Fallible wrote:

Be Afraid wrote:That they complain about harassment and misogyny tends to chap my ass just a little bit.

I was bullied unmercifully from the time I was in 1st grade, all the way to 12th grade (although 2 incidents did tend to decrease it).

I was called "fag," "homo," 'queer," 'fudge-packer,' and so on (and I'm not even "gay" - although I have had a few boyfriends).

I've been shot, stabbed, and beaten by skinheads and rednecks while trying to defend even weaker people from these assailants.

And, to top it off, I was gang-raped in 1991. The rapists tried to kill me, and then dumped what they thought was my (naked) dead body into a ditch.

I tend to not bring this crap up that often (or, at all - if I had my preference)

So... That they would bitch about the abuse they have suffered while attacking and abusing me for things that they have manufactured out of whole cloth, while supposedly pretending that their forum is for a person exactly like myself....

IT PISSES ME THE FUCK OFF!!!.

And they have the gall to try to railroad people with Post-Modernist and Identity Politics (both things that deny objective knowledge - a thing vital to skepticism).

Where the FUCK do they get off?

This has been on a low boil for the last couple of weeks, and I have been trying to be "reasonable," trying to see "both sides."

And the thing with Rebecca Watson, and richard Dawkins...

That shit is irrelevant to how they treat people at that forum.

The "Dear Muslima" episode is just used as a pretext by that forum to abuse people.

They seem to think that two wrongs make a "right."

As if, because someone has wronged someone somewhere, that this "wrong" then gives them the right to perpetuate another wrong against others.

They have a fucking LOT to apologize for.

Matthew Bailey

Excellent post Matthew, and I'm sorry for what happened to you.

+1

orpheus wrote:

Fallible wrote:Excellent post Matthew, and I'm sorry for what happened to you.

+1

Indeed.

Paula wrote:

Oldskeptic wrote:I've long thought that Watson's story about the elevator was made up to help her "prove" her point that there is sexism in the atheist community. I find it a strange coincidence that the very day she went off on Paul Kirby about being privileged for never having observed sexism in the atheist community Watson finds an unverifiable example perfect for her claim.

It wouldn't be the first time that someone made up a personal experience anecdote to try to bolster their position. People with hard and fast ideologies do it quite often.

Something else that peaked my suspicion was how the story changed from the guy got on the elevator with her, to she was cornered in the elevator. And in her first telling of the story she said he said, "I'd like to talk to you more," but later she claimed that she had never spoken to him.

You're forgetting that the women in RW's camp claim to suffer from harassment or misogyny on a daily basis.

I doubt that any of them experience harassment or misogyny on a daily basis unless they are living with a misogynistic/abusive asshole. This happens. I've seen it, and also seen that what sometimes comes out of it is misandry. A general lumping of all men into the category of assholes.

I had a friend that was in an abusive marriage with a true asshole. She had no where to go so we brought her into our home. We hired her to work with my wife in our gift shop business. Everything went fairly well for a few months. My wife and her got to be good friends, and then everything went to hell. Our kitchen became an informal meeting place for a small group of women to gather, drink wine, and bitch about how rotten men were. Usually after I had cooked dinner, done the dishes, and cleaned the kitchen.

Watson's site maybe a virtual echo chamber of the "Man hating she women club" but I lived in a literal one for a year and a half. Anything I said was shouted down, and disparaged because I was a man. I took it for that year and a half then filed for divorce. When my wife asked me, "Why?" I told her, "I'm tired of being treated like an asshole. I work 60 hours a week, do all the cooking, half the cleaning, and all of the yard work. But I'm still an asshole. There doesn't seem to be anything that I can do to please you. No matter what I do I'm still an asshole, so it's over, I'm tired of trying."

Oh, I forgot one thing that sort of made up my mind. My friend that we had taken in had moved out, and the "Man hating she women club" had been meeting at her place to drink wine and bitch about men. One night my wife came home late sloppy drunk and wanted sex. She smelt like day old spilled wine which put me off the mood. She sat up in bed and started hitting me in the face. I pushed her off the bed and went to the guest bedroom.

Oldskeptic wrote:I doubt that any of them experience harassment or misogyny on a daily basis unless they are living with a misogynistic/abusive asshole. This happens. I've seen it, and also seen that what sometimes comes out of it is misandry. A general lumping of all men into the category of assholes.

Well, if all men are assholes, it does absolve the subset of women who choose asshole after asshole from any blame regarding their assessment skills, so I can see why the idea might be attractive to some.

As a bonus, it means that women are by default superior and in the right - if a woman is competing with a man for a job or promotion and he wins, then unless it's blindingly and undeniably obvious that he was streets ahead, then he, as a natural asshole, clearly must have benefitted from patriarchal attitudes.

I guess it doesn't help that the people who fall for that kind of approach rarely will be the sharpest knives in the box, and likely will frequently end up not getting the things they think they deserve, giving them lots of ammunition for their prejudice.

tolman wrote:
Well, if all men are assholes, it does absolve the subset of women who choose asshole after asshole from any blame regarding their assessment skills, so I can see why the idea might be attractive to some.

What we can observe here is a clear case of victim-blaming.
Ah! The magnificent beauty of that concept!

I've heard it said that men are exactly what women have bred us to be. Some truth to that oversimplification exists, I think.

The_Metatron wrote:I've heard it said that men are exactly what women have bred us to be. Some truth to that oversimplification exists, I think.

Honestly, I think that this social attitudes are a bit of an endless circle: there's no beginning. Women influence the behavior of men A LOT. But their behavior was also influenced a lot. Assigning blame is really not useful as far as I can see.

But I agree with some of what has been said above me about the effects of echo chambers, it's just difficult to draw a line between actual sexism, meaningful sexism and things people tell themselves. A man calling you "honey" can be seen as sexist. And if you bring it to your echo chamber people will make sympathetic sounds and shake their fists at the misogynists, but it does little beyond inflame your group and make people outside shake their heads at the melodrama, which then inflames you more because this is a serious problem okay?

Stories can certainly change in recollection - I've heard friends telling and retelling stories, and with some people, without any intent to deceive or, I think, any awareness of the change, the story does change over time, usually to benefit the teller or the general drama.

In retrospect I do think that Watson may have been a little intellectually dishonest by letting us believe that the man was at the conference where she stated that she didn't want to be hit on. She doesn't come out and say it, but she does draw a link between the two. So she elevates the issue from"I was uncomfortable" to "This person ignored my wishes and so made me uncomfortable". It's subtle, and I don't know if it was on purpose but it's cheap.

I couldn't agree more

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcSZ7deAHbw[/youtube]







No. Thank you.

It is quite heartening that this thread has gotten to the level where Youtube videos are all that is left to say:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYQs2rRnJYY[/youtube]

Politically incorrect atheists need a good nose lasering.

I always imagine green lasers when what's-his-name does his nose laser bans.

Being a misanthropist, I'm inclined to think that misogynists and misandrists are both only halfway correct.

What is the nose laser thing?

There is a mod at A+ who bans people by saying stuff like "I'm gonna shot you with my nose laser, you are toast". Stuff like that.

Imagination Theory wrote:There is a mod at A+ who bans people by saying stuff like "I'm gonna shot you with my nose laser, you are toast". Stuff like that.

Not only that. There is this sinus/nasal condition that some people get, such that when a stuffy nose happens, they keep trying to blow their nose, thinking there's stuff in there that's blocking their nose, when it's only inflamed and swollen nasal passages. They blow and blow, and the ensuing irritation gets worse and worse, rather than better and better. Some people end up with a chronic condition, and try to get it repaired with laser surgery.

Remind you of anything?

Sounding gross now.

Why would a laser come out of a nose anyway?
Don't lasers customarily come out of eyes?

Not always:

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix4/earthcyclopsears.htm

Ahahaha! What the heck?!