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the_ignored
SFN Addict
2562 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2011 : 04:08:49 [Permalink]
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I haven't bothered much with this thread but I've found some interesting information from Abbie Smith about how Dawkins is handling it.
After Shaftgate, many noticed that Dawkins quit speaking on the issue.
Many put up guesses as to why this happened, and I think the 'why?' is now clear. Dawkins has shown with his actions time, time, time and again, that he is supportive of everyone in science and skepticism. When it became clear that words, discussion, reasoning were useless against what he was up against, he stopped using words, discussion, and reasoning, and kept doing what he do, which is, to 'do':
The dawkins foundation is going to pay for childcare so moms can attend future cons. Feminist cred reestablished, well played |
ERV translation:
You all keep throwing your bordello parties and pajama parties and getting drunk all the time and acting like overall jackasses in the name of 'supporting women in skepticism'. Im going to actually support everyone, including women, by providing childcare at future TAMs. *flipseveryoneoff*
The non-response this move has gotten, the stunned silence from the True Feminists mirrors that of the duped Evangelicals before. Stricken dumb by being too dumb to understand what just happened. Its hysterical. |
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>From: enuffenuff@fastmail.fm
(excerpt follows):
> I'm looking to teach these two bastards a lesson they'll never forget.
> Personal visit by mates of mine. No violence, just a wee little chat.
>
> **** has also committed more crimes than you can count with his
> incitement of hatred against a religion. That law came in about 2007
> much to ****'s ignorance. That is fact and his writing will become well
> know as well as him becoming a publicly known icon of hatred.
>
> Good luck with that fuckwit. And Reynold, fucking run, and don't stop.
> Disappear would be best as it was you who dared to attack me on my
> illness knowing nothing of the cause. You disgust me and you are top of
> the list boy. Again, no violence. Just regular reminders of who's there
> and visits to see you are behaving. Nothing scary in reality. But I'd
> still disappear if I was you.
What brought that on? this. Original posting here.
Another example of this guy's lunacy here. |
| Edited by - the_ignored on 07/21/2011 04:15:43 |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2011 : 07:09:51 [Permalink]
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ignored, Dave already mentioned Abbie's blog entry on page 11, writing:
If anyone wants to see a Rebecca Watson hate-fest, check out Abbie's blog. Seems that Dawkins worked out a deal to bring child care to future TAMs, and that this deal (on which work began long before Elevatorgate) somehow means that Dawkins' dumb remarks weren't dumb. All it really means is that Dawkins isn't a petulant child who will spit in the eye of his critics. He's being lauded for behaving like he should: as an adult. If that's all it takes, I want a friggin' trophy for failing to challenge Dude to a fist fight.
I mean, it'd be fine to applaud the guy for his efforts to bring child care to TAM by themselves, but many of the people over there are basically saying, "Richard Dawkins is a hero to hundreds, so Rebecca Watson is a poopy-head." They'd already made it clear that they think little of Watson, Myers, McCreight, Laden (etc.), so this news about Dawkins is being used as nothing more than an excuse for more excrement-tossing at the feminists. Dawkins doing something good is really incidental. They'd probably have the same anti-Watson reaction if Dawkins had helped a little old lady across the street. |
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2011 : 07:14:06 [Permalink]
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From the same entry in Abbie's blog: | Apparently before Twatson fell down and threw a temper tantrum and demanded everyone kiss her invisible boo-boo. |
A hate-fest indeed. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
 Posted - 07/21/2011 : 07:31:18 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by the_ignored
I haven't bothered much with this thread but I've found some interesting information from Abbie Smith about how Dawkins is handling it.
After Shaftgate, many noticed that Dawkins quit speaking on the issue.
Many put up guesses as to why this happened, and I think the 'why?' is now clear. Dawkins has shown with his actions time, time, time and again, that he is supportive of everyone in science and skepticism. When it became clear that words, discussion, reasoning were useless against what he was up against, he stopped using words, discussion, and reasoning, and kept doing what he do, which is, to 'do':
The dawkins foundation is going to pay for childcare so moms can attend future cons. Feminist cred reestablished, well played |
ERV translation:
You all keep throwing your bordello parties and pajama parties and getting drunk all the time and acting like overall jackasses in the name of 'supporting women in skepticism'. Im going to actually support everyone, including women, by providing childcare at future TAMs. *flipseveryoneoff*
The non-response this move has gotten, the stunned silence from the True Feminists mirrors that of the duped Evangelicals before. Stricken dumb by being too dumb to understand what just happened. Its hysterical. |
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Abby Smith is full of crap. What Dawkins was planing well before he mouthed his brain fart does not excuse what he said. Yeah, it's good that Dawkins is doing what he's doing. The only thing I bought at TAM was a t-shirt for Michelle from the Dawkins foundation. It's not necessary to totally vilify him over a stupid statement. It wouldn't be his first.
What he's doing says nothing at all about his inappropriate comments. I don't think he's sexist or misogynistic in the usual way we think about it. I think he just doesn't get it, for whatever reason that is.
And Abby calling RW "Twatson" was so uncalled for that I have lost much of my respect for her. Yeah, when she's talking evolutionary biology I will still listen. But you don't get to erase erase a bad thing someone says or does because that someone also does good things. She's another one that just baffles me. Her attack on Watson and her defense of Dawkins just tells me that she doesn't get it either. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26024 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2011 : 07:32:40 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
Oh c'mon, are you just trying to miss my point? My point was that there is a big difference between debates about proper attitudes, rhetoric, and social behavior and debates about facts about objective reality. |
But this is a debate about objective reality, too. Dude was (at one point) claiming that Rebecca Watson had no objective basis to feel threatened. He's also claiming that there's no objective reason to call what happened a "potential sexual assault." He's wrong on both counts, which is why he's having to concede some ground while continuing to fling vague and unsupportable accusations of improper skepticism my way.| You are right, there is no objective obligation to teach our kids any certain way - because that isn't a discussion about facts either. The claim that evolution happened IS a factual claim, and that's why I used it as an example to make my point. |
There's no obligation to value facts, either. The reason we're still having debates about evolution is that creationists value faith more highly than they value facts. The evolution/creation debate is all about attitudes, rhetoric and behavior. For example, scientists who enter the fray these days don't actually assume the creationists' ideas have merit, they dismantle them to show the lies they're based on. The purely factual debate was over more than 150 years ago, now the arguments are about public policy and salvation.| I disagree with you. Frankly I think you and Dude are both so worked up by your argument that neither of you care about what we can learn from "Elevatorgate". Personally I think what we can learn from considering the truth and emotions on both sides is more valuable than anything else in this whole mess. |
Well, I have learned quite a bit (mostly from reading other people's blogs), and I'm interested in learning just how far Dude will go with his charade. Call it a case study in ridiculousness. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26024 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2011 : 07:35:37 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
And Abby calling RW "Twatson" was so uncalled for that I have lost much of my respect for her. |
To be fair, fans of Watson (and perhaps Watson herself, I don't recall) have been calling Abbie a "gender traitor," which may not include such an offensive word, but is a pretty offensive term. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2011 : 07:56:40 [Permalink]
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For a sane article there is this:
Is It Cold in Here?
by Jennifer Ouellette for Scientific American.
...For the two people in the science blogosphere who missed it, here’s what happened. Rebecca Watson, founder of the Skepchick website and co-host of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast, put up a “vlog” describing her recent trip to attend a meeting of atheists in Dublin, Ireland, where she was speaking on (of all things) gender issues in the skeptical community. (Full disclosure: I know Watson slightly, and like her, although we’re not BFFs; I mean, we’re not braiding each other’s hair every Saturday night.)
Towards the end of the video, she casually related her discomfort at being approached in an elevator at 4 AM by an intoxicated Irish guy, who asked her back to his room “for coffee.” Watson wasn’t hysterical, or raving, or even angry. (You can see for yourself here. It starts at the 4:30 mark.) She simply said, “Look, guys — don’t do that. It makes me very uncomfortable,” and briefly outlined the reasons why.
You’d think she’d castrated the poor guy on tape and held up his severed member as a trophy, the way some people over-reacted. I won’t bother rehashing the various arguments, or my own thoughts on the matter, which have already been well expressed by John Rennie, Lindsey Beyerstein, Isis Scientist, the pseudonymous “Ryawesome” (who wins the prize for Most Colorfully Profane blog post title: “Frankly, atheists, skeptics, you’re embarrassing as fuck”), and Watson herself. (Watson is also featured in this week’s Point of Inquiry podcast.) Suffice to say, emotions were running high, and I waded through the ensuing comment threads with a growing sense of dismay, then anger, then outright revulsion at many of the opinions being expressed.
Watson was vilified for over-reacting, for being a diva, a “media-whore,” an attention-monger, a bitch, a man-hating feminazi, and a troublemaker who was deflecting attention away from far more important issues. She was accused of being anti-sex (as if), calling all men rapists (she did not), and was threatened with sexual assault at the upcoming TAM “to give you something to complain about.” (Being threatened with rape is not a new experience for Watson, alas.)
Those who spoke up and came to her defense received similar treatment — including a couple of women who had survived sexual assaults. I was tempted to make a bingo card based on Derailing for Dummies and start checking off each hopelessly cliched argument designed to protect those with privilege from having to acknowledge the problem... |
I have left out the links and much of the context that is in Ouellette's article. I recommend reading the whole thing. And yeah, I was directed over to this article by PZ Myers at Pharyngula . Had a very nice dinner with him last week too. Life is so strange... |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular
Norway
1273 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2011 : 08:26:52 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
OFFC wrote:
I have a question, what's the difference between someone who wants equality for men and women and a feminist? |
Feminism is not just wanting equal opportunity, it is being willing to take some sort of action to achieve that goal.
| The reason I ask is because today, in most developed countries, I would expect the vast majority of people to say they believed in equal rights for men and women. I don't know how many would also define themselves as "feminist" |
Equal opportunity isn't just about equal rights. Rights are defined and protected by the state. Equal opportunity extends to social norms and general attitudes in mainstream culture, too.
However, I know what you are getting at. You are saying that there are lots of people who fit the definition of a feminist would never call themselves a feminist. This is definitely true.
I think if they changed the terminology it would benefit them. "Feminism" sounds more pro-female than pro-equality. And for men, pro-female can sound a heck of a lot like anti-male.
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Whether you are right or wrong in this suggestion depends on the real reasons why the term "feminism" got a bad rap in the first place, and also on the current state of gender equality.
If feminism got a bad rap just because it sounds like it is about being pro-woman to the detriment of men, then changing the name would solve the problem. However, I very much doubt that is the case. Instead, I would suggest that feminism got a bad rap because it was met with resistance from anti-feminists who were quite good at demonizing the movement by only highlighting the most extreme (and rare) players in the feminist movement.
Then there is the matter of what is the state of gender equality today. Many middle and upper class women of younger generations in America take our equality for granted since we have no first hand experience with blatant, institutionalized sexism. Just like it is easy to look things like the OJ Simpson trial and Barack Obama's election, ignoring the obvious racism that is pervasive against lower-class blacks and say "See, racism in America is pretty much over." it is easy to think sexism is over if we turn a blind eye to the disproportionate difficulties faced by lower-class women. Also, much of sexism is so deeply ingrained in our attitudes that we don't even see it. Unless we cultivate an awareness of how stereotypical attitudes (which are disproportionately harmful to minorities and women) are formed in ALL of our minds by entertainment, advertisements, and the way people speak in casual company, we might not even be aware of them and how they influence our behavior. In other words, a person (man or woman) can behave like a sexist without even realizing they are doing so. Feminism makes people in that position especially uncomfortable since it challenges us to become aware of our own hypocrisy. For one example, this whole Elevatorgate thing has caused me to realize that while I've been hit on in somewhat inappropriate settings, I would never have done what Watson did and complain about it publicly exactly because I'd fear the reaction she got. Instead I just take that sort of inappropriateness for granted and have felt that I just need to accept it and not complain except in private to other women. I'm grateful to Watson for bringing that to my awareness. It is a small thing, sure, but it is the accumulation of small things that slowly changes both individuals and society over time.
For another example, during a training session while working with inner city youth, I and my co-workers had to take a test developed at Harvard that would spit out a result telling us whether we "strongly prefer whites", "slightly prefer whites", "had no preference", "slightly prefer blacks" or "strongly prefer blacks." There were both white and black teachers among us, and everyone except 2 people (both white women) got the result "strongly prefer whites." It was disturbing, and one woman - a hispanic woman - even cried afterward. Even though it was painful to see the results, the point was to get us all aware of how racial stereotypes ingrained in us might influence how we treat our students (who were almost all black), and then use that awareness to try to compensate for our own prejudices in the classroom. Even though sexism is out of fashion, most people still carry sexist attitudes that put women at a disadvantage. Just think about what gender is associated with words like "chef" verses "cook", "doctor" verses "nurse", or "pilot" verses "flight attendant." Feminism challenges us to be aware, even if that awareness makes us uncomfortable, in the hopes of getting us to overcome our own deeply-ingrained prejudices.
As for why it's called "feminism" - because women have always been at the disadvantage and so it is the feminine identity and feminine qualities that we are trying to elevate to equal status.
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Don't you think you're overreacting a little? |
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular
Norway
1273 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2011 : 08:28:19 [Permalink]
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| You all keep throwing your bordello parties and pajama parties and getting drunk all the time and acting like overall jackasses in the name of 'supporting women in skepticism'. |
I find this pretty funny, because as far as I can tell, this is pretty much Rebecca Watson's life in a nutshell |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26024 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2011 : 08:42:42 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by On fire for Christ
I find this pretty funny, because as far as I can tell, this is pretty much Rebecca Watson's life in a nutshell |
As far as you can tell doesn't count for much. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2011 : 08:42:53 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by On fire for Christ
| You all keep throwing your bordello parties and pajama parties and getting drunk all the time and acting like overall jackasses in the name of 'supporting women in skepticism'. |
I find this pretty funny, because as far as I can tell, this is pretty much Rebecca Watson's life in a nutshell
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That just shows that you know very little about Watson. But just like your hatchet job blog, it probably fits your impression of her nicely.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26024 Posts |
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular
Norway
1273 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2011 : 08:51:07 [Permalink]
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| I think I know more about her than all you guys tbqh |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2011 : 08:55:07 [Permalink]
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| It should probably be noted that fully half of the speakers at TAM were woman this year. And it was the best TAM I have been to. DJ is president of the JREF now. I don't think that kind of change is a coincidence. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26024 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2011 : 08:57:55 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by On fire for Christ
I think I know more about her than all you guys tbqh |
Meh. Your qualifiers are not compelling. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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I do not like Rebecca Watson (aka skepchick)
