The latest uproar from the misogynist mob is over a rumor that there is a secret list of people who won’t get invited to conferences. There is no list. There are petty people who think calling someone ugly is reasonable behavior, people who have not yet grown out of junior high school. There are personal preferences, as well.
For instance, I will not participate in any conference in which Abbie Smith is a speaker. If I’m invited, and later discover that she is also invited, I will politely turn down the offer.
I could find myself spending a lot more time at home, which wouldn’t be bad at all, except that she doesn’t get invited out that often, and her coterie of slimy acolytes are virtual non-entities, too. It is a positive aspect of the growing atheist movement that it tends to be progressive, egalitarian, and not particularly supportive of shrieking over-privileged children.
Now I have to stroll out to a bäckerei for coffee and pastries.
Hmm. Those are some interesting words in the last paragraph. What do they mean?
There’s so much going on that I just can’t keep up with it. Perhaps that’s just as well. There’s enough good stuff to follow without also wallowing in slime pits.
On the other hand, sometimes the slime pops up in your in-box, like a faux-humorous diatribe by Donohue. I’m sure he wishes he could issue excommunications.
jasonmcdonald: Yay! I made it to Germany! by PZ Myers
The meaning of Bäckerei is very nearly obvious. It’s a bakery or pastry shop (in which case Konditorei could also work).
Konditorei looks a lot like Condottieri, but they mean completely different things.
I’m with you,PZ.
Abbie used to be cool. What the hell happened to her, man?
I gave SN grudging credit when I pointed out who popularized feminazi and what he meant by it and she dropped the use. But radfem and claiming the feminist go “whaa” when they run into men is not any better.
I am just grateful that she no longer posts here. But she does like to take uninformed potshots against everyone involved in FTB, never mind that the bloggers hardly make up a hive mind.
what’s odd is that evidently, Abbie was on her best behavior when Jerry Coyne visited her last year. He reported back none of the inanity and childishness that she exhibits online at all.
interesting.
But she does like to take uninformed potshots against everyone involved in FTB
you mean like this?
http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2012/05/18/updates-on-the-past-few-posts/
uh huh.
Ca-a-ke.
Ichthyic, Jerry Coyne has hat tipped Abbie Smith a few time and has referenced Justicar also.
SN made that thread a rather malodorous read.
Oh, it gets worse. Far worse.
http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2011/11/26/periodic-table-of-swearing/comment-page-50/#comment-42913
This is unacceptable. Completely fucking unacceptable.
But from the sounds of it, maybe there should be…
I pretty much have no respect left for Abbie Smith whatsoever, at this point.
Who the eff is Abbie Smith?
Why do I know the name of a comment troll?
There’s no blacklist, you just won’t do anything with Abbie Smith. Within your rights. Of course, there’s also the influence you wield, intentionally or not. But we can’t all have everything we want. I’m sure there’s several others that Abbie has pissed off in the last couple of years. That’s her problem.
saramayhey@17: Abbie Smith runs the erv blog over at Scienceblogs and has recently become disfavoured for refusing to toe the party line. (Long story, feminism related, again.)
PZ: In other words, you’re using your influence to try to deny someone else a platform. Classy. The whole “If she’s coming I’m not” attitude is childish, manipulative and frankly not what I’d expect from a well respected academic and blog personality such as yourself.
Abbie Smith runs the erv blog over at Scienceblogs and has recently become disfavoured for refusing to toe the party line.
I see we have a lying sack of shit visiting us.
hi there, lying sack of shit.
your flailing has been duly noted. however, boycotting events that invite speakers one has fundamental ethical disagreements with is one of the most basic acts of not-being-a-hypocrite
I am pretty sure you meant to say she has been engaged in vile misogynistic behaviour, and allowed her blog to become a place where saying things such “Ophelia Benson should be kicked in the cunt” are not only tolerated but encouraged and applauded.
Was there some reason you forgot to mention that, other than being a lying fuckwit ?
adam colley. links to his facebook, has “tories – putting the ‘n’ in cuts” as his profile pic.
‘nuf said
If you want an idea of Adam Colley’s mindset, he thinks it is acceptable to have a logo on his facebook page that reads”Tories: Putting the ‘N’ in cuts”.
And he accuses PZ of lacking class ?
Adam, you village just called. They need their idiot back.
adamcolley the reading-impaired @19,
PZ is not denying anyone a platform, he just chooses not to attend if Smith should be invited to speak at the same event. Personally, I wish he thought about that some more, because I think it will not help the movement if that principle is widely applied by everyone who dislikes someone else, or every 2 people who have ever had a passionate falling-out. But it’s his decision, and I can’t really blame him for arriving at the position. But let’s be precise about what he has said.
And Jadehawk beat me to it!
@saramayhew #17
Check out the link in PZ’s post. In the screen-captured comments at the top of the post, see the commenter called ERV? That’s her.
Take bleach, and plenty of it!
DLC, PZ is a person. A person who goes to an awful lot of conferences. He can’t accept every invitation to every conference, and so he has to make decisions somehow on which ones to decline. Declining ones that feature speakers he has no interest in and who have a history of talking trash at him at every opportunity is a pretty sound and understandable way of making the initial cut.
adamcolley, who on earth would want to share a platform with someone whose views (and actions in support of those views) included the inexcusable and utterly repugnant?
.
saramayhew, Abbie Smith is afaik a decent scientist in her own field but one who has, for reasons best known to herself, chosen to actively welcome and encourage some particularly nasty misogynist trolls on her blog. Seriously unpleasant shit, so noisome that it has sadly eclipsed her blogging contributions as a scientist, at least for the present.
I will not participate in any conference in which Abbie Smith is a speaker
Color me unimpressed. Several years ago, Prof. Myers engaged in a similar feud with his current pal, Ed Brayton.
slc1, are you insinuating that you think PZ is not serious about that claim?
Abbie has not been “disfavoured for refusing to toe the party line”. She has become persona non grata for being a deranged freak who threatens fellow speakers at conferences, as well as her habit of providing a haven for a rather vicious gang of very stupid misogynists.
Actually, nobody (save possibly her advisor and labmates) knows whether she’s a decent scientist or not, on account of she has yet to publish any science.
She might be a decent blogger in her own field, but since her writing style is modeled so closely on the parlance of subliterate 14-year-old chatroomers, it’s hard to judge even that.
adamcolley @ 19;
Your dismissive attitude toward feminism, and apparent acceptance of vile misogyny, is noted. The idea that expecting someone not to encourage bigotry amounts to an oppressive party line would be hilarious if there weren’t so many idiots who bought into it.
No, he is responsibly stating his opposition to the misogyny that is so predominate over at ERV, and refusing to confer any impression of endorsement of that bigotry by sharing a platform with Smith.
As other posters have pointed out, the logo you choose to adorn your fgacebook page with leaves you spectacularly unqualified to judge how “classy” PZ’s actions are.
Wrong. PZ is refusing to make himself a hypocrit, and is instead enacting his principles instead of merely paying empty lip service to them.
I wouldn’t expect you to understand.
—————————————————————-
slc1 31;
I am sure PZ is utterly bereft without the approval you seem to imagine he craves from you…
This concept may be hard for you to grasp, but try to bear with me. You see, among adults, one may disagree with someone whose opinion one finds morally repugnant in a certain area and call that person to task for it without instituting an eternal feud over the matter. As an example, many people here felt that Professor Dawkins was utterly in the wrong with his ‘dear Musslima’ comment during the so called ‘elevatorgate’ incident, but that does not mean that we now lack any respect for the man in other areas, or that he is now viewed as some kind of supervillain nemesis.
Pitizens wear bannings as a badge of honor. Each one is a gotcha: hahaha, hypocritical “freethought” bloggers can’t deal with disagreement with the groupthink party line.
What’s fascinating is that they really seem to believe that they are truthtellers, banned and punished merely for questioning the orthodoxy etc.
It never seems to dawn on them that they’re actually banned for being such assholes.
Anyone who looks at these two “feuds” (which is a horrible descriptor for either) and thinks they are similar:
1. isn’t paying attention
2. needs to stop eating paint chips as a snack
An amplification of this^
I haven’t hear ERV speak, but as far as I can tell she brings nothing but vileness to the table. Encouraging misogyny is the only notable thing she does.
Indeed; there’s nothing PZ values more than the approval of genocidal maniacs.
Not that PZ can’t express himself with what one would call, where he is at the moment, “Klartext,” but since there are some earlier on the thread who confess to not having the necessary background, and others who have it, but are misleadingly trying to claim that there is a blacklist and PZ’s stated intentions amount to denial of platforms:
It bears remembering that due, in large measure, to what has become known as Crackergate, PZ has acquired a reputation both outside and inside the atheist movement as one of its more, indeed, most extreme figures. With that in mind, when somebody like that states clearly that there is someone else on the same (i.e. atheist) side with whom he absolutely refuses to share a speaking venue, one really ought to take a cold, hard look at why. PZ has no fear of offending whoever he thinks deserves it. What makes him draw the line where he does? In between my deciding to comment on this thread and actually doing so, examples have been left, so anyone reading this probably is a bit more informed by now. Largely, I wished to get those new to this wondering: what kind of offense lies so far beyond the kind for which PZ is known that could make him issue such a clear public statement?
@Antiochus Epiphanes #38:
Video: Abbie Smith – Oklahoma Freethought Convention 2011
So now he owes everybody his time because apparently to say that there’s some things he personally doesn’t want to do is bullying.
Seems like she’s seriously envious of Jen who is apparently able to do her work and blog and who gets invited to conferences.
Also, i wished she could make up her mind whether Jen is young and pretty and obviously doing her PhD horizontally or whether she’s drop-dead ugly so nobody would want to touch her anyway…
Since nobody is naming names, I figured a good way to find out who the culprits are would be to do a google image search of Abbie and see which prominent male atheists she hangs out with.
It didn’t work.
http://christophersisk.com/core/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/bhtv.jpg
stewart:
Indeed. This pingback over at Almost Diamonds shows the type of people rallying to her call.
(Advisory: extreme anti-feminism at source)
@Carlie #29 : I’m not coming down on PZ for his choices here. It’s his choice to make, not mine. I’m not personally involved in the talks/lectures/conventions etc, so it doesn’t come up, but I would likely have made the same choice as PZ. My initial comment was more along the lines of saying that PZ Myers has some level of influence in the Atheist and Skeptical movements, and that Abbie Smith has buttered her bread and must now be content to eat it.
Oh, dear dawg. John Morales, you warned me —
— and yet I looked.
I will never ignore your warnings again.
I first heard Abbe on a Infidel Guys show where she talked about science education and was impressed by her insight. I have watched some of her science talks & anti-creationist debates and was also impressed. So her behavior over Elevatorgate baffles me. Disagreeing is one thing – becoming a cesspit for vile insults and personal invective is another thing. I don’t know what point she was trying to make. A big fail on her part if she substitutes petty insults over clear explanations and a rational argument.
It seems there is some jealousy over the prominence of the FTB. And I have known people who can only relate to others with personal pettiness.
As for PZ “boycotting” a conference due to another speaker. If I knew a fellow speaker was a rabid racist, I wouldn’t have a problem with bowing out, lest I lend credence to their views.
Of course, bowing out over racism would be a noble gesture. Over sexism, meh, not so much, cause sexism is no big deal. (that’s sarcasm there, folks)
You will want to go back and check what you wrote since your denial is not compatible with that. So is what you said originally wrong, or is your denial wrong ?
I really don’t want to seem like a Smith supporter in this (’cause I’m absolutely not on these contentious issues of the last (jesus) year)….
But I don’t think PZ should do this. Obviously not my call. Her talks are generally good though and it strikes me as better to be above this lot of ‘net stupidity until it affects the work.
Putting the organisers in the position of choosing between you seems like an unpleasant thing, since one heavily outweighs the other in drawing power.
Depends on a lot of things I guess, but in principle it seems such a provision could result in undesirable situations
I’m hardly surprised at PZ’s stance. Abbie has shown herself to be a strong misogynist and is happy when people express the most vile sexist remarks on her blog.
Abbie is free to support whatever positions on sexism she wants. However there are consequences which she has to live with when she does support anti-feminism.
Abbie gets dangerously close to supporting or promoting people who seem likely to harass or commit violence against other members at the conference. I don’t see why she should thus be invited knowing that’s what sort of draw she has.
This is not “unacceptable” black balling anymore than say a lounge singer in 1950s refusing to work in venues that racially segregated would be.
Well, I looked, too. For those who don’t want to, yes, it’s very nasty, but more than that, it’s completely self-degrading. How can one sum up female writers and speakers on atheism by grading their looks on a scale from one to ten and post it where everybody can read it… without even realising that one has thus blown whatever credibility one might ever have had? It’s below kindergarten level. It is carte blanche for everyone else to say that that person’s opinions need never be bothered with again. People like that can be simply sent to the Miss World competition, told it’s an atheist conference and they’ll probably come away from it perfectly happy.
And @Muz (#49):
Yes, there are lots of things for which one perhaps ought not to make that kind of statement, because it is extreme. PZ choosing to make it in this case is sending a message: yes, that is how important this is, one of the ultimate deal-breakers. I think he knows what he’s doing. And what he is doing is telling everybody who reads him that this subject is way at the top of his agenda and will influence the kinds of plans he makes. He’s saying to whoever thinks it’s not a big deal: yes, it is a very big deal indeed.
It is also important to make it clear that Abbie Smith and her commentators are not allies of ours in the atheism/rationalism movement. We may have some beliefs and aims in common, but so long as they refuse to accept that women are people too we cannot and will not join with them.
Yes, it is a big deal, and unfortunate. I think Abbie does good work, and her talks are just fine. But have you ever worked in one of those labs where you have an absolutely brilliant colleague, but who has a toxic personality that just wrecks the collegiality of the place? That’s Abbie. I can respect her abilities while wanting to do nothing with her ever again.
Matt Penfold:
Many of them can barely be described at rationalists, let alone allies. Much of the rhetoric is not just nasty, but plain delusional. Many liberal Christians are more rational than people like Franc Hoggle.
The Rebeccapocalypse.
FFS.
Molecular biology, which I studied for a few years, alternates between standing in the lab all day and waiting for hours till the currently running procedure is done – and when it’s done, you often have to do the next step right away, even if it’s 9 or 10 in the evening.
On the other hand, my PhD thesis (morphological phylogenetics in vertebrate paleontology) consisted mostly of sitting in front of a computer.
“Hard work” means things that are hard but difficult to compare in different sciences.
No, no. It’s not a matter of degree. It’s a matter of kind.
It’s not about insults. As you’ve observed, PZ has no trouble calling a demented fuckwit a demented fuckwit.
It’s about the misogyny – whether it’s expressed using insults or not!
LOL!
Ah, the mantra of junior high students everywhere: “When you got nothin’ else, claim rebel status. Also, saying ‘cunt’ makes grown-ups wince. Fun!”
@ #56
“No, no. It’s not a matter of degree. It’s a matter of kind.”
Sorry to nitpick, but I didn’t use the word “degree.” I did use the word “kind.”
PZ cheerfully insults people who believe and promote nonsense, because it’s nonsense and merits insults.
Someone insulting women, regardless of what they believe, because they are women, is engaging in something completely different. And some of that stuff must be read to be believed.
Hey! Check with Em. She’s got soccer mom duty first. But I could be ready around 7:30.
As for where, if you’re interested in going to Whyte, I like the refurbished Act or the Empress. I did recently go to a nice place just off of Jasper on 104th, too, for a downtown option.
I’m just going to repeat a few choice terms and phrases that MRAs and preteens on Xbox live like to use: ‘hivemind’. “echo chamber.” “toeing the party line.” Stop me when I’ve won the argument.
Whoops. Comment 59 was meant for unPharyngula audiences. Fucked up on my iPhone.
“Whoops. Comment 59 was meant for unPharyngula audiences. Fucked up on my iPhone.”
Damn! I was going to argue with you about it!
slc1 31;
Color me unimpressed.
Nobody wants to be impressed by a lying piece of shit Likudnik like you. I’m sure Joe Liberman or AIPAC needs their water boy back. That’s as useful as you are.
#49″
Consider the wise words of a poster before you (hypatia’s daughter):
Would you go to an event that had Fred Phelps as a speaker?
Would you go to one that had Eric Rudolph as a speaker (if he could get out of jail long enough for it)?
Would you go to an event that had the local Grand Wizard of the KKK giving a speech?
There are people who are just plain beyond the pale, and associating with them is not something that decent people do. Abbie Smith is one of these scumbags. You don’t want to be in the same room with someone who has willfully made herself the Fred Phelps of anti-feminism.
But I guess it’s okay in your estimation to trash women for having the audacity to want to be treated like human beings, and be given a platform for it with someone as well-known as PZ. That’s just peachy fucking keen in your moronic book.
Fuck off. You’re a disgusting excuse for a so-called human being.
Fuck you. You’re a disgusting excuse for a human being.
Crap. I thought I deleted that last part.
Me? But I’m just one honeycomb in the hive.
PZ, you’re doing the right thing.
Thank you for all you do to support feminism. It is truly an inspiration to see you go after sexism with such passion.
I’ve only got this lead-based paint. I hope that’s okay.
“Me? But I’m just one honeycomb in the hive.”
I know. But that “soccer mom duty” was such an invitation to scream “Sexist!”
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain, #41
OK. I agree with PZ. That talk was fine—it was coherent, occurred at a reasonable pace, and was articulate. If the atheist movement needs people at conferences to explain fundamental biology for interested lay-people, there are lots of people who could do just as well. So, OK. More than just vileness. But like everyone else, ERV is dispensible. To me, she seems more dispensible than many others.
I guess conference organizers will be deciding who is more dispensible, PZ or ERV.
I’m meeting some old friends for drinks tonight. One of them told me she was going to join us after, and I quote, she was “done soccer momming”.
I didn’t know that was a term only they could use, but I’ll watch myself in the future.
“… I’ll watch myself in the future.”
Take it easy; I have no idea what is or is not kosher in that context. I was just grasping at straws in a desperate attempt to make your silly mistake even more uncomfortable for you.
As Chas has pointed out on a previous thread, PZ’s done his bit to promote ERV before she decided that batshit was a lifestyle choice.
He doesn’t owe her anything.
I’m not going to get involved in the PZ v. Abbie dispute, but I would like to point out an issue that is being missed in this context: Having someone as major as PZ say that they won’t talk at any event where Abbie Smith speaks is pretty close to a blacklist for a large set of events since the choice it presents to organizers has a pretty clear result.
Being brilliant is orthogonal to being sane or collegial.
One of my old ex-colleagues, from Harvard again, is often described correctly, as a brilliant sociopath.
It’ll be uncomfortable enough when everybody shows up at the Act at 7:30.
PZ, #33,
I hadn’t heard about this. Could you elaborate, please? Threatening other people at conferences is obviously a big deal.
Louis
Brownian: I’m not sure what I wrote that would indicate otherwise.
I’m completely OK with organizers making that decision, as clearly PZ is. My bet is that Abbie would at least claim to be OK with it as well.
Realistically, it seems unlikely that both would be invited to anything but the largest conferences, given the overlap in material. I have been poking around for videos of Abbie speaking, and the kinds of things they talk about are similarly. I think PZ is much better at it, but then again, he has had a lot more practice.
ahem…are similar.
Brownian, #76,
I’m already on the plane.
And I’m Commando. Just, ya know, FYI.
Louis
So there are no conferences or organisations who would have Abbie over PZ? What’s wrong with the denizens of the slimepit? What about the creators of Phawrongula? Are they all broke?
More to the point, is Abbie owed speaking opportunities at events where tickets won’t be sold without PZ as the draw?
“It’ll be uncomfortable enough when everybody shows up at the Act at 7:30.”
Post pictures, ok?
I was unclear. I was agreeing with you AE, not disagreeing.
Are you bringing Rae Dawn Chong with you? I’m a bit of a fan. (She’s from here, you know.)
Re Aquaria @ #63 @ #64
Hey, we haven’t heard from Ms. Aquaria over at Ed Brayton’s blog for a while. We miss good old Texas white trash over there.
Re KG @ #39
I always find it invigorated to be bad mouthed by limey putzes.
Re Gregory Greenwood @ #35
Mr. Greenwood is obviously unaware of the animosity that existed between PZ Myers and Ed Brayton several years ago (it must be said that most of the bile came from the PZ camp). Try to keep up.
[And we don’t need your kind over here. Bye. –pzm]
Yeah, none of this sounds like blacklisting behaviour. No blacklist, no sirreee.
I mean how could there when stuff like this is okay?
Got your copy of the Protocols handy? Know all about ZOG do you?
Given that not so long ago there was a hysterical attempt to blacklist Richard Dawkins, I think that that I’ll take this stuff with a pinch of salt. The only reason that came to naught was that even the thickest must have realised that Dawkins loss would be a catastrophe, whereas the whole of FTB could be sucked into a black hole and very, very, very few people would notice.
#77: the threat was on Abbie’s Facebook page, where she cited “Kill Bill”, said she was going to “play in real life”, and specifically said “Greta is June 23rd”. Both Abbie & Greta are scheduled to speak at FreeOK on 23 June. Scheduled. May not actually happen. Abbie is doing her best to intimidate Greta out of attending.
It’s odd to see people complaining that I’m being a bully by refusing to associate with Abbie, when she’s the one making veiled threats to other convention speakers.
#74:
“Having someone as major as PZ say that they won’t talk at any event where Abbie Smith speaks is pretty close to a blacklist for a large set of events since the choice it presents to organizers has a pretty clear result.”
But it’s not a blacklist, as the title of this post is at pains to stress. There is a difference and saying it’s “pretty close” doesn’t make that important difference go away. I suspect PZ would be against a blacklist, which is the reason he’s doing something else, something which is both clearly a personal decision and openly stated (neither of which are the most obvious characteristics of the kind of blacklist I think we all have in mind).
And btw, if those organisers think PZ is wrong, after having familiarised themselves with the situation, they ought to have the stomach to take a stand and say they’ll take Abbie instead of PZ. If this is a battle worth fighting in that direction, someone ought to fight it. I suspect, however, that someone sensible will simply advise Abbie to stop backing people who hate women.
Brownian: Sorry, then. My bad.
Otherwise, I see a difference between boycott and black-list. PZ is simply boycotting. As Brownian points out, a boycott isn’t likely to hold in general, because ERV has supporters.
Why should people pay to hear speakers that they’d rather not? Don’t speakers reserve the right to speak in venues that they find conducive to their goals?
slc1: Your quality is showing.
Quotes, please, or it didn’t happen.
Oh, wait, it didn’t happen, but it will be fun to see you trying to weasel out of this.
There was never an attempt to blacklist Richard Dawkins. Rebecca Watson said she would personally eschew buying his books. That was it. Or are you demanding that she be required to purchase them?
You sound like one of the slimepitters, parroting lies. You may not be here for long.
“It’s odd to see people complaining that I’m being a bully by refusing to associate with Abbie, when she’s the one making veiled threats to other convention speakers.”
“Refusing to associate with” is not how bullying is done. I think you have to associate a bit if you want to do it right (maybe Romney can give you private lessons).
‘I really don’t want to seem like a Smith supporter in this (’cause I’m absolutely not on these contentious issues of the last (jesus) year)….
But I don’t think PZ should do this. Obviously not my call. Her talks are generally good though and it strikes me as better to be above this lot of ‘net stupidity until it affects the work.
Putting the organisers in the position of choosing between you seems like an unpleasant thing, since one heavily outweighs the other in drawing power.
Depends on a lot of things I guess, but in principle it seems such a provision could result in undesirable situations’
‘Fuck off. You’re a disgusting excuse for a so-called human being.
Fuck you. You’re a disgusting excuse for a human being.’
PZ, #86,
Ok thanks. Yet more internet fuckwittery.
I don’t say that to dismiss it, far from it, but to clarify it in my head at least. I had the mental image of Abbie in person physically fronting up to someone at an actual conference, not yet more silliness over the aether.
Not that that doesn’t make what she’s done/doing serious.
Louis
So I’m sure that everyone who is all “Eek! Blacklisting!” would be totally uncool with it if Richard Dawkins decided to tell event organizers he wouldn’t be at any event where Rebecca Watson was present, right? Nobody here would say that she deserves that for pointing out that he made an ass of himself, right? Or would we just see more double-standards turn up?
@41 Hilarious that the add before the video for me was from the Mormon church.
slc1 has met the banhammer.
http://skepchick.org/2011/07/the-privilege-delusion/
http://skepchick.org/2011/07/dear-richard-dawkins/
‘But those of us who are humanists and feminists will find new, better voices to promote and inspire , and Dawkins will be left alone to fight the terrible injustice of standing in elevators with gum-chewers.’
Emphasis mine, assuming I did it right. It’s not difficult to see why people think she did call for a boycott; though she does PPS clarify that ‘Nope, I didn’t call for a boycott. I’m relaying the fact that I have no interest in giving this person any more of my money or attention. Other people have independently told me they’re doing the same. This is not an organized campaign, and no one is going to be vilified for continuing to give their own time and attention to Dawkins.’
But before that amendment was added, ‘That’s where you come in. You, dear reader, have been incredible… Dawkins is not the present. He is the past.’
In all, it does seem like she especially wants Dawkins to go out of the sphere of people who are known, even if she didn’t explicitly call for a blacklisting – but it’s not hard, I imagine, for people to get confused.
I absolutely did not intend to bolden all of it, I am extremely sorry.
Frankboyd is not much better than slc1.
To get banned after making only two comments must be a new record.
Ryanwilkinson, you are extremely sorry.
I’m also sorry. Sorry that I read his drivel. I saw the name, I should have known better.
Janine, I am :(
Blacklist! Censorship! The Gulag! My grandparents fled the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States, and getting kicked off a blog in 2012 is just like having to flee across the Atlantic with all your posessions to a country in which you don’t speak the language and are forced to work jobs as labourers because your Eastern European degrees aren’t recognised in North America! It’s Commufascism!
[Plays “The Last Post” on YouTube for slc1]
Rest in Peace, O brave freedom fighter!
[Wipes away a tear and salutes.]
You would be mistaken, Matt Penfold. slc1 has commented here in the past. And, as KG pointed out, he has endorsed genocidal policies.
Also, one person was banned after just one statement. It was breathtaking in it’s stupidity and hatefulness.
If my memory serves, he’s been a boil on Pharygula’s ass for more than a few threads.
Not for a while I think, and I was referring to this thread.
I don’t recall that, but stand corrected.
You were already confused. So, sure, it’s not hard for idiots like you. Nothing at all needs to be done.
Stephanie Zvan:
Rebecca Watson has never attempted to intimidate people. If she had, then Dawkins would be perfectly justified in boycotting any event that invited her.
Matt, it happened in the SB version of Pharyngula and it was directed at me. In essence, the troll expressed a desire for my womanless soul to be crucified and tortured for all eternity. PZ deleted it.
From those quotes?
You have to insert “stupid or dishonest” in front of “people” to make this statement even remotely approximating something that might be considered possibly accurate.
‘Those of us who are humanists and feminists will find new, better voices to promote and inspire’
‘Will’ is a definite. She does not say ‘should’. This is saying that people who do not find ‘new, better voices to promote and inspire’ i.e., voices that are not Dawkins, are not humanists or feminists.
It rather depends… Are you a dishonest idiot or not. If you’re not a dishonest idiot it’s quite easy not to get confused.
hyperdeath, I agree. I’m also aware that people have previously suggested she should be blacklisted over Elevatorgate. I want that awareness on the table as people declare where they stand on this.
Thanks. That would explain why I missed it. I don’t read the SB version anymore.
hyperdeath:
I’ve just realized that I misconstrued what Stephanie Zvan wrote. I didn’t mean to explain the obvious.
By the way, what was this epic battle between PZ Myers and Ed Brayton? The trolls seem awfully fond of bringing it up. They seem less fond of providing links.
1) Learn to fucking <blockquote> quoted text </blockquote>
2) Your ability to read for comprehension, as well as your understanding of humanism and feminism, leave something to be desired. So why are you commenting on this at all? Could it be because you’re a hateful, confused idiot?
3) Fuck off.
I have a rather stupid question, ryanwilkinson? While it is not in response to Dawkins’ misstep, what do you think was part of the purpose of Myers and Brayton starting FTB and inviting a diverse cast of bloggers? It was to both support and inspire humanists and feminists.
The people here are not just complaining, they are acting. While not likely to supersede Dawkins (And even most of those disappointed by Dawkins will says that he has done mostly a very good job of being a public atheist.), these middle aged white men are going about things in a mostly positive direction.
Only someone stupid or dishonest and with a hidden agenda could possibly make this statement and think it is even approximately approaching a zone of the slightest peripheral reference of concepts even obliquely relevant to blacklisting.
Only someone stupid or dishonest and with an agenda would make a statement like this and think it actually means anything relevant.
Also, AND/OR conflation, epic logic fail.
DEEEEEEP RRRIIFFFTTTSS!!!
Let’s all go crash “Dispatches”, right now!
@Brownian
If you’re at the Act tonight, have a drink for me
Better make it three….
(Misses old Strathcona.)
I caught wind of this issue when I read Skatje’s (sorry if I munged her name) summary of the WIS conference earlier this week on Pharyngula. I surfed a bit, reading Ms Svan’s, McCreight’s and Christina’s blogs as well as poking my nose into Erv (shudder).
All I can say is despite the ugliness -from all sides in the debate- there is much that is good, intelligent and positive that has emerged. The fact that this issue is out in the open, that you all are discussing it and that there are real efforts underway to do something about harassment at these conferences (I have not attended any save a small local one in Seattle) is all positive. IMO, all the noise and anger and, more importantly, action, that is blowing up around this will ultimately do a world of good.
One such “action” that I’ve seen coming out of this was posited over on the Diamonds blog. A written non-harassment policy. I am somewhat surprised and not a little disappointed that a non-harassment policy needs to be even stated. Would think it was a no-brainer. Still, it is a good step, one that is sadly, apparently needed and will hopefully help to make women and men feel safe at these conferences.
I know my opinion isn’t worth doodly. But I wanted to get my $0.02 in. Couldn’t help it.
Okay, Jen just went over to the actual slimepit to respond to the disgusting insinuations about her work as a scientist.
*grabs popcorn*
I don’t put on pants for anything less than three. But will do.
Hyperdeath, Ed Brayton did say this. You’re a liar, PZ , and a first class, double-barrelled, fully automatic asshole. It was about if Richard Dawkins did support a call to suppress religious beliefs.
I was a newbie at the time and did not care to dig back to see what else was part of their feud. All I will go by is the fact that they got past this animosity to start this venture. This alone says both about both persons and their ability to look past their anger at each other. It also says more about the people who keeps bringing up their feud.
hyperdeath:
I don’t remember the exact point of contention but I think it had something to do with the Accommodationist Wars. Obviously Ed and PZ have long since reached a cordial settlement on the issue.
PZ, #96,
Given that you threatened to ban me over one innocent little pun, obviously you’re too sensitive.
It probably comes from all the GroopThink™ around here that can either lead to Teh Clut of Personalitah™ (oh yes, I’ve read THAT today) or Teh DeeeepRiftz™. I’m not sure how that works, but it’s probably the identical mechanism to how Jen is too young and pretty to be a real scientist and simultaneously too old and haggard to be worth anything.
I, of course, deny utterly, that it has anything to do with my terrible jokes.
Louis
I really an afraid to see how the creatures of the slimepit will twist and lie about Jen’s statement.
I’ll take false equivalence and moral cowardice for $500, Alex.
Louis:
The Color Lookup Table of Respect My Personalitah? Damn, it is serious. I had one of those once. It screwed up my iPhoto settings something awful.
KG, #130,
{Psst}
I can do you a deal on both for, let’s say, £200?
Also, I can get you swan. I know the Queen, me.
Louis
But KG, it must be obvious that we uppity feminists are just as bad and off putting as the MRAs who want us to shut up and make them a sammich and get rewarded by giving them a blow job.
Wait, did I just get ugly?
Why would she even do that?
What kind of a fucking idiot makes insinuations about the specific hours a scientist or a grad student is or is not in the lab? Why even dignify that kind of shit with a response?
The only thing Abbie deserves in response would be something to the effect of:
“Yeah, ERV, I don’t work 9 to 5. Because I’m a goddamned scientist, not a banker, you dumb-as-shit freak.”
Janine, #133,
Well a sammich and a blow job would be nice….
…just don’t mix them up. Mustard is surprisingly bad in a blow job.
Louis
Nooneinparticular didn’t imply that the ugliness was equal, and he’s clearly not a fan of MRAs and clearly happy that something is being done about the harassment issues.
To say that nobody on the “harassed” (or, whatever you want to call it) side of the debate has done anything ‘ugly’ is just absurd.
To say that no feminist has done anything ugly is also a bit much, and to say that all MRAs think that women’s only place is to shut up and make them a sandwich and give them a blowjob is also absurd.
‘Merh merh merh merh, ryanwilkinson hates women, merh merh merh merh, ryanwilkinson is an MRA.’
No I don’t. No I am not.
Brownian, #134,
A: Another grad student.
The pettiness of the environment…I can close my eyes and remember it now. It’s…
…well, as I said the other day, before I did my PhD I never truly grokked how people could be irrational and unpleasant enough to commit genocide. After meeting a couple of the people in that pressure cooker environment (see: Stanford Prisoner Experiment!) I could suddenly grasp it intuitively.
I hasten to add that it was not from the angle of the person committing the genocide, rather how someone else could be so fucking beyond reason as to act like that.
Louis
Louis, for you, I will eat a ghost pepper before giving you a blow job.
(You do realize that this is a complete snark. {I know that you do. It is for the benefit of semi-regulars who might not be sure.})
If that’s the case then maybe they should start behaving like that?
Zing!
Janine, #138,
Now do NOT make promises I will expect you to keep.
Louis
P.S. Mustard can make a person (the blower) sneeze, which can lead to cockus chompedofficus, a serious medical issue. Chilli on the other had leaves a rather pleasant burning sensation not unlike that of gonorrhoea…
…erm apparently. Brownian told me.
Bare assertion is pretty weak sauce.
I usually skip the comments here, mostly because I read at work and don;t have the energy to catch up on 400 some posts, but hitting refresh on this today has been a great source of entertainment on a slow day. I have to say, having worked at a university for the last four years, social scientists are the only ones I’ve ever seen adhere to something similar to regular work hours.
And only sporadically at that.
Feminism is not a monolithic object. But MRAs like to treat feminists as if we are all interchangeable, that we all have the same arguments and that are goal is to subjugate all men.
Sorry, I find it hard to take seriously anyone who thinks that women have a proper place and that we have overstepped our proper place.
Yeah, feminists and MRAs are so equally wrong.
Fuck off.
I’ll take false equivalence and moral cowardice for $1000, Alex.
Ah. I think that’s why I never associated with other grad students save one during my brief stint as a grad student.
You’ve heard about my undergraduate empirical research into “things one should not rub on one’s scrotum” then?
I really should publish that research. Pad out my CV.
You can’t say MRAs are all the same either! Yeah you’ve got the silly wankers talking about women having their proper place, and that’s extremely wrong, but you do also have men who are just concerned with x and y and z.
Now I’m not saying I agree with them, but you lot will certainly decide I do, are not awful.
MRA-ism is no more monolithic than feminism, regardless of its lack-of-needing-to-exist.
*they are not all awful
Usually, but it’s worth noting that Colonel Mustard’s lead pipe is legendary.
I recommend Sriracha sauce blow-jobs for the MRAs.
But you certainly look awfully like one. If you’re not it’s a clear indication that you need to work on your thinking and/or your communication skills.
Wait, I’ve been standing in the ghey seghs with Brownian line like forever and in the end all you get is chili con carne?
Fucking easy for you to say, ryanwilkinson.
They are all awful, some are less awful then others. And one does not get fucking points for being less awful.
Fuck off.
Brownian, #146,
I would not want to represent all my ex-colleagues or even the majority of them as being “unpleasant”, but a couple were. The vast majority were lovely and I had a wonderful time.
And…anecdote I realise…the “unpleasant ones” were the absolute peak of “unpleasantness” I have encountered. They were unethical on an interpersonal level that leaves me staggered to this day. I do, in part, think the pressure cooker environment and certain less that helpful attitudes around the place made this so. Perhaps out of that context they’d be nicer. Although I haven’t bothered to find out.
In similarly high pressure, perhaps arguably higher pressure, environments where a more constructive attitude reigned, people were generally less “unpleasant” in my experience.
Louis
P.S. You did that undergraduate research too? I discovered the “Dean of the Faculty of Sciences” was one of those things.
Giliell, #151,
Fret ye not! The buffet style food-bar is for afterwards. It serves a variety of tasty meals.
You still get all Brownian. All the time.
Louis
“You’ll come for the sex, but stay for the crushing disappoinment.”™
Is that all there is to ghey secks with Brownian?
Is that all there is?
I’m not a dude, but I crossed my legs when I read this.
here, have a freshly baked internet.
Ryan, Diddums: NAME ONE. Just ONE male supremacist that isn’t a raging bigot.
That sounds like it was way more fun than standing in a tub of cold water at 1 AM trying to wash off the Tiger Balm Red.
It seems that missed opportunities are the eternal price I have to pay for not coming up with a good thesis proposal.
Wrong. They are all awful. They are all utterly repellent misogynist fuckwits. Every last one.
Racists are not all bad, you know. Some of them are actually perfectly nice people who just worry about different things than the rest of us… Except that the whole premise on which they base their beliefs is wrong. Kinda like MRAs.
*whew, I managed to avoid Godwining*
Illuminata, ghost pepper did not make you cross your leg?
That too.
Don’t forget the opportunity to see one of the CDC’s communicable disease quarantine chambers from the inside after the fact.
Oh, Brownian, I was referencing one of the greatest songs ever.
Right. They’re very concerned about x and y and z, which the liberal media refuses to cover.
MRAs are a male supremacist movement.
Male supremacy is inherently awful. You don’t get points for being a moderate male supremacist.
Feminism is not a female supremacy movement. Claims by MRAs notwithstanding.
The two are simply not equivalent. To claim otherwise is to make claims contrary to reality.
I see that I dropped an “s” earlier.
sigh…
Yes, true, but there’s one teeenzy wenzy little detail.
X is usually: Damn [sexually based slur of your choice] makes me pay for the upbringing of my own kids. And I don’t get to claim ownership to my sperm, only because I never gave them any attention when we were living together. Can’t see why she left by the way, she’s crazy.
Y is usually: Damn [yet another sexually based slur] won’t freely use her body for my pleasure. Yet she can have her pick of drunken, sexually inept louts (usually “men” or “boys” is used as a synonym for drunken, sexually inept louts even though it’s wildly inaccurate). And one false repport of rape is clearly a more pressing issue than 1000 actual rapes.
Z is usually: Damn, [measure that has a chance of actually mitigating gender inequality] is unfaaaaiiirrr! Wanna cookie! Now! Mommiemommiemommie!
I’m sure there are some MRAs who would let a woman use their bathroom. See? They’re not all bad!
Indeed they have.
(I linked to those sort of accidentally yesterday, but the comments on the SGU post, where several of them are trying to get her kicked off the podcast, are especially noteworthy. The hate in that thread is simply staggering.)
Ms. Daisy Cutter, would these MRAs also have piles of female friends?
#169:
Yes, but only if they get to watch.
Personal listening devices are not permitted in The Line&trade. While in The Line™, you will listen to the authorised Canadian power ballads playing over the loudspeakrs, or make polite conversation among yourselves.
I don’t care what goes on in Louis’ free-for-all, but I have standards.
Addendum to my #153:
I wonder if a lot of the doubling down observed from Abbie on one or two issues is environmentally enhanced.
I’m not saying that excuses anything by a long shot. Meh, I just wish everyone would get along.
I don’t care one jot for the blog warfare. I give not a fuck for the he said/she said and soap opera. I do give a rather large fuck about misogyny and apologetics for misogyny, and the support for misogyny because of personal differences etc.
Louis
I’m sure some MRAs are decent human beings, by their own standards… The problem is with those standards.
So maybe they don’t cheat on taxes, are kind to animals and send flowers for their old mother’s birthday? But if they are liable to act like raging a**holes to any woman who crosses their path, that’s a BIG problem. And not one fixed by looking the other way.
Only a bigot will claim that it’s bigotry if you don’t want to associate with bigots.
i didn’t see that post til now. Let me google ghost pepper and get back to you. Probably walking funny trying not to uncross my knees. LOL
Brownian, #158,
Ahhh yes. Been there. Got the A&E admission. Jock strap + Deep Heat + Rugby Club + Birthday. Good times….”good” times. For various values of “good”.
I maintain to this day that we men should be taken away the second we hit thirteen and given aggressive social training until we are about 25 when we can be admitted to polite society.
Oh all right. By “we men” I meant me.
And most of my friends.
And everyone I ever played rugby with.
Especially them.
Louis
Oh my. Louis will need skin grafts!
I started a bench-clearing brawl in a championship game. Asshole flanker kept pulling my hair in the scrum.
Yes, I would have benefited from such aggressive social training.
I’ve never heard anybody complain about Brownian’s carne.
Irene Delse, #175,
It was amusingly said of the Kray twins that they were “lovely blokes” who “used to give their mother flowers, and all that” and that they “never murdered anyone who wasn’t a criminal”.
I wonder why it is so wrong of us to aspire to mildly higher standards. Hey, clearly we’re moral elitists by considering women to be real people too! And we all know elitism is wrong now don;t we?
;-)
Louis
Brownian, #179,
Understandable. I have many similar incidents to relate. However I shall remain humble and merely provide this as context for people not familiar with the great sport of Rugby Union and it’s attitude of cheery violence.
Louis
Yeah, this post seems both bullying and ironic. It seems doubly so that PZ has started to lay down the ban hammer on someone dissenting.
Yeah, I know, here come the “lying sack of shit” and “fuckwit” comments.
Louis, you made me link to the story of Doug and Dinsdale Piranha.
Part Two
*sniffs #183*
Is that the smell of dirty socks?
KG @130
*massive eyeroll* ….there are no words that can adequately describe the idiocy of that statement. The only thing I can figure is that there weren’t any chew toys nearby and you decided to see if you could provoke a response.
Ooops. I guess it worked. Oh well.
Yeah, I don’t really appreciate it when the first thing I read in the morning is insinuations about how I’m cruising through grad school based off my looks (is that supposed to mean I’m getting special treatment, or I’m sleeping with profs, or what?) when I’m about to spend my day working my fucking ass off in preparation for my qualifying exam.
Anyway, thanks you guys. You keep me sane. Been chuckling at the various comments about how I’m simultaneously too pretty for work and too ugly to be sexually assaulted.
Beatrice at 185: Nope. This is the first time I have commented here since they instituted the login system. I know, it’s been a while. I read Pharyngula every day. This post moved me to comment because I find it disturbing. A sock puppet I am not.
Good luck on you quals, Jen!
What’s the matter, nooneinparticular? You did not like that KG called you on your false equivalency?
@ryanwilkinson, in general
MRAs are tilting at feminist windmills. The few things on their notably scattered agenda that are ACTUAL problems for men are problems for EVERYONE, and none of them is due to feminism or “female supremacy”. Since they do little to no activism in meatspace, I have to judge them by what they say online – and that has generally been despicable and beyond redemption. MRA-ism is not a movement equivalent with feminism, and false equivalence is an easy way to keep from acknowledging bad behavior. Stop it.
NSF grant, Jen. NSF GRANT.
So ha.
So, of all the issues that is discussed on this blog, ab is disturbed that a habitually foolish semi-regular got the banbanner.
I see that nothing much of interest will come from this one.
ab, you fuckwitted lying sack of shit.
Fuck off.
Troll cleanup, aisle 183 and 188!
You seem concerned, and I seem to have noted it.
Must be one of those x, y and z things MRAs worry about.
Janine
I made no such equivalency. In addition, there has been plenty or moral cowardice in this debate, but it has not come from me.
Janine, I am disturbed that PZ posted that there is no blacklist, then instituted a de facto blacklist against Smith, and then moved to stifle dissent. The banning of a specific individual is neither here nor there to me.
Haha, thanks, Esteleth, fuck you too.
:0
Why u no trigger warning?
[This isn’t the worst thing that could ever happen to a person, but it is worse than many things that result in skin grafts or therapy. Or divorce. Wouldn’t wish it on an enemy. I normally sweat so little that I don’t even wear antiperspirant, but on that…*day*…I poured. I was clammy a full 45 minutes after I found out I passed. People who merely walked near me noted a mysterious rise in humidity. The things those people did to my head in that room.
*queez*
Anyway, good luck and just have fun with it ;) ]
RevBigDumbChimp@37:
So succint, yet so accurate.
..and, I admit, it made me LOL.
Louis @ 135:
I absolutely do not want to know why/how you know this.
…do tell!?! ;-)
@141:
Oh, of course….
And Brownian @ 146:
Was it, ahem…peer reviewed?
The things one learns in Pharyngula threads (sometimes, even about biology)!
Damn, if it hadn’t had the TM at the end, I would have made that my tagline.
What is an MRA?
Am I the only one who keeps seeing a ‘W’ where there isn’t one? I suppose it’s apropos, given how Abbie would imply it was obtained.
So, one person expressing a desire not to share a stage with someone is a blacklist?
You’re not very good at language? Are you?
Do you know what blacklist means?
ab, firstly:
“Boycott” (what PZ is doing) and “blacklist” are not the same thing. Dictionaries are you friend.
Secondly:
MRA = men’s rights activist. Anti-feminist trolls.
Thirdly:
Go fuck yourself with a rotting porcupine.
Alright, fuckface. The fact that PZ will not speak at an event that Abbie Smith does not make for a blacklist. A fucking blacklist would mean that Abbie Smith would not be able to speak at any conference.
Fucking bloody stupid git!
And slc1 has a history of being a fuckwit. He just happened to finally cross the line.
The only thing that is disturbing is your dishonesty.
Fuck off.
A suspiciously specific denial.
But I doubt that someone who evidently cannot comprehend what the word “blacklist” means would actually comprehend what the word “sock puppet” actually means either.
This is true.
This is false. You may want to look up the word “blacklist” in the dictionary (and the word “boycott” may help as well).
This is false, and stupid to boot. If you think dissent is the reason behind the ban, you’re so far in the wrong you must be trapped in some sort of relativistic Wrongness Zone.
If anything, PZ is blacklisting himself, restricting himself. He’s not preventing Smith from appearing anywhere, he is prevented HIMSELF from having speaking engagements.
ab is transparently lying, and slandering PZ, to even mention “blacklisting Smith” in the same sentence as what PZ is doing.
ab, I’ll type this slowly for you. PZ told you there is no hidden blacklist of male speakers whom someone is trying to ban from conferences, despite the scaremongering. There are people we’re told to avoid. These people still speak at conferences. That would be a mightily ineffective blacklist there.
PZ also said that he will not speak at conferences where Abbie will also be speaking. He told you why, and it’s a very good reason. This is not a blacklist. PZ does not have to speak at every conference. In fact, speaker diversity is a plus. Abbie will be at very few conferences because she’s scared of flying, IIRC. Conference organizers can make their choices accordingly.
If PZ had told conference organizers that he would never have anything to do with them again if they invited Abbie to anything, that would be a blacklist. This is, definitionally, not.
Why didn’t you figure that out before you gave us your worthless opinion about the subject?
So, not wishing to associate with unhinged bigotted bullies is “disturbing”.
Not as disturbing as your need to defend unhinged bigotted bullies, of course.
Are you one too, or are you just Dunning that Kruger as hard as you can?
We all deserve the uninformed opinion of a fuckwit.
Look up “de facto.” I’m not the one who has a vocabulary problem, although you seem to have a reading comprehension problem. With PZ’s clout, a de facto blacklist is exactly what he is creating, or at least suggesting.
Also, calling me an MRA based on what I wrote, which had nothing to do with feminist or gender issues at all, is beyond moronic. It is, however, not surprising, as the default assumption is that if someone raises an objection to one of PZ’s posts which mentiosn a woman is that he must be misogynistic or something. In fact, and it certainly won’t matter, but I am extremely sensitive to feminist issues and am indeed the opposite of an MRA. I look on them with contempt. But again, my comments had nothing to do with feminist issues at all.
Amphiox, I give absolutely no fucks whether you think I am a sock puppet.
Hey Janine, fuck off with your idiotic bullshit.
Illuminata,
*applause*
Fuckface, why don’t you also tell all of the other people to fuck off, they all said the same at the same time I did.
Assclam.
ab, you are digging yourself a deeper and deeper hole.
Stop it!
What PZ is doing is a boycott, not a blacklist. The two things are NOT THE SAME.
Your insistence that they are the same and your random tossing about of insults is NOT HELPING.
ab,
At most, I implied that your worries are as serious as those of MRAs. I did not call you one.
How dare you question the power of our squidly overlord!!!!1!! No such infraction goes unnoticed in the panopticon that is the pharyngulitic collectivoid, and it will not be tolerated. You’ve been warned. Further actions like this will result in “blacklisting,” which means anything I want it to mean.
But Esteleth, as fuckface just explained, a boycott is a blacklist. Just like dissenting words is a jack booted thug.
Well, call your parent or guardian to come pick you up right away then, I guess. Why would anybody else care about your emotional state?
I have to admit, there is a perverse kind of amazement for me here. First there was a false accusation that teh ebil feminists were compiling a blacklist of male speakers known for sexist, abusive behavior.
So we have this post very clearly explaining this is false.
Then there is an accusation that not wishing to speak with a sexist, threatening female speaker and thereby grant appearance of endorsement or legitimacy is itself a blacklisting.
The willful idiocy is painful but creepily fascinating in small doses.
Banhammering assholes is de facto suppressing dissent.
Hey, this “de facto” gambit certainly is handy.
I am the de facto queen of FreeThoughtBlogs.
Hey! I’m the de facto queen of the world.
You wanna hear my song?
Come on and measure me.
I’m fifty de facto inches long!
It’s a “blacklist” because the reams of fucking tools that infest Abbie’s blog won’t pony up to support her speaking engagements, so PZ’s supposed to carry the slack for her and justicar with his popularity, I guess. She and her cronies hate FtB, but popular FtB speakers are obligated to let her hitch her wagon to theirs, apparently.
Franc Hoggle has all the money to hire prostitutes to tell him how unoffended by the word ‘cunt’ they are. Let him sponsor ERV’s “Monument” World Tour.
I’m putting another internet in the oven for you right now.
Thanks Brownian. Now I won’t sleep at night in fear of them actually doing this.
Couldn’t you at least have limited it to an americas tour?
An obvious lie.
An even more blatant lie (and an MRA bingo slot to boot!). Someone who is “indeed the opposite of an MRA” does NOT make the kins of comments that ab does.
PZ #86:
*snicker* Well, it’s good to know what you consider a personal threat.
If you literally think that Abbie is threatening violence with that personal comment, made to her supposed friends only, in a post that, again, you shouldn’t have access to, then I guess gelato shop owners everywhere should assume that you intend to literally, forcibly fornicate with them until they’re dead. I mean, really, there’s no other way to interpret “fuck him into the ground,” is there, PZ?
Gosh, it must be nice not to have to play by your own rules.
ab at #214,
How so?
Still learning,
Robert
The ERV slimepit threads are basically Pharyngula’s Sb dungeon minus a couple creationists and godbotters, all consumed in a smelly mutual circle wank.
On topic:
I haven’t fully decided if PZ’s boycott of any stage with Abbie on it is:
a) Perfectly within his rights, his own business, but a bit petty because I reckon when questioned Abbie would be about as much a misogynist as I am. Give or take an issue or two. I think she doubles down on things spectacularly, however, and has over the whole Elevatorgate thing, which leads to this sort of conflict. I also think this has unintended (on PZ’s part, I hope) consequences for Abbie. Which I get she has brought on herself.
I’m just a firm believer in “second” chances, I guess. Make love not war, why can’t we all get along, pass the bong etc.
(Which is where I started the “day”)
or
b) Perfectly within his rights, his own business, and exactly like the Deborah Lipstadt style approach I favour. I.e. I will not provide someone with a platform with which to share their odious views, and that Abbie actually believes (some of) the things she says and does. And that she has blown her “second” chance.
(Which is where it looks like I am ending the “day”).
Participation on the same stage as, say David Duke, could be seen to be endorsing him as someone worth sharing a stage with. Sure, Abbie is hardly David Duke, and it’s by no means sure that “appearing with” equals “endorsement of”, but it wouldn’t be the first time scumbags have used co-participation for that purpose.
But then I’m not sure that my initial view, a), is not merely a lingering bit of cultural misogyny. After all, when I wanted an unambiguous scumbag to not share a stage with, I went for a racist. Why? Because “racism is like so much worse yo” of course. Would I share a theoretical stage with Christopher Hitchens after his comments about female comics? Or with Richard Dawkins after “Dear Muslima” and subsequent point missing? Sure I would! I’d be theoretically honoured.
The point of the navel gazing is I’m not sure why I reacted initially the way I did, because after even a little consideration I don’t agree with my initial self!
I am probably hampered by my initial desire to be charitable and avoid conflict more than any genuinely lingering proper misogyny. I’m probably over analysing it! But I hope I’m not alone. It would be a terrible shame to be the only person in the world who was wrong about everything! ;-)
Louis
Yes, because “play in real life” has history as hyperbolic language and is general understood to be nonliteral the same sense that “fuck him” is. Uh, huh.
denisburger, do you understand that when you say two things are equivalent, someone is going to check whether they actually are?
All the even remotely probable interpretations, in that context, are ALSO threats of aggression and violence of various kinds and degrees.
A fact which dennisbumbler has conveniently deliberately left out.
Yet another intellectually dishonest liar trying to defend the indefensible.
*yawn*
Leaving aside the obvious, what part of “fuck him into the ground” makes you think that applies to all gelato merchants, everywhere?
ERV and her slimepit hate FtB, but not so much that they’re willing to go it without a helpful handful of FtB blogger coattail.
#234, how, exactly, am I a liar? PZ claims that Abbie’s joke on Facebook is a literally threat of violence. And yet, somehow his advocating gang-raping someone to death isn’t?
Oh, no, wait, I get it now. PZ was encouraging his followers to gang-rape a man to death. That obviously makes it excusable.
Janine, I am disturbed that PZ posted that there is no blacklist, then instituted a de facto blacklist against Smith, and then moved to stifle dissent. The banning of a specific individual is neither here nor there to me.
Haha, thanks, Esteleth, fuck you too.
Your’e a fucking moron.
For a blacklist to work, the vast majority of people in a social group or organization has to participate in it.
Who else is he telling to participate in his decision to exercise his individual right not to associate with a scumbag, you lying sack of shit.
He isn’t telling anyone else to do it.
Do you understanding the fucking difference?
And don’t you believe in the right to free association (which includes the right to avoid scumbags)?
Dumb ass piece of shit.
how, exactly, am I a liar? PZ claims that Abbie’s joke on Facebook is a literally threat of violence. And yet, somehow his advocating gang-raping someone to death isn’t?
Citation seriously fucking needed of any of that.
Louis
The problem isn’t second chances. She’s had one every day of the last year and she used it to spout more misogynist shit.
ab
You seem to be very upset about the idea that other people have some principles. Don’t worry, they’re not for everybody.
Aside from the pronoun ‘him’ which indicates one person, not ‘two’, ‘many’ or ‘all’, you mean?
Yeah, that’s it exactly. You’ve figured it out.
I suppose, with genius like that, you’ll be able to pull in the crowds that Abbie deserves?
Translation: Why, yes, I AM a lying slimepit troll. However did you guess?
LOl try harder, diddums. Crying “reverse sexism” wolf is just pathetic.
@Amphiox 228, oh cut the bullshit. You know very well that that is what the person was implying with their reference to socks. Quit being so obviously disingenuous.
Alright, well, I’ve expressed my opinion. Not like I expected it to sway people who believe that a dissenting poster is automatically a troll, that a person who disagrees with anything someone says in a post that mentions a woman in any way is an MRA, or that when someone disagrees with another’s statement they are lying. But enjoy your Communal Reinforcement party.
Shorter ab: WAAAAAH WAAAH WAAAHHHHh
Calling people children after behaving quite childishly. How quaint.
That doesn’t seem very fair. We need a break from this shit at least once in a while… But you’ve got a point. Maybe it’s for the best if we can keep it contained here. Fuck. I guess I could always blacklist them by leaving the continent myself.
You are doing it wrong, consciousness razor. Leaving the continent would be a de facto blacklist.
Wait, I’m confused. Is it a de facto blacklist or a de facto boycott if I de facto don’t listen to de facto whiny ass de facto trolls with their de facto bigotted bullshit and de facto lies?
You know that this kind of insult loses its sting when every one of you lackwits uses it as if you’re reading from a script.
Hell, I predicted you back in comment 60, long before you showed up here:
Suppose you toe your party line somewhere else, sheeple?
If you need any additional motivation: In my neck of the woods (Norway), pit bulls are banned by law. (Immigration can be a pain if you don’t have a well-paying job offer on hand though)
But Brownian, feminists are mean and like to kick little boys.
Don’t slur all feminists just because I’m mean and like to kick little boys.
Brownian #240:
You’re absolutely correct, and I apologize. I mean, I do find it curious that you didn’t feel the need to call PZ out when he turned Abbie’s proposed samurai sword dual with Greta into “threats to other convention speakers.” But you’re right: if I’m going to ask PZ to play by his own rules, I should play by my own, too.
Obviously, PZ only called for the fatal gang rape of one gelato shop owner, and all other gelato shop owners should consider themselves safe from his violent sexual deviance.
Sorry, Janine. My de facto mistake. Do you think I would have to leave the whole de facto continent, or would somewhere in South America be relatively safe?
By de facto Jove, I de facto think you de facto got it.
So the alternative, ab, is that since PZ now has some clout, he has to accept every invitation that is ever offered to him because otherwise he’s unthinkingly creating a blacklist that will cause any event he chooses not to be at to tarnish and wither away? Seriously.
He’s an adult. He gets to choose where to go and what his own reasons for doing so are. He gets to have opinions on which people he wants to hang out with and who he doesn’t want to hang out with. He can make a decision not to attend a convention with another person out of personal distaste for their behavior, out of personal affront for the attacks that person has made directly on him, or out of principles not to want to share a space with a person who has those views, and any of those are entirely valid things for him to do. And that’s not picking on the other person or creating a blacklist. That’s simply deciding who to associate with, and he has every right to do that. Abbie could just as well say that she refuses to be at any convention that PZ is at, or Jen, or Greta, or Ophelia, and she has the right to do that too. It’s their own decision.
No person standing between me and gelato should feel safe. Ever.
What were you thinking nitwit. Lulling them into a false sense of security like that. I guess you want a lot of gelato shop owners children to be orphaned you horrible person.
dennisburger: I kind of remember what you are talking about. It isn’t on FtB…maybe a tweet?
ab:
Shut the fuck up, Donny.
I note how you went, in the space of a few comments, from saying you read Pharyngula every day to not knowing what an MRA is to finding them terrible people that you’re totally the opposite of. You have no honesty, and that’s why people don’t like you.
Aquaria:
Ah well you see, that’s what makes it a de facto blacklist. Sort of like how white is de facto black.
Think I’ll go make me a de facto sandwich now.
No, you fucking don’t find it curious, fucker.
If you have something to say to me, asshole, find the fucking spine to come out and fucking say it.
I’ve got to admit, I don’t get the joke. I can’t wrap my head around this shit. Would you stop the concern-trollish dissembling for a minute to make some kind of point?
There was no reason to think PZ was ever going to meet gelato guy again, so nothing was implied about any sort of actual, face-to-face confrontation.
Rey Fox: Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov!
ab at #243,
In case you’re still reading, at #214 you posted:
I asked how this is so, and repeat the genuine request. Can you elaborate how PZ’s desire not to share podium or dais time with Abbie Smith is tantamount to (or in your words, “exactly”) blacklisting?
What are the arguments or evidence such that PZ’s decision is the same thing as a notation employed in the large scale enforcement of behavior that will negatively affect Abbie Smith’s livelihood, status, or career?
This is confusing. So, you’re assertion that PZ not wanting to share podium or dais time with Abbie Smith is blacklisting was opinion? Out of curiosity, when making the assertion that you did at #214, why did you use the term “de facto” if your assertion was only opinion? De facto means “of fact,” and is used in law to indicate practice that occurs in actuality regardless of official or legal endorsement.
Several other commenters have pointed to the distinction between “blacklist” and “boycott.” Since you have asserted the situation in terms of “blacklist,” can you provide some insight into why you use that term when counter-arguments have supported the circumstance as more aptly “boycott?”
Thanks.
Still learning,
Robert
Here’s your argument, dennisburger.
You done now?
unlike the lying troll, I actually have been reading Pharyngula for ever and ever and every.
When did this (imaginary) event happen? Since PZ has been on record repeatedly against such things. The horde immediately cannabalizes those that say such things.
You do realize, don’t you, slimepit troll, that no matter how many times you repeat a lie it doesn’t magically come true . .. right?
I understand that PZ wrote “fuck him into the ground” on Twitter, but I can’t find the source.
Illuminata, I am sorry, I am not sure if you were around when we had our fight with the Intersection. But one idiot took a comment by a regular and twisted into a story about how the Horde liked to tell rape jokes and laugh at rape victims. It could be that ab was a reader of that blog.
It was exactly as nasty as it sounds.
I can’t find the tweet, but I remember it as seeming threatening (and there was a little discussion of it here).
I didn’t find the alleged tweet to be interpretable as a threat, but only because I have an opinion of PZ that precludes that possibility. However, it isn’t irrational for someone to interpret it as such. Because I have an opinion of Abbie that does not preclude the possibility of being threatening, I was less circumspect than maybe I should have been about that claim. I have no first-hand knowledge of Abbie’s FB record, nor of any threatening behaviors. I’m suspending judgment*.
However, this seems beside the point. If Abbie had never uttered anything threatening, I still wouldn’t be interested in hearing her speak because I find her misogyny repellent.
*And most definitely not advocating that those who have more intimate knowledge than I do the same.
And further, wouldn’t blame anyone for refusing to share the podium with her.
Janine, it was about the Gelato fellow who posted a sign saying “Atheists not welcome to my Christian Business” after seeing Sam Singleton’s show.
I have Jen’s retweet: https://twitter.com/jennifurret/status/138846410098491392
Brownian, that is proof that all of the FTB bloggers are in lockstep.
Here it is:
“@jennifurret: No. Fuck him to the ground, let him be a lesson to others. I do not find his apology at all sincere — it’s pure venality.”
AE’s right that it’s unclear outside of the context of PZ’s boycott of his business (blacklist!) what exactly the comment means.
So I’m willing to hear the context of Abbie’s comment about playing “Kill Bill” in real life.
Besides the feud with Ed Brayton that slc1 kept harping on, you mean?
Shh. It’s time for Communal Reinforcement Hour.
Giliell, #239,
Oh I get that, I really, really do. I guess I’m just in a self reflective mood and was publicly navel gazing about the issue. Never a nice habit! ;-)
As I said, one of the things I found most bemusing about Elevatorgate was the tendency for Abbie (and many, many others) to double down. I genuinely don’t get it. Perhaps that’s my problem.
Louis
So, IOW, PZ didn’t call for a gang rape of another dude and dennisburger is a liar.
I’m totally shocked!
Louis: I feel you on the “doubling down” thing. I don’t get it either. The vitriol aimed at RW was disproportional to the perceived offense.
Brownian, can we have our Two Minute Hate™ after that?
People, have you been group thinking in my absence?
What did I tell you about that?
Louis
Well, that’s fascinating. Dennis Burger is the context for Abbie’s quote. The broader context is that someone with NatGeo has contacted Abbie about her monument posts and that Abbie thinks it’s a remarkable coincidence that it happened after WiS that “they were all at this weekend.”
Now, that could be harmless, because I certainly don’t know what Chris Stedman “did”. More importantly, however, I have no idea what Abbie thinks he did.
And I still, despite a years worth or reading this whole damnable thing repeated and twisted again and again and again, do not understand how offense was percieved.
Holy shitsnacks!
I’ve read this entire thread and the one on Jen’s blog and I don’t even know where to begin.
Well, other than with whiskey.
How offense was perceived: The words “guys” and “don’t do that” were seen in the same sentence.
Classy!
*eyeroll*
Right now, my drink of choice is vodka lemonade.
I haven’t had vodka since I honked down half a bottle of Absolut over the course of an evening, puked, and then had to take an exam. Ooooh that was nasty.
I did pass the class, though, so whatevz.
I’m thinking whisky.
Actually the more I read (and post) on this, the more it fucking annoys me. Maybe that’s because I’ve been unsympathetically dealing with morons at AtBC. “No” doesn’t seem to be an answer some of them are willing to take. Especially when delivered emphatically.
Fuck this. I’m off to get a calvados.
How the public fuck fest that is the hate monument/slime pit can not be an object of disgust for some people amazes me. Oh I forget, they’re just asking questions and not toeing the feminist line like us manginas and you ball breakers. Silly me.
ALCOHOL! NOW! I NEED TO DRINK OTHER PEOPLE’S STUPID OUT OF MY HEAD.
In the, yet again paraphrased, immortal words of Mr Charles Harper of 2 and a half misogynists:
If alcohol is poison, why do I drink it? Because there’s things inside me I want killed.
Louis
Also, I really need to stop sleeping during the daytime. I always miss these great threads. My troll-thrashin’ arm is starting to atrophy.
Beer… I live in one of those backward socialist nanny nations where strong alcohol is sold in Gubernmental monopolies.
Anywhoo, cheers.
De facto deep rifts!
I was going for a snark here – but there is no way of doing that without going too far into trigger-land. (sensitive persons might want to skip the next paragraph though.)
Let’s just say that’s there’s a subset of male culture where casual sex is the holy grail, and where too drunk to say no is equal to consent. Anything that stirs these holy precepts of broness must be dealt with by any means.
Now, I’d better go puke.
Well, of course. EVERYONE knows that when you repeatedly do something that is a complete and total failure, that is making you an increasing pariah, CLEARLY the thing to do is do it some more.
Which, in all seriousness, I fully support. PLease, keep showing the entire audience what a hideous person you are.
@Louis, oooh, calvados, so tasty! I make something I dub a “poisoned apple” that’s calvados, boubon and bitters.
Louis:
I would categorize the reaction to the slimepit as follows.
The skeptical and atheist community/ies (right now the condition applies to both, since there’s a lot of overlap) is divided into several factions. One is the rational side — the ones that don’t hold male privilege and some warped concept called “libburtee” to be sacrosanct, and are willing to challenge their assumptions. Science lies in this category, as does a large whack of third-wave feminism (specifically the Pandagon/Feministing/Digby et al circle). That’s also Pharyngula. We (should) take nothing for granted except data, and when we fail, accept graciously and change.
The other is the Real He-men Fairy Stomping Club and UFO Ignorers Society. They see skepticism as a superiority trip (though most won’t admit it) and haven’t really updated their thinking at least since the Human Potential Movement. This is where misogynists, global warming deniers, Zeitgeisters, some MRAs, and Eric Raymond live, and where a lot of libertarian atheists and assorted Hoggle-like trolls hang out. Many of these people are not necessarily stupid, but think humility is a measurement of how soggy the air is. (It’s a dry bullshit, in other words.) They performed a service at one point, but when the skeptical movement started to embrace third-wave feminism and push its inquiries outside the usual fairy and UFO woo, there was no room for them anymore. So they gravitate towards the slimepit and the like because they’re too Dunninged up the Kruger to have any kind of intellectual self-awareness.
If it helps, mouthyb posted in Jen’s thread research showing that sexual harassment is about keeping women in their place, not about attractiveness or actually wanting sex.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/blaghag/2012/05/oh-yeah-well-youre-ugly/#comment-88186
mouthyb:
She dared to say that there are times when a guy shouldn’t ask for sex, even if he wants it. That’s pretty much it.
I would also note that I’m not entirely sure what libburtee is, but it doesn’t seem to be a whole lot like liberty, unless you’ve conned your way to the top.
@Ogvorbis #280:
Maybe imagined a meek fan singled out for attention by a celebrity, only to be humiliated, akin to Carrie’s prom… the moment before she snapped and turned omnicidal.
* Alluding to the outsiders’ feeling of public betrayal the scene conveyed.
Not drawing a comparison between real people and the violently unhinged Steven King character.
Illuminata, #292,
Oh come on, getting more vulgar is the only thing I can wholeheartedly agree with!
;-)
Louis
@BrianX
I think you’re on to something. I think there are rational skeptics and irrational skeptics. To me, skepticism means that I require evidence to accept a claim, but when adequate evidence is presented I accept the claim (or at least admit that the claim is plausible). However, there are some authoritarian types who think skepticism means having a knee-jerk rejection of things that Do Not Fit Their Worldview, in spite of the evidence.
BrianX, #294,
1) Just have all my internets. All of them. All my internets are belong to you. Over 9000 of them.
2) I love you and wish to marry you. More importantly:
3) I find your ideas interesting and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Louis
Is that The Next Act on 104 street?
Certainly. Often black helicopters and/or chemtrails are involved.
Slignot, #293,
I have those ingredients. Gimme a minute….
….I have followed your instructions….
….I HAS A TASTY!
Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou.
Louis
I have much to learn about nuance. So when someone says “fuck ’em”, they literally mean “insert your penis violently into their body”? Wow. I thought it was a dismissive phrase.
I found some gin in the freezer :) :)
That’s on of the best things in this thread ;)
Yay for gin! I only found beer in the refrigerator (why exactly it’s called re-frigerator? many of the things I put in there have never been exactly cool)
No, PZ. Obviously, I don’t think you were literally advocating penis insertion. I was being outrageous and pedantic to make a point. Anyone who knows anything about you oughta know you don’t condone sexual violence against anyone.
Likewise, though, you of all people ought to know that Abbie isn’t going to pull a samurai sword out and challenge Greta to a duel at a conference. She posted a video of a song containing whistling. It was a pop culture reference that any of her friends would get. (For the record, that comment was directly specifically at me, in response to a joke–funny or not–that I made about my friend Abbie’s boobs.)
So why don’t we all just crank down the rhetoric a notch, hmm? You’re obviously not going to gang rape anyone and Abbie probably doesn’t even own a samurai sword (although I’m not certain about eye patches.)
It was obvious to those of us who know Abbie that when she said — to us — “They wanna play? Lets play in real life,” she meant that if there’s going to be a bunch of grumping and name-calling, everyone involved oughta have the guts to do it face-to-face.
You turning that into “threats to other convention speakers,” is no better than my jokingly accusing you of sexual assault.
Why don’t you take this advice to the slimepit?
I’ve been reading both PZ and Ed for years and am passing familiar with this. But SO WHAT? None of it was ever an issue as far as I could tell. They fell out for a spell, mended fences after a while, shared and still share lots of the same commenters. It’s been pretty much a non-issue because they’re both mature adults. Color me unimpressed with your unimpressed-ness.
Not that it’s very relevant to this topic, but you don’t seem to know much about how girls bully each other. They tend to be very passive/aggressive. It happened to me some forty-odd years ago; I still remember it vividly.
Brian X: What Louis said in @301!
This thread had been a hoot, but I’ve got to go now, I’m all out of popcorn.
ab @ 214;
Don’t tell me – some of your best friends are women, and you would even let them use your bathroom, right…?
—————————————————————–
dennisburger @ 253;
So, every time someone, in a moment of anger, says “fuck him/her” then you interpret that as literally referring to an act of sexual penetration? You don’t think that the term has an established history of use as an expression of anger or frustration? And when someone is trying to get, say, a recalcitrant vehicle to run, and gives up in frustration and says “fuck it”, then you imagine that the person in question actually intends to have sexual relations with the motor vehicle?
A somewhat cold and unresponsive lover, in my opinion, but hey – far be it from me to judge.
And yet, somehow, when ERV writes;
(Emphasis added)
This is somehow self evidently simply a harmless bit of fun, because a threat discussed in terms of being undertaken in real life is a form of words that can only mean that the phrase was used in jest… no, wait, that’s not right.
What a strange world it is that you inhabit.
“my jokingly accusing you of sexual assault”
Who does that? The whole “it’s only a joke” thing wore thin the moment it was first used to defend the slurs directed at women from Smith and the pitizens.
—
Also, *applause* to you, PZ, for taking this stand.
dennisburger @ 309;
So, you were trolling then. That is not going to win you many friends around here, you know.
So, we should “crank down the rhetoric” when critiquing ERV’s known history of misogyny, but ERV commenters laughing themselves sick over ‘kick her in the cunt’ jokes is acceptable?
That seems a mite hypocritical. Unless, of course, you would care to argue that gendered insults are no big deal, and we should be all be less ‘oversensitive’ about it…?
Gregory Greenwood #312:
You stupid, humorless, intellectually dishonest fuck.
I just said that I fully recognize that PZ’s remarks were harmless. And for the record, he didn’t just say “Fuck him.” He said, “Fuck him to the ground.” Weensy bit of difference there.
BUT STILL! I’m not literally accusing him of malicious physical intent. But by the same logic that leads me to understand that PZ’s remarks (made publicly, by the way, on Twitter, for anyone to read) were harmless should lead anyone to understand that Abbie’s comment (made in a post that’s marked “Friends Only,” by the way) in no way indicates that she’s literally going to attack Greta with a samurai sword.
Chigau, that is indeed the place. I’m there often.
Because of the drinking.
Doucheweasel
Not knowing who Abbie Smith is, I googled and went straight to this webpage (from 2008): http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/pz-myers-and-abbie-smith-an-hour-of-no-cursing/
Yuck.
dennisburger @ 315;
Hmm… let me see. What would be the classic slimepit response to such an expression of anger?
I have it…
*ahem*
Hit a nerve, have I?
And I just said that you were, in fact, trolling. See, anyone can post a comment only to see that another comment had already superceded its content, even you.
Merely a rather more emphatic variant of the same form of words. You have still failed to demonstrate that the intent behind its use was as anything other than a statement of disdain and dismissal.
Wait… didn’t you just write that you didn’t believe that PZ actually meant a literal sexual act? If so, why are you still trying to demonstrate that the phrase in question was anything other than a throwaway insult?
Which one of us is intellectually dishonest again?
Apparently not – you were, as I have said, trolling. Not a behaviour looked on favourable around here.
I remain unconvinced. PZ’s form of words was a slight variation on a common statement of disdain. ERV’s were not, and it is not as though the misogynist company she keeps don’t have a history of hatefully fantasising (hoggling, even) over the degradation (sometimes violent degradation) of the prominent feminists they despise.
I see no reason to extend the benefit of the doubt to her, or to you.
I found some gin in the freezer :) :)
huh, strangely I’ve never tried gin in the freezer, even though I prefer gin over vodka, but have had in the past regularly placed bottles of Absolut Lemon into the freezer for a few days.
love the syrupy texture you get with that.
what’s it like with gin?
oh ryan, kid, why do you do this to me? now I’m going to have to go through the effort of educating you again.
did you miss the part where Abby threatened Greta? Issuing threats is not cool. Absolutely people should have the right to refuse to speak during the same events as someone who threatens other speakers.
not promoting someone and promoting someone else instead is not the same as blacklisting. not even in the same ballpark. and people who cling to the same “leaders” for a movement for decades are pretty much stuck in the past anyway, since few people are capable of evolution at the speed of modern social change.
oh yeah, and “will” and “should” would not have made a difference in terms of the strength. in fact, “should” would be telling other people what to do, which was not Rebecca’s point. Her point was that other people were sharing her sentiment towards Dawkins.
actually, yes he did, whether intentionally or not. “both sides do it” is erasure of the vast differences between the “it” one side does and the “it” the other side does.
bullshit strawmanning like this isn’t going to get you anywhere.
where x, y, and z are all different forms of losing privilege.
there are people who are genuinely concerned with the negative effects society has on men, but they’re usually feminists, not MRAs
it actually is, in the sense of being far less diverse.
PZ’s form of words was a slight variation on a common statement of disdain.
and was directly explained, by PZ, AS such.
there really can’t be any doubt.
at this point, equating the two exhibits is tantamount to complete and utter intellectual dishonesty.
…reminds me, unfortunately of the “fucked sideways with rusty knife” inanity that happened over at Mooney’s old blog.
destroyed any remaining credibility of Kirshenbaum, and most of their regular commenters.
never saw any reason to return there after that.
OK, Dennis Phalloburger,
we have had enough of you spewing illogical sexist crap here. Leave this discussion group at once and don’t return until you have read all of P.Z’s published refereed papers for the last five years. If you can comment on a single one intelligently it will show that you may be capable of serious thought.
Until then, get out.
Are you done derailing yet, dennis?
The phrase “fuck him to the ground” is not a threat. Period. You do not need to know PZ and the surrounding context to know that. Nobody interprets the phrase “fuck him”, “fuck it”, “fuck him to the ground”,… ect. to imply any threat of actually fucking (in the sense of penetration or whatnot).
On the other hand, saying that you are going to “play in real life” with someone and mentioning a specific date, could be a threat. If you know the person saying it well, or in certain contexts, it could be clear that it either is or is not an actual threat.
Do you see the difference between the two phrases? One is simply not a threat (or at least would take very odd circumstances to make it appear as a threat). The other is less clear. It could be a threat if spoken in some contexts. In others, it could be not a threat. But, importantly, one requires knowledge of the speaker and/or context to be able to tell whether the threat is sincere.
There is another point you are missing here. You seem to have a high standard for what you think constitutes a “threat”. I accept that Abbie was not asserting an intention to physically assault Greta with a samurai sword. So what. You seem to think that just because Abbie will not bust out a sword, her comment necessarily is not a threat. I think that the most clear understanding of her statement is that it was a threat. Not a threat to commit assault with a deadly weapon. But a threat that she will be a jackass and overall unpleasant character towards Greta, when they meet.
This is a shitty thing for a speaker to say. Do event organizers want their speakers to heckle the other speakers? Do they want them to threaten to do so?
hoggling, even
*shudder*
what a horrible ass that fucker is.
It might be a worthwhile discussion, though, to answer the question:
Can you judge a person by the company they keep?
@ dennisburger
That’s a katana. Learn your Japanese swords.
…and no, if I where Greta, I would be approaching security detail over this. As PZ did with Franc Hoggle when he stated he was going to stalk PZ at this years Global Atheist Convention I believe. No, Abby is unlikey going to stalk Greta…but it looks like she’s going to harrass her in an undo and perhaps harmful manner. I would take that threat very seriously. And that’s not an overreaction.
Intellectual dishonest from the man who wrote:
Let’s tone down the rhetoric, eh?
Tu quoque, fuckface.
What I said at #192 – I meant fellowship, not grant.
NSF fellowship, Jen. NSF FELLOWSHIP.
Until then, get out.
LOL
yeah, that’ll work.
that’s the problem with public forums, rather than view them as an “open living room”, many view them as “open restrooms” and just come to them to take a dump.
perhaps this educational video would help out poor Dennis?
“Fuck him to the ground” is not a phrase I had ever heard. Without context, It’s meaning is ambiguous.
Abbie’s threat is not anything I claim to understand either. But as its been mentioned, she does have a track record of hateful fantasizing.
#311:
“… you don’t seem to know much about how girls bully each other.”
Guilty as charged.
Ichthyic @ 326;
Agreed. Perhaps the single nastiest troll I have ever encountered.
In and of itself, perhaps not, but it certainly can offer context to a course of dealing, and when someone creates a place for the most unpleasant misogynists that stink up teh intertoobs to congregate and wallow in their collective ignorance and hatred, and then goes on to endorse and further encourage their bigotry, it becomes next to impossible to think of any positive motivation that might lead a person to do that.
Woo Monster @325 –
This is a shitty thing for a speaker to say. Do event organizers want their speakers to heckle the other speakers? Do they want them to threaten to do so?
No. They do not.
it becomes next to impossible to think of any positive motivation that might lead a person to do that.
true.
someday maybe Abbie will be honest about what her reasons are for doing so, if she herself even really understands what they are.
she might not.
It’s easy to forget she’s still pretty young, and might actually not have figured out what motivates her own behaviors.
hell, I’m late 40s and still trying to figure that out for some of my own behavior.
Why has ‘fuck’ lost all etymological meaning?
Why has ‘fuck’ lost all etymological meaning?
when did you fail to understand that it has many?
seriously, watch the vid I linked to above.
…or maybe you would prefer the late George Carlin?
Ichthyic @ 336;
Perhaps she will grow out of it one day.
Damn, now I really sound like a patronising burk…
The full reasons why we behave the way we do are still mysterious to most of us, I think.
It really is just as well that our brains evolved – if they had been designed, I think that the model would need to be recalled urgently…
This is sort of like the “I’m not racist but… [blatantly racist statement]” thing, yah?
I mean, if you just wanted to convey a sense of public betrayal you could have just said that. Using evocative, poetic language, even. But instead you drew a comparison between real people and the Stephen King character. Then you proclaimed that you were not, in fact drawing a comparison between real people and the Stephen King character.
The stupidity of the ERV set continues to amaze.
Damn, now I really sound like a patronising burk…
doesn’t mean you’re wrong.
also, that happens more and more as you get older I’ve noticed.
:P
On the subject of inadequate brains, I have an early morning on the morrow, and if I want to be even vaguely functional I will have to leave the thread for tonight.
Have fun with the chew toy.
I know it’s meaning isn’t always sexual; but when it first came into usage in the English language, it definitely meant ‘have sex with’.
The etymology given in that video is likely incorrect; there are examples from as early as the 16th Century (when ‘fuck’ likely entered the language), and they are all used sexually. There’s also the Norwegian ‘fukka’ and Swedish ‘focka’, both of which have the sexual meaning (and ‘focka’ also means ‘to strike’). There’s also Chaucer’s repeated use of the word ‘fyke’, which tended to mean ‘flirt’.
I’m just saying, it used to almost overwhelmingly be sexual; and now it just doesn’t seem to be.
This is sort of like the “I’m not racist but… [blatantly racist statement]” thing, yah?
there’s actually a term to describe that logical fallacy, but for the life of me, I can’t recall what it is any more.
The etymology given in that video is likely incorrect
*headdesk*
would it be too patronizing to respond to your post with:
LIGHTEN THE FUCK UP!
:p
it hasn’t.
and for the record, “fuck him to the ground” is ambiguous enough that I don’t think it should be defended as harmless. i don’t know why the addition of “to the ground” implies an action more than just “fuck him” alone, but it does.
horace #324:
Gee, it’s awfully presumptive of you to think that you get to set such criteria. Last time I looked at the top of the page, it didn’t say “horace’s blog.” If PZ asks me to leave, I will — no banning necessary.
How’s about this instead: you pick the paper of PZ’s of your choosing, and if I haven’t read it yet (I honestly can’t say I’ve read all or even most of them from the past five years), I’ll do so, and we can chat.
Because, despite all of this, my attitude toward PZ is strikingly similar to his toward Abbie. I have a fuck of a lot of respect for his professional work. I’ve learned a hell of a lot about biology–embryonic development, specially–from him that I haven’t learned from other source, which is saying a lot, because biology texts probably constitute 50% of what I read in any given year.
But Elevatorgate, among other things, turned me off to PZ personally. His sense of humor doesn’t sit well with me. Abbie’s does… well, most of the time, anyway. (Which could well have something to do with the fact that Abbie and I are friends, whereas PZ and I aren’t.)
But hey, like I said, if you wanna talk science, let’s talk science. Pick the paper and let’s discuss.
I didn’t realize I had to pass some scientific test, though, to point out that there’s a huge double standard here. Abbie’s comments, actions, remarks, and humor seem to be subject to a whole different level of scrutiny than do PZ’s.
it is absolutely still sexual, just that some ways in which it’s used have become nonsense interjections
‘To the ground’ adds a more physical element.
this is incorrect. it only appears that way because their comments, actions, etc. are not ever evaluated in a vacuum, but always in the context of past comments, actions, etc.
And that’s all any of us need to know about you. Fuck off, shitbrick.
…Which could well have something to do with the fact that Abbie and I are friends, whereas PZ and I aren’t
so then you were lying when earlier you stated:
my attitude toward PZ is strikingly similar to his toward Abbie.
have you considered REALLY examining your own words and attitudes?
I think you should.
@Jadehawk
Remember, in the pit, everything happens in a vacuum, so each new violently misogynistic joke is a revelation! No wonder they’ve managed to entertain themselves for a year over this.
It reminds me of playing peekaboo with babies.
, just that some ways in which it’s used have become nonsense interjections
the fuck you say!
Ichthyic, I don’t see how those two statement necessarily contradict?
‘To the ground’ adds a more physical element.
no, it doesn’t.
no more than adding:
“with a rusty knife”
adds a physical element to:
“fuck them sideways”
you’re projecting a physical element onto it that isn’t there, or intended to be.
I’d like to clarify I have no issue with the statement ‘fuck him to the ground’ – I was just endeavouring to answer Jadehawk’s question as to why the ‘to the ground’ thing might make it worse.
Also ‘with a rusty knife’ appears to have the trope of being a refuge in audacity.
One of the most blatant, shameless, and self-evidently obvious lies yet.
I don’t see how those two statement necessarily contradict?
don’t you have work to do on the english etymology of the word fuck?
“Fuck him to the ground” is obviously not harmless and I seriously doubt it was intended as harmless.
“Fuck him” in that context means “forget about him and do not forgive him for being an anti-atheist bigot” and “to the ground” alters the meaning of “him” to “him and his gelato business”. It is like saying “fuck off and die” to the bigot with the hopes his business crashes to the ground, too.
Anyway, how does that make every nasty thing Abbie has said about Jen, Ophelia, Greta, PZ, and others OK? It doesn’t. This is nothing more than the typical slimepit tactic of being horrendously and disingenuously offended by our insults to stop the conversation from being about their sexist slurs, their “joking” threats of violence, and their attempts to destroy people they don’t like.
That’s because you’re a raging asshole. What do you think you’re doing here? Shouldn’t you be preaching to the slimy fuckers at ERV about the virtues of toning down the rhetoric?
Isn’t it better to convince people who are wrong why they’re wrong, rather than send them back to people who will just agree with them and reinforce their opinions?
Isn’t it better to convince people who are wrong why they’re wrong, rather than send them back to people who will just agree with them and reinforce their opinions?
try this:
take what you just said there, and apply it to a creationist.
Ryan, you can’t educate the pitizens. They are only coming over here for kicks just as they’ve always done since day one. They’re trolling. Their “arguments” are nothing more than that.
I can and I do and I will; levels of people believing in creationism have fallen drastically (at least in Europe). Atheism is vastly on the rise; there is much more acceptance of women, blacks, and homosexuals than there was 100 years ago. Convincing people who are wrong why they’re wrong very often does work.
I still believe people are inherently good and inherently clever, but just very often waylaid.
I notice the cultural reading for context skills of the Pitzians goes down by 80% when it’s convenient.
People are in fact neither. Rationality is no more the default inherent state than Olympiad is the inherent physical state
ryan @365
It’s great and all that you’re so positive about humanity, but you’re being awfully thick when it comes to the motives of the pitizen trolls. They don’t come over here to have DA TROOF calmly explained to them, to see the error of their ways. They come over here to drop shitbombs on the threads and then cackle with glee as they mock us over there. That’s what trolling means; they’re not just misguided, they’re fucked up.
dennisburger wrote:
Yeah, how dare he stand up and agree with a woman who says in the most innocuous way possible that it’s not okay for guys to hit on her whenever they feel like, no matter how clearly she’s explained she doesn’t appreciate it?
Oh, wait. That’s just being a decent fucking human being.
*puts on Freudian hat*
ryanwilkinson, when did you first realise you were being mocked? Do you think it has no relation to the beliefs you hold?
:( I’m gonna keep up my optimism regardless :( I don’t like the looks of ERV (though I still don’t fully understand what it is) from the one blog I read, which I think was the one PZ linked all the way up there ^, but I just don’t want to give up hope on anyone.
And if they are trolling, surely it’s best to not give in, to keep calm, to keep trying to explain it to them. Then they’ll get bored and leave (I would hope).
What more is there to say? There’s no polite disagreement to be had with these sorts of dishonest, hateful asshats. And I didn’t send him anywhere, nor could I.
^^This.
That is why, for all the cries about us being hypocritical, there is no comparison between our position on this issue of harassment of women at atheist and skeptic events and our position on theism. Being a decent human being is the foundation of our stances on both harassment and theism.
Yawn. Accomodationism isn’t a really popular tactic around here, and doing it to misogynist trolls is even less so.
We find mercilessly mocking trolls to be way more effective.
I’m not an accomodationist. I’m not saying let these people do what they want; I agree with PZ’s decision not to go to conferences to which Abbie Smith also goes. I agree with telling religious people they’re wrong, I agree with telling homophobes and sexists and racists that they’re wrong; I’m extremely confident that religion is in no way a positive thing, or something that needs to be emulated. I don’t like to believe the average Christian (average – not people like Fred Phelps or William Lane-Craig or any of those types) is necessarily a bad or stupid person … just uneducated, just brainwashed.
I mean a lot of you used to be Christians (I never was one, so perhaps I’m entirely wrong), and from what I’m reading of the ‘Why I am an atheist’, it doesn’t tend to be ‘I got swore at a lot and felt stupid and changed my mind’, it tends to be an increase in understanding, and education.
The tact of Dawkins a la ‘The God Delusion’, I find is a happy middle-ground.
I’ll just keep up my naive optimism, there are enough cynics, I think.
THen have fun harming people you could help by your dotting on people who you can’t.
I’m not a cynic, I’m a realist. The trolls that show up over here aren’t here for you to redeem them. They’re here to stir up shit and get their lulz. So we mock them, we ignore them, and once in a great while PZ banhammers them. It’s all they’re good for.
Also, as Ing rightly pointed out, letting them come over here and lie and insult people while you calmly and patiently rationalize to their brick wall hurts other people. In the aggregate, you’re doing harm, not preventing it.
You don’t know what an accommodationist is. Great. Fuck off.
It’s got fuck-all to do with optimism or cynicism. There’s nothing “inherently good” about human nature. There’s not even “human nature.” Again: fuck off.
Accommodationist: one who adapts to or compromises with an opposing view
: Accommodationism in terms of modern rationalism or atheism refers to the belief that some sort of “common ground” can be found between believers in magical and supernatural things, and between atheists and those who hold the scientific method and methodological naturalism are humanity’s best tools to describe the universe.
: A term coined by Austin Dacey to describe those “who either recognize no conflicts between religion and science, or who recognize such conflicts but are disinclined to discuss them publicly”.
…unless you’re using it in some exceedingly obscure way, yes, I do know what it is, and I do know that I am not one.
@consciousness razor
Yeah, I was going to point out that same part of his comment.
I don’t have a “why I’m an atheist” story because mine is boring, but I do have a “why I’m a feminist” story, and the reason I’m a feminist is that I engaged with feminists and repeatedly got my ass handed to me until I finally figured out that I need to shut the hell up and listen to learn, not shout over everyone like an entitled douchophone.
I also learned because I wasn’t constantly given cookies for each incremental step I took forward. I was always told that more was expected of me, that treating women as people who deserve respect was the least I could fucking do.
That’s why I think “tough love” or whatever one wants to call it that we do here is more effective than coddling people.
Sigh. You’re still being dense.
Did I say you were an accomodationist to religion? No, I said your accomodationist tactics towards trolls, meaning your fluffykins attitude towards them like they’re rational people who can be reasoned with, are garbage. You’re not going to reason with a troll because trolls exist specifically to cause harm. They are categorically not here to listen so they won’t. You waste your time and your energy and all the while they’re saying “women need to be kicked in the cunt!” and you’re saying “that’s not very nice!” they are causing collateral damage, you thick fuck.
ryanwilkinson reminds me a lot of Walton circa a few years ago.
You would assume trolls exist to cause a reaction; give them none!
And I’ve not found anything as objectionable as ‘women need to be kicked in the cunt’ – obviously that’s too far.
#348 Dennis Phalloburger,
Your tone trolling pretence of objectivity is nothing more than an attempt to justify the kyrarchical privilege of sexually assaulting upitty women in elevators whenever you want. Why is it so difficult for you to understand that women are human beings and that rape and genocide are wrong ? Is it because you enjoy human suffering or is this just a byproduct of your need to destroy the global ecosystem ?
You need to apologize to everyone on this list and Rebecca Watson to retain your posting privileges on Pharyngula.
I don’t get why Smith’s “Let’s play” rhetoric is being taken as threatening. I read that as something like, “When we’re at that conference, I’m gonna to out-argue the fuck outta you.”
Am I missing some backstory here?
BTW, I dislike defending Smith: I despise her. Beatrix Kiddo wound up plucking out Elle Driver’s remaining eye and leaving her writhing on the floor of Budd’s trailor, and in any rhetorical showdown between Greta and Abbie, I’ll be rooting for Greta to do the same to Smith. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
(I just looked up ‘Walton Pharyngula and all I could find were recipes to a cheesecake and chickpea curry. What?)
Why, why am I doing this to myself?
Dennisburger,
Right or wrong, I’ve got to admire your balls.
I may have phrased that quite deliberately! ;-)
Whether or not I disagree with you, and given that you claim to agree with Abbie on Elevatorgate (or at least disagree with PZ) I think there’s a lot we’d disagree about on that topic at least, I admire a person who sticks up for a friend. Perhaps I’ll cop flack for that, perhaps I won’t.
I know what you said about PZ’s “fuck him to the ground” tweet was in terms of illuminating what you consider to be overblown rhetoric, but I want to draw your attention to this part of Aratina Cage’s #361:
This is how what you have been doing is viewed, right or wrong. I might have phrased it differently, a lot less eloquently, a lot less nicely and with a lot more use of the word fuck than Aratina.
Way back in #232 I commented that, initially, my knee jerk reaction on reading this post was “oh for fuck’s sake, isn’t this all a bit fucking petty?”, and you know what it kind of is. I question my own knee jerk though because if I have learned anything it’s that I grew up in a sexist culture, I inherited sexist ideas, and I am immersed in them now. Shaking those received wisdoms off is not always easy. So perhaps I grant more sympathy than some people deserve.
However, and this is a BIIIIIIIIG however, there are elements that are not petty and don’t warrant the slightest bit of sympathy. Abbie, extremely wrongly in my view, has given tacit licence to some very unpleasant misogynists (people who advocate, express and perhaps even perform in real life, misogyny. They certainly are unabashed about it on the web). I neither know nor care to know if you are among their number.
This isn’t in doubt, this isn’t up for debate, it’s as clear as day. It’s not a “difference of opinion” about feminism, it’s fact. I don’t even know or care to know if Abbie shares the views of the “slimepit” denizens. Nor, if I am perfectly honest, do I really give a flying haploid donkey fuck about which science blogger will appear on a stage with which other science blogger. Soap opera is not my favourite entertainment.
I get it though, I get why you are here trying to (admirably in my view) defend your friend. I don’t get how you are doing it however. For all the fucks and charged language here and elsewhere not a single person has expressed ANYTHING as discriminatory and derogatory to a specific identifiable group as the “slimepit” denizens have about women in general, and specifically some women in particular.
And that, that misogyny, is something I DO give a massive flying, gibbering diploid, mammoth fuck about.
What it appears that you are doing here is defending your friend by ignoring, or belittling, the far greater unpleasantness of a group of misogynists in order to focus on a fallacious plea of “well you are unpleasant too”. As others have pointed out, whether or not we are unpleasant, whether PZ is a big old meanie hypocrite and all round Official Terrible Person or not, is absolutely irrelevant to the fact of the misogyny at the “slimepit” threads and the fact that this is perfectly criticisable, and opposable, as the bigotry is clearly is. Regardless of the fact that the people doing that criticism or opposition are perfect angels of sweetness and light themselves. Or even bigots.
I don’t think they are bigots, but I’m making a logical point.
That fallacy, the tu quoque, you are committing is worse than merely fallacious, it’s misapplied. It is, as others have noted insufficiently taking into account the relevant context. Does PZ have, for example, a history of expressions of misogyny? A history of at the very least tacit support for really rather egregious misogyny? I don’t know the truth of the claim made here that Abbie has a history of making violent fantasy remarks, and honestly I cannot begin to care, if it were up to me, I’d say her comment re: Kill Bill was harmless. But then it is harmless to me, I have that “privilege”. I’m the wrong person to ask and the wrong person to judge.
What I do know and care about is that, if you are going to give lectures on overblown rhetoric, I think you need to consider the larger context. PZ’s own infelicitous remarks don’t miraculously justify anyone else’s, and you’ll note the type of remark is markedly different. Just restricting things to one twisted reading of a gelato guy tweet vs one twisted reading of a Facebook joke misses the point that Abbie’s comment history is very different to that of PZ. And sad to say, more unpleasant and misogynistic.
Whether anyone likes Abbie or PZ, or their humour, or their taste in pantaloons is sublimely irrelevant. What’s abundantly clear is that one of these people has, at the very least and being intensely generous, a demonstrable history of tacit support for misogyny, and the other doesn’t.
So like I said, I really, genuinely do understand why you are trying to stick up for your friend, but if you’ll forgive me, I think you’re going about it the wrong way. A good friend doesn’t just have your back, a good friend lets you know when you are in a hole and should stop digging.
Dismiss me or everyone here as much as you like, go for it, it’s no skin off my nose, but if you really do give the briefest of fucks about your friend Abbie, then get her to stop doubling down on the issue of misogyny. She is, sad to say, wrong, persistently, as others have demonstrated time and again, ad extreme nauseum. This doesn’t mean she’s wrong about everything, or a bad person, or anything like it, I think she needs a friend to help her out of a hole she is digging for herself publicly.
And that, for a young scientist, can be an issue. Trust me, I’m a youngish middle aged scientist! Given the job climate right now, you want almost nothing to be seen to adversely colour your CV. Annoyingly, I wouldn’t say that if Abbie were, for example, being a vocal advocate for gay rights in the reddest of Red states. Perhaps she is, again, I neither know nor care to, if she is, good luck to her. I do know she’s done some good work to counter antiscience, so good on her for that. I’d flip that first comment about “trouble for a young scientist” on its head and say “be proud to stick up for what is right, damn the consequences” if she were the vocal gay rights activist and not the vocal apologist for, and tacit supporter of, virulent misogyny. But I can’t find it in me to support bigotry.
Seriously, use your better instincts that I am desperately hoping are what guided you here, because if you are just another misogyny apologist, boy howdy am I wasting my time…use those better instincts to get Abbie to stop doubling down on this issue. For no one’s sake but hers.
Ah well, said mah bit, let’s see how its misconstrued!
Louis
See, I like Louis.
If a sexist troll comes onto a thread like this and spews sexist crap everywhere, how might it look to someone who sees that and that no one is responding in any way? Probably not great. “Nice and reasonable” and “no response” are both not good things to do to a troll because in no way do you mitigate the damage caused; in the former case, you actually make it worse by prolonging the troll’s presence.
I’ve commented here for quite awhile and believe me, a vehement and mocking reply from the regular commentariat is the best way to deal with a troll. When they see they’re going to be rapidly and thoroughly humiliated and discredited, they usually fuck off after awhile, and it shows that the community here isn’t going to stand for that kind of shit.
Also, don’t tell me what to do, assclam. (thanks, Janine)
Yes, take my extreme example and make it your standard for judging objectionable material. You really are treat, cupcake.
Take Dennisburger’s argument – that you people use over-the-top rhetoric.
People will either agree with that, or they will disagree with it. You using over-the-top rhetoric to explain why you’re using over-the-top rhetoric isn’t going to have a positive impact on anybody! If someone thinks that kind of arguing is bad, they are not going to be convinced by that kind of arguing that that kind of arguing is good.
So even if DennisBurger is a ridiculous sexist elsewhere; even if he is a massive troll; even if he personally has no chance of learning, other people reading this (who, I assume, you do think have a chance of learning seeing as you think that ‘damage’ can be caused), would want to know – are Dennis’s criticisms valid? Is very-angry rhetoric a useful way of making my point? Etc.
I don’t think Dawkins in his treatment of people who disagree with him is accommodationist, but I don’t think he’s too rude either.
See, I like Louis.
that’s nice.
I like Louis too.
Louis knows that.
if you can’t see the difference between what Louis posted and what you did, you have some thinking to do.
Ryanwilkinson, #389,
Oh fuck I must have got everything egregiously wrong.
Louis
I didn’t ‘do’ anything, I’ve not actually engaged Dennisburger; more than enough people are doing so.
Ouch.
Louis
You were nice, dammit, nice!
Ryanwilkinson, #395,
Don’t worry about it. I am, after all, a spectacular arsehole. I have certificates and everything.
Icthyic makes a good point in #392 though. There’s apparently a pretty big gulf between our two positions.
Mind you, it’s nice to be liked, so I’m not going to complain now am I?
Louis
Well, if anything, your posts are evidence that you’re incredibly fucking tedious.
I don’t have enough whiskey for this shit.
It’s nice to be nice to the nice.
This is central to following the Accommodationist’s Noble Eightfold Path. It’s a shame your definitions didn’t mention it.
I don’t have enough whiskey for this shit.
was it this thread we were talking about gin in the freezer?
no?
I’m heading to that thread.
Okay, Rah.
I gave the example of Dawkins as someone of whom I like the tone. I also said I liked Louis’ (in that post).
So now I’m curious as to what I said that means that my position is accommodationist or spectacularly different from Louis’ or whatever.
DennisBurger, nobody gives a shit what a concern/tone like you thinks. Oh, that’s right, they don’t think, they just give out fuckwitted OPINIONS like cows pass gas.
No, this was it, although I wish it had been another.
You know, huffing cattle farts would explain so much about the pitizens’ behavior.
Ichthyic
This is the place.
Gin in the freezer gets very thick and almost too cold to drink.
Almost.
Louis seems to have an adamantium keyboard and the patience of ten kindergarten teachers; don’t believe or expect him to be the norm.
Gin in the freezer gets very thick and almost too cold to drink.
Almost.
just like vodka then.
so, with the vodka I just prefer to do straight shots.
with the syrupy gin you do…?
Chigau, #396,
I may have passed through today’s hurricane of inanity inspired rage and into the calm heart of the storm. I took it out on some SPECTACULAR fuckwits at AtBC, for whom the “women are people” element of the enlightenment seems to be more challenging than they would readily admit.
I feel like Al Pacino in the Godfather III, every time I think I’m out they drag me back in.
After all, how fucking bored are we of the endless after shocks of Elevatorgate? Seriously? Discussing it actually causes my testicles to ache unpleasantly. But that the same time more people come out of the woodwork. I have SIWOTI syndrome, I at least want to give people the benefit of the doubt that they are reasonable, arguable with on an issue. It’s only fair, after all I have benefited so very much from people taking a rolled up newspaper to my nose on more than one occasion.
At least I’ve managed to stop myself discussing the extended topic of feminism with people I know to have a (deliberately?) tin ear on the subject. That and the endlessly whiny tone trolling about how mean PZ and everyone is. Oh dear FSM not THAT again! I’ve managed to stop myself only by dint of viciously telling people to fuck themselves with a rubber hose. Not the most elegant method, but when you fling enough shit around, people move away from you! ;-)
All I have left is mockery, alcohol, a wonderful wife and son, a family that, whilst a bit pestilential, love me and I love them, my health, some occasional recreational pharmaceuticals, great friends, a decent first world standard of living, a great job that fascinates me, and a cock the size of…
…well any regular male of Avis domestica…
…oh you thought I meant…
Anyway, where’s my benefit gig? Hmmm. Where’s my pity party? Oh it’s all about the gays and women and transfolk with you lot. Where’s the love for us top few percenters, eh?
Bastards. I bet you don’t even feel sorry for me.
Louis
“I at least want to give people the benefit of the doubt that they are reasonable, arguable with on an issue.”
^ This!!!!
After all, how fucking bored are we of the endless after shocks of Elevatorgate?
actually, it was always the impact and aftershocks that were the most intruiging to me; I saw a whole new world open up that I never knew even existed.
it’s been quite educational.
but yes, the original subject matter has worn thin; it merely served to expose an entire cadre of MRAs that still shocks me every time I see it.
again, I find myself applying Altemeyer’s index to the posters at “the pit” and finding a very good fit.
Ryan, you’re a twit. You took the one sentence you liked out of Louis’ post, ignoring all the parts where he talks about having learned because people kicked back and that, like us, he has no patience for trolling.
You don’t seem to get that “people who can be reasoned with” and “trolls” are, by definition, mutually exclusive groups.
I bet you don’t even feel sorry for me.
nope.
Well, personally, I’ve found tolerance to work.
But if you like your way, and have found it to be useful, then, I guess I’ll do the my-way thing and not criticise again your manner of doing it.
Ichthyic
…shots…
Does opening the bottle and taking a swig count as a “shot”?
RahXephon, #407,
And drugs. And booze. Lots of booze. And lots and lots of drugs.
Lots.
No really, LOTS. Well, de facto lots at least.
I figure I give people 3 chances. THEN I go to work on them with…
…sarcasm. Oh yes. I’m brutal. Dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, and….satire. I use the lot. I’ve even been known to use hyperbole.
Louis
P.S. Hat Tip to those nice Python chaps: 4:10
Louis
I insist, have the last “shot”.
Classy.
Does opening the bottle and taking a swig count as a “shot”?
close enough.
Chigau, my Japanese isn’t great, but your name, does it mean different in a good/acceptable way?
(If it’s not even Japanese I’m going to cry).
Because if it does, then, it’s all chigau.
If not then everyone disregard this entirely.
Depends how big your mouth is.
Me? That’s like three shots.
I guess I’ll do the my-way thing and not criticise again your manner of doing it.
there’s a good lad.
…
I suck at coddling.
Icthyic, #411,
Yeah my bad I should have been clearer. Of course the initial aftermath was grotesquely fascinating. Like picking up a rock and seeing what wiggles out when exposed to sunlight.
And yes, you’re right, what I was trying to get at was the subject has worn thin. And yet, the ignoramuses and apologists still arrive by the cart load.
It’s like people never wrote thousands of posts and comments on the subject, endlessly debating back and forth the merits of this or that argument. Oh wait…they did.
Louis
Ichthyic;
Fuck whoops didn’t mean to embed it, I hate myself right now how do I undo it?!
It just means “different”.
No value judgement without context.
you can’t.
don’t worry about it, just link it next time.
It’s like people never wrote thousands of posts and comments on the subject
which fascinates me in and of itself.
but even THAT is fading after seeing the same thing happen a couple dozen times over as many months.
Icthyic, #413,
BUT WHYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!! Is it because of Teh Femininininininsimsusisms?
Louis
where shall we have a good discussion on which alcohol goes best in the freezer, and what to do with it?
here, or on TZT?
or TET?
I think it would be a productive discussion.
No. For this I am just a complete and utter wankbat.
Ryan, #414,
You’ll find most people here are pluralists when it comes to tactics. No one says “your method” doesn’t work or that “our method” is the be all and end all. What we do say is sometimes tolerance is the way, sometimes it isn’t and something else, including rudeness, mockery and being vicious bastards, is.
Do what works, judge the situation on the context. Be aware of the context.
Louis
Not yet. But we Feminazis™ plan to blacklist you. Then castrate and microchip you. Then send you and your son to work in the saltmines with the rest of the Menz.
At which point we may feel a mild, abstracted sympathy, as when one squashes a housefly with a rolled-up newspaper.
Enjoy what pleasant times you have left, Penis-Haver.
{evil laugh}
BUT WHYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!
why, it was so I had an excuse to post a link to that vid, of course.
…Oops, did I type that out loud?
That’s pretty much what I was getting at. I find it pretty easy to tell the difference between a troll just trying to be offensive, and someone who’s uneducated and is being a bonehead.
Chigau, #417,
If you insist. I’ve got to get up in 3 hours. Apparently my internetsturbation is not helping my arsequaking insomnia.
Ah well. I’ll drink the fucker into submission!
Louis
P.S. Ryan, #431, “wankbat”? No fair. Making me laugh is not allowed. Good word.
Problem is, a lot of the people coming over, at least right now, tend to be trolls, which is why I’m gonna give ’em both barrels.
Boneheads only get one barrel. That’s why I’m still being somewhat nice to you, ryan.
I find, as a general rule, any swear word is incomparably better when added to the word ‘bat’.
Let’s take the gin to TET, it’s kinda dead.
Stacey, #433,
I am a fan of your work and would like to subscribe to your newsletter…if only so I can wedge the newsletter in my pants to protect my Gentleman Vegetables somewhat.
Louis
So…the Feminazi Empire will be brought down by hypernatremia?
I keep reading that as “saltines”.
We’ll need the salt for the saltines. Favorite snack at the secret meetings. I’m sure once we gain ascendance they’ll still be popular.
But I’ve said too much already.
I warn you, assorted Feminazis, my son is Cute. I can see you mutilating and enslaving me, so far so good so standard, but he can make even the frazzled wombs of embittered and long ago hysterectomied women flip over. You might keep him for artistic purposes.
Well, until he “makes a poopoo”. Then…ya know…castration, salt mines, yadda yadda.
But he’ll get a good couple of hours of puppy eyed fawning over. I defy anyone to manage not to. I hate kids and even I do it. After during and covered in poo too.
Parental hormones…nature’s last great joke on us all!
Louis
:P
*makes a mental note to visit them British Isles at least once in a lifetime*
… and now I’m humiliated because you say you’re French.
Weed Monkey,
Nope, I’m British….ish. I’m a British citizen and I live here for now, let’s leave it there!
Louis
I actually thought flying seems to be so cheap, I could watch a premier league game and still have enough money to go home by continental train. That would be extremely nice. But I’ll have to check it.
There is no undo
@ Icthyic #399
Nicely.
After 379 posts, I’m gonna say this much:
First. I’m never going to share a dais with Louis, and will decline any invitation where Louis is also a speaker.
Anyone who gets blowjobs from someone who’s had a ghost pepper first I refuse to associate with.
Second: I think I’ll flounce off now. 379 comments before this.
I doubt I’ll stick the flounce, probably come back tomorrow sometime.
Louis #388:
Thanks for that reply. And I don’t mean that in some snarky, dismissive, sarcastic way. I mean, seriously, thanks for taking the time to express your views instead of lawyering me to death on specific words or looking up lists of logical fallacies on Wikipedia that you don’t understand.
I wish I had time to address your points in order, or had the chance to sit down and discuss this with you in a more conversational fashion, but I have neither, so if I overlook any specific points you want me to address, just point ’em out and I’ll do my best.
A few things that stood out, though:
I don’t always agree with Abbie. Nor do I always agree with her way of saying it. The posts that everyone keeps referring to as the slimepit? Past a certain point, I checked out of that completely. It went too far for me. I’m not sure if I ever commented at all. Anyone who wants to double-check me on that point, I’ll save you some detective work: I post as Optimus Primate at ERV.
Thanks also for making the distinction between agreeing with Abbie on Elevatorgate and disagreeing with PZ on it. If there’s one person I can be said to truly “agree with” when it comes to Elevatorgate, it’s Richard Dawkins, and suffice it to say, he’s not a friend.
But mostly, my thoughts on the whole incident are my own. Here’s my take: I care deeply about the issues of inequality between men and women. That ranges all the way from income inequality to genital mutilation and all of the other truly, horribly, terribly awful things that men do to women in this world, along with the just-generally-asshole-ish things.
But a man asking a woman that he finds attractive back to his room for coffee and conversation (okay, let’s be honest with ourselves here: that means sex)? Quite frankly, if Watson had been single and had found him attractive, we never would have heard a word about the incident. Watson has, in the past, played up her sexuality, and yet, the instant she’s hit on by a man she’s not attracted to, she feels sexualized, and that’s bad.
Guess what? People hitting on other people they find sexually attractive is the way the whole durned human comedy keeps perpetuating itself.
Not only did this guy’s sole sin amount to being unattractive to an unavailable Watson, all of the brouhaha that followed trivializes all of the serious issues that women face. If he had pressed the matter, fine. She would have a point. Unless I’m just missing something about the incident, though, he didn’t press the issue. He took his rejection and went about his way.
There are a lot of sleazy, predatory asshole pigs of men in this world. Best I can figure, that dude was not one of them. But taking the argument of Watson’s defenders to their logical conclusions, no man in any foreign country would ever make a sexual advance at a woman he found intellectually stimulating and sexually attractive. And I’m sorry, but I have quite a few female friends who have great sex stories about strange men they’ve met in foreign countries, had their way with them for the night, and never so much as asked their names.
I guess to PZ, Watson, et al, those female friends of mine are misogynists, too.
None of which is to say that I completely agree with everything that Abbie said in the aftermath of Elevatorgate. You know, there have been other issues I’ve criticized her about, and when other commentors jumped my ass for criticizing her, she was the first to say, “Um, no, he has a point.” There’ve been other times I’ve criticized her, and when I got my ass jumped, she didn’t reply. Which I took to be her way of saying, “Sorry, Optimus, I disagree with you on this one. but I’m not going to bust your ass ’cause we’re buds.”
Either way, the point is, I’m not just blindly defending her. Nor am I trying to say, “PZ’s bad actions make her bad actions okay!” What I’m trying to say is, “If Abbie’s (or my!) bad actions are wrong, then PZ’s are, too.” Obviously the way I attempted to make that point failed. *shrug*
Is PZ guilty of misogyny? No, I don’t think so. But as someone who considers himself a feminist (that is to say, someone who really strives for equality between men and women–maybe that’s not what feminism means to some people), his White Knight Syndrome with Jen and Rebecca and Greta offends me. Like, literally offends me.
The one thing I think Abbie and I truly agree on in this department (and I hope I’m not crossing a line by saying this, because we’ve never explicitly discussed it; I’m inferring a bit) is that equality doesn’t mean “exactly the same.” Men and women are, generally speaking–*gasp*–different in some ways. She’s at least consistent in her whole approach to sexuality and sex relations, which I respect way more than Rebecca’s approach, which to me (someone who only knows Rebecca through blog posts and videos, mind you) seems to be more like, “I’m going to play up my sex appeal when it suits my purposes, but as soon as I’m on the receiving end of a sexual advance that I don’t appreciate, I’m going to play the ‘don’t treat me like a sex object!’ card!”
Is Abbie a misogynist? For goodness’ sake, no. I’m completely on her side in ridiculing behavior like Watson’s, though. Does she take it way further than I would at times? Oh, hell yes. But like I said, I at least find her behavior more consistent than Watson’s.
That doesn’t mean I defend the slimepit pots. Again, I certainly didn’t participate in them.
But to call Abbie herself a misogynist is laughable. (A lot of the commentors on the “slimepit” threads? Oh yeah. Way. But Abbie herself? No.) To call her a threat to Greta is laughable. To call me sexist is laughable. (I assume this is in reference to my talking about Abbie’s breasts, because I can’t think of anything else I might have said that’s even vaguely sexist. Thing is, though, I’m a heterosexual male who is sexually attracted to women’s breasts, and Abbie has, in the past, made her breasts fair game for commenting on. I don’t apologize for finding them attractive. I don’t apologize for finding her attractive. The first time Abbie gives me the slightest hint that she’s uncomfortable with my attraction to her or her breasts, I’ll never say another word about either. I seriously doubt that’ll ever happen, though, because, like me, Abbie has the balls* to admit that sometimes people find other people attractive, and said attraction doesn’t preclude valuing that person’s intellect! Contrast that with certain female members of our community who have, in their blogs at times, been all like, “ooh, I have boobies, oooh, look at my boobies, oooh, my boobies are so nice… oooh, giggle, I’m such a little sexpot!” until they got unwanted sexual attention, and all of the sudden it’s like, “You’re not allowed to notice that I have boobs!” As someone who truly, genuinely embraces everything that feminism is supposed to stand for, that shit pisses me off.)
(*Hers are just internal and carried a bit higher up than mine.)
Anyway, that’s enough off-topic rambling for now. Louis, if I’ve misconstrued anything you said, it wasn’t intentional. Feel free to press me on the issue if you think I have. I like your style, Dude.
Of course not. There’s nothing misogynistic about belittling women as being too ugly to molest when they’re asking for conferences that have no or poorly defined sexual harassment policies to create some and make them explicit.
Bullshit. Plain and simple. You’re no different than your friends.
Seriously? So hooter’s waitresses, adult film stars, prostitutes none of them can object to sexual advances they don’t appreciate?
Fuck you.
Again, fuck you. People are free to define their own limits and their own boundaries with their own body. If one day someone is flashing you their breast that does not mean tomorrow you have any right to see them.
If you add oblivious and stupid, you’ll get dennisburger.
@ dennisberger #453
OK, so if Abbie is not a misogynist, why is she hosting all the slimepit comments? Why is that not evidence that something is off about her behaviour, if she is a feminist?
If Dennis agrees with Abbie, it is only because he agrees with her.
If PZ agrees with Jen or Rebecca or Greta, that is offensive.
dennisburger wrote:
Context. It’s all about context. As Rebecca herself explained when she first spoke about the incident, and others have since reiterated over and over and over again, it was when and where the incident happened that was the problem, not the fact that she was hit on.
I don’t really know how you can have missed that integral aspect of the discussion, given that it’s pretty much the crux of the issue. Claiming that anyone has made a blanket statement implying that men shouldn’t hit on women is lying.
Rebecca Watson has not said that. PZ has not said that. Greta has not said that. Jen McCreight has not said that. Ophelia Benson has not said that. Steph Zvan has not said that. SC has not said that. Greg Laden has not said that. Rorshach (who was at the event the incident took place, for fuck’s sake) hasn’t said that. Name anyone else on the slimepit shit-list and I can pretty much guarantee they haven’t said it either.
You might want to take another look at the posts on the topic; as it is you’re coming at it from a position of ignorance that undermines your capacity to judge who’s done the right thing here.
I doubt I’ll stick the flounce, probably come back tomorrow sometime.
try this:
http://open.salon.com/blog/verbal_remedy/2009/04/08/dont_let_flouncing_make_your_ass_look_big
Man, burger, you’re an oblivious dipshit. And logorrheic to boot.
Try this: check the ‘pit threads you claim to have avoided. Don’t even bother with the pitizens, just scroll through and read Abiie’s comments.
Misogynist or not (and my vote’s ‘yes’), she’s a fucking asshole.
But that’s not my comment. SIWOTI! My comment is for SIWOTI! Louis:
Dude. You’re on the internet; it’s not a chore to look shit up.
Gallus g. domesticus.
Lyn M wrote:
I do wonder if at least some – maybe even most – of it is simply to spite people she doesn’t like, e.g. PZ and Rebecca Watson, rather than genuine overt misogyny. But that’s not an excuse – quite the opposite; to encourage a pack of sickening creeps into trying to outdo each other in anti-woman ranting on a blog because of a petty feud is truly pathetic.
Do people’s eyes just go all blurry when they come to the bit about “not in an elevator at 4 am when the woman has already said in your hearing that she is tired and wishes to go to sleep”? Is that the problem here?
@ Wowbagger, Vile Demagogue #462
At it’s kindest, it suggests there are problems. Wanting to go after someone is natural enough. We may not agree in the least about who to go after, but still, it is done, and with Abbie perhaps over-done.
It’s the added presence of all the MRA crap that makes me feel there is something way off. If dennisberger is a friend, and Louis put it eloquently, tell the woman and see if these issues can be addressed. Be a friend and get this figured out. Dennisberger says it has gone too far. OK, step two, how can it be dragged back?
As for “tell a person by his or her company”, I always liked the one that goes, “If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.”
Will return to follow further adventures. Off to work now.
EVEN IF IT JUST MEANT CONVERSATION AND THERE WAS NO IMPLICATION WHATSOEVER OF SEX, NOW, THEN, AND FOR PERPETUITY, IT DOESN’T CHANGE A THING.
Watson’s comment still stands as COMPLETELY VALID, and the reaction to it, enabled by people like Smith, still stands as JUST AS ODIOUSLY MISOGYNISTIC.
We have gone over this how many times now?
That dennisbunger, who claims to be a friend of Smith, and therefore should have enough familiarity with this topic to know this, would even think of considering to post the above is just another example of one more of its EPIC FAILS at engaging in behavior even remotely recognizable as BASIC HUMAN DECENCY.
Utterly pathetic.
Lyn M wrote:
Agreed. It may have started out as ‘innocent fun’ to stick it to the people she was annoyed with, but it’s mutated into something far more problematic. I think maybe now she’s afraid to put a stop to it, because it would mean admitting she made a mistake, and her pride won’t let her do that.
It’d be more than fleas that I’d worry about, given the crowd she’s attracted. I think she’s probably smart to not do too many speaking appearances; who knows when one (or more) of her creepy woman-hating fanboys is going to turn up to demonstrate his devotion (and refusual to accept that a woman can have boundaries) in person?
dennisburger, your ‘point’ was ground to death about a year ago. Go read google cache if you feel it’s relevant.
Y’know, this could become a meme.
*remains seated and silent* I am de facto Spartacus.
@Dennisburger #453
Every single thing you go on about has been covered umpteen times. It is so tiresome. You need to use Google and go back and read the threads on Elevatorgate, Dennis.
That means you have done no research and remain ignorant about Abbie. It also means you have no idea what just transpired, which was a misogynistic attack on Jen by Abbie herself (hot on the heels of her going after Ophelia, I might add).
Shorter dennis: “My position is that bitches ain’t shit, just like the other pitizens, and you know what? That makes us the REAL feminists!”
Dennis, you’re so full of bullshit I should send you back in time so a frontier family can use you as fuel to survive the winter.
If You Won’t Educate Me How Can I Learn?
Follow that link; tell me if you understand it, you walking stereotype.
Follow that link; tell me if you understand it, you walking stereotype.
well, I don’t understand it, but I know what I like.
;)
I missed this, for which I am truly sorry, since it was so perfect:
I just looked up ‘Walton Pharyngula and all I could find were recipes to a cheesecake
perfect.
Chas, #461,
Okay. Let’s deal with the most important point of the day:
You are right. It would have been trivial for me to google that. I should have googled that. I didn’t because for some reason at ~3am my incredibly faulty memory was confident as hell that that was the binomial term for chickens.
Mind you, since at the time I had trouble remembering the name of Harry Kroto (someone I’ve met a good few times and had some fascinating conversations with) and the name of Fred Sanger, who I fucking WORKED FOR. And given that these are two stellar scientists, the meeting/working for of whom was a big deal to a nobody like me, I reckon I can be forgiven for fucking up chicken names.
I need more coffee.
Louis
I need more coffee.
iced whiskey.
Tsingtao beer and Jim Beam.
Are we playing Mornington Crescent with alcohol?
Louis
nooneinparticular #197:
from comment #123
Yes, you did.
Re: “fuck him into the ground”
Has no one here heard the oft used phase “run [something] into the ground”? It’s an exceedingly common idiom meaning to cause the failure of something. Dismissing an idiotic bigot’s obviously non-heartfelt apology with a crude wish that his business fail–i.e. that he and his gelato shop be “fucked” into the ground rather than run into it–is the obvious interpretation of the phrase in context.
Who the fuck is DennisShitBurger, and why should we care about its fuckwitted and teal deer ramblings of incomprehensible not prose? To answer the question, it’s supreme egotist who thinks it is the smartest person on the the blog, in spite of conclusive evidence to the contrary. Must be a liberturd. All ignorance, blinders, and egotism…
Not to argue about the “run something into the ground” or that PZ literally meant rape, but I think we can still classify the variation of “fuck it into the ground” as problematic, because of the connotations. Jadehawk said it’s giving her vibes and me, too. I think it’s because the “into the ground” evokes ideas of holding down, of dominance, which reflects back unto the fuck him. It’s odd, but it wouldn’t do the same if it were: “Fuck him, run him into the ground.”
Quoth PZ:
An expression of personal preference is so very confronting!
(um)
INCOMING TEAL DEER OF THE TEALEST NATURE!
Dennisburger, #453,
Okay, well it seems you missed a couple of things, as others have pointed out, and last night’s ramblings from me were apparently not clear enough. Blame late nights and lack of coffee! I’ll try to be more disciplined, structured and clear.
1) Why on earth would you think people here or I don’t understand logical fallacies on Wikipedia? Sorry I know this is almost totally irrelevant to anything, but it just stood out to me. Are you doing a PhD with Abbie? If so, you do realise you’re not the only one here who has done/is doing one, right? Believe me when I say there are people here who could have written the articles on Wikipedia about logical fallacies professionally. Get over the butthurt at being treated mean. Believe me when I say you’ve earned it. I’ll explain later!
Seriously, dude, that was not what anyone would call a classic opener!
Ignore this, ignore this, I was just amused by it.
2) As I said, whether or not you know/like Abbie, her humour, or PZ and his humour, or Bob Hoskins and his humour is irrelevant to any argument, claim or discussion. It might be a motivating factor for you, but really it’s meaningless as far as anything useful goes. The same goes for quite a lot of what you’ve said, sadly because…wellllll…because of this:
3) Here’s the relevant bit of your post:
Ok, this is simply untrue. It’s not what happened, as far as anyone knows. Reasoning from this misunderstanding of the events is what’s causing the problems.
RW had been giving a talk on (broadly speaking) the inclusion of women in the various sceptical/secular movements. One of the problems she highlighted was the sexualisation of women, there was then an extended conversation about how many women feel excluded from these movements precisely because of the underlying current of assumed sexual availability.
By this I mean, that some women found that even within the rationalist community, and at rationalist events, they were exposed to precisely the same sexualisation they found outside. So far so non controversial.
RW did not try to speak for all women, not does she, she merely said that there was a significant fraction of women, who found this “evaluation of women in purely sexual terms” to be off putting. If you’re not particularly wealthy and you really want to go to a conference, are you really going to not be disincentivised to some degree by the fact that when you go there it’s not going to be what feminists refer to as a “safe space”?
Just to make this abundantly clear, I am not referring to merely being hit on. No one, not RW, not me, not anyone has objected to the mere fact of being hit on. To claim that is a straw man. A really, bone fide, gross misrepresentation of what is being claimed.
Worse, and some people here will see what you are doing in this light, me included, but I’ll go gentle for one more post, to dismiss the experience of this subset of women to claim to know better than them, is a sexist, a misogynistic act.
BUT WAIT! I hear you cry, aren’t we terrible people dismissing the experience of women like your friends you mentioned and all those women who don’t have a problem like this? Isn’t that equally misogynistic?
No. We’re not. And if we were, yes it would be! Glad you asked! ;-)
Those women’s experiences are just as valid, just as good as anyone else’s. If people want to go to conferences to score and hit on each other, go for it, go for it with my blessing. I’ve done it, you’ve done it, probably every conference attendee ever has done it to some degree. It’s utterly not controversial and by no means a problem.
But again, if that were all there were to this issue we’d be sat here silently agreeing. It isn’t.
Remember what RW spoke about? Inclusion of women. Remember she mentioned that a subset of women found the sexualisation by some other participants to be off putting? Those experiences are just as valid, just as real, just as noteworthy as those of the women who are not off put by this. The sexist act, the misogynistic act, comes from dismissing a woman’s complaint and claiming that you know better than she does her own mind. that’s part of the basis for ANY bigotry. If the experiences of the “I don’t mind being hit on” women are valid, and they are, the experiences of the “I do mind being hit on” women are too. One does not come without the other.
So the situation RW found herself in was not one of logical purity, removed from context. She had spent a significant amount of time in her talk, a significant amount of time at the bar afterwards, both places where the eventual Elevator Guy was present and involved in the conversation apparently, discussing precisely how the sexualisation of women was exclusionary to a significant proportion of women.
More than that, she had spent a significant amount of time identifying herself as one of those women.
At this point I really want to focus on one aspect of your post and it’s this:
This is monumentally disturbing and I’ll tell you why.
I take it you don’t buy the “Hey, she was asking for it” excuse given by rapists?
I’ll take your answer as a “yes”, because if it is anything other than an emphatic “yes” any civil conversation between us ends utterly.
No matter how flirty the woman, no matter how short her skirt or low her top, none of this justifies her being raped in any way at all. No means no, absolutely and forever.
Why use a rape analogy when it’s massively unlike what happened to RW?
Precisely because of the form of that quoted passage from you. It’s identical in logical form to the “hey she was asking for it” excuse of the rapist. It’s dismissive of the woman’s in the moment wishes, it is projecting the man’s (in this case) desires onto the woman and claiming that what she said isn’t really what she meant because for some reason, or at some other juncture, something was different or gave the man a different impression.
RW had taken severe pains to make it ABUNDANTLY clear to even the meanest intellect that she did not welcome advances of this type at this time from anyone. She further emphasised this when she announced she was going to bed, alone at ~4am. To anyone but the immensely clueless this was a clear signal for “don’t hit on me now”.
Do you see how this differs from merely being hit on? This was not being hit on in a context free vacuum, this was being hit on within the context of a series of very clear statements about not wanting to be hit on.
So what does Elevator Guy do when armed with all this information? He ignores it.
At the very, very least, this makes him a bit clueless. And since I give everyone the benefit of the doubt, that’s where I’ll leave it. I’ve been clueless, I imagine you’ve been clueless, everyone has, it’s not the end of the universe. It’s a moderate social faux pas. And what was RW’s response? “Guys, don’t do that.”. In other words: “Guys, when a woman has been saying for hours she doesn’t want to be hit on, don’t hit on her.”
That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less. A moderate fuck up generated a moderate response.
RW did not say “never hit on women”, RW did say “be aware of context, be careful, and if you want more women included, try to back off on the hitting on people thing a bit as some women are annoyed/intimidated by it. Be sure that the person you are hitting on really wants to be hit on”.
However, this has been wildly misconstrued by many and thus, Internet Drama!
You’re presumably an intelligent guy and even you have really seriously fucked this up. Really. It’s a bad error. Hence why my fellow Pharyngula denizens have leapt onto you and started biting. And to be frank, I’m a hair’s breadth from that too! I’m just too fucking tired at the moment! ;-)
4) Why is all of this “sexualisation” important? Well, confession time:
I do it too.
I am a sexist. A misogynist. A racist. A homophobe. An ablist. A transphobe. I am every bigot you can imagine.
That’s not self flagellation, it’s a simple recognition of the fact I was not raised by wolves, I grew up in a human culture, a society, in which all of these ideas and prejudices exist to some extent. I inherited them. I drew them in with my mother’s milk and my daily bread. They were in the air I breathed and the people I met. It is simply not possible for me to have gone through that mental assault course unscathed and not puffing and sweating a bit.
I look at a good looking woman on the street and think “PHWOAR!!!! HELLO MISS!!!! BARK BARK!!!! AWOOOOOOGA!” or something similar. And I am not thinking about her brain. The thought pops into my head, it’s not something I’m in control of, it’s conditioning, it’s automatic. It’s the legacy of hanging around with other men, TV shows, adverts, ideologies and a million other things that tell me, ever so subtly, that as a man I have the god-given right to consider a woman first, foremost and almost exclusively as a potential sex partner. My first consideration is her sexiness to me as a man. Horrifying right? I should be locked up.
The joyful interplay of biology and sociology has lead me here. Every hormone in my body twangs at the sight of a beautiful woman, every conditioned urge raises its ugly head and Little Louis rises from the depths and ponder deep, dark, naughty things that involve whipped cream and the Bolivian National Women’s Gymnastic Team.
Because some things really only can be accomplished with a troupe of top quality gymnasts.
I say all this because I don’t want to pretend I am aloof. That I am some paragon of non-sexistness and light. I’m not. I’m actually, probably more a sexist than you are.
What’s important though is not my first thought but my second thought. And, if I flatter myself briefly, the second thoughts are what move people like me away from the truly odious sexists etc out there.
The second thought considers that the woman in front of me is actually a person. More than the mere sum of what things about her sexually attract me. The second thought doesn’t sterilise her, remove all those wonderful sexual elements, I am human. But it does relegate them to their proper place. Is the woman in front of me a colleague? A friend? A stranger? What is she saying? What does she think? Is she giving me any unambiguous indication that she likes me, if this is that sort of interaction? In other words my second thought spurs the chain of thoughts I have with a man. Whilst I might have different first thoughts for a man, the second thought and subsequent train of thought is identical for men and women. I don’t simply defend my first thought as if it were sensible or worthy of consideration. Just like I don’t defend my first thought about men which is sometimes to do with assessing their potential as a violent threat.
I realise that I am not in conscious control of all of my first thoughts. The automatic ones that simply rise up. Most of them are, to put it bluntly, fucking ridiculous. I rarely bother to defend them, they’re usually pretty fucking indefensible!
The sexualisation of women is the defence of these first thoughts. Nobody is trying to police the inside of anybody’s head, feminists are more than aware that human beings are wonderful but flawed. Not some ideal rational construct but living breathing sexual animals. What feminists are saying is that for generations the defence of these first thoughts about women, and the comparative lack of defence for first thoughts about men, has caused social inequality. The treating of any woman as simply a sexual being is, more often than not, an error. People are more than the sum of their sex appeal. Not exactly rocket surgery, right?
No one says “don’t find people sexually attractive” or “your first thoughts make you a bad boy!”, what people are saying is “when you have your first thoughts, stop, look, listen, then consider whether the person in front of you is simpatico with those first thoughts”. Is this really so hard?
To give you another analogy, if I punched everyone I wanted to punch, which is upwards of about three thousand people an hour, I would a) do nothing else and b) be in prison or dead. My first thoughts on violence need control. It’s such an obvious thing that we almost do not question this in our society, except for very extreme circumstances like self defence.
Back to Elevator Guy and how all this is relevant:
As I said waaaaay back in 3), Elevator Guy was consciously aware of RW’s wishes re: being hit on. She’d made it clear that there were a subset of women who found this unpleasant/intimidating, and that right at that moment (or perhaps in perpetuity, who cares, all that matters is that it was true THEN) she was one of those women. Elevator guy listened to his first thoughts which were likely something like “I’M GONNA TOUCH YOU WITH MY PEEPEE!!!!”. Perfectly reasonable first thoughts when confronted with someone you find sexually alluring.
What EG failed to do was listen to his second thoughts. His second thoughts, if they were there at all, would have told him “Hey! Hey! Dipshit! Put your pecker away! This woman has just spent HOURS telling us she does not want a hot beef injection tonight. Abort the approach moron! STAND DOWN LITTLE EG! GET DOWN SHEP!”.
Why EG did not have or listen to those second thoughts is very likely because he was conditioned not to. As I have been explaining at tedious length, there are an enormous number of social cues that tell us men that listening to those second thoughts is pretty much unnecessary. How do I know this? Well I can’t be certain, but from extensive personal experience, it took me a while to get those second thoughts working, and from extensive reading, I ain’t alone!
THAT is what feminists are objecting to. The social cues and attitude that men somehow don’t have to listen to those second thoughts in situations regarding their sexual desire of women. No one is complaining about sexual desire. What goes on in your head is your business. What is someone else’s business is when you start rubbing your peepee on them when they haven’t asked you to.
5) Misogyny. To repeat, because this TEAL DEER is not long enough already, is in part the lack of consideration of the views and thoughts of the woman in front of you.
This is what EG did. His act was a misogynistic act. Was it earth shattering? No of course not. Does it mean he is a global, universal misogynist for ever and ever amen? No, of course not. Nor am I, nor are you I think. At least I doubt, as I have said, you are any more a misogynist than I am at this point.
If I lie, I am a liar. This does not mean I always lie, just that I have that capacity.
If I do something sexist, I am a sexist. This does not mean I am always doing sexist things, just that I have that capacity.
If I wank, and boy howdy do I, I am a wanker. This does not mean that I am always wankin…
…okay some analogies break down.
Is Abbie a global, universal for ever and ever misogynist? Nope, probably not. Has she done misogynist things? Yes. Has she done things that tacitly permit misogyny without challenge? Yes. Is this a problem? Yes. And, if we REALLY have to go there, has PZ done any of these things in the way Abbie has? No.
That’s not to excoriate Abbie and laud PZ, far from it, the man has a ridiculous beard and looks like a chipmunk. And worse, I think he is wrong about many many things and an American Without Permission. So what? Blessedly irrelevant. Except the chipmunk thing.
The response to Abbie’s misogynistic acts, your misogynistic acts and my misogynistic acts is not “NUH UH YOU DONE IT TOO!”. That is, as noted before, the tu quoque fallacy.
Look at this from you:
Ask yourself this: how are the actions of a critic logically relevant to the actions of the criticised?
Hint: They aren’t.
If the actions of the criticised are in error, or morally dubious, or whatever, that fact stands alone. Regardless of the saintly nature or otherwise of the critic.
The stupid things PZ has done in his life, and there will be many, I am reasonably assured he is human, do not alter the simple fact that other people have done stupid things too and that those things are stupid!
In the quote from you above you have simply rephrased your original claim unchanged. You are implying that PZ has no basis for criticising Abbie for he too is imperfect. Well no shit is he imperfect! So are you, me and everyone else. Welcome to the world. None of that alters the logical, factual, or moral nature of Abbie’s actions one single bit. Call PZ twelve types of hypocrite all you wish, it totally doesn’t matter. It changes nothing about Abbie’s actions or the validity of the criticism of them.
You really have to think your interlocutor is stupid to think that they don’t notice bringing up criticisms of the critic is a failure to address the criticism.
6)
Two things, PZ is not white knighting, that’s a pretty stupid assertion, and actually quite a sexist one if you think about it. As if PZ’s sex and (say) Greta’s sex matters when they agree on a topic. You are attempting to assert without basis that the only reason for their agreement is PZ riding to a woman’s defence.
Erm, don’t do that. It’s untrue, it demeans PZ as a man, Greta (or whoever) as a woman, and you as a rational human being. It is fractally wrong, an omnifuckup. Next time, no sympathy. Whatever you intended to say, that is what you have said. Not smart at all.
Second thing, your misunderstanding of what feminism is is astonishing. Men and women are different? Dear lord! You’d think feminists never looked in their pants or anyone else’s pants.
No one is claiming that making men and women “equal” is somehow desirable. What IS being claimed is that men and women should be, independent of their sex, be able to access the same aspects of society equally and should, by and large be granted equality of opportunity. Very few men will need the services of a gynaecologist, those few are more likely classified as pre and post-transition transwomen and since I am no expert in that field and may have already inadvertently fucked up, I’ll leave it there. My point is no one is clamouring for exactly equal gynaecology access for men and women, the tenor of your straw feminism. What people are clamouring for is the equality of access to, for example, medically necessary, sexually relevant, genito-urinary/reproductive medicine. That’s a big fucking difference.
7) Finally, thank fuck, finally I am going finish. Sadly though, I am going to be a bit mean.
None of this, none of what I have written, is even remotely controversial. The tale of RW and EG is well established, well known and well documented. As far as any of us who were not in that room and that elevator that night I have faithfully described the context of what happened and what happened.
None of the feminist stuff I have said is particularly amazing, newsworthy or controversial. Others might phrase it differently, probably significantly better and shorter, but the basic key elements are the same as far as I am aware.
In your desire to defend your friend, perfectly admirable as previously noted, you have either failed to make yourself aware of this, misunderstood it, or worse deliberately misrepresented it. I do not claim to know which it is, but this is a topic with a past, with relevant areas of facts to assimilate, it is not merely some team game, some inter blog war or soap opera. Those elements exist, but as mentioned earlier are sublimely irrelevant to the facts.
So in effect what you have done is lecture a group of people who do know something about a topic when you have demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that, for whatever reason, you are ignorant of it.
Don’t worry, ignorance is correctable. If you are a virology PhD student like Abbie, I do not doubt that my ignorance of virology is an awesome ocean of ignorance compared to your comparative puddle. None of us is omniscient. But imagine you go into your viva voce, your thesis defence as wantonly ignorant of virology as you demonstrably are about this issue and feminism in general.
Have you ever had a professor stick his arm up your arse and rip your heart out through your anus? No? Okay, go to your defence as unprepared as you were for this and that is what will happen. Both figuratively and literally. I know, I’ve been through a PhD defence and I went in very, very well informed and it still happened to me! I still wake up screaming!
Worse than that, not only are you apparently unprepared for whatever reason, but you have thrown a lot of irrelevant dust into the air to cover your lack of preparation. I could write a book on the fallacious irrelevancies you’ve brought up. I don’t say that to be nasty, just to let you know that this is perfectly human, we all have done it at some point to a greater or lesser extent, but it is amazingly obvious. Really. One of the main reasons you have been met by a torrent of loud, unsympathetic bastards, of which I count myself a chief member by the way, is because this dance is not new. It is old. We have all done it, we know it from performance and observation. It gets in the way.
And it doesn’t even serve the purpose you clearly seem to think it does. It hasn’t changed a single thing about Abbie saying misogynist things and hosting a deeply misogynist set of threads with at the very least tacit approval. It doesn’t make the criticisms any less trenchant. Regardless of the hypocrisy or odiousness or otherwise of any critic, nothing about Abbie’s actions have been altered one jot.
And given all that meanness, I’ll end on one notch further up the meanness chart.
I, a generally busy professional scientist, have taken the time out of my work day to bother to respond to you in some detail and at length. I didn’t have to do it, and yes my SIWOTI syndrome is in part to blame, but mainly I’ve done this because you bothered to turn up and defend your friend, and I think that’s a good thing. Not an easy thing. I don’t claim this is the most coherent or wonderful thing I’ve ever written, but I have bothered to deal with you reasonably fairly when every instinct has told me you are likely just yet another mockable, cluelessly sexist idiot on the internet. Ten a penny. Sure I’ve benefited by procrastinating away a hour or so around my lunch break and avoided some odious paperwork, of which I have too much these days, but just think about it. Someone who does not know you, who has much better things to do, has engaged you reasonably seriously on a subject they know reasonably well and you have accidentally or deliberately, I prefer the former, misrepresented quite badly.
My strong suggestion is you think about why that is and why my original suggestion was for you to expend your efforts in helping your friend to stop making an utter bigoted arse of herself in public, which she undeniably is.
I’m male, I only really get this feminism lark from an intellectual perspective. There are hundreds of people reading and commenting here who understand this through the every day lived experiences. I can afford to be a little more patient on this thread, I have that privilege. I’m not saying they aren’t patient, they are, very, more than me, but the cost to them for that patience is not equal to the cost to me. Their cost is FAR greater. And quite rightly, they might be unwilling to give you the benefit of the doubt I have, the cost for them is too high.
Since I cannot make this damn post any more verbose, I am going to end on a quote I hope an intelligent person like you can grasp the relevance of:
Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”:
Think about this. Seriously.
You claim to be in favour of certain aspects of feminism, and yet a rather significant number of male and female feminists are telling you with good reasons why and how you are in error, and how this apparent alliance from you is really rather tepid and shallow.
It takes more than words. Use the nobler instincts that drove you to defend your friend from criticism to actually help your friend, because not a single thing you have done here can or will or has achieved that.
Louis
Re #482:
On twitter you have to expect dropped words, even when not strictly necessary to fit in the character limit. It’s a habit of pretty much everyone who uses it, even the smart and otherwise well written folks, which is one reason I never will use it. I don’t want to pick up the habit.
In context–i.e. in response to a blatantly fake apology designed to avoid a potential boycott and bad publicity–“into the ground” seems to me to clearly evoke “run into the ground,” but it’s twitter so it leaves you guessing and your mileage may vary.
Oh and one more thing:
That’s it.
A lot of my #388, #484 are things I wish people had said to me when I was screwing up the identical things about feminism. Some of them were said, some of them weren’t and all of them were delivered far more nicely than I delivered them, and far nicer than I deserved.
Dennis, take that as the compliment it is.
And start fucking think more clearly about this.
Louis
@Louis
After reading (okay, skimming, but I’ll go back and read it), I have to ask: how the fuck do you still have fingers?
I ask because I’m really in awe of how much you post and how much you write when you do. I think I’d get a stitch in my side from the effort if I posted as much as you do.
dennisburger @ 453;
Your problem lies right here – you are practically the poster boy for unexamined male privilege. You say that you have never said anything that is sexist, and yet the remainder of your comment is fairly dripping with sexist tropes and rhetoric.
A casual perusal of your comment shows several examples of sexism, albeit most likley unconscious sexism. I will quickly run through some examples to illustrate my point.
and;
This is the same mistake that Professor Dawkins made in relation to his ‘dear Musslima’ commnent – people like you, me and Dawkins, as men, do not get to define what ‘true’ sexism is. We all benefit from male privilege, and so we are not in any position to tell a woman what she has the ‘right’ to feel threatened or belittled by. Citing extreme examples of violence and oppression of women in a bid to depict the admittedly lesser sexism of situations such as that experienced by Watson as ‘no true sexism’ is disingenuous. Just because worse forms of sexism exist does not not mean that its less extreme forms are acceptable or not worth combating, anymore than than the Civil Rights Movement could be called pointless because hey – slavery had already been abolished in the US, so why are you complaining about segregated busses?
You are missing the context here. Watson had just said that she found such propositioning annoying. She had also said that she was tired and wanted to go to sleep, and yet the man in question ignored her stated desires. This strange man she didn’t know followed her into an elevator – a confined space with no ready means of egress and no witnesses – and propositioned her against her express wishes. Try to put yourself in the shoes of a woman in such a circumstance; can you honestly not see how such behaviour could be at the very least disconcerting?
And Watsons’s response? Screaming hyperbole? No, she merely said “guys, don’t do that”, and yet people reacted as if she eviscerated the bloke on the spot and feasted bloodily on his gonads.
and;
and;
All three of these quotes are examples of what is known as ‘slut-shaming’. You have implied that if a woman ever expreses her sexuality openly, then that amounts to declaring open season on herself in perpetuity, and makes any subsequent negative reaction to unwanted sexual attention hypocritical. This is an exceptionally harmful trope in society that is regularly employed as a form of rape apologia. Unwittingly, you are helping to contribute to a social space that rapists and their apologists can use to try to cloud the issue of whether consent is even relevant in cases where a woman is anything other then totally asexual at all times.
A woman’s body is her own, and just because she chooses to express elements of her sexuality openly from time to time does not mean that anyone is entitled to her body or is even entitled to a favourable reception to their undesired advances.
and;
and;
Here you mischaracterise the position of people who see a problem with how that man treated Watson in the elevator as being one that precludes men from ever expressing sexual interest in women – as some kind of uptight, sex-negative fixation. No one here has stated any such thing. Of course men and women can approach one another sexually, but it should only be undertaken in such a fashion that context is taken into account and it is done with a respect for the personal autonomy and boundaries of both parties – something that our would-be elevator Lothario clearly didn’t do. There certainly is no positive right for a man to hit on a woman at any time and in any place just because he feels like it.
and;
Here you are mansplaining to feminists how they should undertake feminism; what ‘true’ feminism is. This is patronising to say the least.
The above list is far from exhaustive, but it might help explain why your claim that; “To call me sexist is laughable… I can’t think of anything else I might have said that’s even vaguely sexist” will be met with scepticism.
Your definition of sexism is extremely narrow, and only by such a limited definition could you conceiveably claim that you have not engaged in sexism in that self same post, let alone in the rest of your day-to-day dealings.
Before complaining that people are being unreasonable by calling out ERV and yourself about sexist statements or actions, it might help to make an effort to understand how the phrase ‘sexism’ is defined in that context – the entire world does not operate on your personal definition of the phrase.
The best way to educate yourself in this regard is to do what I did – listen to the women. Not outliers like ERV, but the greater body of women in feminism and the field of feminist thought. If lots of those women consider a certain act sexist, don’t fall back on a knee-jerk reaction that they are simply man hating feminazis, and don’t seek validation from someone whose judgement on these matters is a questionable as ERV’s. Instead, ask yourself why these women consider the action or statement problematic, and consider why it is that you do not. This may help you identify those instances where male privilege is clouding your judgement and help you address the problem.
I won’t pretend that the process is quick or easy – I still regularly catch myself slipping into forms of male privilege that are so socially pervasive that I didn’t even realise they existed – but the process is certainly worthwhile if you want to be the kind of person who treats half our species as fellow human beings rather than variously living sex toys or ambulatory incubators.
Apologies for the lengthy post.
[meta]
Louis, you said much with (relatively) few words.
(Impressive information density*)
—
* No, I’m not being sarcastic.
Louis, I agree with everything you’ve said bar one thing.
Is seeing a woman and thinking she’s attractive necessarily sexist? Isn’t it more, simply, human? Because, you know, I do it with both men and women.
Does that just make me a bad person?
Makes you someone apparently unable to read.
I quote:
–begin quote–
I look at a good looking woman on the street and think “PHWOAR!!!! HELLO MISS!!!! BARK BARK!!!! AWOOOOOOGA!” or something similar. And I am not thinking about her brain. The thought pops into my head, it’s not something I’m in control of, it’s conditioning, it’s automatic. It’s the legacy of hanging around with other men, TV shows, adverts, ideologies and a million other things that tell me, ever so subtly, that as a man I have the god-given right to consider a woman first, foremost and almost exclusively as a potential sex partner. My first consideration is her sexiness to me as a man. Horrifying right? I should be locked up.
The joyful interplay of biology and sociology has lead me here. Every hormone in my body twangs at the sight of a beautiful woman, every conditioned urge raises its ugly head and Little Louis rises from the depths and ponder deep, dark, naughty things that involve whipped cream and the Bolivian National Women’s Gymnastic Team.
Because some things really only can be accomplished with a troupe of top quality gymnasts.
I say all this because I don’t want to pretend I am aloof. That I am some paragon of non-sexistness and light. I’m not. I’m actually, probably more a sexist than you are.
What’s important though is not my first thought but my second thought. And, if I flatter myself briefly, the second thoughts are what move people like me away from the truly odious sexists etc out there.
The second thought considers that the woman in front of me is actually a person. More than the mere sum of what things about her sexually attract me. The second thought doesn’t sterilise her, remove all those wonderful sexual elements, I am human. But it does relegate them to their proper place. Is the woman in front of me a colleague? A friend? A stranger? What is she saying? What does she think? Is she giving me any unambiguous indication that she likes me, if this is that sort of interaction? In other words my second thought spurs the chain of thoughts I have with a man. Whilst I might have different first thoughts for a man, the second thought and subsequent train of thought is identical for men and women. I don’t simply defend my first thought as if it were sensible or worthy of consideration. Just like I don’t defend my first thought about men which is sometimes to do with assessing their potential as a violent threat.
I realise that I am not in conscious control of all of my first thoughts. The automatic ones that simply rise up. Most of them are, to put it bluntly, fucking ridiculous. I rarely bother to defend them, they’re usually pretty fucking indefensible!
The sexualisation of women is the defence of these first thoughts. Nobody is trying to police the inside of anybody’s head, feminists are more than aware that human beings are wonderful but flawed. Not some ideal rational construct but living breathing sexual animals. What feminists are saying is that for generations the defence of these first thoughts about women, and the comparative lack of defence for first thoughts about men, has caused social inequality. The treating of any woman as simply a sexual being is, more often than not, an error. People are more than the sum of their sex appeal. Not exactly rocket surgery, right?
No one says “don’t find people sexually attractive” or “your first thoughts make you a bad boy!”, what people are saying is “when you have your first thoughts, stop, look, listen, then consider whether the person in front of you is simpatico with those first thoughts”. Is this really so hard?
To give you another analogy, if I punched everyone I wanted to punch, which is upwards of about three thousand people an hour, I would a) do nothing else and b) be in prison or dead. My first thoughts on violence need control. It’s such an obvious thing that we almost do not question this in our society, except for very extreme circumstances like self defence.
–end quote–
Having read that, your agreement was allowed, except for that?
(Where was Louis unclear?)
@ 491:
There’s a difference between your first thought on seeing a woman being that she’s pleasant to look at and your first thought being a sexual thought. There’s a bigger, more important difference between your second thought being “well, that was nice; off to work now,” “I’d better not leer,” “I wonder if she’d like to talk,” and “how am I going to tap that ass?”
If you don’t see the various differences, then yes, you are a bad person.
Louis @ 484;
Quoted (at length) for truth
I believe this large stack of fresh minted internets are yours…
@Louis
*o.0*
Thank Spam! I’d hate to see what you’d do if you were not tired.
RahXephon, #487/8,
Erm, serious answer?
I go through fits and starts of posting, and even if I say it myself and blow my own trumpet, something I really don’t like doing, I have quite ridiculous time management skills. Believe me, if I couldn’t afford to be here I’d be gone. All jokes about SIWOTI syndrome and procrastination are just that, jokes.
Also, Pharyngula is about the only place I post on the internet, and one day relatively soon will be the only, and then the last. I am trying to kick the internet posting habit and take something else up with that time. It’s not urgent, but I like to shake things up every now and then.
The internet: I can take it or leave it.*
As for why I post on this issue, I have an enormous amount of sympathy for women on the issue of sexism, mostly intellectually but also very slightly out of a deep sense of well deserved guilt. I have had to learn feminism via the medium of having boots thrown at my head until I gained a sufficient clue to take myself off into a quiet room and read a lot of books. It’s actually how I’ve learned a lot of things. Be dumb, get yelled at, try not to repeat the dumb! Not being a sexist muppet in these threads is actually good training and practise for real life. I get less sexist day by day!
But, and I realise this might be unpopular in some quarters and I really realise this is a total extension of my male privilege, I am, and can afford to be as I said, slightly sympathetic to other people who haven’t yet grokked this stuff. Just like I can be, but admittedly now rarely am, slightly sympathetic towards creationists. I start with sympathy and end with both barrels! I take the three strikes thing fairly seriously. More in breech than practise! ;-)
Louis
* Yeah right, Louis. One day at a time… ;-)
Louis, thank you for those wonderful posts.
Ryan, #491,
Well others may freely differ with me here, but I think no, it doesn’t make me a bad person. Or anyone. No more than a rock existing is “bad” or getting an incidental erection from boredom in a Latin lesson when 13 is “bad”. It’s simply a fact.
That that rock has been rolled there to block a road by someone else is not your fault, nor is the fact that I, you, everyone has been socially conditioned by accident (mostly) to think certain things, or that young boys’ hormones do wicked things to them when conjugating ferro. These are simply the results of various processes with varying degrees of intent and control behind them.
What matters most is what you do with it. I never look at an attractive woman now and leave my first thought unquestioned or uncritiqued…unless, well obviously, I am having sex with them. I’m not Spock! THEN it’s first thoughts all the way, baby (post full, enthusiastic consent of course. Goes without saying).
The fact of a particular thought is not, for me, problematic. The actions upon it are.
I wish I could remember the name of this phenomenon, I think it begins with K after the psychologist that first noted it, but a quick google didn’t reveal anything. My google fu is weak. I might be misremembering a lot of things but here’s the gist of what I remember:
A psychologist surveyed a group of undergrads about the thoughts that just popped into their heads at random throughout the day, their automatic thoughts. The psychologist was interested in how “nasty” these thoughts were and how willing to admit to them the subjects were. They found that there was literally nothing a normal group of undergraduates, when pushed, didn’t have automatic thoughts about. Murder, rape, paedophilia, patricide, matricide, genocide, suicide, bestiality, necrophilia, coprophilia and coprophagia, exams and Justin Bieber*. There was no upper limit of “nasty” to the content of the automatic thoughts that just popped in and popped out again.
If I’ve remembered this correctly, it’s one of the reasons I am really not that worried about first thoughts. They really are something that just happens, conditioned or not. It’s the challenging of them, and actions derived from them and that challenge that matters.
Louis
* Actually, probably not this, probably older than the Bieber.
Louis #484:
Lots of good stuff to think about there. Some of it I read and think, “Dude’s got a point. When it comes to human relations, I suck at saying things sometimes.” Some of it I still very much disagree with.
To be quite frank, though, I’ve stuck around here far longer than I wanted to already, and I don’t find our massive replies to one another really conducive to actually communication.
Feel free to poke my name up above and friend me on Facebook. (You can file me under “assholes I don’t really like,” for all I care.) You’re someone I wouldn’t mind disagreeing with on a regular basis.
Holy shit, Louis, you are teh awesome. You are so awesome that all of your awesome has infinte cute little awesomes, running around and being uber-awesome at everyone and everything. Your awesomeness, it… well, you get the idea.
Is there a line for teh ghey secks with you yet? *looks around hopefully*