Prototypical Sexist Atheist on Exhibit

In response to my post Monday on Adam Lee’s petition against the harassment of prominent women in the atheist movement (see The Name for What’s Happening), someone posted a comment that demonstrates the very existence and nature of the problem. Indeed, almost so perfectly I’d think a feminist invented it as an ideal hypothetical example; but no, this is an actual post by an actual antifeminist atheist who actually believes (or wants you to believe) everything he wrote. I responded there, but it’s all so worth reading I’m reproducing it here, in it’s own blog post. Because I want everyone to be aware that this shit is going on.

The commenter (posting as “submariner“) wrote:

“In other words, the Lee petition exists because women in this movement are being digitally harassed beyond the pale (and not, say, blacks or homeopathy opponents); and feminism is being openly mocked…”

PZ Meyers forbid Feminism be MOCKED, oh noes!, and OPENLY as well!!.(better if they mock in secret).

You have feminists like Feminist Frequency claiming that words to Christmas songs are sexist, that depictions of video game NPC’s are sexist.( talk about 1st world problems) Feminists have elevated internet trolling to the level of harassment ( although not legally declared such) , swooned about people wearing a t-shirt that made it clear the wearer did not want to be identified with one of their groups, and another who gave a creationist style science denialism “lecture” with no citations, quote mines, and strawman arguments.

Richard, the feminists and A+ ers are doing fine mocking themselves. Most rational people can see this for what it is: a political movement. One that refuses to look skeptically at itself.

In case you were wondering, I won’t be signing the petition.

To which I replied:

Ladies and gentlemen, Exhibit A: an antifeminist has unabashedly shown up here. Take note! Study this specimen.

Those songs are sexist–or rather “creepy and/or sexist,” as submariner left out the disjunctive; because antifeminists tend to be logic challenged, and often do things like this: distort what was actually said to make it sound worse. Submariner is attempting an argument form called reductio ad absurdum, yet could only do it by missing or misrepresenting what was actually said (thus, he had to lie to make the facts absurd, in order to argue from their thus-fabricated absurdity–clever, eh?–or does he delusionally think he has accurately represented the facts in this matter? Neither is encouraging). That’s SOP for antifeminists in the atheist movement.

The issue of video games is another antifeminist distortion: the study of NPC’s (“nonplayer characters”) in video games that submariner refers to hasn’t even been completed yet (nor is it solely about NPC’s), and yet the mere suggestion that there might be some disturbing issues of sexism worth studying in video games produced a vast and ruthless campaign of sexist and misogynistic harassment of the researcher (documented here and here and here and here). This is precisely the kind of thing I’m talking about (although in this case it’s the gaming community, not the atheism movement specifically; but our women are receiving nearly the same treatment from atheists).

Page 1 of 2 | Next page