The myth will never end. The Three Stooges…errm, I mean, the three main egos of AVoiceForMen met in a video chat to crow over their fame, and among the topics that came up was that universal obsession of MRAs everywhere, Rebecca Watson. Dave Futrelle transcribed the relevant bits so we don’t have to watch it, but it’s a remarkable demonstration of their opacity to evidence. Here’s John “the Other” Hembling, describing the most notorious elevator ride ever.
Watson then went online and did a video admonishing the male members of the atheist community, of which she was a part, “guys don’t do that,” and characterized this conversation in the elevator as if it was some sort of great, terrible, frightening threat, and crafted her victimhood out of that, and essentially used that story to launch a professional speaking career on the atheist circuit.
Really? They’re still repeating this nonsense, despite the ready availability of the video that shows they’re all wrong? She didn’t even imply that the guy was frightening, she didn’t present herself as a victim, and she was already a popular speaker on the lecture circuit — why do these guys think she was in Ireland anyway?
Apparently it’s not just religion that schools people in self-delusion.
For the life of me, I’m never going to figure out how a casual guys, don’t do that turned into the most evil admonition, ever.
Yep, the MRA contingent is nothing but self-delusional. Somewhere in that delusion is believe that their unsupported word is evidence, and that we must all bow down to the unsupported word; despite Christopher Hitchens claim that without evidence, their word can be dismissed. Somehow they see their word as the equivalent of their penis. It just can’t be dismissed under any circumstances….
Prior to this nonsense, I have to admit that I was not a fan of Rebecca Watson. But after watching people fly into an incomprehensible rage over the incredibly gentle admonishment of “Guys, don’t do that”, I find that I simply must support her message.
I think of sexism as a proto-religion; it too relies on unfalsifiable or unrealistic claims, the only key difference is a lack of multi-generational ritual.
@ hjhornbeck the only key difference is a lack of multi-generational ritual.
you’re joking, right?
Saw Rebecca Watson at GeekGirlCon. She and Lindy West were on a panel together, along with Amanda Marcotte and Luvvie Ajayi. The topic was feminism and humor, which apparently was an oblique way of saying listen-to-us-make-jokes-about-the-bullshit-we-have-to-put-up-with. Everyone on the panel was funny but Watson and West were freaking HILARIOUS. Instantly became the highlight of my day.
@Caine, #1:
It starts something like this: “Hey, what did she mean by that??!”
Then they make shit up to fit the horror they imagine she implied.
In other words, it all branches out luxuriously from a massive trunk of emotional insecurity that’s already there which reacts to the slightest ping as if its a personal affront, challenge or threat to their manhood.
The fuck? Two things:
A) A casual statement does not frame something as a “great, terrible, frightening threat.”
B) Watson was at that convention to speak, and about feminism no less. So not only was her speaking career already in full swing, the issues at hand with elevatorgate were already part of her speaking career. Indeed, the only great significance of elevatorgate is that morons freaked the fuck out over next to nothing.
(Side note: I cringe whenever someone uses words like “basically” or “essentially”; it’s an immediate tip off that the person in question is full of shit.)
hjhornbeck:
What makes you think that’s missing? It isn’t.
My 2 cents:
Some men are really insecure about coming off as creepy, and others are really whiny about the supposed tendency of women to demonize men as rapists. The former group are just overreacting in perceived self defense; the latter are trying to fit the world to the narrative in their head.
I’m pretty sure penis-worship qualifies as a religion.
Now I’m really confused.
Jacob @8 – small factual correction – Rebecca wasn’t at that convention to speak about feminism. It was an atheism conference. (The second one, this year, was about feminism. Rebecca was supposed to be there but a big storm got in her way. A literal storm, not a storm of MRAs.)
@ Wowbagger, 11:
That can’t be right, a religion needs a head!
Er, wait…
Caine, I have no idea either. I remember watching the video the day it came out because someone had said it was worth watching. Frankly I noted the “Guys, don’t do that” only as a brief aside and thought “Oh, yeah, fair enough.” It simply never crossed my mind that it warranted further thought. Boy was I wrong.
I now regard it as an almost perfect litmus test as to whether people get the whole concept of harassment, creepiness and Schrödinger’s rapist. Not because this was the worst example ever of harassment, or especially creepy or because Rebecca was afraid she might be raped (it sounds as if that was not the case). Rather, it is because if when you listen to the story and the comment, if you are unable to put yourself in the position that Rebecca was in right at that moment, then you completely lack empathy for others. You may be the best meaning person around and a fundamentally nice person, but you probably make others feel uncomfortable or defensive without ever even being aware of it. On the other hand you may well be a privileged sexist creepy rapist :-).
Even for those who are socially awkward this should have been a teachable moment, not a declaration of war.
The reaction and ongoing trench digging by those who have attacked Rebecca and anyone else that has popped a tentacle above the parapet since is truly remarkable. It is also that reaction that has tipped me from thinking I was aware of these sorts of issues, to understanding that I was personally quite ignorant of them. It’s helped me a lot. It’s also helped me cut some real arseholes out of my life.
Ophelia Benson
“Feminism” was too broad for what I meant. Wasn’t one of her topics about how she didn’t like the way women were sexualized within the atheist community?
Jacob Schmidt: according to Suirauqa’s timeline, Rebecca mentioned sexism within atheism at the Dublin conference, but that wasn’t the focus of her panels there (though she went into more detail in her solo talk for the CFI conference shortly thereafter).
http://ohthehumanityofitall.blogspot.com/2012/07/deep-rifts-or-humanity-of-it-all-part-1.html
Brian:
I hate not being able to afford to go to cons…
I WANT TO SEE THIS!!!! *throws temper tantrum*
*ehem*
When will there be videos? Because there will be videos…
…
…
Right?
…
Nothing coming out of the MRA surprises me anymore. But, to be frank, I’m glad they’re there, because like the Bible is a great advertisement for atheism, the MRA is a great advertisement for feminism…
(And I know… my name’s Nathan, not Frank…
…
No?
I’ll just leave, then…
*runs out before the tomatoes hit*)
Rob @15 wrote:
All through elevatorgate, I was not reading FtB but arguing with ThunderdUde followers on YouTube. I asked one of them, specifically, to imagine being Rebecca in that elevator. I got a flat refusal to even try. The dude said he could not, would not, imagine being a woman.
I found that really strange as I spend a lot of time imagining being this or that person, people of all kinds and places and times but I also try to imagine being various animals (What does it feel like to be a bat? How might it feel to “see” using echolocation?).
So I tried to imagine refusing to imagine being someone else. My imagination failed.
Bicarbonate @ 19
Wow. That goes way beyond lack of empathy and overshoots straight into arseholery. In fact, I’m going to stick my neck out and say they are a dick.
Now, I know that is a sexist term that we avoid, but in this case I believe that the description is appropriate. The dude was/is so penis centric that he refused to even consider imagining himself in a woman’s position. This goes way beyond lack of empathy or being awkward, it is having a personal world view that revolves around maleness to the extent that any emotion or thought that might even hint at being female must be shunned and excluded. I really do think he perceives himself as a walking, talking penis. Thinks about as much as one too apparently.
I love you for that!
I always feel a little puzzled at people who never heard of Rebecca Watson before Elevatorgate. She’s been a big name since I started reading skeptical blogs in 2006. She wrote Memoirs of a Skepchick. She was on Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe. Maybe these people just weren’t paying attention prior to 2011?? Come on, it’s nothing to be ashamed of; I never heard of her prior to 2006.
@ bicarbonate:
Well, clearly your lack of imagination means I can ignore everything you say!
…
Or, I could just say “Yeah, that”. It’s just baffling to see the (subset of) attacks on Rebecca Watson for not understanding how other people feel. At this point, I’m expecting someone to just reach that much further and accuse her of failing to understand how their respiration was affected by her non-monumental statement. How dare she cause them to breathe more heavily!
I mean, there’s cognitive dissonance, sure. But surely there must be another term for what you describe.
@ Rob, 15
Short version: Me too.
Long version:
Personally, I think I picked a really … interesting … time to venture into online media beyond reading political blogs. I found Pharyngula (and FTB) just after e-gate, just before the debacle of the reaction to Adria Richards, with a great deal of other material as well. Not to say this kind of shit wasn’t happening before, but it feels like some sort of critical mass was hit in terms of people willing to speak up, and people willing to take it seriously* in very public forums. That might just be me, but I will say that I simply didn’t hear about things like this only 2-3 years ago.
So now I tangle with people on Facebook (while being really bad at it, I must say), try to respond to things I hear in Real Life™, and so forth. I point people to FTB and other sites of similar bent, I shamelessly plagiarize (more accurately paraphrase) bloggers and commenters here**, and the like. I’m not really sure what more I can do, but … well, anyways, I think I’m verging on derail if not already past, so I’ll shut up.
*For better or worse.
** I do try to attribute, but some forums are less friendly to that than others. :(
It’s quite ironic given that what he’s doing here is crafting a lot of victimhood out of “this makes me incredibly uncomfortable” being somehow a “great, terrible, frightening threat”.
Jacob SChmidt #10
Yep. That would be me.
Rob #15
And that would be me too. I do not want to be creepy, even unintentionally.
Bicarbonate #19
Strange, if not downright dishonest from him then, to expect Rebeca Watson (women) to relate to men and read their minds, whilst thinking men do not need to even bother to try and emphatise with her (them).
This might be another example of cultural sexism at work – women are conditioned and subsequently expected to bee emotional and empathic, whilst masculinity is for some equivalet to being insensitive self-centered jerk. And this one embraces that view of masculinity, because otherwise he would perceive himself as weak.
_________
I was already on my way the right directionn when elevatorgate broke out, receiving drop-sized portions of feminism on blaghag and on pharyngula prior to this. One of my nighthmares is imagining/realizing, that under slightly different circumstances, I might now hoot for the other team.
Unlikely, since toxic masculinity was the source of much of my bullying in my life, but not impossible.
Maybe not dishonest, if he really believes that the two sides are not equal. Trying to relate to women’s minds is like putting on a pink Tutu. You cannot expect a manly man’s man to try and relate to womens feelings, the danger of imminent gayness, impotence, and fluffybrainedness is much too great.
@ Alex #25 Google (other search engines are available) “man in tutu”
It seems to me that a manly man’s man with extra manliness and male-tude would be quite capable of putting on a pink tutu because his overpowering man-ificence would allow him to survive and learn something …
Oh, I forgot such men already know everything.
It was a woman telling men how they should behave?
These guys will get theirs, with interest, one day. And perhaps very soon, indeed!
I, and hundreds more, know exactly what they look like. Therefore each of them should – EVERY TIME they get on an elevator and an unknown man is either waiting or boards – NOT let him get behind them: the mother of ALL wedgies awaits.
Man, my English must be worse than I thought, because I would never have thought that “guys, don’t do that” was synonymous with “I was almost raped and feared for my life and now I want to castrate al the men and eat their penises with gravy”.
I, too, saw the video before it turned into “elevatorgate”. I would not have wagered one penny that this was apparently the atheist version of the Satanic Verses…
#1
# 27
More fundamentally it is a woman daring to say “no” to men. It is a common theme to all these tantrums – a woman or women say, in one way or another, “please leave us alone” and the rage just pours forth. These men, many men, believe that it is their RIGHT to have access to women’s time, space, labour, bodies, care. Whenever and wherever. You say no to that and you are denying him his RIGHTS.
Quick and simple measure of the level of male-entitlement someone has: watch how they respond to any sort of “no” from women.
There is no argument in favour of feminism as powerful as A Voice For Men, in the same way that there is no argument for atheism as powerful than Ken Ham and no argument for liberalism as powerful as Michelle Bachmann. What these guys need isn’t to be silenced; what they need is to be exposed and laughed at.
But Rebecca hurt the poor widdle misogynists’ feefees! Therefore she must be punished with rape threats, death threats and virtually endless harassment! Isn’t it obvious that Rebecca Watson’s ‘Guys, don’t do that’ is the worst thing since Hitler!
Seriously though, I will never understand the mindset that causes people to react to a simple ‘Guys, don’t do that’ the way Team Misogyny did.
“Grandma, did Rebecca Watson really have three horns?”
Honey, have you been talking to the MRAguy in the park again? I told you you shouldn’t. He’s a bitter, lonely guy whose children won’t talk to him and who has to stay 300m away from his ex-ife, even 40 years after the divorce.
Now all he has left is scaring children in the park. And no, sweetie, nobody will cut off your peepee.
Rebecca Twatson!
Muuuuhahaha, ROFL, LOL, LMAO, PMPWLRONF, there’s nothing like good, honest, superior, straight forward male humor. No silly giggling, no ma’am. Did you know that when women giggle, according to a recent study among leading expert womanizers, 95% of them think of penises?
Because penis. A person without a penis telling people with a penis not to do something? That’s just not natural. It says so in the
Bibleevo-psych literature, you know.Or some such bullshit.
@Charly 24
Also, the fact that since the default human is a man and most stories (including movies, tv, comics, videogames here) are about men (except some stories written by women which many men refuse to read or watch), men just aren’t accustomed to empathising with women. They can’t tolerate it because it’s lowering their dignity to put themselves in the place of the underclass, even in the privacy of their own imaginations.
Giliell
Your English is a little off; she meant cranberry sauce, not gravy.
Pteryxx
Ah, there’s the source of my confusion. Thanks, Pteryxx.
Dangit, too much activism, not enough follow-up. :P Compare and contrast, though:
Graculus @5:
Caine, Fleur du mal @9:
To the first: no, not at all. They have institutions (NCFM claims to have been going for 40 years), wield some political power and do activism. They work to benefit their own community, while trashing those who aren’t part of it, and worship a few community leaders, to some extent anyway. They hold claims contrary to reality, and do their damnest to justify those claims.
I really don’t see much of a difference between that and a religion.
But as for you, Caine…. I think of myself as fairly well read on the MRM, and I haven’t seen any signs of multi-generational ritual. I can think of examples that come close (“FTSU!”), but that’s not widely accepted and hasn’t persisted past a generation.
So yeah, an absence of evidence makes me think it’s missing. I’m open to counter-examples, though!
I think what’s going on there is a combination of tribalism and a Klingon-style sense of honor. The d00dz in question have chosen mankind as their tribe, so an attack on men in general becomes an attack on them personally, hence why they take pointing out Schrödinger’s Rapist as a personal insult; and because they’re so anxious about their honor, they see everything through honor-colored glasses, so that “don’t do that” is automatically interpreted as an attack and automatically answered by .
One hypothesis I can come up with is X-Treme Patriarchy: . Quotation marks not intended this time, the <q> tag makes them automatically.
See comment 25 for an alternative.
That would require courage to face peer pressure. And that’s exactly what such people lack the most. The stereotypical example is the samurai who is less afraid of slitting his belly and bleeding to death because he has such a phobia of being thought a coward.
I love the word “man-ificence”. :-)
Michele. [miˈkɛːlɛ] “male Italian” Bachmann. No, I don’t know what her parents were thinking.
That’s my excuse and I’m stickin’ to it. Seriously, though, though I’ve been an atheist since my mid-teens, I never really explored the world of atheism/skepticism. Heck, I barely knew who Dawkins and Hitchens were, other than “well-known atheists.” It wasn’t until I read an article about the ridiculousness of the people attacking Rebecca over the “don’t do that” comment that I ventured over to Skepchick, which then led me here. Then I said, “Ah, these are my people!”
Then I discovered the libertarian atheists and I said, “Ah, those are not my people! Save me from self-declared skeptics!” :)
I became a feminist probably the way most guys have over the decades — marrying, having a daughter, getting past the “scary other with the power to reject” viewpoint towards women. If I’d been unable to make a real connection with a woman in my thirties, I fear that I might have gone down the dark path of MRA-dom.
Back during my lonely years, misogyny actually felt comforting — it isn’t that there’s anything wrong with me, no, I’m wonderful — the problem is with all those horrible women who just don’t appreciate me. Once one actually did appreciate me, all the rest suddenly stopped being scary and/or infuriating and magically turned into human beings overnight.
So I’d be very, very surprised if any of these MRA types have a satisfactory relationship with a woman. And of course, with their attitudes, they’re unlikely ever to get one.
Now, the Watson-hating women — I really can’t figure them out at all, and I don’t intend to try.
@Jacob #37 (and Giliell):
No, no, no: that should be apple sauce, not cranberry sauce or gravy. Apple with long pork. Or, in this case, probably short pork.
Yeah, but in your first comment you didn’t write that the MRM had no multi-generational ritual, you wrote that sexism didn’t, which is why they reacted so incredulously… sexism has no multi-generational ritual? Really?
“The myth will never end. The Three Stooges…errm, I mean, the three main egos of AVoiceForMen”
Hey, that’s insulting! The Three Stooges were talented comedians who entertained millions of people. You don’t compare them to that.
“met in a video chat to crow over their fame, and among the topics that came up was that universal obsession of MRAs everywhere, Rebecca Watson.”
Oh, her. Why are people so obsessed with her? I don’t get it.
” Dave Futrelle transcribed the relevant bits so we don’t have to watch it, but it’s a remarkable demonstration of their opacity to evidence. Here’s John “the Other” Hembling, describing the most notorious elevator ride ever.”
Ah, that again.
“Watson then went online and did a video admonishing the male members of the atheist community, of which she was a part, “guys don’t do that,” and characterized this conversation in the elevator as if it was some sort of great, terrible, frightening threat, and crafted her victimhood out of that, and essentially used that story to launch a professional speaking career on the atheist circuit.”
I thought a bunch of people made a big deal over it and that’s why she became infamous and got all that attention. I had never even heard of her before that incident.
“Really? They’re still repeating this nonsense, despite the ready availability of the video that shows they’re all wrong? She didn’t even imply that the guy was frightening, she didn’t present herself as a victim, and she was already a popular speaker on the lecture circuit — why do these guys think she was in Ireland anyway?
Apparently it’s not just religion that schools people in self-delusion.”
Well Hitler or Stalin or someone said that if you repeat a lie enough people will start to believe it.