Damn, there are such good comments on PZ’s post on Dawkins on American women complaining about being groped at work that I have to share a few extracts.
How can we make the Deep Rifts wide enough so we don’t have to constantly hear his whining drone note about how muzzled he is, carried in every major media source? He’s like a bagpipe made of living cats at this point – the last thing you want to do is squeeze him or poke him, because then he’ll start playing his only tune, the MRA anthem “Restrainin’ Men”, to the tune of “It’s Rainin’ Men”.
I don’t understand why feminism has to be this major fault line. Atheists can disagree about other things without causing these “deep rifts”. But Dawkins (and Boghossian, and others) won’t let it go. He wants to be as alienating as possible. He wants to alienate us because he doesn’t want us in his movement. But it ain’t his movement.
I can’t stand that whole “but in comparison to the Middle-East…” bullshit that he’s constantly pulling. And for him to outright say that women complaining about being molested… excuse me, “inappropriately touched”, is trivial? That’s just beyond the pale even for Dawkins. I can already hear his response, too. “Oh, I didn’t say it was trivial, i said it was trivial in comparison. Surely you agree mutilation and stoning are worse than inappropriate touching right? I can say ‘X is worse than Y’ without saying Y isn’t bad. I’m not saying Y isn’t bad.” If Y is bad, and isn’t trivial, then why the fuck are you bringing X into it and lamenting that people complain about Y?
So Dawkins, is asked to be interviewed… for an article he knows is going to be published. And in the interview he complains that he’s “muzzled”?
Well, it’s because after this he will never be able to give an interview without heavy security again. Because of the nature of this, he will have to go into hiding like Salman Rushdi, flee the country and not be able to return again like Taslima Nasreen. if he is ever caught he will not get away with a few thousand lashes like Raif Badawi, no, he will either be lynched likeHenry Smith (TW for that) or be the victim of a witch hunt(TW, too), because his opponents are just a version of Nazis like the people who killed Sophie Scholl
Maureen Brian @ 35 [posted at the same time as Giliell’s]
On the question of muzzling, does Richard Dawkins have it worse than Taslima Nasreen? No.
Belonging in a country where equal pay has been law since the early 1970s and there’s still a measurable pay gap does he have it worse than British women disrespected in the workplace? No.
Does he have it worse than women in the UK where 20% of REPORTED rapes don’t even make it into the record – http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/18/police-dismiss-one-in-four-sex-crimes-watchdog? No.
Same problem most places. Trying to divide it by country or culture is an attempt to avoid the issue. End of story.
Also, Dawkins KNOWS what he did with that coffee comment. He knows what Rebecca Watson has gone through. He knows that when he brings it up he inflames the MRAssholes. And he did it anyway, because scoring his own point in a single interview is worth more to him than what he just did to her threat count for the next month.
What Richard Dawkins realizes (or is at least taking advantage of) is that sexism is much more acceptable than other forms of bias, such as racism. It’s not that you can’t get “in trouble” for angering feminists (see Summers, Larry) it’s that when feminists are mad at you, everybody has your back. Let’s remember that while Larry Summers did lose his job after implying that women aren’t as good at math as men, he was supported by pretty much everybody in the mainstream media as a victim of “political correctness” at the hands of feminists who “can’t handle reality”. Then he went on to run Goldman-Sachs and become Secretary of the Treasury. So yeah, his life was ruined. In 2 years, when Matt Taylor is still getting death threats over his shirt and major figures in astronomy are refusing to attend any conferences he’s a part of, I’ll consider the plight of the poor oppressed men who run afoul of feminists. Until then, I’ll consider feminism an easy target you can pretend to be brave by standing up to.
I concentrate my attention on that menace and I confess I occasionally get a little impatient with American women who complain of being inappropriately touched by the water cooler or invited for coffee or something which I think is, by comparison, relatively trivial
How fucking stupid! So now that Malala Yousafzai is safe in the confines of Dicky Dawk’s benevolent Western world I can catcall at her? Accost her in an elevator at 4 fucking AM and invite her to my room for some coffee and a lil’ chit-chat? Pinch her ass by the coffee mess? Tweet out pics of her head photo-shopped onto porn stars? And she just has to shut the fuck up about it now that she has graduated from level one to level two of Dawk’s imaginary fucking scale of oppression?
“I must confess Malala, that I am getting a little impatient with your whining now that you aren’t as oppressed as you used to be…”
That’s only a small sample. A lot of great comments there.
Update to add a few:
@We Are Plethora #156
It’s very interesting how Dawkins chose to use a euphemism (“inappropriately touched”) rather than the term we all know he really meant which was “non-consensual groping.”
I believe the term you’re searching for is “sexual assault”. He’s talking about women who, instead of being able to go about their jobs in peace, are targeted and sexually assaulted by their colleagues and bosses. The “at the water cooler” phrase also implies that this is an everyday, mundane, commonplace, to-be-expected occurrence for any woman in the workplace–as ordinary and therefore as trivial as office gossip and small talk about last night’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy.
Ibis3 #163, you make an excellent point regarding the trivialising and gaslighting bundled up in Dawkins’ carefully condescending phrase, which reminds me of when DJ Grothe characterised backchannel warnings against the harassing/assaulting tendencies of certain male skeptics as “distasteful locker room banter” and bragging about “sexual exploits”, because yeah that’s exactly what telling another woman which men to be extra-wary of is all about.
For anyone who wasn’t around for Grothe’s above effort in 2012, Justin Thibeault’s post on the quoted from which I’ve pulled the above phrases is a good primer.
I work in an industry where many women remember not that long ago when men would chase them through the offices to grope them and kiss them. Where the female partner in a firm had to sit on a male partner’s lap to be allowed in the Partner’s Lounge. Where you could walk in on the boss giggling while watching porn, and he wouldn’t even turn it off. There is no such thing as harmless ‘inappropriate touching’ at a water cooler. That is sexual assault, and a hostile work environment to boot. There were plenty of things he could have chosen as an example of ‘frivolous’ complaining, and yet he chose this, something that is illegal, wrong & keeping women out of certain industries. Makes me wonder what his motive was in choosing those specific words.
There is arguably no one–or at least only a very small, elite group of people–who is LESS MUZZLED than Richard Dawkins, a respected scientist, media figure, and white man worth approximately USD$100million. He could write a 600 page book on how muzzled and silenced and oppressed he is, and publishers would jostle and fight for the right to buy and publish the manuscript. He could go on a worldwide speaking tour earning $10,000 per engagement and tell audience after audience after audience how he must choke back certain thoughts because he’s not “allowed” to express them, and he’d run out of energy to utter another word before the adoring audiences ran out. The self-pitying entitlement in that man’s manner boggles the imagination.
I just realized a typo I made there in that post. “If Y isn’t bad” should be “If Y is bad”. The point made it across, it just reads weird in hindsight.
Per the opening salvo, CatieCat’s comment – OMG!! LOL!!! And the rest too – it’s like a red carpet of comments! Ima just gonna go on over there and enjoy…
And then he’d go on to express those thoughts he couldn’t express in order that everyone would understand in great detail just what he wasn’t allowed to say.
If anything should muzzle him it’s not the feminists who complain about what he’s saying. At the very least we want him to respond.
What should muzzle him is the attack dogs he sets off with his remarks. If I was talking about atheism and religious people would get harassed after any of my comments I would stop my remarks on religion and first address the harassers.
How many people like the Richard Dawkins Foundation on facebook? Follow his twitter? Buy his books? Feature him on shows and talks? Yeah, SO MUZZLED, Dawky-kins.
I think we can safely count Dawkins as belonging to the “I am a feminist BUT … ” brigade.
Here’s a question: what can we do to remove Richard Dawkins as the default face of atheism in public perception, in particular the mass media? I would not like to be represented by him any more, but I still am.
One time Dawkins went to a concert and somebody sang “Open The Door, Richard.” He was incensed that somebody would try to muzzle his right to not open the door.
UnknownEric,
That’s nothing! One time, there was an atheist conference with a talk by Rebecca Watson, and they totally muzzled his wish for her to shut up and go away. True story!
@8 Alex:
Build up a new, better face.
Which ain’t exactly trivial.
@khms,
The formidable problem is, I think, that we don’t really want any one face to stand for the movement. Who should that be?
Ophelia will want to throttle me, but I tend to agree with that statement.
There has been a rash of assaults on western women in my home town by male taxi drivers, all of whom, according to the info available, appear to be of the same religious background. More than two douzen in the past year with no charges laid.
We have the predators in Rotherham, UK. Near Rotherham there is now a cab company that will send a taxi driven by a non-Muslim when women ask; it’s part of their official policy. This is for real.
In France, particularly in the banlieues, it is increasingly common for non-Muslim women to veil. Thousand now do.The atmosphere is more and more menacing and the threat of assault for wearing ‘lewd’ clothing very real. French women are being attacked and raped, and their attackers justify their actions by claiming to be ‘frustrated’ by France’s mid-east foreign policies. After having run THAT gauntlet to get to work, water cooler misogyny, though real, must seem somewhat trivial.
This growing probleme is NOT some islamophobic myth. After the jihadist attacks on Canada’s parliament ( or more precisely nearby solders) and on soldiers in St-Jean Québec just the day before, members of the Queen’s armed force are now being encouraged to NOT wear their uniforms when off base.
When military brass advise even ordinary MALE soldiers to no longer wear their uniforms in public, it DOES tend to vindicate Dawkin’s views.
If men can be threatened with death because of their clothing, then how can it not be even worse for women?
@Decker,
That’s very interesting. But what is your point exactly in relation to the topic of this thread?
@13 Decker…
Sigh…that giant “ZOOM” sound you heard was the point of this entire thing going over your head.
Decker (#13):
Not any more, it isn’t:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-29785062
And oddly, I haven’t seen anything about this story which suggests it was mainly women asking for “non-Muslim” drivers. It was customers (gender unspecified) asking for “local” (i.e., white) rather than “Asian” drivers. I.e., good old-fashioned racism more than the modern Islamophobic variety. But perhaps you have a better source for this claim?
@Decker
None of that diminishes the very really non-Muslim problems faced by Western women. Ok, jihadist problems aren’t just an islamophobic myth. Yes, and? No one on the feminist side is saying jihadist problems need to be ignored in favor of other issues. No one on the feminist side is comparing water-cooler fondlings to the savagery perpetrated by violent religious extremists. The existence of atrocities does not negate the existence of other ills, nor does it necessitate neglecting those other ills. If we ignored all “lesser evils” until the greater ones are dealt with, we’d probably never get rid of the lesser ones. Because the greater ones are far more complex and require a far more severe shift in the cultural and social structures of entire countries. Not to mention that most common folk CAN’T do anything about the greater evils that occur half-way around the world from them. Should they simply ignore the problems close to home that they could deal with, and instead sit around contemplating problems they have no power over? That seems to be what Dawkins suggests: stop complaining about your problems and instead reflect on how much better you have it than Muslim women. A hilariously hypocritical suggestion from a man who sneers at the suggestion that HE should reflect on how much better he has it than women.
madtapper @ 2 – fixed.
Decker @ 13 – what on earth is your point?
It can’t be that I talk exclusively about issues that affect US women, since you comment here plenty often enough to know that that’s not the case. So what is it? That you too get impatient with American women who complain of being inappropriately touched? Are you saying you think I should stop blogging about sexual harassment and rape in the US?
@17 madtapper – I’m tempted to print out and frame that post.
Has Dawkins ever had a main speaker at a conference threaten to not do the talk he was invited for if Dawkins appeared on the same platform?
Has Dawkins ever been the main speaker in that same situation, making the threat himself?
Muzzled or muzzler?
@anthrosciguy,
and even if the first case had ocurred – Dawkins would always have been in the position of power due to his popularity.
My apologies to all. That comment belonged on a thread two postings down about Dawkins standing by what he said.
I can’t dismiss everything that Dawkins says. He is right on certain points.
Oh gosh, thanks for that, Decker. It’s so useful. All the rest of us have foolishly been claiming that everything Dawkins says is wrong and should be dismissed. We’ve said that he’s not right on certain points, but instead, wrong on ALL points without exception. Aren’t we silly, how nice of you to correct us.
Also thanks for totally ignoring what I asked you.
@23 Decker.
You got the not-pology down right.
Now, stick the flounce and you’ll get a perfect 10 from the judges.
#13 Decker
Aside from the fact that your comment was breathlessly accepting of a certain desired framing of events across several countries, do NOT get me started on the bludgeoning framing of
**“After the jihadist attacks on Canada’s parliament ( or more precisely nearby solders) and on soldiers in St-Jean Québec just the day before, members of the Queen’s armed force are now being encouraged to NOT wear their uniforms when off base.
When military brass advise even ordinary MALE soldiers to no longer wear their uniforms in public, it DOES tend to vindicate Dawkin’s views.
If men can be threatened with death because of their clothing, then how can it not be even worse for women?”**
Two separate guys, with documented mental health problems, fed off the inciting global atmosphere (and acquaintances who reported problems long before were ignored), with one looking like a copycat of the first, and the present Cdn rightwing authoritarian govt leapt on events screaming Jihad to ram through greater invasive surveillance laws of all Canadians that had been set before Parliament. Please don’t badly report these tragic, psychotic events as an excuse to fearmonger against women in ‘first world’ countries as being too selfish and demanding.
Such accusations always seem to come back to how grateful women should be to live amid ‘civilized’ men-who-are-not-as-bad-as-THAT-so-shut-up, and yet women in the ‘first world’ are attacked verbally and physically every bloody day with the culturally allowed excuse their clothing (or insert any other reason you want) is to blame for triggering men’s inherent beastly instability, with nary a scary Moozlim in sight. It’s an ancient trope and hypocricy of the sharpest order.
The fact Mr. Dawkins has doubled down doesn’t make him any more correct to dismiss inequities in a society where he has immediate influence to effect public change, and thereby strengthen it against the ‘external’ culture he fears.
[Extremely rude, gratuitous, and irrelevant passage deleted. OB]
@ 27Two separate guys, with documented mental health problems, fed off the inciting global atmosphere
Their ‘mental problemes’ are no worse than your average ISIS “militant” Millions of people praying to Mecca have exactly the same “mental problemes”
What do you then propose we do to combat this growing menace?
That we ignore the crass incitements to hatred found all throughout Islam’s core texts and instead have a war on “Mental Problemes” and “Global Atmospherics”?
When Canada held its Remembrance Day ceremonies in Ottawa, authorities put a Ring-of-Steel around the Cenotaph instead of placing a Ring-of-Steel around those promoting this hatred. the mosq
He keeps mentioning Dawkins speaking fees and wealth because 1) Dawkins has a history of accusing his opponents of “click-baiting for money”, a claim absurd on many levels but particularly galling from someone who makes a ridiculous amount of money just from voicing his opinions and 2) the fact that Dawkins makes so much money off his speaking puts a lie to his claims of being “muzzled”; to the contrary people go out of their way to hear what he has to say and will pay good money for it.
Decker@28:
Okay. I don’t know why people enjoy eating lima beans, myself. What does that, or your feeling about PZ, have to do with anything either in the OP or this comment thread?
@28 Decker….
So sorry, you didn’t stick the flounce. I give you no more than a 6.5.
Seriously, you linked to Michael Nugent as your authoritative source? Fucking hell, you’re a waste of skin. And if you don’t know why, head on over to PZs, where Nugent’s posts have been completely and thoroughly demolished.
cuervocuero:
I’d like to second this and add that it’s particularly egregious to do so when, within days of the shooting, two sitting female MPs came forward to report that they had been sexually harassed *at work* i.e. on the Hill, by two other MPs. And a former Deputy PM also reported to the media that when she was first elected as an MPP, she was sexually assaulted at Queen’s Park (the provincial legislature) by another MPP. Also a gay former staffer reported that he was sexually harassed on Parliament Hill when he was working there. You want they should all just keep silent, Decker?
Decker
Were you banned from Pharyngula?
I vote this to be the best comment of the bunch:
Jackie @133:
It cannot be stated enough: Richard Dawkins benefits from the SlymePit. They preserve the old boy’s network that Dawkins enjoys, by griefing the reformers. They swarm him with praise and idolation, propping up his ego. And because there is no formal connection between the two, Dawkins keeps his hands clean if they get dirty. He just issues the occasional feel-good proclamation, in between dog whistles to whip them into a frenzy, in order to keep an appropriate distance.
No wonder he’s started using their lingo, and posting some of their family-friendly works on his webpage.
@Decker #28
There was really no need for a “Ring-of-Steel” anywhere. The risk of attack is low, and what there is can’t be avoided without converting into a police state. The extra police presence is mostly security theatre and designed by the Conservatives to help advance their draconian “security,” data gathering, and punitive policies.
As for Canadian Muslims and their mosques, I’d rather see this and this than confrontational, racist, divisive politics.
There’s slime pit material at RDF??
So to follow up my comment above (I blushed, Ophelia, to see myself up there), I have been pondering my question regarding his specific choice to highlight workplace sexual harassment as an example of western feminism gone too far. Was it a jab at Karen Stollznow, I wonder? Or is it just that he was a professional in the time I described above, where that was the status quo, and women expected to be sexually harassed and assaulted if they wanted to be a professional. Probably he has seen quite a bit of that, over his career, done by men that he sees as otherwise harmless and pleasant, and so he writes off that specific thing as harmless too. Well, times have changed, and that is no longer okay. Perhaps he has been out of a normal workplace so long he doesn’t realize this. I don’t know, and you know him, what do you think?
Ibis3, @ #32: Well, we know what Dawkins would think of these reports coming out. Watercooler touching indeed.
And here we go again! Do you not find it amazing, Decker, that when Anders Behring Brevik (white, Christian) kills 77 people and Eliot Rodger (mixed race but passing as white) goes on a shooting spree they are both cases for mental health services alone – despite each leaving manifestos full of political reasons for what they did.
But when two Canadian loners, each known to be troubled and very likely mentally ill, kill far fewer people between them and leave no manifesto, no suicide video, the fact that you can link them to Islam means they are wicked Islamists – no further evidence required. And no thought at all.
Who do you think you are kidding?
yazikus – who me? I don’t know him, apart from some email exchanges. (I once talked to him briefly at a small book signing back in the ’90s, but that doesn’t count.)
But for what I think – I don’t know. It could be just an example of something he considers trivial that occurred to him as he was forming the sentence.
Sorry, Ophelia, I could have been clearer when addressing that question. I guess I assumed you knew him on some level because of the joint statement. There were just so many other things that he could have used as examples of ‘feminism run amok!” (that are not crimes), like “Women who yell at men for opening doors!” or “Women who think stay at home mothers are terrible!” which are obviously terrible straw-feminist things, but most people seem to kind of believe them, and they don’t belittle sexual assault.
No need to be sorry! I meant the “who me” in a jocular sort of way. I do know him on some level, because over the years I have asked him to say a few words on various matters for the ur-B&W, and he sent me a DVD of his Root of all Evil?, and suchlike. Long distance, but pleasant for me. But then in summer 2011 it all went south.
Benson @36:
I was thinking of Notung’s piece from a few moons ago. As I pointed out at the time, it’s an empty bit of fluff that doesn’t address the criticisms of Dawkins, and as far as I could tell was only there to boost Dawkins’ ego. You have to be pretty in-the-know to even spot the connection, and on the surface it seems harmless.
But why did Dawkins bother to post it at all? I don’t think he makes a habit of posting every bit of praise that comes his way, and thanks to his stature and books that’s probably quite the flood anyway. So why this particular item from a British blogger, instead of one from a grateful Middle-Eastern woman? Dawkins either follows the blog of at least one SlymePitter, or valued the words of a SlymePitter tweeting at him, more than he did other people who sing his praises. Other people that he claims he cares more about; he hasn’t rescinded his denounciation of crude Photoshops, after all.
I think it’s telling omission of who he values.
@28 “When Canada held its Remembrance Day ceremonies in Ottawa, authorities put a Ring-of-Steel around the Cenotaph instead of placing a Ring-of-Steel around those promoting this hatred. the mosq”
Eeeyah, ok, Decker. You’re right there. No ring of steel around that mosqu there…where ever it is. Could have used a ring of steel around a mosque in Cold Lake that got spraypaint vandalised in the wake of the killings. Oh well, they had to settle for civilians and soldiers of mixed genders and various ‘faiths’ coming out to help clean it up instead. Soldiers in uniform no less.
If you want to build excluding circles, go ahead. I’d rather build circles that take people in and think hard about what it would take to lessen harm, not increase it. Right now, Dawkins is actively not lessening harm in gender inequities. If that’s what he desires, so be it.
@Ibis3, These verbal jackboots were made for walking – November 20, 2014 at 11:54 am
The War Nerd argues: best way to deal with Western ISIS wannabes? Give them free plane tickets to Iraq. As usual he’s convincing.
But when two Canadian loners, each known to be troubled and very likely mentally ill, kill far fewer people between them and leave no manifesto, no suicide video, the fact that you can link them to Islam means they are wicked Islamists – no further evidence required. And no thought at all.
Who do you think YOU are kidding?
(*yawn*) The 14 women who died at the hands of Gamil Gharbi?
@35 It really doesn’t matter what you want to see…it’s all about what you’re about to be confronted with.
It’s worse than you think…honest.
Decker stop being such a smartass. Say something or go away; don’t just keep dropping random sneers.
I think it’s a telling admission of who he values.
And the above is a tell admission I shouldn’t post in a hurry. 😛
@Alex “How to remove Dawkins as the public face of Atheism”
Glad you asked. I have ben thinking about that one. And I think it basically goes that you first form an organization with leading new atheists as founding members. Then you hold a conference and invite the press. Then you wait for Dawkins to say something stupid and you hold a censure vote.
Or something like that. Problem is that the reaction to advocacy for rapists and harassers is not the same as the perpetrators. Even though you don’t exactly want either as the public face.
Maureen Brian @#39: It’s really interesting that Decker is so concerned about the well-being of Canadian military and police, when he neglected to mention either Moncton or Mayerthorpe, both of which had substantially higher losses of life, both of which were committed by deeply troubled white men who were noted to be both loners and violent and not Muslim or influenced by Islam in any way. I mean, seeing as the Moncton shootings trialhas been all over our news lately, you’d think he’d have noted that if he was so concerned with the possible threats to police and military personnel in Canada, and not just a shitty little racist.