Argumentative, Aggressive, and Generally Dickish

What to remember when you’ve said that confrontational atheists have made it harder for you to make progress on your shared goals, and some atheist has gotten (eek, gasp, shock, horror, blah, blah, blah) rude with you. This is particularly true for the endless argument over promoting science.

It’s worth remembering where this debate came from. Atheists, only recently starting to stand up and be counted in any number, are seeing the people who have been saying the same things that atheists have been saying for centuries (as noted in comment 5, then largely ignored) being told to hush up because they’re being noticed for once and that’s making trouble. These are frequently also the people who gave your rank-and-file atheist the courage to come out and who provide sympathy when coming out results in the crap it always results in. But hush, because what these other people are doing is really important.

Of course, it is important. But so is being supported and encouraged as an out atheist. So is being able to tell people how religion hurt you or those you love without having to put bows on it. So is being able to tell other people that they have a real choice to get out of abusive religions. So is being able to run for public office. So is being able to keep your job. So is being able to keep your kids.

But hush. And be really nice to the people who are telling you to hush. Be nice to the people who are telling you that you matter less than what they’re doing. Be nice to the people who are doing good work but only talk about why people like you are bad. Be nice to the people who might, someday let you eat at the grown-up table if you stay quiet enough at the children’s table first (and when there are no more grown-up problems you might interfere with). Hush and trust them, despite the fact that they’re calling you the problem.

Yeah, no. Atheists are being aggressive, in part, because they’re being told to go back to being passive. They’re being argumentative because there’s a constant onslaught of messages leveled at them and everyone they have to deal with that becomes the unquestioned social background if they don’t. They’re being rude because everybody is rude sometimes, and they’re not going to be left out if you’re not. They’re being condescending because you’ve been told this before in some form, but you can’t seem to move past the fact that someone insulted you in order to hear it. [from my comment here]

If you happen to be an atheist whose life is arranged so that it never causes you any problems, rejoice. If you’re religious and don’t see why atheists should behave that way in our “Christian nation” or a country with a state church, take a deep breath and two steps back from the argument (particularly if you happen to be a middle-class or better white male to boot). If you don’t know what all the fuss is about, shut up and listen for a bit. Either way, understand what you’re demanding of atheists and figure out why you’re placing the burden for good behavior on them.

Further Reading
The Support of New Atheism
Whither Allies

Argumentative, Aggressive, and Generally Dickish
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The Support of New Atheism

Chris Mooney has a new post up about a study showing positive anti-prejudicial effects of the message that atheists exist, in number, in society. He sees this as a plus for New Atheists, but still adds cautions:

The tactic finding support here is not necessarily being confrontational–that would tend to prompt negative emotional reactions, and thus defensiveness and inflexibility towards New Atheist arguments–but rather, making it more widely known that you’re actually there–as “out” atheists try to do:

Josh Roseneau expands on that point:

But New Atheism is hardly the only way for atheists – or nontheists more generally – to get the word out that they’re here and want to be taken seriously. It’s a myth that there’s no such thing as bad publicity: if no one knows who you are, it’s all the more crucial to present yourself well. And for the reasons Chris alludes to above, and for reasons I’ve laid out ad nauseam, I don’t think New Atheism is the best way to present atheism.

All right. Here’s the thing. Actually, no, let me tell you a little story first.

I work in an office where people around me routinely talk about their weekend plans with their church groups. I can walk into the kitchenette for water for tea, hear someone talk about the bad influences their kids are hanging with, and know that by the time I’m done (our hot water is glacially slow) I’ll hear that the reason is that these kids just don’t go to church!

It’s the only place I’ve ever worked where someone visibly prayed before meals. Sexual minorities are underrepresented and pretty well closeted. Despite the fact that I hosted an atheist radio show for six months, two people in the office know I’m an atheist.

Then, yesterday. We have a whiteboard outside the kitchenette that can be used for announcements. Usually it’s used for silly questions like, “Have you filed your taxes yet?” or “Who’s your pick to win the NCAA tournament.” Yesterday, the question was, “What are your Easter/Passover traditions?”

It hadn’t been answered. The hallway was quiet, but people would be grabbing and heating lunches soon. Quickly, I wrote, “None. No religion.”

Shortly, I needed more water. Someone had written underneath, “Eating ham.” Someone else had drawn an arrow to my comment from theirs. “That’s okay. Diversity is for all.”

Yes, I know. Even for me. When I’m willing to go to the work to make that happen. Glad it’s “okay,” though.

When I washed my lunch dishes, someone else had answered. “Celebrating our lord and savior. Christ is risen!!!” The first sentence is a paraphrase. The last, including all three exclamation points, is not.

By about 2 p.m., the board had been erased and the content replaced with information about texting while driving. There was an article in yesterday’s paper about enforcement, but the law isn’t new.

Did I increase someone’s awareness? Probably. Did I leave a mark on someone’s prejudices? Maybe. Did I deal with stupid crap, from patronage to a defensive Christian to erasure, in doing it? Yeah.

It happens, but that’s my point. As part of the least trusted demographic in a country where the populace is being continually fed a line about how we are attacking them, this stuff always happens. It’s annoying. It’s nervous-making. It’s tiring. And it’s really damned hard to find people who think the responses aren’t just something I should expect if I answer a question about religion–even at work–with an answer that questions the assumption of religion.

Enter the New Atheists. Enter the loud-mouthed confrontationalists who aren’t going to see people behave that way without doing their best to make it quite clear that this behavior in unacceptable. Enter the support team, the cheering squad, the clearers of obstacles. Enter the people who, as PZ Myers’ described his role last year at CONvergence, get angry for those of who aren’t allowed to. Enter the people who make others angry so I don’t have to. Enter the people who put all these topics into the mainstream in ways that can’t be ignored so I don’t have to explain myself endlessly every time I identify myself.

Without them, you would hear less from me. Without me, you would hear less from a rather large number of my friends. Far too many of them had no support for the idea that being nonreligious doesn’t have to mean being invisible when the subject is discussed.

Do the New Atheists do the kind of work that the study says is effective in dismantling prejudices? Well, that largely comes down to how you define New Atheists. But even at the most restrictive, strident, obnoxious definitions, the New Atheists support that work.

If they don’t do it themselves, it still wouldn’t happen without them.

The Support of New Atheism

Is This a Bad Day?

Yesterday morning, I left for work dressed for the temperature, not the windchill. Since I walk to work, this makes a difference. At one point, I thought, This is stupid. If I had to do anything more than walk a mile and a half, like stop walking at some point, being dressed like this would kill me. Ah, Minnesota spring.

Still, chilly weather is good for something. In this case, it was pushing my heart rate without sweating to death (or even beyond the requirements of office etiquette). Spring and fall, between icy sidewalks and saunas, is a good time to get in aerobic exercise instead of just movement on my commute.

That put me going at a good clip as I rounded the last corner before the office, which put me a few feet in front of a couple of guys talking as they walked together. One of them sped up to (I assume) try to pass me. He couldn’t. I walk pretty quickly for a short woman.

So, instead, he decided to tell his friend that I walked “too fast” to show off my ass. Then he proceeded to describe what ought to be done with my ass “right here.” From three feet behind me. Loudly. With hand gestures I could partly see out of the corner of my eye.

I tweeted about it. Why? These things should be documented for those who don’t see them because they don’t happen when said people (i.e., guys) are around. Not that my friends don’t trust me when I say that this happens to me, but here, now, and details all matter when you want to provide a visceral understanding. If you stand next to me, it won’t happen, but I’ll cheerfully put you next to me when it happens.

People on Twitter were suitably supportive, and I went about my day.

Later, I was chatting with one of my twitter friends about this post on whether there are “hot” authors in science fiction. I was annoyed with “pretty pretty versus scifi pretty” and particularly with the idiots who decided to discuss how one woman rated while she stood in front of them. To the best of my reckoning, “scifi pretty” is nothing more than “I’m so simultaneously drawn to and terrified by your smarts that I can’t see straight enough to fully engage in my normal judgmental, anti-social behavior.” Let’s just say the discussion says far too much about the people trying to make the decision.

My friend and I were talking about why we wouldn’t even want to touch a discussion that seemed designed to reinforce boring stereotypes, elevate the importance of superficial criteria, and make people feel bad about themselves. Instead, we held our own private appreciation fest over those in F&SF who are hot in all sorts of ways (not an insignificant number of people).

At one point, I complimented his partner. He agreed enthusiastically. Then he asked, “Is this a bad day to compliment your looks?”

Never mind what the compliment was. I’m not going to tell you–not that and not the compliment I paid him. Because as nice as it was, being asked about how I was doing after my morning was an even bigger compliment.

It told me he was paying attention to my day. It recognized that paying me a compliment was supposed to be a benefit to me. It recognized that my needs of the moment might not include validation of my appearance. It was risky in a society where we have few templates for that kind of behavior, particularly since he and I have never had that sort of chat. In short, it was tailored to me in a way that compliments almost never are.

I love having friends who are that adult, that adept. And I love that a day that starts with that kind of crappy personal interaction can end with some of the best. Not a bad day at all.

And sorry, boys and girls, but I’m pretty sure that his current romantic relationship means he’s not available for more.

Is This a Bad Day?

Ssssilly Gender Defaults

First, it escaped.

The director of the zoo expressed confidence that the snake was still in the reptile house and said the snake would probably avoid open areas. “To understand the situation, you have to understand snakes,” Jim Breheny, the director, said in a written statement. “Upon leaving its enclosure, the snake would feel vulnerable and seek out a place to hide and feel safe. When the snake gets hungry or thirsty, it will start to move around the building. Once that happens, it will be our best opportunity to recover it.”

Then it started to tweet.

Then it acquired a tweeting wife.

Then a tweeting mistress.

Then it was recaptured.

The adolescent female snake is in good condition after her weeklong foray into cageless freedom. “We’re really happy to announce that cobra missing for seven days has been found,” Jim Breheny, director of the Bronx Zoo, said at a press conference Thursday afternoon. “She’s alive and well … resting comfortably and secure.”

Or rather, then she was recaptured. The original tweeting snake is still in pretty good condition, but the wife and mistress? I think they’ve got more problems than a #snakeonthetown.

Oopssss.

Ssssilly Gender Defaults

Taking Our Fear Seriously

In today’s reading, we have Rebecca Watson ready to give up on the internet.

I actually got one point wrong in that video and have wanted to do an update for some time, but every time I try I get another round of comments like the above and I decide it’s not worth my emotional well-being.

I’ve taken to simply ignoring YouTube comments, but for some reason today I responded. I checked out this guy’s profile (warning, autoplay video) and he subscribes to a lot of science stuff, including good friends of mine like Captain Disillusion. I wanted to know what was happening in this guy’s head. Specifically, I wanted to know why someone would call me a bitch and then write something that I basically said in the video (but a bit more eloquently I hope): genital mutilation is wrong, whether on boys or girls.

It’s ugly. If you write about women or read about women or are visibly a woman with opinions on the internet, it’s not going to surprise you. Read it anyway, unless more of that would be bad for you today.

Then The Bloggess takes some time to get serious.

I realize that I write a (satirical) sex column and blog about my life and you might think that’s an invitation to send me creepy emails, but it’s really not. At all. You continue to try to contact me and I continue to ignore you. You send me strange messages that scare me. I realize you’re probably not aware of how you’re affecting other people but you probably need to seek help. And I’m not the person to help you. Talk to your parents. See a doctor. Please. Because my guess is that I’m not the only woman who you’re emailing. And I’m probably not the only one that you’re scaring.

Let me assure you, you don’t know me, and the things you write make my family and myself very, very uncomfortable. I know that’s not your intention but if you don’t stop, I will contact the police.

Jenny also, wisely, tells her readers not to face something like this alone if it happens to them. She tells them to ignore the messages that have told them not to “make a scene.” Smart. Very smart. And needed. I do wish, however, that she’d also taken a moment to remind people to take these stories seriously when they’re the person someone chooses to lean on.

It isn’t easy, knowing what to say when someone tells you they’re scared. Trust me. I know. I’ve heard some incredibly dismissive things from usually thoughtful people when I’ve brought up something like this. I’ve been told some powerfully toxic individuals were “harmless.” I could have collected a thousand variations of “Maybe he just….”

Rebecca’s post has more comments than I care to count referring to “he” or “the commenter” or telling her, “There are good people out there. This is just one guy.” She quoted four bits of nastiness in her post.

Stop this, please. Stop trying to make it better by managing the one person you have some influence over–me (or whoever is complaining). I’m not the problem. Trying to make me think I’m exaggerating isn’t going to make the actual problem any smaller. It’s big. It’s ugly.

If it’s more than you can deal with, how about you just tell me so. You might think a statement like that doesn’t reflect very well on you, but it does a whole lot better than getting into an argument with me about my safety. Or just learn how to say, “That sucks. Can I help?” There’s probably something you can do, and there’s a good chance it’s small.

Even if not, just listening helps immensely. Besides, you never know when you might learn something from it. For example, today’s New York Times reports that the man believed to be behind the 2001 anthrax mailings had a long history of stalking and revenge against women, confessed to various psychiatrists over the years.

The report adds new detail to the F.B.I.’s account of Dr. Ivins’s eccentric and sometimes criminal secret life, including his obsession with a sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma, and break-ins at some of its chapter offices. It documents his preoccupation with several women, including his two laboratory technicians, his stalking behavior and his penchant for long night drives to mail or drop off packages, often under assumed names.

One of his therapists took this seriously (pdf). Typically, she was then dismissed.

His therapist became so alarmed that she sought legal advice from her practice’s malpractice insurance carrier and made tentative inquiries with the local police department. She later quit the practice because the physician in charge, referred to as Dr. #3 in this report, did not share her concerns about Dr. Ivins’ dangerousness.

The report details a number of ways in which communication breakdowns led to Ivins keeping his security clearance, but if she had been supported in her fears…well, who knows what would have happened. She wasn’t taken seriously, so it didn’t.

Unless you’re dealing with someone of an age that monsters under the bed and in the closet are developmental milestones, the chances are that the women in your life are strong enough and independent enough that they don’t scare easily, much less confess to it. If the behavior aimed at them is getting to them badly enough that they bring it to you, it’s worth not waving away. It’s worth hearing, worth seeing. It’s worth putting together to watch for patterns. It’s worth understanding that there are probably also intangibles that get lost in the telling that would impress you more if you were there.

In other words, it’s worth taking seriously.

Taking Our Fear Seriously

Rights Must Be Protected *and* Shared

Via Mike the Mad Biologist comes an excellent article entitled “Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand,” a reminder of the cost of those things we consider rights and assume cannot be taken from us.

Those who fought to achieve these rights endured tremendous suffering, pain and deprivation. It is they who made possible our middle class and opened up our democracy. The elite hired goons and criminal militias to evict striking miners from company houses, infiltrate fledgling union organizations and murder suspected union leaders and sympathizers. Federal marshals, state militias, sheriff’s deputies and at times Army troops, along with the courts and legislative bodies, were repeatedly used to crush and stymie worker revolts. Striking sugar cane workers were gunned down in Thibodaux, La., in 1887. Steel workers were shot to death in 1892 in Homestead, Pa. Railroad workers in the Pullman strike of 1894 were murdered. Coal miners at Ludlow, Colo., in 1914 and at Matewan, W.Va., in 1920 were massacred. Our freedoms and rights were paid for with their courage and blood.

American democracy arose because those consciously locked out of the system put their bodies on the line and demanded justice. The exclusion of the poor and the working class from the systems of power in this country was deliberate. The Founding Fathers deeply feared popular democracy. They rigged the system to favor the elite from the start, something that has been largely whitewashed in public schools and by a corporate media that has effectively substituted myth for history. Europe’s poor, fleeing to America from squalid slums and workhouses in the 17th and 18th centuries, were viewed by the privileged as commodities to exploit. Slaves, Native Americans, indentured servants, women, and men without property were not represented at the Constitutional Conventions. And American history, as Howard Zinn illustrated in “The People’s History of the United States,” is one long fight by the marginalized and disenfranchised for dignity and freedom. Those who fought understood the innate cruelty of capitalism.

Go read the whole thing. Give it some time to sink in. It’s highly likely that your economic education has been poor enough that it will take some time to grasp all the pieces. Reread it as necessary.

One thing to watch, though.

The liberal class has busied itself with the toothless pursuits of inclusiveness, multiculturalism, identity politics and tolerance—a word Martin Luther King never used—and forgotten about justice.

Be careful of arguments like this. I’m seeing too many of them lately.

There are ways to use identity politics to divide, yes, and the class of capital is as expert at these as they are at every other type of divisiveness. However, at their heart, the ideas of inclusiveness are little more than saying that where there are human rights to be had, we must fight the idea that some things legitimately exclude groups of people from claiming those rights.

We don’t even have to do it because it’s simply the right thing to do (although it is). When capital wants to chip away at human rights, it goes after those groups first. Union busting targets teachers, who are largely female (and who were much more valued when the profession was mostly male). School privatization targets inner-city schools, with large minority populations whom we’re told don’t stand a chance to succeed unless drastic measures are taken. Immigration “reform,” which increases the consequences of working illegally without any real hope of decreasing the numbers, targets Hispanics. Reality-based decision makers are pushed out of office as unacceptable religious minorities.

Little by little, they carve us away, push us apart, and reclaim what they believe is theirs. And for the most part, they let us do the work. It is no accident that the regressives demonize identity politics. Threatening us individually with the idea that no one will believe we are due our human rights works. It works very well.

It works even better when those on the left tell us that our concerns over those threats are just a distraction. They are not. Our rights were won by unions, but those rights have not been shared by all equally. Many of us have continued to be told we are not human, and not just by those on the right.

Unions require a certain amount of trust. Alliances are often uneasy, more uneasy the larger and more diverse they are. Denying the importance of identity politics, denying the call that we must all share in what we protect and what we regain, won’t build that trust. It won’t build those alliances. Instead, every time we’re told it’s unimportant, we have to spend the energy to explain one more time why that isn’t so. Just as I’m doing here.

So stop it, lefties. Leave patting us on the head and saying everything’s just fine to those on the right. Just acknowledge that, yes, it is every bit as important that we share in the reward as it is that we share in the work. Just commit to the idea that we’re every bit as human when it comes to human rights. That’s all.

Then we can get on with this thing. Together.

Rights Must Be Protected *and* Shared

Fit to Speak

Rush Limbaugh has, as usual, been saying some incredibly stupid things. In this case, he’s suggesting that Michelle Obama is a hypocrite for suggesting people try to improve their eating habits because she doesn’t look like a supermodel or starlet.

There’s plenty of idiocy here that should be noted. However, there are good and bad ways to go about it. Dana Milbank gets it all wrong in the Washington Post:

Limbaugh is in an excellent position to make this observation, being perhaps the finest example of the male form since Michelangelo sculpted David. In 2009, he went on a fad diet, full of controversial supplements but little exercise, and lost 90 pounds. Such crash diets are dangerous – and, sure enough, Limbaugh wound up in the hospital at the end of the year with chest pains. Judging from recent video footage, he has regained most of the bulk.

The problem, of course, it that Limbaugh’s attractiveness is not the reason he’s wrong. His personal history with diets and weight loss and gain are not the reason.

He’s wrong because he can’t be bothered to say (or perhaps know) what Obama’s message regarding food actually is. She’s trying to help Americans make healthier choices about food. She’s trying to encourage them, not to stop indulging, but to indulge less often.

Neither of these messages needs to be delivered by a supermodel. In fact, they may well be better delivered by someone the average American can identify with. A person doesn’t have to be “pure” in their relationship to food (where “pure” somehow equals skinny) in order to talk about it. Limbaugh is dead wrong on this point.

And despite Milbank’s digression, Limbaugh’s message would be just as wrong if it were delivered by the very thin Ann Coulter. It would be just as wrong if Limbaugh were to say that he could never deliver an effective message on food and nutrition.

All Milbank is doing is adding to the chorus of people saying we have to be skinny to be heard on this issue. He’s contributing to the problem he’s calling out. That doesn’t help anyone.

Let’s stay focused on the real issues in this situation. If you need some help figuring out how to talk about it, check out Mike Bruno’s post for Entertainment Weekly. If he can get this right while working for a traditionally image-obsessed industry, I think we all can.

Fit to Speak

Get Over It

In today’s Observer, writer and poker champion Victoria Coren shared a story about the reaction of some guy (apparently some sort of celebrity in Britain) to a suggestion that he follow her on Twitter. To keep it brief:

“IT suggests I follow Victoria Coren. Who the hell is she? Y should I follow her? Her tweets read dull.”

“VICTORIA ALL MY TWEETERS RIVETED BY YOUR BOSOMS.”

He wrote to someone else: “NOW I KNOW SHE HAS LARGE BOSOMS.” To another: “If you’re not clear if Victoria’s bosom are firm, go there and get a hold on the situation.”

He sent a direct private message, just to me, saying: “You have enlived my tweeters who discovered your breasts when I knew 0 about them.” He put up four more public posts about my breasts and chatted about them with all who passed by – wheezing happily to one follower: “How naughty of Uto suggest Victoria shows us a piccy-poo of her boobs.”

In response, her column has received all the unoriginal, unhelpful comments. Among the milder ones:

i think the answer is…………….

Don’t do twitter, don’t look at other people’s tweets.

It’s just self-obsessed people (“celebrities”) shrieking at each other. We might as well let them get on with it.

Would have been best to just ignore him as to be honest there are a lot more important things to be getting on with and fighting for as witnessed on those other users of twitter whether they be disability campaigners or Middle Eastern nationals whose futures I would have thought are far more important than a spat about some breasts and a couple of so called celebrities. Move on Victoria and spend your time on more worthwhile pursuits. There are many out there.

interesting.

we all have interactions that go badly, usually with someone we don’t know very well, or at all. but then we go home and fret about them for a bit, but then they are forgotten.

but on twitter is it the same, or is it different, i suppose its a magnified version of what happens in real life. but then as there are so many interactions on it, they are proably as meaningless as a conversation that went badly on the street.

just llok on it as being a bit like one of those miserable people you meet every so often who says something nasty, and forget about him.

I enjoyed the article, as always the lady’s wit & wisdom is a pleasant addition to a Suynday morning, but I have to agree (as nearly always!) with lightacandle: there’s a hell of a lot of more interesting & important topics to spend time on than an aging sexist.

Twitter’s not really the best place to expect good manners, thoughtful comment or liberal attitudes. And – going purely by the films he’s made which I’ve seen- Michael Winner’s not really a man to expect these things from either.

Pointless, z-list ‘celebrity’ has futile social media war with other pointless z-list ‘celebrity’…..yawn

Aside from demonstrating that the average commenter can neither spell nor punctuate, these folks seem to be working very hard to suggest that this is all a boring little commonplace happening that deserves no attention at all. It even seems to be a popular argument, but it leaves me with one question.

Are all these people leaving their comments, then turning their attention to the offensive twit in question and saying, “Dude! They’re breasts! You’ve got to learn to expect those on women. Get over it!”?

Are any of them?

Get Over It

Hidden Women, Hidden Writers

The biggest problem with ScienceOnline (and one of very, very few) is that there are too many interesting sessions happening at the same time. One of the ones I regret missing was “Perils of blogging as a woman under a real name”. Luckily for me, Kate Clancy discussed the session and the discussion before and after the session on her blog.

I recommend her full post (and comments) highly for any woman operating in the public sphere, not just science bloggers. For now, I’d like to highlight a couple of the challenges that others have noted we face.

  • There is serious friend bias in who gets promoted in the science blogosphere, and it ends up that men promote other men quite a lot (in order to avoid potential defensiveness, I will say that we did also discuss several notable exceptions). We need to share the empirical evidence about the fact that people like to read people who are a lot like them, as a kind of sensitivity training for men, to help them train their brains to appreciate many different voices.
  • We are all very, very tired of making a point on a blog, on twitter, or in a meeting, being ignored, having a man make the same point, then having that man get all the credit. Very tired.

  • Both the attacks and appreciations are different for women bloggers. We get unwanted attentions and compliments on our appearance, surprise that we are an authority on certain topics or have an interest in male-dominated topics, or are bullied in a way that feels gendered when a man decides we are wrong on the internet.

I pulled these points out because Christie Wilcox focuses on them in her follow-up post, “I’ve never been very good at hiding“. Again, read the whole post.

Why isn’t there a girl version of Ed Yong or Carl Zimmer? Why is there no woman in the elite list of the most well known science bloggers? The excuse that there aren’t enough high-quality female science writers just doesn’t cut it anymore. They’re out there, and they have been for years. Incredible women like Sheril Kirshenbaum have been standing up and taking the full brunt of the internet’s misogyny with the utmost grace. We have to be honest with ourselves as a community. The problem isn’t that the women aren’t there. It’s that they aren’t being taken as seriously.

I’m not so complacent. I shouldn’t have to hide the fact that I am a woman just to be seen as a brilliant scientist or a great writer. And I am young and bull-headed and perhaps just naive enough not to hide. You might notice my looks first, but I’ll be damned if you don’t hear my words, too.

Christie is issuing a challenge to those who would engage with her based on looks to just try to ignore her work. It’s a good challenge. It’s bold. She’s right that she’s damned good and very hard to ignore, but…but…

But.

Having our work tucked neatly out of sight behind our bodies is hardly the only way women writers stay hidden. Talking about our bodies is hardly the only way to fail to engage with women. There is always the much simpler option of just…failing to engage.

Christie wants there to be female Ed Yongs and Carl Zimmers. Ed comments that she might also aspire to be the next Rebecca Skloot. While I appreciate that he’s bringing high-profile women science writers into the discussion, his comment misses the point.

Look at the mass of discussion that was generated around ScienceOnline2011. A number of people brought up examples of great writers to emulate. Those lists all started, “Carl Zimmer, Ed Yong, (another male writer–Steve Silberman or David Dobbs or…well, you get the point).” Only after that point, if the list continues, do any female names appear. Rebecca frequently didn’t make those lists, despite being widely lauded as having published the single best piece of science writing of 2010 and having reached an audience that most writers could only dream of. She never came first.

For her skills, sure, I would love to be Rebecca Skloot. It would not keep me from staying hidden. If I want to be recognized, I have to aspire to be Carl or Ed.

This isn’t unique to science writers. It’s part of the reality of publishing as a woman. I get it writing about politics. Google sent ripples out from the Digital Book World conference yesterday when it came out that they were surprised romance was the top-selling genre of e-book. Of course it is. Romance is the top-selling genre of book, period, year-in and year-out. It’s just invisible, being women’s fiction, unless it’s written by a man. But then it’s literature, not romance.

Now, there is one way for a female science writer to gain immediate attention for a post. They can write for women or about women. They can write the equivalent of romance.

(To clarify, women are a critical audience, and it’s important that they be well-served. I love Kate’s suggestion about developing an Old Girl’s Club. However, if we’re going to talk about any kind of equality, we should note that women already read men and take them seriously. Women see men. The reverse can’t always be said.)

Look at the comment section of Christie’s post. Now look at the comments on any of her other ScienceOnline posts. Look at how many times each has been retweeted or otherwise promoted and by whom. This post about being a woman while blogging blows them all away in its first half day of publication, and it gets disproportionally promoted by men compared to her other posts. Look at the attention Kate’s post has received. It has a huge comment section and has been cross-posted to David Dobbs’ Wired blog.

Don’t get me wrong. Attention is good. Attention is wonderful. We’d just like to get the same kind of recognition when we write literature that we get when we write romance. In short, guys, we’re tired of lapsing into invisibility when we do the same things you do. That’s why we aspire to your positions, not Rebecca’s.

So if you want to help (I know that a great many of you do, and I appreciate that), it’s time to figure out how to incorporate women into your “serious” science writing work. Do you always go to the same one or two male science bloggers when you want to cite an explanation of something? Branch out. Keep a list of reference posts if necessary. Do you highlight a few female bloggers when they write about community or equality? Treat their science posts the same way. Do you think Rebecca is an amazing science writer whom we should aspire to emulate (and I know the answer to that one)? Say so. Repeatedly. First.

Engage with us. Argue with us when you think we’re wrong. Talk about us when you think we’re good. Go overboard in mentioning us occasionally, since nobody else is doing it. Work to mix us in to general conversations about writing. If you want us to be recognized as science writers, engage with our science writing.

Until you do, Christie can tell people to “bring it” as much as she likes. They’re still not stopping by.

Hidden Women, Hidden Writers