Lordy – I’m surprised again. I’m so easily surprised – I must be very naïve.
In watching the UN video I saw the list of other CFI videos, and in the list I saw the videoof Robin Elisabeth Cornwell’s talk at Women in Secularism 2. I missed that talk because of having to catch a plane, so I’ve started watching it.
You know, there’s a theory that it’s Cornwell who wrote Dear Muslima, and that Dawkins just posted it so that it would be as if god had posted it (and so it turned out). This video could be Exhibit One for that claim.
At about 11:45 she gets onto the subject of “victimhood.” She talks about pop culture and Oprah and the elevation (emphasis hers) on victimhood, and speculates that Christianity is a major source of this elevation, via the idea of prayer and the passivity it inculcates. “It’s pure bollocks,” she exclaims, as if she were a medium for Dawkins. She says she doesn’t know about you but she wants to scream: “get off your knees and do something about it!” She pauses for applause so a few people oblige, tepidly.
Then she gets into it. Don’t misunderstand, she warns, there is such a thing as adversity.
…some situations are horrible and the word ‘victim’ is appropriate – but let’s not fall into the cultural relativism trap, and assume that all adversity is the same. It isn’t. What is faced by women and men under Islamicist [sic] is far greater than the discomfort of some inappropriate sexist remark.
Two people applauded.
I stopped there for the present, because I can take only so much at a time. More later.
Anyway, that theory that she wrote Dear Muslima? Yeah.
So I assume she never goes to the doctor and wastes their time, then.
Some situations are horrible and the word ‘victim’ is appropriate – but let’s not fall into the cultural relativism trap, and assume that all adversity is the same. It isn’t. What is faced by women and men who have had limbs amputated is far greater than the discomfort of some broken bone.
Oh FFS. Discussing a problem in public IS doing something about it.
Echo chamber! Echo chamber! You’d never invite anyone you disagreed with to your little, secluded, un-fun conferences!
@ann mariehovgaard, I didn’t agree with the speech but I think we all agree that praying in private isn’t doing something.
I’m already a huge non-fan of twitter, but if “famous people” are not actually writing their postings, and are just letting asshats in the marketing department do it, doesn’t that sort of miss the entire point of thinking “Ooooh wow! words from the great Dawkins!!”?
@20:13 Gloria Stein-man, FFS? R. Elisabeth must have really at the forefront of the women’s rights movement, the way that just rolled off her tongue.
I really don’t understand the “Oh, shut up and stop talking about! If it’s a big deal, do something!” stance. Because talking about it, pointing out that these things don’t happen as rare, exceptional incidents in a vacuum and standing up against them *is* doing something.
qwints @4:
No, but what does that have to do with anything? The point is that talking about these things in public is not at all like praying in private. Praying in private is just talking to yourself, and that’s not what she’s complaining about.
Since talking about problems is a necessary first step to doing something about them, the command to “STOP talking and do something” is really a command to do nothing.
If it was just about somebody propositioning someone else in an elevator, “Elevator-Gate” would be a short part of a blog post that most people would never see again. I don’t remember anybody rallying the troops, chanting “Guys, don’t do that!”. It’s the misogynists and general “freeze peach” warriors in the atheist movement that made a big deal of it. For some of them, any woman who criticizes a man who hit on her deserves death and rape threats over a long period of time. It’s a perfect example of the reaction to feminists justifying feminism. If she thinks Rebecca is the problem, that just shows what side she’s on.
… and the elevation (emphasis hers) on victimhood…
Does Cornwell also ghost for George Will?
It’s a terrible video, but your criticism of it is surprisingly petty. If you’re not tired or some such thing, these posts reflect nearly as badly on you, and I’m strongly on what appears to be your side of the debate. Why all the personalizing against RD, who seems to have gotten very old very suddenly – which doesn’t excuse several things he’s said and done, but does explain it.
It may be for the best. I spend too much time reading such things when little remains in question – and that would be better dealt with cold turkey.
Talking about it isn’t even “just talking about it”. It’s debunking a vibrant and pervasive mythology about nice guys and nasty pissy women. It’s countering blackmail and intimidation and old-boy networks. It drags the silencing dynamic itself up into the light. Talking about it is *exactly* what needs to happen.
“All the personalizing” is because of the part RD and REC have played in drawing harassment down on feminist women they dislike, and their total refusal to do anything to undo the damage. It’s because of the way they abuse RD’s celebrity and the influence that both of them derive from it.
Pierce – well that’s just it, isn’t it. This is a very stale conservative trope, this bullshit about the privilege of victimhood. Will and Cornwell are both drawing from the same putrid scummy well.
Rebecca Watson, and other women, who have had to endure this male chaucanist bullshit DON’T live in “Islamicist” countries, will have never have to (save perhaps in the racst paranoid delusions of Pat Condell or Anders Breivik), and have no influence over their laws or culture. So I fail to see what Prof. Dawkins or Ms. Cornwell think Western feminists are supposed to be doing before being allowed to complain rape threats, sexual harassment, and other issues that Cornwell finds so trivial?
@anne mariehovgaard, the line you quoted is explicitly about prayer (13:25-13:55 in the video). While I disagree the larger point of the speech, I think that particular line is cliched but reasonable.
You know, there’s a theory that it’s Cornwell who wrote Dear Muslima, and that Dawkins just posted it so that it would be as if god had posted it (and so it turned out).
If this is true , then my opinion of Dawkins will fall lower than it is today.
Ah I miss the times when I was happy to watch Dawkins on youtube .