her face with a proposition to come to his room right after she made it public to anyone who was listening that was just what she didn’t want to be subjected to up close and personal—she could have gotten a hostile response from a drunk , hurt, resentful, or defensive person . Having to deal with a verbal rant about women in general or you in particular is nerve-wracking when you are alone at night, even if it’s not a prelude to physical violence, and there have been enough angry rants about women, and especially women who don’t enjoy being invited back to a stranger’s hotel room at 4 am, that it’s clear there are men who consider themselves rational who feel very strongly about this and would have followed her into the elevator, scorned her if she felt uncomfortable with them for any reason, and been quite demanding of what they consider an appropriate response.
“Guys, if you’re looking for advice about how to meet women, Rebecca just gave you some: stop creeping them out in elevators. Say thank you.”
THIS.
Very nicely done. I do think it’s worth mentioning that the person in question had just heard Rebecca Watson speaking at length about not wanting to be sexualized in the conference setting and then saying that she was tired and wanted to go sleep. So there’s the double problem of (a) it was generally pretty creepy, and (b) it meant that he wasn’t really listening to what she had been saying. But for her to point that out about one guy’s actions makes her a crazy man-hater. Sigh.
Beautifully said, john. I have been So. Very. Angry. about this, I haven’t dared blog about it myself, but this is precisely what I would have said.
Boundaries, people. They matter.
Also, while I’m sympathetic to socially maladjusted geeks, being socially awkward is not a permanent disability or incurable disease. We were all socially awkward/inept geeks at some point. We learned otherwise, developed social skills, and listened when we got advice on how to improve our skills in that arena. Nobody believes I was painfully shy and awkward when they meet me today. I so totally was. The first step to changing is to be teachable.
”be sensitive to others’ feelings and don’t make them pointlessly uncomfortable”
Words to live by.
“while I’m sympathetic to socially maladjusted geeks,”
Wow. So now this anonymous (?) guy is a socially maladjusted geek? Unless he himself said that, I think this topic just jumped the shark. The problem with such a behavior is that it is eminently socially adjusted, hence the recurrent threat.
I do feel with Watson for what was a threatening situation, and all the insensitive protestation that followed. I do feel for the guy who may simply have made a mistake in assessing threat, though the related circumstances speaks against that. (“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”)
Btw, since it was raised in the article and probably brought in by context: I will likely never support feminism but equality. Why? Because it seems some instantiations of feminism isn’t about bettering equality but taking undue privilege. That never happened with suffragettes, blacks (well), gays, atheists.
So for all practical purposes I am anti-feminist, but because I think there is a better way, not because some of the goals are bad. And I am not mentioning this simply because of elevator situations.
I don’t think being anti-feminist is inherently being bad, as long as it is because of the larger purpose of human equality.
[I dunno if this is an actual example, but this is one example I seem to hear associated with such questions: If someone says that women is better at child care without proof but the claim that women bear them, it is undue. The biology is different, so some traits may be different. But "better", or even the observation of difference, needs observation.
It is entirely possible that this has nothing to do with what some feminism do at all; though I have come to doubt it. Maybe I need pointers.]
Oops. This was intended as a general comment. Seems my clicking led me astray.
Um…not sure that’s feminism dude… might wanna learn a bit more before you decry so loudly and publicly…
Any kind of “feminism” that you encounter that says that women are inherently better at anything for any reason isn’t feminism. It’s gender essentialism. I’d suggest you Google “feminism 101″ and find out what you’re complaining about because it sounds like you, like most people, have gotten your ideas about feminism from people who aren’t feminists.
er. Torbjörn, gender essentialism is not a feminist idea. to say that women are naturally better at childcare because they’re the ones with the uteruses is an inherently anti-feminist idea, the very same idea that was used to keep women in the home.
IOW, paternal leave and the normalization of “stay-at-home-dads” is perfectly standard feminist fare.
This explains it far better than some of the blogs you’ve linked – good work.
Personally, I’m not thrilled that there will be times that I’m looked upon as a potential threat without doing something to warrant that label, but I recognize that I have little control over that. What I can do, I will do and always have done is to minimize that impression. Watson wanted THAT to be her point, I’m sure, but her original off the cuff statement didn’t properly communicate it – nor did Dawkins’ replies help clarify it.
She communicated it perfectly. People weren’t listening.
I dunno now much clearer she could be. In fact, she was so good about it, I really can’t believe it generated all this.
I enjoyed almost every word of the article except the “quasi-libertarian”. I think it’s too loaded, and too many people who aren’t libertarian misunderstand a lot of it, and we get painted with too broad a brush anyway. And I mean this as a really small point.
Other than that, this is one of the best articles in response to this incident, and I hope something really good comes out of this and TAM.
Thanks, Shane. I should perhaps have said “quasi-political” because it seems to be an ideological point with some people that as long as they’re only throwing rhetorical elbows, nobody gets hurt. My phrasing may have been influence by a continuation of this whole argument that I’m mulling for a further post. But this one was already getting too long!
John,
Thanks for writing this. I’ve been following this story closely and my vision has gotten blurry from the eye-rolling.
I’ve been appalled at the number of people who step on Rebecca’s feelings in a stampede to defend the guy in the elevator. For a group of people who pride ourselves on rationality and critical analysis, we certainly get defensive when asked to be a little introspective.
Personally, I’ve learned a great deal; for example, I’ve never really tried to put myself in someone else’s shoes when I first encounter them. As a large (6’6″) person, I should be more careful when meeting someone for the first time — “am I too close? Am I politely making eye contact while talking or am I creepily staring? If we’re in a small space or non-public area, am I unconsciously blocking an exit?” It doesn’t seem like a huge shift in my paradigm or a case of male guilt. It seems like having good manners. The line between socially inept behavior and creepily stalkerish behavior is blurrier than I thought.
Anyway, your post was a clear, articulate summary of the whole wretched affair. Thank you.
Kudos to you, Christian. You’ve absolutely nailed the key to positive social interactions, regardless of gender. And thanks, also, for admitting that you’ve never tried this before. Maybe that will make it easier for some other people to step up and change their behavior.
There’s one thing in your article I kinda want to stress a bit. You write that propositioning a woman in an elevator (and other clumsy and creepy ways) is the wrong way to strike up a relationship with a woman.
Any guy who does that sorta thing isn’t interested in a relationship. They just wanna fuck!
I tend to agree with your interpretation. But just in the interest of trying to give the guy the benefit of the doubt and in not giving Rebecca’s critics the excuse to say I’m calling all such people would-be rapists, I’m backing away from it.
mutual fucking also doesn’t generally happen when one side is creeped out, so the comments hold up either way
This too:
“being socially awkward is not a permanent disability or incurable disease. We were all socially awkward/inept geeks at some point. We learned otherwise, developed social skills, and listened when we got advice on how to improve our skills in that arena. Nobody believes I was painfully shy and awkward when they meet me today. I so totally was. The first step to changing is to be teachable.”
We all started off in our geek-shells and had to break down those walls and learn to play nicely with the ‘real’ people. As a man I also had to learn about boundaries, limits, “accidental” sexism (if you’ll pardon the awful expression) and sexualisation. I hated getting my face rubbed in the mess when i was called out and I did get angry and defensive a few times. I was so very wrong and learned to listen to women who know about this than I (6’3″ tattooed and pierced male) possibly could, and the men who were further along the path of..um, enlightenment, than I was. I’m not perfect and I still fuck up – i think a lot of us do, but we admit our wrongs and strive to correct them. it’s called working for a better society.
Rebecca Watson did nothing wrong at all and this misogynistic outburst of filth has made me die inside a little bit.
Every time I’ve linked to a post on this debate on Twitter, I’ve had a mansplaining follower crawl out of the woodwork to explain how it’s all a storm in a teacup. This entire incident is about trivialising other people’s experiences from a point of personal ignorance. I find it incredibly frustrating and I only have to deal with it in small 15-minute bursts. I have absolutely no idea how women cope with it fulltime.
Which, of course, is exactly the point.
Congrats to Rebecca, John and everyone else who’s speaking up about it.
Thank your for providing a thoughtful and concise approach to this topic. I especially appreciate the clarity of your writing.
There is one aspect of this debate that is about to make me mental. Most of the pro-Watson camp frames the discussion as completely one-sided. If you feel that it is okay to proposition strangers in elevators then you are considered wrong (or worse) or you just don’t “get it.” I think it is entirely possible for someone to understand the point of view and just disagree with it.
Your advice is “be sensitive to others’ feelings and don’t make them pointlessly uncomfortable” is an admirable goal and I share it, but I don’t think it is useful advice. It depends on a common understanding of what makes people uncomfortable. People are different. I can’t know another person’s threshold of discomfort. I certainly would never be that guy in the elevator because I lack the gene that allows me to hit on people. But sometimes you meet people you want to extend a relationship be is casual, friendly, or sexual. At some point you have to take a step: offer your email or phone number, ask for their email or phone number, or ask for something more personal. Any one of these might make the other person feel uncomfortable, but it is not without a point. The whole point of these gatherings is to socialize. I don’t see how this is possible without some people getting uncomfortable some of the time.
Maybe elevator boy’s behavior crossed some line, but to me the line is far from clear. It it really all about elevators? How about the time of day? It seems to me an invitation to a hotel room is always very forward in spite of the context. There is much of interest to talk about there, but I don’t think the discussion is advanced by assuming there can be no intelligent, opposing point of view.
It’s about listening to a person (per Jaclyn above, ” I do think it’s worth mentioning that the person in question had just heard Rebecca Watson speaking at length about not wanting to be sexualized in the conference setting and then saying that she was tired and wanted to go sleep.”) and actually paying attention to that information. It’s about paying attention to social cues and having enough empathy (or willingness to have empathy) to learn to read other people’s body language. It’s about awareness that women are trained from childhood to be relatively polite and whatnot when addressed, no matter how uncomfortable the person addressing them may make them. And it’s about being able to put yourself into another person’s shoes: “I am a man and she is a woman and it is the middle of the night and we are totally alone in an elevator/parking garage/street… hmmm, is it *really* a good time to ask for her email address? Especially when I know that she’s probably assessing my threat level.”
(Because women in general are also trained from childhood to be aware of the moods and emotions of those around them. Women who have been in abusive situations are even more exquisitely tuned to this information.)
The people who want hard and fast rules of circumstance are the people who don’t want to bother to learn how to interact socially with women. It’s too much trouuuuble. Women, they’re so illogical! Not like men at all! How can anyone possibly ever learn how to figure out when a woman wants to be more social, they’re soooooo unreasonable!
Unless a person has some neurologic reason for being unable to read body language and social cues, refusing to learn and/or pay attention is lazy at best and dehumanizing at worst.
Thanks, Dave. I won’t claim to know everything that those on the pro-Watson side have written, but what I’ve seen hasn’t been trying to make the point that it’s inherently wrong to make advances to someone you find attractive, nor that all such efforts must be perfectly comfortable to be acceptable. As you said, there will always be certain elements of risk and some room for alarm, maybe on both sides.
But there’s a real difference, one that’s hard to capture in verbal descriptions, between predatory, callous attempts to hit on women without regard for their feelings and a more genuine, healthy desire to strike up a relationship. Men who don’t recognize or care about the difference at all are frightening. Even the men who seem to fall into the caring category can be scary because some predators know to wear those colors, or because what can seem like a simple romantic interest may be revealed as something more twisted. So it only makes sense for women to be careful—and for men who want real relationships to respect whatever boundaries the women want to establish. A big part of what turns women off is obvious disregard for the signals they are giving.
This is yet another reason why the rebellion against Rebecca’s comments is dumb in a way that I think reveals deeper misogyny. Rebecca gave men good advice, and they attacked her because it wasn’t what they wanted to hear.
So logical, so simple, so right on the money. Blowing things out of proportion on either side is going to eliminate the middle ground we need to maintain in an enlightened community. I have nothing but respect for Rebecca Watson and her efforts. She’s an inspiration to all radical free thinking people.
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This is honestly the first thing I’ve read about this, and while I generally agree with this article, if it accurately depicts what miss Watson and her critics actually said, I do have some nitpicks.
It’s poor form to assume that someone saying that Rebecca Watson is being unreasonable must be being misogynistic. There are other reasons for making such a mistake in reasoning that have nothing whatsoever to do with hating women. True, misogyny could be one reason for it, but it is far from the only one.
Also, it’s pointless to differentiate that staring at women is rude, as staring at people is rude. I’m a guy with very long hair and a striking style of dress, and people stare me often. Is it less rude because I’m ‘asking for it’ by having long hair? No, but I’ve learned to shrug it off. If someone else doesn’t want to have to shrug it off, that’s a fine thing to fight for.
Now as I said, I haven’t read a description of what happened, so if I’m off I’m sorry, but calling being stared at and having an awkward conversation is not ‘assault’ unless you mean ‘verbal assault’. Perhaps it was more than ‘awkward’ and conversations can be assault, but that it doesn’t sound like it raised to that level. A woman grabbing your hair and saying that you should be a stripper, that might be assault.
I can’t stress enough that I agree with the vast majority of this article and my criticisms are nitpicks.
No offense taken. I think that if you read a lot of the criticisms leveled at Rebecca (and other women), the misogyny in question will be more obvious. But I’m also saying that even if the criticisms don’t explicitly disdain women, the fact that they see Rebecca as somehow out of line for protesting treatment that anybody would be entitled to resent is itself a form of misogyny. I mean, I’ve spoken at conferences and been dead tired, heading back to my room late at night. I wouldn’t have welcomed anybody buttonholing me in the elevator at that moment. And I would surely have been even more bugged by it if the interaction had sexualized, stawkerish overtones. (Bear in mind, too, that Rebecca had specifically said at the conference that day that she disliked being treated this way.)
Honestly, why is any of this even in question?
I avoided using the word “assault” because I don’t think Rebecca or anyone else has claimed it was. I did write “accost,” and wasn’t happy with the word when I wrote it but couldn’t think of a better one at the time that captured the sense I wanted. The kind of unwanted interaction that Rebecca is one that can sound pretty harmless to a lot of men, but if you ask around among women, I think you’ll find that many of them find such “harmless” encounters to feel pretty threatening, and we need to respect that perception (if only because so many such encounters do spin in much more harmful directions).
Well I’ve read a lot more on this now, and I have to say that both ‘sides’ seem to be blowing it all out of proportion. It’s a lot of people who should know better making straw men out of other people’s statements.
No, disagreeing with Rebecca over the nature of her interaction with that guy is not by default a form of misogyny and I’m baffled as to why you’d say that. Can you explain? I can see ways that one could disagree with Rebecca on the matter that clearly indicate misogyny, but even if one were to say, “You shouldn’t have felt that way, it’s unreasonable,” while a pretty poor line of reasoning, doesn’t mean it’s misogyny. Misogyny means hatred of women. Even if we make the leap of logic and grant that the speaker does hate miss Watson, that doesn’t mean they hate women.
Honestly I think that is one of the most frustrating things about this entire kerfuffle is people, Richard and later Rebecca and her supporters presupposing that it’s a feminism issue in the first place. It isn’t. That’s a red herring. Sure, it’s become one NOW, but it was originally just an uncomfortable elevator ride.
It’s perfectly reasonable to question Rebecca’s perception of what happened. That’s being skeptical after all. So is offering alternate possible explanations. We should explore those in an open and reasonable manner; we should not be accusing people of being a bunch of woman haters and attention whores.
I think I answered your question in my post and in some of my other reply to comments, but I don’t mind saying it again for the sake of clarity: Rebecca’s original complaint and her suggestion that men shouldn’t hit on women like that were perfectly reasonable, clear and moderate. And yet large numbers of people, primarily men, have jumped on what she said and accused her of overreacting, being stridently feminist, being anti-male, and putting some unreasonable burden of restraint and suspicion on men. Those critics were the ones who forced her comments into that anti-male/feminist framework, and I don’t believe that any man who had made a similar complaint would have elicited the same response. Moreover, even if we charitably posit that Rebecca was just innocently misunderstood in the first place, she (and others) have restated and re-explained her none-too-complicated point over and over, and yet the misinterpretation continues. Misunderstanding is one thing, but persistent misunderstanding is suspicious, and in my experience, it usually signals that someone doesn’t really want to get it. The best explanation, I think is misogyny among a lot of people who don’t think of themselves as misogynists.
Misogyny isn’t the only possible explanation. It’s possible, for example, that those legions of commenters have temporarily and selectively become too stupid to understand human language while discussing the subject. But I think I’ll stick with unacknowledged misogyny.
It’s admirable that you want to exercise your skepticism over Rebecca’s perception of what happened to her, and I look forward to your dispassionate and empirical analysis of it. But let me help your investigation along by reminding you that all those people I’m calling misogynists weren’t in the elevator with her. They’re just a lot of people reacting badly to a woman who dared to criticize the actions of men.
Oh my, you are digging a big hole for yourself just like dear Rebecca.
You say “Those critics were the ones who forced her comments into that anti-male/feminist framework”.
Nobody forced her to do anything, she didn’t have to respond, just like the guy in the elevator didn’t force her to do anything. Often the more radical people amongst us construct these ideologies in our head about everyday events that suit our political meanings no matter how naive, innocent or harmless that event was.
Has it ever crossed your mind that some women like the unconventional “predatory” approach from guys as to that group of women perhaps it suggests confidence and daring rather than creepiness and pervsion? The reality is Rebecca and your good self, just like me and anybody else cannot speak for all women and cannot offer advice to all men about how to conduct themselves when approaching women.
Oftentimes, the reality is, the creepiness of the encounter is down to how physically attracted you are to the other, the less you are, the more creepy yet of course I acknowledge that having the encounter take place within the narrow confines of an elevator only exacerbates the perceived creepiness in Rebecca’s head.
But the reaction to all this is rather depressing on the one hand (a man asked hit on a woman in an elevator, she was uncomfortable and the internet goes nuts – how unremarkable we have become) and rather uplifting (not a pun) on the other hand (the Western feminazi pseudo-intellecuals and their lapdog white knighters have now so little worthy cause to fight that this is all they can get their knickers knotted about – surely progress?)
Of course the typical strategy of this group is to smear anybody who doesn’t instantly jump on their man-hating bandwagon, labelling them misogynist chauvinist pigs, knowing full well that contemporary societal forces will tend to side with them and by sympathetic – the reality is that they are overplaying this card and the backlash to feminist thinking is gathering force (despite the many worthy causes that genuine feminists still must fight). Blogs like this accusing those who are critical of Rebecca of being misogynist are just another cog in that wheel of that bloated broken-down bandwagon that rides roughshod over old-fashioned notions of truth, justice and morality in the name of APPEARING TO BE down with the cool kids.
The last thing any player/ladies man type guy is going to do is to take any notice of what the likes of Rebecca think. This all one giant circle jerk between academics and bloggers who perhaps aren’t getting enough action and who overthink everything.
Nobody cares Rebecca – yes Dawkins had a little rant but maybe he was bored. I know I am.
A guy asked you if you wanted to go back for coffee when you were in elevator, you and your cronies were freaked out by this and all the rest of us are either laughing at you or getting on with our lives. Guess what, despite your little incident, the world didn’t end but if you and your ilk continue to smear and spread your poisionous misandrist propoganda it just might end as no guy will likely even look in a girl’s diection for fear of upsetting some delicate sensibility that is unique to your particualar species of offense-chaser.
However that’s not likely, your kind are thankfully so think on the ground as to be almost insignificant and the guy chases girl scenario will continue to play itself out throughout this great world of ours while your kind sits inside writing angry blogs and constructing persecution complexes as they stare from their ivory towers at the lovers passing them in the streets below
You are mistaken, Nathan.
When a strange man follows you out of the hotel bar in to the elevator at 4am and asks you to his room he is forcing you to interact with him whether you like it or not.
That is creepy stalker d00d behavior and creepy talker d00d behavior is raw misogyny.
I do believe that you’re falling into the ‘excluded middle’ fallacy, and lumping together many more people with the actual misogynists. Most of the criticisms of Rebecca I’ve read, many from women as if that were supposed to matter, have nothing to do with hating women. Nor do they have anything to do with the actual elevator event or her perception of it as creepy. While there are several different criticisms, the one that seemed to get Rebecca to react in a very bad manner was the assumption that making a pass at a woman is objectifying or belittling a woman’s intellect. Now Rebecca didn’t actually say that women should feel that way by a pass, but that she does. Other women disagreed and were pilloried because of it. That’s wrong, and a difference of opinion. Not misogyny.
That the people must not have understood the English language or were misogynists is far less likely than say, you misunderstanding what some people are actually saying and lumping them in with the wackos making rape comments. That you believe it’s about a woman being dismissed for daring to criticize the actions of a man seems to indicate that while you perfectly understand Rebecca’s side, you have made little attempt to understand the people in the middle criticizing both her and Richard. Don’t worry, his supporters are making the exact same mistake for almost the exact same reasons.
Any man who made this complaint would have just been laughed at and I think you know that. It wouldn’t have been more fair for him as he wouldn’t have even had passionate feminists followers standing up for him. (Side note, I consider myself a feminists.)
Basically my point is that many of the critics aren’t misunderstanding what she said, agree with some of her points, but disagree with a few of the underlying premises. Allison Smith said it well over at the Skeptoid blog, http://skeptoid.com/blog/2011/07/06/take-back-the-elevator/#more-861 and some of Rebecca’s other critics have said similar things just to be literally lumped in with people making rape threats. Hasn’t happened to Allison yet, but I’m betting it does sooner rather than later. Dawkins was out of line, and deserves a lot of criticism too, but I don’t lump his reasonable critics on this issue in with those misandgrists who have also been sending him threats. By the way, he gets hate mail that threatens him with rape as well as it turns out.
‘It must be they hate women’ is a decidedly skeptical conclusion. You can make up all the jokes you want about what other improbable things it could be, but you do so only by ignoring that there is well thought out and reasonable criticism out there as well.
Allison does make some perfectly reasonable points, and I would credit her with actually seeming to understand many (though not all) of Rebecca’s arguments. She sees the important underlying lesson that people should be sensitive to one another’s feelings and not thrust themselves on others indiscriminately—a lesson that doesn’t only have to apply to men hitting on women.
On the other hand, though she sounds very reasonable, Allison does put herself in the position of judging Rebecca’s experience and saying she overreacted, which I don’t think she’s in a position to do. She brushes off whatever concerns Rebecca had about the possibility of rape by insisting that they don’t matter because no rape was attempted. So at the very least, Allison is not especially supportive of the legitimacy of another woman’s point of view.
Allison seems to prefer to leave sexual politics out of the discussion, which is a mistake, I believe. That may sound odd because I, too, made the point that the principle of showing consideration for others’ feelings didn’t have to be cast in terms of men being considerate of women. Here’s the difference, though. I framed the discussion that way because putting it terms of the sexes only seemed to be hardening people’s unwillingness to get Rebecca’s point. That there is a gender-free way to think about the problem doesn’t mean that women don’t have special problems of this kind with men. Allison seems to be more interested in skipping away from those problems, which I don’t think is helpful in solving them.
(I’m not sure I understand what Allison is saying about Rebecca, Dawkins and how rape came to be brought explicitly into the discussion. She seems to see manipulativeness and “intellectual dishonesty” at work. I don’t think so. The reason Rebecca mentioned that she and Dawkins had previously been on a panel together during which she spoke about rape, I think, was because it showed they had a personal history. And so for him then to write that her experience was trivial because she hadn’t been raped felt all the more hurtful.)
So, does that make Allison a misogynist? I don’t know. But I’m afraid that—exactly as Allison predicted—I do think she’s “part of the problem” because, even with the best of intentions, she ends up undermining the efforts by other women to get their problems and points of view taken seriously. What’s a better word for that?
Ah, the “I’m not excluding the middle, you are” rebuttal. This is going well.
Can you show me where Rebecca has said that approaching a woman because you’re interested in her is intrinsically objectifying? Because, knowing Rebecca, I don’t think she did. I’m sure that she’d consider trying to hit on a woman without regard for her as a person to be objectifying (because it is), and she might have used a term like “hitting on” or “making a pass at” as a label for that objectifying subset of advances. But I’m quite sure that distinction exists for her because she has said as much, and I’ve no doubt that it would infuriate her for people to accuse her of failing to see the difference.
You say that most of the criticisms you’re seeing don’t concern what happened in the elevator or her perception of it as creepy. Okay. So that leaves… criticisms of what she said, right? So here is the entirety of what she said in her video post, triggering the response:
That’s it. So show me where in those sentences is good cause to accuse her of overreacting, or going off on a feminist tirade, or overgeneralizing about men? Where is there good cause to question her motives? It isn’t there. It exists only in the minds of the people who made those attacks on her, who attributed her “misbehavior” to her being (a) an oversensitive woman, (b) a humorless feminist or (c) both.
And maybe I would have a better opinion of those critics, too, if they didn’t so often use their distaste for Rebecca and what they think she represents as an excuse to dismiss her suggestion that men should be more attentive to women’s feelings, and not just hit on them as sex objects.
So forgive me, but I think I’m going to stick with my misogyny explanation for now. I’m sure it’s not a perfect fit for all her critics, just as I’m sure there were probably some people who genuinely opposed civil rights because of their deep, heartfelt commitment to states’ rights, and not racism. But sometimes people are judged by the company they keep.
The way you construct it, we have to absolutely accept Rebecca’s view of the interaction because we weren’t there. Apply that same logic to a UFO encounter. Don’t like that one so much huh? Besides, Rebecca didn’t express any concerns about rape. Her objection was that she had just said she doesn’t like people making a pass at her at the talk earlier that day, and doing so in an elevator was creepy. The rape thing came up latter by supports to silence dissent from people who don’t believe such interaction is creepy.
It doesn’t make any logical sense anyway to believe that because he made a pass at her, it made her more afraid of being raped. Would rape have been less likely if he had remained silent? Of course not.
Her personal experience IS trivial next to those who have actually been raped. That part of Dawkins point is not silly, the implication that people should shut up because of it is. That’s like saying I shouldn’t complain about being smacked in the face because I could have been kicked in the nuts.
No, Allison is not a misogynist even if she did disagree with their problems and points of view. Misogyny isn’t ‘disagreeing with a woman’. Your statement presupposes that the women in question should have this point of view taken for granted. That’s not true. You are part of the problem, I’d argue, because you are trivializing the term ‘misogyny’ to such a degree that it’s hard to take the term seriously. You damage the cause of feminism by it’s misapplication. You are undermining Allison’s effort to get her, and other women’s, point of view taken seriously. By your own definition you are engaged in misogyny.
By the way, a better term for that is ‘engaging in discussion,’ or, ‘having a different point of view.’
Rebecca stated at the conference the day of the elevator thing that the reason she doesn’t like people making passes at her when she is at conferences is that sexualizes and makes her feel less professional. Not intrinsically, but to her. A fine point. However, it makes your challenge to find it in that sentence nonsensical.
Her over reacting came after people disagreed, and was directed mostly at a few female bloggers. As for them ’so often’ dismissing Rebecca and being distasteful of her, some of them WERE HER SUPPORTERS until recently. This is what I mean by you engaging in the excluded middle fallacy; if you don’t totally support Rebecca and her supporters, you’re way over there on the rape threat, misogyny, Rebecca hating side. That’s not the case.
Now trying to compare this to civil rights opponents is distasteful, and your blatant attempt to smear critics by guilt by association attacks is wrong. Your binary thinking, and unwilliness to consider other options, is unbecoming to a skeptic. There is a valuable discussion to be had about these issues, but not when you dismiss and straw man so readily.
If your perspective on this issue has degenerated to the point that I’m supposed to take seriously your contention that Rebecca’s concerns had no more intrinsic credibility than a UFO sighting, then it’s pointless to argue this with you further.
Your position is tenuous indeed if you can’t take someone pointing out the flaw in your logic. Bowing out with a straw man is an even greater indicator that you’re not using good critical reasoning.
I didn’t say, nor did I imply, that Rebecca’s report had the credibility of a UFO report, but that questioning and examining what actually happened with an event cannot be based solely on an anecdote. The UFO example is to show why this is the case, not that they are similar in reliability.
Besides, what happened in that elevator is not even comparable in importance to the actual issues raised in discussion since, or Rebecca’s and Dawkins reactions to it.
It’s on the issues we are closest to that skepticism is most warned. Turn that critical reasoning on your own arguments.
What I find is interesting is that you, a man, are writing this, and you get “yes, that’s a clear way of putting it” and a few discussions about niggles that people have. Ok, no problems, really.
The numerous women who have written about this — and I admit I haven’t read all of them, but I’ve read a few now — have also put across the point clearly and plainly as far as I can see. And none of them have said anything that even vaguely resembles UGH HE WAS A RAPIST, though it has occasionally been centered around the fact that, yes, many women do gauge any situation in the awareness of the fact that they can be raped, which is understandable in light of the fact that many women are raped, and this is why it is “creepy.” And in response to this, there are the “yes, that was very clearly put” posts, and there are the niggles about “but I don’t agree with this part” and then…then there are the numerous (like 1 out of every 3 or more in some blogs) comments about how feminists all just hate men, men are the real victims, and the blogger and/or RW are too fugly for anyone to want to f*** them anyhow so what are they complaining about, and all the other delightful little misogynies.
Fascinating how the composition of responses change per the same message from different genders, eh?
And yet, the very same men issuing these responses don’t think it’s right or fair for so many women to feel that that there is a pervasive air of sexism aimed to the detriment of women.
*sigh*
I think that this cannot be overstated.
Maybe the lesson to take from this is that feminist men need to speak publicly when stuff like this happens, because there is an off chance that men who do not consider themselves feminists might listen to them.
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A very good principle.
But much of the blogospheric conversation around this incident has suggested that lots of people think there is some principled reason to dismiss Watson’s description of her own feelings (and other women’s descriptions of theirs, too). It’s hard to tell if the point they are trying to make in so doing is that rational folks dismiss feelings as not real things in the world (except lordy, their own feelings of disgruntlement that they could be regarded as even a potential rapist seem real enough). Or that other people’s feelings are not real things in the world (since one cannot have direct empirical evidence of them but must instead rely on those people’s testimony about them).
Or, perhaps, that women are not entitled to basic human decency because they are not regarded as fully human.
At any rate, thanks for your lucid post on the whole thing.
What kills me about all this is when you watch the video… All she says is ‘don’t do that.’ She didn’t say: “your an ass for doing that.” She didn’t say: “I hate you for doing that.” She didn’t even say: “I’ll never sleep with you for doing that.” She made a simple, straight-forward request. Don’t corner her when you hit on her. Don’t make her feel unsafe. You literally have to be LOOKING for offense to intemperate what she said as castrating or ‘man stomping’ in any way. I’m really appalled at these self-appointed guardians of my gender.
Right. And yet Rebecca is somehow blamed for blowing this matter out of proportion, as though mentioning it in those measured terms in her posted video was wildly inflammatory.
Actually it was, her fault. This would’ve stayed as a tiny blogosphere disagreement but RW used her keynote speech at the CFI conference to call out small female undergrad bloggers that disagreedd with her and basically calling them brainwashed gender traitors. So that’s why its gotten so big. And it doesn’t look like you’ve noticed but elevator guy’s transgression keeps getting bigger first it was awkward sexualization, then its was sexual objectifcation, then it was potential sexual assault according to Phil Plait.
Nice try at changing the subject, but no. Any perusal of the comments critical of Rebecca—and you can start with those of Dawkins, unfortunately—shows that most of them involve dismissals of Rebecca’s actual experience, not of her choice of venue in speaking out about it. And even if one thinks that there was something immoderate in how Rebecca expressed herself (and I don’t), how does that justify the undisguised contempt for women and their perspectives that has rolled out in response? You say it was “her fault.” Was it “her fault” that Dawkins trivializes the concerns of women menaced in elevators? Was it “her fault” that “Dave” a few comments below thought he should air out the moth-eaten dirty socks that pass for his opinions?
no, the transgression isn’t getting bigger; the explanations of “creepy” are getting less subtle, because the more subtle ones are failing
Word.
I fail to see anti-feminism more than I just see a lot of Nerd Angst being expressed over this situation.
A number of the comments critical of Rebecca or others taking her side have explicitly mentioned feminism.
Rebecca is now getting this:
RT @echothirteen: If I run into Rebecca Watson in an elevator at #TAM9 next week I’m totally copping a feel.
Some people are telling her it’s ‘just a joke’, deal with it.
Just lovely.
And thus they prove our point.
woman are the majority and have had the vote for almost 100 years and what have they achieved. they are the MAJORITY. nuff said about feminism. look at the voting stats.
the double standard of what is acceptable for woman to do and men not to do is obvious and embarrassing.
Feminine nature is full of BULLSHIT. nightclubs, bars and “dating” are all feminine environments.the rules are controlled and set by women. why men even submit themselves to this is a real mystery. this is the Information Age not the Boredom Age that lead to women being the best form of entertainment for men. real women = bad porn. marriage is anther form of feminine bullshit controlled by women and for their benefit.
women dont even LOVE men anyway. they just want a protector.a father with benefits.at least a man thinks about what holding and protecting a woman is like. they dream of what theyll buy and how theyll make other women jealous. by the time they are 30 and might be slightly cool their looks are average and anything younger is just that Bimbo act. but theyre all looking for “A REAL MAN”. what does that mean exactly??? oh, and they like the bad boy…lol
women are irrational and men dont need that bullshit. and you know what, if you have a penis then you are the prize, you are the beautiful one and the one who is being chased. leave them to the mirror and their vampires.
I hope you’re trolling, because if you are not I feel bad for you. Your head sounds like an awfully terrible place to live.
trolling? this whole nonsense about dawkins seems like a big troll IMO.
but you nicely dismissed everything i said so whatever.
This is your conclusion:
“women are irrational and men dont need that bullshit”
Some sample claims and how you support them:
“woman are the majority and have had the vote for almost 100 years and what have they achieved.”
“the double standard of what is acceptable for woman to do and men not to do is obvious and embarrassing. ”
“Feminine nature is full of BULLSHIT. nightclubs, bars and “dating” are all feminine environments.the rules are controlled and set by women. why men even submit themselves to this is a real mystery. this is the Information Age not the Boredom Age that lead to women being the best form of entertainment for men.
“real women = bad porn.”
Your argument isn’t rational, and you do not present any evidence except for your own preconceived notions about how the world works. I do not think I will change you, because you’re already too far gone.
As I said before, I hope you’re trolling, because if you are not I feel bad for you. Your head sounds like an awfully terrible place to live.
Preconceived? thats not correct.
not trolling.
inter gender interactions are a feminine environment where men must adopt a different vibe than if it were only men. thats BULLSHIT to me.that goes for all the “dating” environments like clubs, bars etc.
thats just a stage, meat market for women to dress up in costume clothing and have a big pretend.and the men humor them. women put on clown paint to make men desire them sexually but dont approach any men they like. oh no. traditional roles here please. too scary. cant dismiss the guys as being “intimidated” in that situation.
chick flicks,romcoms, sitcoms?? women build their dreams from FAKE LIFE. they think that shits real. white dress(for virgins) in a church (women dont believe that shit) wearing a diamond(jewelry WTF). bridezilla $70B wedding industry. these are corporate ideals that women adopt as “their dream”. men play along, men dont care about that shit.
look at advertising aimed at women. its an INSULT to them. worse than childrens adverts IMO. theyll buy anything as long as the corporations tell them its “girly”. thats why theres all these pink versions of things.
men like porn. before porn they turned to real women for porn. now they get the real porn. not me saying that. real sex isnt about lusty excitment anymore. read The Porn Myth article.
read about japanese grass eating men.they just couldnt be bothered. why is that?30% of the population. 20% in france, i think its 25% in USA. its just a con. waste of time in the Information Age. wikipedia contributers 14% women.
women in USA are the voting majority. hillary is the wife of a pres. who else.
read The Myth of Male Power. check out ross jefferies and the Game/mystery method etc.
why arent women cool? they dont like things. men/boys LOVE things. women dont really have any passions.
watch sex and the city. the characters except samantha are horrible humans. i think its a satire written by men and women dont get it.
i never set out to prove women are irrational. but erm….shoes n bags.they care about engagement rings.
Well, your evident respect and admiration for women certainly adds to the credibility of your argument. Thanks for stopping by.
Did you attend this conference, Dave?
didnt attend. just saw the headline condemning dawkins for nothing and got really fucking annoyed…
the double standards are bearable until they start trying to destroy the reputation of a really great person.
although my attitude is a bit exaggerated i do believe what im saying is true…
PZ Myers wrote the following in an attempt to explain the situation to Dawkins:
Given that Dawkins hasn’t responded he may still not get it. After hearing Rebecca’s own account of what took place (starts at about 4:30) it’s clear that she wasn’t personally afraid, but it was both creepy and extremely awkward. So I’m not sure the example PZ used is “exactly analogous” like he said. It would be closer if the persistent fan was a large, burly, and angry drunk with rancid garlic breath. There’s always an undercurrent of fear in these situations for women, and I imagine it would also make them feel very grossed out. Seriously guys, don’t do it.
The “come to my room” man, after possible hours of drinkng & not enough concern for Ms. Watson to have listened/cared to her request “not be sexualized” by men in his particular group at that particular event that particular evening, could very well have been oblivious, enraged, or coercive if she had responded in any of the sarcastic, dismissive, or rude ways a lone man might respond. Even a light-hearted humorous response can set off insults or a tirade from a guy who thinks a woman, especially a free-thinking woman, being alone, means she is available, if she does not decline with the respect & regret he feels he is due.
Clearly she handled the actual situation perfectly. The discussion highlights tho, what an accomplishment that was.
^Ah, and here we have the angry MRA. I suppose it was only a matter of time, after all. @drhomeskooled, are you seeing the antifeminism yet?
I’m sorry that you missed the point that many commentators have been making. I will try again in a different way:
a) Your feelings are not my problem.
b) Being considerate of each other should work both ways.
In this specific situation, if I talk to you in an elevator at 4 a.m. or any other place or time that makes you feel uncomfortablte, tell me, then and there and don’t make a public blog complaint later on. That is at least as inappropriate.
Yes, this is misandry. How many here even know that word without looking it up? There’s your cultural bias staring you right in the face.
I’m a big fan of equal rights. But with equal rights come equal responsibilities. You can be treated like weak, soft, precious little things or you can be treated like equals – pick one and stick with it. Don’t expect to be treated equally and with special care at the same time.
And that is the principle we are defending: Not everything we do is “hitting on you”, and not every hitting on you is by definition offensive, and not every time you feel uncomfortable it is the fault of whoever happens to be there. Occasion and causality are not the same thing. If you feel uncomfortable because a man talked to you at 4 a.m. in an elevator, there is a whole lot going on in the background causing your discomfort. Social norms, irrational fears, role- and gender-based assumptions – most of those are not the man’s fault, and especially if you are in a foreign country like Rebecca was some of them may be different for the other party. In his culture or with his background, he may be evaluating the situation differently.
How about you give this the same consideration that you request for your feelings?
Thanks for writing in as an example of the “quasi-libertarian” strain of person attacking Rebecca. I knew it was only a matter of time before one got here.
I didn’t miss your point. I’m rejecting it as half-baked, just like your false equivalence between Rebecca complaining about an anonymous, unidentified man in a blog post and Rebecca being in a situation that carried a potential for physical assault. I’m also tossing out your false dichotomy that women must be treated either as equals or “weak, soft, precious little things” because I don’t see acknowledging people’s needs in particular situations as a reason to discount their equality. With fans of equal rights like you….
You are glossing past the reality that women who feel trapped in elevators with potentially threatening men often don’t feel they can safely speak up for themselves by definition. The asymmetry of that reality may offend your preference for a free and open exchange of ideas but it’s true anyway.
You can hide behind the credo “Your feelings are not my problem,” but if you are looking to pick up a woman, her feelings damn well ought to be your problem because you’re trying to form a relationship with her and relationships involve feelings. (Why do I even have to tell you this—are you seven?) And if you’re hitting on her without regard for her feelings, then you’re treating her as a sexual appliance. Do you see why this is misogynistic?
“Not everything we do is “hitting on you”, and not every hitting on you is by definition offensive, and not every time you feel uncomfortable it is the fault of whoever happens to be there.” None of those was a complaint Rebecca made. She complained about a particular instance of somebody hitting on her, in which it was offensive because she had publicly announced that she didn’t like being sexualized at a conferences and in which it was the guy’s fault because he didn’t have to pursue his interest in her under those obviously dubious circumstances. Surely you believe people are answerable for their actions. Rebecca held him to account for his—mildly. Look at all the male pouting that followed. Who’s the “weak, soft, precious little thing” now?
I asked whether men who hit on women indiscriminately were defending the principle that their desire for sex trumped any feelings that women might have to be left alone. Nothing in your answer persuades me otherwise.
“a) Your feelings are not my problem.
b) Being considerate of each other should work both ways.”
These two are logically contradictory.
I am assuming that you take “being considerate of each other should work both ways” to imply we should be considerate of each other.
Being considerate necessarily requires taking into account someone’s feelings. Since you’ve said being considerate works both ways other people’s feelings must be your problem or you cannot be considerate.
There are some reasonable points here. Having read a lot of the threads on this, no one is going back to Rebecca Watson’s original description of the encounter and pointing out the inconsistencies.
1. The guy is described by many as a “complete stranger”, but he was evidently at the bar with Watson and a number of other sociable skeptics. Until 4 a.m. 4-freakin’ a.m.! Presumably this means people were in a good mood and having a good time.
2. At a bar = drinking. Quite possibly both him, her, and others. It is beyond obvious that drinking never justifies assault, douchbaggery, etc. But making an apparently somewhat awkward pass at someone? Hell, that’s a large part of what drinking is *for*.
3. A lot of people are treating this as if a total stranger cornered a woman in a scary building immediately after she gave a lecture saying how she didn’t want to be propositioned. What seems to have actually happened is that Watson gave a lecture, which Elevator Guy may or may not have seen, and which in any case was not likely completely about No One Hit On Me Ever Please. This was then followed by 8-12 hours of evening/late night socializing / chatting / drinking at a bar at which both Watson and Elevator Guy were present. According to multiple reports the whole group broke up around 4 am, which is a perfectly reasonable time for that to happen — actually that late time indicates it was a pretty damn awesome social engagement, and was almost certainly *not* entirely devoted to the topic of how Watson wasn’t interested in being hit upon.
When the social event broke up, ALL guests at that hotel, both Elevator Guy and Watson, had to use the elevators to get back to their rooms. In *that specific situation*, it’s not *completely* obvious that Elevator Guy’s actions were beyond the pale.
Whatever happened to the philosophy of “Make awkward sexual advances, not war?” Elevator Guy asked nicely and took no for an answer like a moral person should. Until the world changes from the current default — that men are more-or-less required to initiate romantic discussions and women more-or-less sit back and shoot most of them down — it’s not worth making a huge issue out of it. Guys can try never being forward at all for fear of offending women or getting shot down, but I tried this ultra-nice strategy for a long time and lonliness was the result, and not a few women giving me the advice “you need to become more confident, women like confident men.” Things have been better since I realized being forward and getting shot down is just part of the rules of the dating game. Unless men become psychic or women start wearing electronic signs that flash “interested” vs. “not interested” at everyone, this kind of thing will go on. Yes, obviously, women give men signals of various sorts, but often the signal-to-noise ratio is pretty low. Miscommunications are inevitable. They are day-to-day life, not worth biting someone’s head off over. Save the effort and the invective for actual crimes, or at least actual creepiness that all reasonable observers *taking into account the context* would agree to be creepy.
GGG, I have to admit it: I’m stumped. You’re probably a perfectly decent, reasonable person most of the time, but here you’re working way too hard to undercut Rebecca’s reported experience that this was an unwanted, intrusive encounter under circumstances that large numbers of women have verified—over and over again—are indeed generally bad for making an advance. And all in service to downplaying the seriousness of the incident and the usefulness of the “don’t do this” advice Rebecca gave.
So I have to ask: your many likely good qualities notwithstanding, why are you aligning yourself with insensitivity and misogyny?
To John Rennie — I used to share your view, I really did, and so I was super-careful to never do anything that might potentially be interpreted as an inappropriate advance. And I almost never hit on anyone since there never seemed to be the perfect time when it was “clear” that it was desired. Eventually the singleness got to me and I started talking to a lot of female friends — liberal, academic female friends, mind you. Amongst the lessons I learned:
-on average women expect men to make the first move
-some women are good at sending clear signals, but many aren’t, so
-if you don’t know, then ask. They will probably say no, end of story, no big deal, but if they say yes, well then, everyone benefits. Basically, awkward advances are annoying if the woman doesn’t like the guy, and are endearing if she does, and guys will rarely know for sure ahead of time since women usually don’t make the first move, so if you’re interested, you say so and takes your chances.
None of this is stuff you will hear from Official Spokeswomen of (a particularly rigid and ideological version of) Feminism, but talk to actual 20-something women on the dating scene, then you sure will.
So anyway, none of the above means it’s automatically OK to proposition anyone at any time, or to stalk someone late at night and corner them in an elevator. But after drinking in the bar with them from 10 pm to 4am, when you both are staying in the same hotel, the group breaks up at the same time, and everyone who’s not on the 1st floor has to use the elevators? It’s not clear-cut, at all.
So I think a lot of this debate is between people who are currently in the dating scene and remember the emotions and awkwardness and miscommunications — and happy accidents — that happen, vs. people that have been out of it for a long time and think about dating in the abstract, as if the dating scene were a business or academic setting or something.
None of it is worth as much attention as it has gotten, nor the over-reactions, but a lot of people seem to think the other side isn’t getting something important, thus we might as well exchange views about it.
Thanks for sharing those insights from the Super Secret Circle of Real Women® so that the rest of us won’t make the mistake of listening to women with a different point of view. It’s interesting to hear that those Real Women are so open and forgiving of situations that could leave them vulnerable to assault. —You did survey them on this specific case, right? This isn’t just you interpreting what they would have said? Because it would just be embarrassing if you were boastfully misrepresenting what women actually think.
Help me with this: are you suggesting that Rebecca Watson doesn’t know what it’s like to be a young person on the dating scene but Richard Dawkins does?
Also, is it safe to say that you wouldn’t have any disagreement with Rebecca’s recommendation (“Guys, don’t hit on women you don’t know if you’re alone with them in an elevator at 4 a.m. because it seems creepy”) if she had only had the sense to add, “—unless we’ve all been drinking someplace or something, in which case, who knows, ammirite?”
“Also, is it safe to say that you wouldn’t have any disagreement with Rebecca’s recommendation (“Guys, don’t hit on women you don’t know if you’re alone with them in an elevator at 4 a.m. because it seems creepy”) if she had only had the sense to add, “—unless we’ve all been drinking someplace or something, in which case, who knows, ammirite?””
Well, basically, yes. Some acknowledgment that the situation might have had something to do with the elevator proposal would have gone a long ways towards heading off the ****storm that followed. E.g. “I know atheist meetings are social events as well as intellectual ones, I know we’d been drinking and socializing until the wee hours of the morning, I know that the lecture I gave was many many hours before and was on a number of topics, I know ElevatorGuy might have been tipsy, so I understand how it might have seemed like a good idea to him. No harm no foul and all, but just a word to the wise, it would be better if men at atheist conferences saved their romantic proposals only for situations where they are getting clear positive signals; the main purpose of atheist meetings is not to provide a dating scene.”
Or something. Hindsight is 20/20 and all.
@infidel
“Some acknowledgment that the situation might have had something to do with the elevator proposal would have gone a long ways towards heading off the ****storm that followed.”
No, it wouldn’t have. It does not get any milder than the rebuke Rebecca Watson gave the awkward elevator guy or any more excessive than the responses from the primarily male commenters. For a skewed sample, look at the comments on the youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=uKHwduG1Frk
Yes they are comments on a video hosted on Youtube. Nobody invested any time or effort in them. But watch the video and read the responses and tell me again that Rebecca Watson is the person in this situation who needs to demonstrate greater rationality or perspective.
The elevator incident is one woman being creeped out by a doofy man being doofy. The excessiveness of the response, primarily by men is a far more interesting phenomenon that warrants much closer attention.
GGG, I think the key is looking at the context. sure there are women who might pick a stranger, hangeron or stalker to have sex with in his hotel room, but they usually charge, have bodyguards/entourages to make sure they make it out okay. If it’s a blinded by the light of your intellect there would be a conversation first, maybe even an exchange of names–and the key woould be EXCHANGE.
If thrilled & aroused by your sensitivity /vibe/eyes more often than not they are surprisingly direct or clearly flirtatious about their intentions/attractions.
I’m afraid you have not watched RW’s vlog or read her response, because they show an open, direct, funny, person who is constantly examining/gently poking fun at herself, not a person playing games with guys.
GGG,
That was part of what I did not get either. If this d00d stayed in the bar drinking coffee for over two hours after they stopped serving drinks, why did he make no effort to speak to her in all that time. Why wait till she announced she was going to bed and then follow her in to the elevator and the first thing he says to her is to ask her to come to his room.
That is creepy stalker d00d behavior.
Tom, to tell you I have to know you well enough to know your behavior, reactions, and tolerance for not getting the response you are asking for. If we don’t have past experience and I don’t know your girlfriend/boyfriend/criminal record/medications, I have to trust an incredibly brief impression of how you move, talk, act in guessing how you might respond.
Or they’ve experienced the kindest most gentle no as the rejection of a (insert your 4 or five letter woman -specific insult here).
I am actually very very good at this, but at 4 in the morning and/or after a couple of drinks it’s more of an effort than usual. And even when I’ve thought I “knew” how the person would respond to what I thought was a spontaneous and/or misinterpreting gambit(kissing me , touching me, propsitions when alone in a small space—usually when I didn’t really pay attention to the fact that he followed me into the room) they haven’t just politely accepted the mildest response, like a surprised look and have interpreted any friendly neutral response as that I really do want to continue.
I’m not a big fan of being hypersensitive: I think it’s often a good idea to provoke and offend. It’s the best way to stimulate change.
But provocation has to have a purpose. It should be done as criticism, or as protest, or to rally like-thinking people together. There is a time and place for being respectful, and for being assertively controversial.
Unfortunately, when you’re trying to get the attention and interest of a person you’d like to talk with one-on-one, that’s when sensitivity to the other person’s desires is demanded. There’s a necessary kind of tactical awareness one has to use in social situations. A blanket “always be nice” or “always be harsh” commandment is never going to work.
Well said, thank you.
“be sensitive to others’ feelings and don’t make them pointlessly uncomfortable”
Yes that’s the principle. But I don’t think the outrage actually covers this. Watson herself has proven to not be particularly concerned with the feelings of people who she disagrees with. She called a female student who had some defense for the elevator guy as peddling in anti-women rhetoric and claimed she conjured up an impression that she would not stand up for other women. That that was just at best an extreme characterization of what that other person actually articulated didn’t matter, nor did it matter that the criticism was voiced as part of a keynote in front of other students.
Reality is that only some people’s feelings matter but if we are honest all people’s feelings should matter. But many feelings are still unspeakable in our society.
Does that mean that Rebecca Watson didn’t receive plenty of sexist backlash. Yes she has. And that needs to be called out. But I really wish that was the end of the story.
@PZ: A guy asking a woman clearly has a purpose. And it’s doubtful that the guy wanted to provoke. Dawkins hardly provoked anything by having the view that this isn’t an issue. He is wrong in my view, but it’s a small wrong, one that doesn’t warrant his career be smeared the way it is right now. But I guess that’s fair game. Dawkins’ feelings totally ignorable so that the male white rich privileged guy can be toppled. Hmm…
Richard Dawkins’ career cannot be smeared by a comment on a blog.
It’s no longer just a comment on a blog post. WSJ, Atlantic, … sure a few news articles won’t do it either, but if this keeps going like it has some people will take damage, Rebecca and Richard likely first in line, but the skeptic community also up for quite a bit of that too.
But yeah let’s keep it up with the letter-writing campaigns of rape-victims who claim that Richard has slighted them, if it is so harmless. Not that it actually is relevant to what Richard and Rebecca really were articulating.
Dawkins comments on the blog were inappropriate because they were not really all that well thought out. The “Muslima” letter was both off-topic and offensively bad comedy while the posts that followed conveniently ignored every direct response to him. I could dissect it further, but your response from Pharyngula is already better than anything I could write.
Will a comment on a blog end Dawkins? Of course not. It might be worth questioning why he felt it was necessary to comment on a conversation that he had no interest in participating in and what the comment he made says about him. Why was this an issue he felt he needed to comment on, but didn’t feel he had to educate himself about?
The most disappointing thing is that this has gone from Rebecca giving completely reasonable suggestions on how one should conduct oneself alone in elevators with a woman you’ve never even met before, to a yelling match between two very embittered and entrenched extremes fighting against strawmen that weren’t even brought up in the first place.
And here I thought this was a community of free-thinking, rational and dogma-free individuals.
Sure, there are discussions going on in circles about issues tangential to the issue, but at the very least people, educate yourself as to what actually transpired before accusing Rebecca of saying things she didn’t say, as opposed to others who have joined in to turn this into what it’s become, instead of what it was in the first place.
Many, many thanks for taking up the banner, John. Male allies who get it are a treasure, and you’ve been particularly eloquent.
Thank you for this post. A week of arguing in comment sections has left me in need of some evidence that basic human decency is not some radical suggestion that tramples men’s rights. Just, thank you.
If indeed the principle here is “be sensitive to others’ feelings and don’t make them pointlessly uncomfortable”, this story would have died days ago.
I’ve been lucky that the men I’ve had relationships with have been honest with me about how ‘men’ think. If only these ‘ground rules’ were discussed more openly. It was certainly an eye-opener to me that men consider direct eye contact to be an invitation (as in, ‘she looked me in the eye, she must want to have sex with me!’). Oh dear – I wasn’t brought up to be submissive or to think of myself as anything less than equal. I haven’t spent a moment practising demurely casting my eyes at the ground rather than making eye contact with someone who’s speaking directly to me – obviously I’ve lived a wasted life.
I’m just going to have to live with a lifetime’s guilt knowing there’s a world full of men I’ve looked in the eye who are now going around thinking, ‘She wants me! She’s dying to get me into bed!’ My apologies to those of you I haven’t got around to servicing yet. I’ll get right on that as soon as I stop scratching my head at the notion that it is a universally acknowledged truth that a woman should feel complimented when a man indicates his desire to – I’ll stick with an old-fashioned word here – fornicate with her (regardless of what he looks like and regardless of her sexual orientation, libido, or relationship status).
Perhaps those little red, yellow and green traffic light brooches weren’t such a bad idea after all. I’ll get one and leave it permanently on red so I no longer have to fend off unwanted advances while relieving men everywhere of the burden of having to be sexual aggressors in order to occasionally have sex. Because that’s what really underlies this discussion, isn’t it?
Dawkins blew it out of proportion x 10000 by saying Rebecca’s one minute comment about social ettiquette means she is completely insensitive to brutal violence against Muslim women.
Dawkins seems to have aligned himself with the MRAs, he has said he thinks antifeminist Christina Hoff Sommers (who says rape is exaggerated and the eeevil man-hating feminsts now rule the free world) is “brilliant”. That says it all to me.
You are free to support him, I think he’s an ass.
Guys who insist on the privilege of hitting on women in dicey situations don’t want to understand that the woman can’t read their minds. Really dangerous guys can be very charming on purpose. Another part is that many guys simply do not realize the amount of harassment that women encounter in daily life and online. Put the two together and they’re all; “Who, ME? How could you even think that?!”
But what if Elevator Guy was actually from outer space? And what he said was, in his language, a platonic and respectful way of saying goodnight to strangers? Does RW not respect space alien culture? Why is she giving advice to MEN when she should be giving it to SPACE ALIENS?
Or what if Elevator Guy knew that a bomb had been planted in the elevator and only by speaking the password aloud could he disarm it? Is RW saying that guys shouldn’t SAVE WOMEN’S LIVES?
And how do we know that RW didn’t brutally murder Elevator Guy after his transgression? Wouldn’t THAT have been an overreaction?
Honestly, anybody who hasn’t considered these scenarios is obviously some kinda man-hating misanderist feminist.
GGG:
Truthfully, if Elevator Guy had been drinking enough he probably does not even know he actually is is Elevator Guy!
The alcohol level in his blood is enough to explain why he did not understand Ms. Watson’s lecture, nor that she explained that at 4AM it was time to do to sleep (like really “sleep” to rest and restore one’s physical and mental well being… not any other definition of the word). There is probably some dude wandering around reading this who does not realize that due to the amount of ethanol in his system he personally created this contentious issue.
The real moral of this story is: don’t stay up until the wee hours of the morning drinking alcoholic beverages. Blackout episodes are always embarrassing.
Oh crud! It is past midnight, and I have half a glass of white wine next to me!
I look around and see no elevators. The only people in the house are my spouse and two of my children (one has already moved to his own apartment). All I need to do is navigate a set of stairs and I am okay!
Even if we assume alcohol explains the actions of Elevator Guy, what’s the explanation for all the people (mostly male) making excuses for what he did and vilifying Rebecca?
Absolutely none. They must have their own issues that seem to conflict with what we figure is a norm in relationships. I am mostly disgusted at the whiney comments from men at the Bad Astronomer’s blog that they now feel they will never have a companion. Well, um… of course you will live alone if you have an attitude like that.
I am also getting dizzy rolling my eyes. This whole mess could have been avoided if “Elevator Guy” had listened and understood that when someone who you have barely met says they are tired and wish to sleep, it is not a good time to invite the person to coffee and a chat (even if it was to an all night cafe).
Really? Is it that difficult to actually listen and understand what a person is saying?
I enjoyed your post, but what I find disheartening is that you, like most who have written on this subject, do not seem to understand the reasons why men such as Dawkins, and Hitchens (as he does in his book “God is Not Great”) see nothing wrong with objectifying women, as they both trivialize it. It goes back, waaaay back, to when the Abrahamic religions promoted the view of women as property for the use of men. This view is so pervasive, that even today, atheists such as Professor Dawkins continue to objectify women. What’s worse, is that women (such as Ms. Watson, who labels herself as a “chick”) objectify themselves.
Granted, the man in the elevator did not do anything illegal, but it was inappropriate. But I also think Rebecca Watson, by labeling herself as a “chick” promotes the view that she is “brainless and fluffy”–even if she is not. She may believes she is “taking back” the word, this does not help if the word has not positive connotations associated with it. As such, she will be viewed as “brainless and fluffy” by men–which is why she will have to put up with men in elevators, and why Dawkins highlighted the word in his comment to PZ Meyers. This is how ingrained the matrix is, when even those who purport to be fighting against it, continue to embrace it.
He did not do anything inappropriate at all. End of debate. Only an irrational person thinks otherwise.
You feminists make us men uncomfortable by characterizing us all as potential rapists.
She did not do anything inappropriate at all. She found EG’s comments awkward and threatening, and videoblogged about it on the internet.
If he is free to behave in a way that makes her uncomfortable, she is free to comment on it. End of debate.
John and the other readers commenting on this post so far are really smart, considerate and sensible people who are trying to read a woman’s mind and heart objectively. I was so embarrassed when she said men were not to “sexualize me in that way.” Who would want to sexualize Skepchick? Is she even sexualizable? Tell the truth. Who would volunteer for this M:I assignment? “Your assignment, should you choose it, Mr. Hunt…” I have a vivid imagination but even I would have to do a handstand in order to get the juices flowing around that idea. I’ve been on the other side of this situation too, making a relatively benign and forgettable statement to a male acquaintance only to have an imaginary sexual overture rebuffed: “Let’s just be friends.” What! Huh?! Delusion red alert. My reaction was always stunned silence, but now that I think about it, these men had either a stereotyped view of women (too much casual sex such that every woman is a potential lay), were latent homosexuals (“My [male] GP said I had a nice chest during my last check up”) or were simply mentally ill (“I’m afraid of single women because they want me to be their savior and complete them.”) That brings me to my concern that the “chick” in the title Skepchick, is an antifeminine term that sends mixed signals: she is inviting flattery from male suitors while at the same time she wants to protect herself from rejection by hot guys who wouldn’t give her a second look by hoisting the minor lecture circuit celebrity atheist/feminist flag. The old “I am not capable of wanting you” strategy. I’m sure that others have more eloquently pointed out her confused standards, but I think that far from trying to analyze the social impact of this story, we have to first get to the bottom of it. What really happened in that elevator?
‘Twould be nice to ElevatorGuy’s POV as well. RW’s account seems to elide certain points, like the hours of socializing and perhaps drinking at a bar between her talk (when was it? that afternoon? that evening?) and the 4 a.m. breakup of the group.
Okay, you two keep working on ways to somehow make Rebecca responsible for this guy’s actions and get back to us when you’ve got it nailed down.
HE. DIDN’T. DO. ANYTHING. WRONG.
Actually, the one big thing he did wrong was ignore what she said. She said she was tired and wanted to sleep.
Someone who is tired and wants to sleep does not want coffee and a chance to go to someone else’s hotel room for a chat. What part of that do you fail to understand?
Do you think it is okay to not listen to what a person says?
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I understood “Skepchick” to be an attempt to redefine the term “chick”. Fine, probably worth the effort. And even if the old definition of “chick” applied, it doesn’t mean she can just be properly objectified. Just as how a woman is dressed and whatever her visual appeal, confers no license to objectification.
Here’s what would make it all right to objectify women; if they weren’t really people. And that’s kind of the point.
Though this response starts with a strange story about me and an odd event, keep reading and you will understand that it is about Rebecca Watson and Elevator Man and Richard Dawkins -
Ahem, To wit:
Yesterday, I saw a picture of myself on the Poetry Foundation website, it was an old picture (24+years old) and I was wearing a white cotton shift. I remembered I was also wearing it once, 23 years ago when a friend (Steve H.) was late to pick me up at the train station at Takoma Park outside DC and that young man followed me off the train and then kind of followed me at the “station” and it was dark and I was alone and he eventually got so close that I turned around and said, Hello? I was scared, curious, worried, but not sensing danger from this lithe and okay seeming but clearly following-me tenaciously young man. And he said, “I’m sorry to bother you, but I have often thought about, kind of like a wishful daydream, that I was born a girl, a woman.” Oh I said, surprised and tipsy on the good absurdity of the freshly rained spring blacktop parkinglot holding my odd follower and me. He continued, “If I could be a girl or a woman I would want to be exactly like you, with your long hair and natural white dress and casual face.” And we talked a nice talk in the weird lit night. Then Steve, showed up in his slow car and took me back to our version of planet earth, the house with the kitchen in the back where we all stayed all that times those years.
This story illustrates that the young man was wrong to do something that frightened me, but he had the best, dearest, queerest, sweetest, weirdest intentions. We can guess what men are like, given statistics and our knowledge of testosterone, but we can NOT know in any given case, what a man’s intentions are before he acts them out. Men, despite stats and hormones, are as different from one another as are women.
I do not think we have to boycott Richard Dawkin’s books, though I am entirely on Rebecca Watson’s side that elevator guy was creepy in act if not in intention; and I think she behaved well and wonderfully in telling the world about it sweetly and without much drama. Dawkins way over acted and yes, should be scolded for it in my mind, and I don’t scold people unless I am their mother or they have asked my opinion, but I do say it was wrong and I will sidle away from Dawkins on any Dais until he makes this right in public (where he made it wrong), but I bet he is learning his lesson from all this talk, and doesn’t need the boycott to happen to teach him. (He has always treated me like unwanted furniture in his way, or perhaps like lint, even when he and I were presenting on the same stage at a place where I was a fellow of the hosting intellectual club and he was not (!) but whatev. Just saying. He could brush up on American manners or on his dealing with philosopher women or maybe he just needed sleep and was overtasked that day and I am being to sensitive, which is always possible.) Let’s give him a little space and time to think this through though, before we act as rashly as he did, posting that screed, let us act better and give some time and space, people need it and I think, in spite of all, he deserves it. Now everyone leave Watson some space to, unless she says otherwise. I think she did good and was brave and must be feeling a bit worn out from all this, so chill.
Jennifer Michael Hecht, Phamous Atheist, Poet, and Fillosopher
PS This kind of fighting has gone on for some time.
There were men and women atheists in Ancient Judea and we know of at least one woman who sometimes talked philosophy in Epicurus’s godless garden (c. 250-270 BC), late in the gloaming and the Hellenistic night. All through history some men and women haven’t believed any of the nonsense legends and have instead struggled with subtle religious ideas and their natural counterparts. Throughout all of this the men and women sometimes squabble and often fight about sex.
The only known notable atheist in Ancient Jewish history, other than Epicurus (even today the word for atheist in Hebrew and in Jewish texts in other languages is “Epicurean”) was Elisha (it’s a long story) born around the year 100 AD and the only person to defend Elisha as having a right to his opinion was the famed-for-wisdom wife of the great Rabbi Meir’s wife, Beruriah. Because she too was a rationalist atheist Jew. Beruriah was the only woman to be treated as a person of learning and halaka decision in the Talmud. She was married to a great rabbi but was also the daughter of an even greater rabbi and was renown and sought-out for her sharp wit as well as her scriptural knowledge.
There was a rabbi who was much more conservative, — well most were! Beruriah described God as essentially not there, though she was not as specific as Elisha who declared there is no God (I told you, it’s a long story. It is in Doubt: A History, I talk about it in the early chapters when it happens and then again in the last chapters when moderns refind the story and write it as drama and philosophical psychology) — So, right, there was this Rabbi Yosi the Galilean who was known for being kind of a sexist jerkwad saying philosophers shouldn’t waste words talking with women. Then one day he and his little group were lost and he saw Beruriah and her entourage and he said to her, “Oh Beruriah, Daughter of the great Rabbi, woman of wisdom, can you tell me how to find my path to the town of Lod?” And she answered, “Foolish Galilean, did not the rabbis say ‘Engage not in much talk with women’? You should have asked, “Which to Lod?”
Thus atheists have been cracking jokes about pompous men and lost boys and wise-acre tough girls and commentary by sharp-penned smart-ass women for several millennia. Relax and enjoy it.
http://poeticatheism.blogspot.com/2011/07/elevator-guy-rebecca-watson-richard.html?showComment=1310236467185#c6173879519182393624
This is the picture of me at 20 wearing the white dress I was wearing two years later, I think, when the events at the Takoma Station took place!
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/jennifer-michael-hecht
here is the chicken pig poem:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/171207
here is Doubt: A History (HarperOne, 2003)
http://www.amazon.com/Doubt-Innovation-Jefferson-Dickinson-ebook/dp/B003YCOORG/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1297985923&sr=1-4
See also:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&search-alias=books&field-author=Jennifer%20Hecht
I think people would feel more sympathy for Rebecca if she were a pretty woman. It’s insulting to a plain looking woman when a guy is asking for a hookup in a confined space. The man has the advantage in this situation: Confidentiality and deniability. No person, man or woman, wants to be used by another and thrown away like tissue. However where RW went wrong was to insinuate that her other readers would do that to her. We would have understood the point and taken the lesson to heart if she had identified this as a single bizzare incident.
I’ve read your comment three times now and still failed to make sense of it. My bad, perhaps. But no, I don’t think Rebecca’s appearance has anything to do with it. Nor should it.
respect and admiration for women???
what a broad idea. i have respect and admiration for people (men or women) that i admire and respect for whatever reason. i dont just dish it out to everyone on the planet for no reason. thanks for stopping by….i write all that and you disagree/agree?am i wrong?
i dont believe in racism or sexism or most of these ISMS that just get thrown around to shut down conversations. i dont believe in them, meaning they are basically accusations of thought crimes and i dismiss such ideas.actions are much more useful to talk about.
if the guy in “the confined space that makes me fEEl (?)” wanted to rob her or rape her then he would have tried. women LOVE to condescendingly talk about how men are “socially awkward” in a way that makes women feel like they are so great socially when all it is fake energy and fake niceness. because women, you know , are the MASTERS of the mating game. they know so much more and are more evolved in matters of human emotion and interaction(SARCASM).
what is this thread for? and i come back to original point about feminism (equality ONLY for women), women are the MAJORITY and have the vote. out of the potential 114m that can vote only 43m do. how can they complain about anything policy wise.
their complaints are about personal interaction and thats why i think its BULLSHIT. women bring the fake in matters of male female seduction and romance. am i just WRONG?
“am i just WRONG?”
Yes.
for the sake of conversation why dont you give your opinions then.
what exactly am i wrong baout….
Oh, little-d dave, you go way beyond wrong. You say you don’t believe in sexism and yet then you spout endless, angry generalizations about women drawn from the worst hackneyed clichés of how awful they are. Your comments reek of sexism and misogyny as much as they do of inadequacy and insecurity. You self-refute every point you want to make.
youre just name calling me personally. im beginning to doubt your sincerity. cliches?
john, you sure youve had a mans experience in the world?whats with challening my “manhood” JOHN with your comment?sounds like a female thing to say…
to sum it up, women complain about male/female interactions yet it is women who own those FEMININE environments . try complimenting a women by telling her how much you admire her how shes in touch with her masculine side, would she feel good about that?
Are you claiming that women own elevators? Skeptics conferences? Irish hotel lobbies? Hotel Bars?
“john, you sure youve had a mans experience in the world?whats with challening my “manhood” JOHN with your comment?sounds like a female thing to say…” I think you are trying to intimate that John Renny is a woman or at least an incomplete man? Given how you view the world, I would suspect that would make it easier for you to dismiss what he says. I have to be honest though, you’re not terribly clear.
You are not going to acknowledge other people’s experiences. You are not interested in understanding how the world works, you are just looking for someone faceless to blame for all of your problems.
I stand by my original comment about you. I hope you’re trolling, because if you are not I feel bad for you. Your head sounds like an awfully terrible place to live.
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Why I stand with Dr. Richard Dawkins:
The skeptic community is embroiled in an acrimonious debate concerning whether “Elevator Guy” was obtuse and harmless or sexist and harassing in his overture to Ms. Watson in an elevator in Dublin. When I arrived to this debate, quite late, “Elevator Guy” had been repeatedly insulted and his motives thoroughly debated (in commentary long on assumptions and emotional intensity and short on facts). Some “feminists” derided his actions as sexist and emphasized the potential for sexual assault, citing statistics and research on rape. Others, siding with Dr. Dawkins, argued that this perspective constitutes “hysteria” (admittedly a sexist term) and serves not to elevate women, but to demean men by presupposing that they are all potential rapists. Some “feminists” shot back by accusing their opponents of ignorance on issues of sexism and male privilege.
While I certainly do not doubt or have any desire to minimize the experiences of Ms. Watson and other women who repeatedly receive unwanted sexual advances (and threats), I believe that the entire issue is overblown.
First, I disagree with the notion that this event was unquestionably an act of sexism:
Sexism is the belief (and more importantly, the differential treatment that results from such belief) that one sex is superior to the other. In the American historical context, men have long been (incorrectly, obviously) regarded as superior to women. (Undoubtedly, Christian doctrine played a large part in promoting this view.) It is clearly apparent that “Elevator Guy” dismissed Ms. Watson’s statements concerning her discomfort with unwanted male pursuit and her intent to retire for the evening. He is thus rightly chided for being obtuse, selfish, and disrespectful. Concluding that his actions were sexist, however, requires demonstrating that he disregarded Ms. Watson’s stated intentions because of her sex. While there is certainly a long history of men ignoring women’s preferences concerning sexual advances, I am not convinced that the fact of this history alone is sufficient grounds to state with certainty that “Elevator Guy” is sexist or misogynist.
I also resent the assertion that my position is patently callous or sexist. I recognize that I not only enjoy male privilege, but that I also experience what could be termed “double male privilege” due to my sexual orientation. As a gay man, I do not relate intimately with women and thus am unaware of the personal concerns that they may express only in the privacy of their romantic relationships. Nor must I heed such concerns when pursuing romance, since I pursue men. Nevertheless, I remain unconvinced that merely believing that this issue is overblown makes me (or Dr. Dawkins) ignorant or insensitive concerning issues of sex inequality.
Certainly men must recognize the legitimacy of female discomfort in enclosed spaces. But when some “feminists” suggest that “polite” and “considerate” men decline opportunities to enter an elevator in which a woman stands alone, I do not see an argument promoting respect and equality for women. Instead, I see a rather insulting assertion that women are frightened, helpless, victims-in-waiting unable to defend themselves. This perspective also limits men – presumably even gay ones like me – by implying that a woman’s right to not feel any level of discomfort, whether justified or not, transcends a man’s right to ride in the elevator. This is not equality; this is a reversal of who has privilege.
Second, and much more importantly, I believe that Dr. Dawkins has been unfairly pilloried:
Dr. Dawkins entered the debate shortly after it began, sarcastically comparing the incident to the appalling oppression of women in fundamentalist Islamic societies. I believe he intended to express that the incident hardly merits the attention it has received. After his comment was widely panned, Dr. Dawkins clarified his position, requested additional information, and acknowledged that he could be mistaken. Whatever your opinion of his tone, a close reading of his three comments does not reveal him to be the domineering misogynist he has been made out to be.
But I am no longer chiefly concerned with my ability to convince others of my perspective on whether or not the elevator proposition was sexist. A much more pressing matter is the extreme, divisive reactions that Ms. Watson and some of her supporters have recently posted on Skepchick. In “The Privilege Delusion,” Ms. Watson refers derisively to Dr. Dawkins as a “stinking rich” “wealthy old heterosexual white man,” states that she will boycott his work, and thanks her supporters for “bravely battling [Dawkins] and the hoards of clueless privileged people who didn’t get it.” The open letters to Dr. Dawkins are more severe: “I look forward to watching your legacy crash and burn,” wrote Mindy, who concluded with “you don’t get a second chance.” Another letter opened with “Dear Dick” and accused Dr. Dawkins of making the skeptic community “blatantly unsafe” for women.
Language such as this, dripping with negative emotional reactivity, eclipses the legitimate perspective the writers wish to express, reveals as hypocrites those who have targeted Dr. Dawkins for his tone, and threatens to split apart a movement that already has more than enough challenges. (Dr. Dawkins now faces retribution in the actual press.) Further, the ferociousness of the accusations of sexism and misogyny directed at Dr. Dawkins and others only serves, rightly or wrongly, to provide ammunition to the real “men’s rights activists” out there who believe that feminism is about revenge rather than equality.
We can do better than this. The first responsibility of any skeptic is to be skeptical of his own perspective. That ability, along with a healthy dose of modesty and humility, has been abandoned in recent days. It is long past time to let this issue go.
Wow, well said! I should probably go re-read what Dawkins has actually said without reading other criticisms at the same time. Perhaps his points were as silly and rude as I initially believed.
Another learned disquisition on sexism and the errors of women. And from a man this time! What a surprise.
Look, I don’t have the energy anymore to keep replying to so many of you, particularly when doing so involves repeating the same points so often. So I’m only going to respond to a couple of your points (fat lot of good I expect it to do):
First, no, the unwanted advance by Elevator Guy didn’t have to be born of sexism. It could also have come out of general social awkwardness, for example (as i wrote in my post). The sexism and misogyny surfaced in the responses to Rebecca’s very mild suggestion that men shouldn’t hit on isolated women in such circumstances because it would probably make the women uncomfortable.
Second, simply disagreeing with Rebecca and her comments or thinking that she’s overreacting wouldn’t have to be sexist. The problem is that whenever those critics start to explain why they hold that opinion, they almost always end up saying one or more of the following:
Nothing bad really happened to her, so she shouldn’t have brought it up.
She has no right to offer such comments because she can’t speak for all women.
She has no right to tell men what to do.
As a feminist, she hates men, so we can ignore her.
And those reasons lead me to conclude that those critics’ opinions are sexist, either because they are explicitly sexist or because it seems all but inconceivable that a man making similar comments would be criticized along those same lines, especially with so much venom.
And third, I don’t think I’ve yet seen a single one of the people saying that this whole topic is overblown argue, “Rebecca’s comments were very mild, so all the people who have been attacking her should have never spoken up. If they were offended or disagreed, they should have just shrugged it off.” Somehow the brunt of forbearance falls mostly on Rebecca.
“From a man this time.” Really, do you have to be so blatantly sexist? It seems you’re basing all your attacks on those half-crazy internet critics making rape threats at Rebecca, and ignoring people like the FEMALE (since that’s so damn important to you for credibility) feminists Rebecca pilloried before Dawkins had said anything. It’s selection bias at it’s finest; only those samples that confirm to you sexist motives are taken into account. The rest of us acknowledge those buffoons but because they don’t bring anything substantive to the discussion, move on to more important issues.
But if you don’t want to talk any more, avoid those pesky little facts that don’t fit your view, I will be leaving you to your echo chamber like any other person who insists on following an ideology first, and the search for truth second.
He is not avoiding facts, he is probably getting tendonitis from having retyped the same argument in every post. You are not listening.
He has not really been targetting the rape threat MRA crazies. He seems to have been targetting the fake-middle “lets -all-get-along-without-conflict” tone police. This isn’t a both sides kind of issue, at least not at the elevator guy level. If you believe elevator guy should be free to creep on people in elevators, than Rebecca Watson should probably be just as free to post videoblogs mildly rebuking them.
Also, my god, intellectuals disagree with each other sometimes! We all know that healthy skeptical communities always believe the EXACT SAME THINGS on every topic.
Also, poor muffin. A Man has been offended by a comment! It is okay, you do not have to get all hysterical about it. It is not a big deal and probably just that time of the month.
Thank you, AIC. On the nose all around.
To repeat myself, again… this seems to be a common thread in this entire kerfluffle.
I didn’t criticize Watson for talking about EG, I didn’t say he wasn’t creepy, I didn’t say he should have the right to be a creeper. People keep repeating these straw men when they don’t have a criticism of what was ACTUALLY said.
I love how you have to insert such sexist language into the debate, probably as bait to get someone to say equally sexist language just so you can dismiss them as woman haters or some such.
He keeps repeating himself to avoid, not to clarify. I already AGREED with those parts. Her initial response to EG was fine, and fine advice. Her treatment of her fellow female feminist skeptics? Deplorable. Her and some of her supporters framing the debate as a much of women haters against them? Straw man.
Just to make sure that I have your meaning, you support Richard Dawkins, because you believe that the elevator incident was not an act of sexism and you believe Dr. Dawkins has been unfairly maligned by the internets teeming feminist hordes. You also feel that in this incident, both feminists and MRAs have behaved indecently, and you are ashamed of the whole lot of them, and Oh, my stars and garters, the language and tone these posts and comments have taken!
I think your evaluation of Dawkins posts are far more forgiving than he would have been if the postings were written by someone else and about religion in some capacity. Dawkins has not made his mark on the world of popular science by being a kind, reasonable, hugs and cuddles kind of intellectual. Given that, “The first responsibility of any skeptic is to be skeptical of his own perspective” it might be fair to say that Dawkins has a bit more responsibility than average to not present half-baked viewpoints betraying an unwillingness to confront his own beliefs.
You mention that, “This perspective also limits men presumably even gay ones like me by implying that a woman’s right to not feel any level of discomfort, whether justified or not, transcends a man’s right to ride in the elevator. This is not equality; this is a reversal of who has privilege.” If you read the privilege delusion, and watched Watson’s video or read any of the comments she has posted, you know that she didn’t suggest anything like this. She suggested that possibly, creeping on women in elevators late at night makes most women uncomfortable.
On sexism, sexism isn’t an event, it is a state. Events aren’t acts of sexisim, sexism is an undercurrent that informs who we are and how we react in every situation.
Chris, “I stand with Dr. Richard Dawkins” was quite a telling topic sentence as far as honestly putting up front the filter and focus for all your subsequent rationalizations. Others who admire and even venerate the man for his previous accomplishments and/or were not fans of Rebecca Watson or her blog have been able to evaluate his disproportionate & disrespectful attack on an initially nuanced personal statement to a community of colleagues as at best a puzzling unprovoked personal attack /use of an ally as a whipping girl for a topic that deserved a less snide presentation: his apparent conviction that women whine too much and only physical mutilation/violence should be dreaded, not being called the a b, c, f or n word because some one who sat near you in a bar doesn’t like the way you’re looking, talking or saying “Please get out of my space/face” to them.
This “Chris” learned a long time ago that the person who created enjoyable reading can be a complete jerk.
My Sci-Fi reading included the works of Larry Niven. Then I was at a beach party where he was telling really stupid off-color jokes. My opinion of him dropped considerably. But then I realized, I did enjoy reading Ringworld, and some other things he wrote with Jerry Pournelle. It turns out I don’t care for either author’s personalities or politics. But I still enjoyed the books.
While I can admire Dr. Dawkins for his works on biology, I am not obligated to like him on a personal level. Though I have hope that he will learn to to write snarky comments on blogs.
I have lots of things to say about this, but I will only do them verbally and not write them down. I suspect I will be commenting much on this at TAM 9.
Aagh… forgot to properly remove italics tag after book title.
Oh, no! I am fallible! I am fallible!
Like most people, including folks like Dawkins.
“Sorry, but such rules don’t exist for any human relationships. You can’t reduce personal interactions to a set of robotic commands (“IF A= FEMALE AND LOC=ELEVATOR GO TO 23…”) in the absence of feedback about the feelings of other people. It’s pathologically narcissistic to treat people like machines, to act as though their feelings and autonomy don’t exist or matter. Good social rules of thumb can steer you away from some kinds of trouble but they are always incomplete. Social cues offer all the important refinements, and for the most part, people are exquisitely good at picking up on others’ feelings if they want to be.”
Pretty much all of this is a huge misunderstanding, and incorrect. You seem to misunderstand men. I’ve noticed a woman’s greatest fear is to be raped and that women commonly consider all men as rapists… a man’s greatest fear is to be let down. It is an extremely hard thing for a male to get laid, and even harder to figure out how to get laid. A lot of men aren’t very good at picking up on feelings, whereas for women, it seems to be a natural ability. (presumptions much? Yes females can misunderstand males as well as vice versa)
Also if you really get down to it.. al social interactions can be boiled down to a form of equation based on both parties wants. Getting laid is only glaringly obvious to you because a lot of men, especially drunk men, are bumbling awkward about it because women are so incredibly picky and its hard to find out the “right” way to show interest and possibly get laid.
Apparently this is again proof that the male sex drive is much higher than women’s.
Again, I really appreciate it when guys like you can shamble out of your cave long enough to make my point for me.
You’re a really hateful bitch. Why do you hate men so much?
Great example of the kind of insults that a women on the street or in an elevator have gotten when they ignore or try to politely refuse the advances of men. Knowing that it’s possible a man you’ve not let down gently enough for his fragile sense of manhood might respond with the a, b, c, h, or w, word or worse is a major reason a woman might be uncomfortable with the countless propositions from random men whose stability and self-control she has less than a minute to assess.
I am of the opinion that Rebecca judges people by what’s between their legs and not what’s between their ears. She fronts a thinly veiled Anti-Male Lesbian hate group, under the skepchick.org umbrella and now has done her best to co-opt the World Atheist Conference as a vehicle for her own Misandry.
When some guy apologetically (so she says) misinterpreted her flirtatious behavior and timidly asked her to his room for conversation and coffee, (without touching, or threatening) she all but called out the international news media to turn this non-event into a federal rape case.
I observe hat there are little women in the world who are having their Labia Carved Off, and being Lawfully beaten into submission, and Killed for trifles like stepping outside the house with their hair uncovered, and being beaten by the state for the Crime of getting raped, and this prig snooty prig, Watson has the gall to waste all of our time whinging on about how terrible it is to be a woman, and admonishing all the men in the Patriarchy about using ‘sexist terms’ like StrawPerson’.
Perhaps the Matriarchy and it’s Misandry will be more to her liking, and to the liking of the Anti-Male Lesbian Supremacists over at the skepchick.org haven of misandry as evidenced in “The Privilege Delusion” hatchet job against Dawkins, and the campaign Watson has kicked off to Destroy Dawkins if she is able. She may just be able, because a weeping woman saying that a Man has committed a thought crime against all women is often lapped up by the general public as a chance to feel superior to the miscreant. I guess Watson will soon sick the Muslims on Dawkins too, so that they can exact their kilogram of flesh as well. We will all remember, and some of us will never forget you for this Rebecca!
I consider nothing to be beyond the pale for Watson now. There is no low too low for her to stoop to, and I caution every male to never, ever allow yourself to be alone in close proximity to her at any function for she cannot be trusted.
Always maintain a safe distant buffer zone, and if possible maintain several witnesses around you. If she or any hypersensitive misandrogynous females like her take a notion that they do not like some glance, or word, or that you have come into their space, then they could raise such a ruckus that you may before you know it, find yourself in want of a teaching position, or other job or position, or be shamed in front of your peers for a crime you may not even know you committed.
You should be preserved in amber so that future generations know what creatures like you looked like.
I give you, and the Jihadi Rebecca Watson the same response Dawkins gave to Neil Tyson one time, “… if you don’t agree (with my assessment) you can fuck off!
Another of Dawkins’s less becoming moments, apparently.
I don’t know about that. Tyson liked being told to Fuck Off, by Dawkins so much that he applauded along with most others in attendance. Do join in John Rennie, and RK with everyone else and vigorously applaud.
“misinterpreted her flirtatious behavior”
Huh? She never spoke to him before.
“she all but called out the international news media to turn this non-event into a federal rape case”
So now it’s a rape claim to call on guys to understand the recipients’ POV on being sexually propositioned by a physically-stronger person with whom they are stuck in a metal box at a dead hour of the night? Aren’t you the high priest of hyperbole?
And what the heck is “misandrogynous”?
Calling her behavior flirtatious is just your fantasy/delusion. If you were there, you could say how you reacted to her behavior , how it made you fee(as she reported how she felt being asked to go to a guy’s hotel room at 4 a m (whether she did or didn’t have anyone waiting for her in her room–uncomfortable. In her writings & vlog she always specifies that she knows & respects not the equally outspoken atheist woman who does not have that reaction. In this case she thanked all the guys at the event who listened to her, said what a great time she had with everyone EXCEPT FOR ONE GUY ! To deform & distort that as you did makes me wonder if you watched the original vlog or read her blog after Dawkins attacked her personally .
i gotta say this.i believe that that John Rennie person is just trolling and name calling. read his comments.
if richard dawkins comments had been made by a famous female scientist in his position the reaction would have been different, the same goes if Rebecca had been a man who was talking about an incident in an elevator with a gay man. or if rebecca herself had had a lesbian hit on her.
that all points to Double Standards which in my opinion are BULLSHIT, and
double standards which i believe are a thing women are great at.
lets imagine a nightclub/ bar environment..
women spend hours to look as beautiful as possible for MEN. they dont approach men. men approach them and have to deal with what they call a “bitch shield” and psychological games. men are evaluated on some old school cave man credentials , like is he dominant within is circle of friends, how much power/wealth does he have, most importantly-does he let women dominate him(theyll openly try to humiliate him to test this)- and if they meet no one they “like” they say the men are “insecure and intimidated and socially inferior to them .they go home and really feel its just their looks. watch the movies n tv shows aimed at women. why are men and penises are never called “beautiful”. no no. men are the only thing in the universe that is “handsome”. what a bullshit word. oh and another thing about women, they respect being called on their bullshit. if you dont your the douchebag paying her bills while she gets her orgasms from the gym instructor.
another thing is, how many love songs or works of art are about how wonderful and loving men can be?
in that bar before the elevator i bet rebecca was wearing make up. lipstick and high heels. why was she wearing that? for her own personal expression.
why is everyone accepting these stealth insults on the guy in the elevator. he was a creep and perv and clueless. but had he ignored her he wouldnt be a “red blooded male” theyll say.
dont think for one second that these “oppressed” groups in any way are innocent of what they accuse the white men of. black people call people racist names, women are against homosexuality and gay marriage and gays are capable of any prejudice that a straight guy is.
reality is, men are the prize, women need/want men way more than men want women. all the fun things in the world are male related. you know any female comedians? name 3?
ignoring females “sexism” is the same as ignoring non white peoples “racism”.
anyway i dont mind because the world is changing. if a woman is too much work men dont bother and have lots of things to do. they have access to sex on the internet. they have seen through the marriage con and are avoiding it like a plague. this Male empowerment is destroying womens happiness. they are less happy than 30 years ago and theres a reason.
read Emma watson (harry potter actress) talk about how she idolizes love and men never call her back or pursue her and she feels like romance is dying for her generation. does that not raise some questions, and NO, saying that men are not MAN enough for her is BULLSHIT.
read about married women who arent ugly and they are miserable because their man doesnt really want sax that much. hed rather play video games and come to bed and cuddle.
the days of men being oppressed by traditional male roles are over….
“reality is, men are the prize, women need/want men way more than men want women. all the fun things in the world are male related. you know any female comedians? name 3?”
While you are insane, I’ll bite:
Tina Fey
Wanda Sykes
Maria Bamford
Get Help.
Not that these comedy bits are in any way relevant to the deeepest fears & obsessions of Jamie, Dave, or any other suffering gameplayer—but the man on the clip here does call these women”hilarious”–and he’s a man!
“My Self-Esteem’s Not Low Enough to Date You” –tho it does start off”You text at 3 in the morning and misspell my name”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKQx3x6IZMA
Live version w/o bleeps– audience laughs;)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uSw8XcWihs
Live unbleeped version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uSw8XcWihs
ask any woman if the man is the prize or not, theyll say the man is, otherwise theyd be lesbians. if a man treats a woman like shes the prize she wont be attracted to him. FACT.
i meant stand up comedians but no prob. anyway you know what point i was making.
why am i being called names? what im saying is correct. ALL the fun things in the world are male related. do you watch sports? female sports?WNBA? who is the female 100m gold medalist from 2008.who won best female actress in 2010? men are the fun in the world.
thing about me is im really not sexist. the fastest female 100m ever is only 1sec behind the mens record which means that only a few people are ahead of her so its not like i doubt womens physical capabilities. same goes for female bodybuilders and mma fighters.theyd kick the shit outta most men. which is kinda hot. women excel at academics. my point is i dont believe that woman are inferior to men because i know thats not true.but……
what im saying is that woman are a lot like black people who dont notice their racism against white people. there is a double standard there for sure and same with women.
the whole point of this thing is about male/female interactions in the sexual/romantic sense. which IS a feminine environment. go to a nightclub or bar and its obvious. women are in make up and they are wearing costume clothing n weird shoes. its a womans environment. men are in real clothing. men have to pay and women get in for free. and this “dating” bullshit thats just a business device like valentines day, they are womanly things. men have to surrender to this feminine environment to even play the game. and then women will talk about how HE did something wrong thats against the rules of this bullshit game. when i talk to women i talk to them like they are men. i do the same to black people, treat them like they are white. people dont know how to be treated equally.
you all are denying that this is true. youre dismissing me like im just making it up. thats fine.
ill give an example. male boys are circumcised for fictional health reasons. when its done to women its called female genital mutilation. women talk about how UGLY an unmutilated cock is yet when men say that women are ugly for being natural its sexism. watch the sex and the city episode. its outrageous.
innocent women and children were whatever! not a tragedy if something happens to an innocent man!
i dont accept double standards, its condescending to the people who benefit. i get the feeling you dont mind these double standards.
on a hunch answer this, cyber bullying, boys or girls doing the bullying???
Yes, because women have been pretty direct for the past 40 years or so in the US at least
“You should have seen it in my eyes/I kind of like some other guys/Believe me you’d know it if I wanted to/I already would have (held hands with you) But that will never happen.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilOx2Jmm1r4
Dave,
congratulations for being mentally sane.
I am a woman and, from what I’ve read, I support 100% Richard Dawkins’s opinion. That Rebecca is simply sexually insecure. A man shows interest and sexual desire for her, invites her to bed, she says no, he accepts her answer and backs up. End of the story. What’s wrong about that???!!!! Did he threaten her? Did he stalk her? Did he get her phone and started invading her privacy? No, nothing like that ever happened. He was simply a man who desired a woman, he tried his luck and he got unlucky. I wish all the men on this planet were as polite and as mentally sane as this poor guy, whose only greatest sin was showing that he was HUMAN. And oh!, by the way, he was sexually attracted to an INTELLIGENT lady, and that, coming from a guy, is saying a lot.
When I was young, I received HUNDREDS of these so-called “sexual harrassments” and I NEVER felt threatened by them, and some of these invitations actually took place in an elevator. But maybe that’s just me, I’m not afraid of men at all.
It’s no wonder these new “modern women” are so unlucky and so lonely: on the one hand they desire men, but, at the same time, they’re simply terrified of them. It’s no wonder these women can only get a stranger in blind dates.
Yours truly,
Sandra Costa (from Portugal)
Sandra, if he “was attracted to an intelligent lady” it’s not because he listened to what she had said and the conference that night, on her blog, or right when she left–that she was not open to such invitations at atheist events in general, that she was swamped with propositions in those situations where she wanted to focus on discussion/listening/being heard on topics important to her and that many other women attending these events had told her they felt the same way or would never come back because they’d been treated as if they were at a night club. She also specifically respectfully quotes a friend who says she’s never been uncomfortable with the atheist/skeptic guys. what i don’t get is why you, to the contrary, can’t allow, respect, or even read/watch what she actually originally said & how she said it. She respects your right to respond emotionally & physically as you desire to any & all propositions, as do I. And I would never blame you if you had misjudged your situation or somehow triggered anger in any of the men you politely rejected & been called an ab, b or c , h or w word, or insulted(here in the US, I’ve often over the years heard men take back all the compliments and start verbally dissecting girls & women who didn’t give them whatever degree of attention/gratitude for the approach that they required.
It was a stupid, harmless sexual invitation! And the guy politely accepted her “no”! Get over it!
If men approach women and tell them how beautiful they are OH MY GOD THIS GUY IS A THREAT TO MY HONOR HE’S SEXUALLY HARASSING ME.
If men do not approach women and avoid showing their emotions OH MY GOD WHAT A BUNCH OF LOSERS THEY ARE TERRIFIED OF OUR LIBERTY AND POWER THERE ARE NO REAL MEN ANYMORE.
I stick with my opinion: we women desire guys but at the same time we’re terrified of them.
Mistake: I stick to
Sandra, I forgot to highlight that it’s fact she told the people she was talking with that she was tired & going to bed. Either this guy chose to ignore her wish & follow her, or he was not part of her group and did not have the info to “choose an intelligent woman.” If he was an atheist/skeptic & followed her vlog & blog he would have known how she felt anyhow, but she gave a specific & as she says on the vlog that triggered RW’s personal putdowns, she had a wonderful time & felt very everyone except this one guy treated her as she would like to be treated. Can you understand that not all women enjoy constant attention, especially if they don’t feel it is sincere or based on knowing them? Perhaps you’ve experienced a feeling like that when men singled out one or two body parts to praise as if the rest of you didn’t exist?
Sandra, you have labelled RW “sexually insecure.” Some might say that it’s the more sexually secure woman who does not welcome constant attention from strangers & prefers to initiate & choose who she flirts with, based on who appeals to her and who attracts her.
A sexually secure woman can and will choose the men she wants but she won’t feel threatened by “the other guys’s” invitations. Neither she won’t start a stupid and bizarre war with a man that wrote an imaginary and ironic letter, whose purpose was not to humiliate her but to stress the difference of treatment between western women – who can go to a skeptic conference just like everybody else – and eastern women – who will be stoned to death if they happen to show their knuckles by accident.
If she can’t see the difference between a sexual and perfectly normal (but very clumsy) invitation and a REAL sexual threat, then she is indeed a sexually insecure woman, because she sees threats everywhere.
I have to go now, but i’ll finish by saying this: the reaction of the skeptic community is a very comprehensible one. She made a thunderstorm in a teaspoon. Had she confessed that she had been really raped, the response would have been a completely different one. And her decision of declaring war to Richard Dawkins – one of the most feminist guys on the planet – made her look like a complete jerk.
So what’s next? She’ll have to keep her promise for the rest of her life, and this will be a problem: suppose RD will start in 2015 another anti-pope movement, and all her friends will want to be part of it. What will she do? Sulk again, stay out and watch the party at a distance? She’ll make a complete fool of herself. But if she accepts RD challenge, everyone will remember her promise and she’ll be accused of being a cynical!
And all because she didn’t understand irony!
Sandra, I would just like to say that you have made an astonishing display of missing the point. Wow.
Sandra, if your friend or daughter felt that too many propositions at work , on the street, or when she was just wanting to be alone with her thoughts made her uncomfortable or were distracting, I think you would have sympathy, not just tell her to toughen up & get in the mood to flirt 24/7. I wonder if it’s RW’s polemical reaction to RD’s sarcasm & belittling her(if you read his follow-up comments, where he sounds like he doesn’t know who she is despite having been on panels with her) . If she thinks his whiteness and wealth are relevant to his out of proportion hostile reaction to her originally very mild & nuanced vlog post, she’d have to give me some reasons why–I can’t think of any! RW was the one who was angry, sarcastic & illogical from the jump, though, when he as a famous icon to the whole skeptic and atheist community, knowing everyone would pay attention chose to ridicule someone I had never heard of and to illogically assert that because others have suffered physically, women who have not should not speak in public about feeling uncomfortable with some behavior.
If you watch the vlog RW responded to, it’s lighthearted & casual & stresses what a fun time she had with fellow atheists, shows a male pal she visited with, and compliments all the men who treated her exactly as she finds comfortable before mentioning the ONE EXCEPTION! I’m sure she let him down kindly, too, or he would have gone public by now.:)
While I cannot speak to RW’s intentions, I can just point out that age, income and ethnicity are all predictors of risk of physical attack as well as gender — so a comment about an old, wealthy white guy can highlight the fact that he is NOT in a demographic at high risk of physical sexual assault (in fact, he is in the demographic of least risk out of any) — and it is not unreasonable to assume that he will not calculate interactions in elevators which indicate an interest in sex by the same subconscious metric of risk that any young woman would.
Sandra,
These are some of the things Dave has claimed:
“Feminine nature is full of BULLSHIT. nightclubs, bars and “dating” are all feminine environments.the rules are controlled and set by women. why men even submit themselves to this is a real mystery. this is the Information Age not the Boredom Age that lead to women being the best form of entertainment for men.
“real women = bad porn.”
“chick flicks,romcoms, sitcoms?? women build their dreams from FAKE LIFE. they think that shits real. white dress(for virgins) in a church (women dont believe that shit) ”
“this “dating” bullshit thats just a business device like valentines day, they are womanly things. men have to surrender to this feminine environment to even play the game. and then women will talk about how HE did something wrong thats against the rules of this bullshit game”
He believes that you are inferior to him because of your sex. He believes that the world is set up so that women are in complete control of it. He believes that everything that has ever been awesome has been created by a man.
You are entitled to your own opinions, but I am just as entitled to disagree with you and think your opinions are foolish.
Anonymous……..you say that youre entitled to your opinion but you just copy and paste mine. thats fine. i stand by what i wrote it because i wrote it for a reason.
youre being a bit of an asshole though when you decide what I BELIEVE and tell people what their reaction should be to your comments.
reality is I try not to BELIEVE anything. it means thinking something is true without evidence, i prefer to KNOW things, however i do use the word “believe” to mean “think”.its an important idea to use in religious debates ive found. lol.
anyway my point is id have no problem saying things that ive observed.if i KNEW them to be true. if i thought women were inferior to men id say that. i KNOW that is not a fact. i stated that in an earlier comment. “belief” has nothing to do with it.
the thing you said about the world being set up so that women are in complete control??? youre just making things up. FMI who is it that i believe “set up” the world in this way? I will say though that in countries where women have the vote and are the majority, like most 1st countries, they should be in control literally. a lot of important things though are unfairly favored towards women like divorce laws and custody laws but thats not what my talking about here at all…..
most of the fun and best things in the world have been and still are created by men. that is a fact. youd think women would admire men for that. some cultures do. but i do have a reason for saying….
the list of fun and interesting things in the world that girls and women dismiss as being “for boys” is very long. things like sports and video games are great fun for children are treated as “boy” things and the girls are given plastic babies and pink things and told thats what they like. my point is that ALOT of women dont really have hobbies. men LOVE things. the fucking LOVE their hobbies and interests. womens interests are centered around the fact they are female, not just a HUMAN. example. they invented A watch. then they invented a WOMANS watch. theres a female version of everything because the original version is “for boys”.
and i love the wikipedia stat of only 14% of contributors being women. it proves this point exactly. here we have this global encyclopedia of human knowledge, women are the majority and then 14%…..
with that said ive never contributed to wiki and millions of women have so it doesnt give me any personal feeling of “superiority” …..
read The Porn Myth article if you wanna see what i mean when i say that in the past men needed real women and sex for “pornography”. now they get real pornography. women now cant rely on a MANS horniness and sexuality depravation for a relationship to begin , they cant hide behind their looks and just be hot….
sexuality deprivation…lol
Yes, I’m pretty sure I have NO hobbies or passions. That just makes all kinds of sense.
You state you don’t think women are inferior to men, but then you list a bunch of reasons why women are not very good at, well, anything really. Apparently women are not funny, are shallow, have lame toys, and don’t contribute to wikipedia. Oh also we have crappy watches! I had no idea!
So in your opinion then, in what ways are women equal to men, besides having the vote? And don’t just give me something like divorce and custody laws, because that’s boring and trotted out all the time and doesn’t represent equality. Be creative!
equally good surgeons. teachers, parents, writers, artists…..i mean when someone is good at something theyre good it at. i have a feeling women donate more blood and are more protective of animal rights.dont know the stats!
what hobbies do you have that would make you fly to a different continent for?
i was at the world cup in south africa. everytime i went into a stadium i always noticed that it was mostly men and i thought how their life long love football doesnt fade when they grow up.men of all ages from all countries HAD to be there. i wondered is there any event that would draw so many women from around the world.i dont think there is.
when you see some person who collects some random thing like civil war era newspapers or something, its usually a man.dont know what it means in general but it is noticeable.
men get named called as geeks for liking technology sci-fi and stories about galaxies and alien possibilities and i havent found that women can have a sustained wonderment at such things.
superman.little boys LOVED reading superman comics superman became a cultural icon. i cant think of girls thing like that. and im sure it was boys buying wonder woman as well. lol
monica bellucci acts in french, italian and english. thats amazing to me. natalie portman i think is the best actor/tress in the world. jeanne garafalo is as thoughtful n witty as any man i admire. shawn johnson was the best most talented olympian in 2008 i think.
but its still true that in inter gender interactions are feminine environments . its all framed in a condescending way towards men and womens motivations are never considered. ill say this…
if you watch rom coms ben stiller type movies i think that the hapless loser that wants the attention of the unattainable woman is actually a role reversal of reality. women wouldnt want to watch a movie about loserish girl who cant get the attention of some beautiful man.they identify with the man in those movies. and guess what, they leave the cinema feeling good about themselves but dont go home and masturbate to the hapless dufus awkward guy in the movie who they cheered.
a generation of men have grown up watching these ross geller types thinking thats how they should be and women dont want them like that.
sweet hopping green jesus on a lilypad, dave. This is just plain ignorant.
I mean, for myself alone, the hobby about which I am passionate, have a lifelong love for, travel to different continents & break the bank for, and collect really stupid amounts of IS science fiction! And oddly, at every single SF convention I have been to, I keep running into other women. O_o
What colour IS the sky in your world?
THANK YOU FEMINISTS. For continuing to demonstrate that you’re all nothing but irrational man hating gynocentric hags.
Whereas you, of course, represent the epitome of genteel reason?
Anon, I hope you don’t respond this way when a woman in an elevator tells you “no.” I hope you don’t talk to real women with the insults you are using anonymously. Can you understand that the same woman who would be mostl likely to be polite & respectful when she tells you she’s taken or has someone waiting for her in her room might be not just a little uncomfortable like RW was but genuinely dreading that you, anonymous to her because she’s never met you before, might call her a hag or the a, b. c words some rejected men fling around. Not too many lone women would feel comfortable telling a random admirer to “fuck off” the way a few guys on this page admire RD for doing.
There’s another part of the response which is truly antisocial. Right after shouting “Why shouldn’t I be able to stare at them? I’m not hurting anybody!” some of the responders go on to say, “and to prove it, the next time I’m in an elevator with someone smaller than me, I’m going to finger his lapels and maybe stroke his butt.”
One thing the pearl-clutching “I’m so offended I might be suspected” brigade forgets is that many women are lulled into dangerous situations and sexually assaulted when they think that a co-worker, colleague, fellow student, or fellow guest will respect them.