Anyone ever heard of Rebecca Watson?

Well, what's going on is that in response to the slightest hint of threat to male privilege (after all, "this made me somewhat uncomfortable" is hardly "panties is a wad", it's the most mild criticism I can imagine) a great deal of men started emailing Watson that she might like elevator propositions more after she is raped and murdered in one, and hey, maybe that's something that will happen to her. Soon, perhaps.The notion that there are a lot of guys out there like this shouldn't surprise anyone. Remember when they hacked the site for a month because I expressed an opinion on another website that women shouldn't be raped?

What, no shit? Lulzsec tried to get in? I'm impressed. Well, because a great deal of guys are going to skeptical conferences to bang, and so anything that threatens that program, well, it's like coming out publically against pick-up artistry or child custody rights for abusive fathers - suddenly you're the target of a relatively large and relatively unrestrained male community.Also her remarks were totally blown out of proportion; mild disapproval of a clumsy pick-up attempt was portrayed as Dworkin-esque "all sex is rape"-type feminazi-ism. And the "big names" in atheism seemed to get attached to it, because it's long been known that the skeptical movement has some problems with their treatment of women. (Like, why are the "Four Horsemen" men? Why the dearth of female voices in the community?) Dawkins has some points - a mildly uncomfortable social interaction is a far cry from the oppression faced by women under religious systems - but you don't defend your own action or inaction by saying that somebody else is worse; PZ, I think, has the right attitude - when women are telling you about their experiences in your community, and you say you're concerned about the plight of women, then if you're really in it for the plight of women and not just using that as a cheap point to claim superiority, you should shut your mouth and listen to what they have to say. Maybe they're wrong or oversensitive. But immediately telling them they are is why there aren't more female voices in skepticism, and why the movement is perilously vulnerable to being written off as nothing more than a diversion for affluent white men.

And a lot of people tried to defend this anonymous guy by saying that if he wasn't at those panels, he had no idea what she had been talking about and what her attitude about being propositioned in confined spaces might be.That strikes me as part of the problem - if she was nothing more than a proximal vagina on legs to him, certainly nobody whose attitudes or activities he should give a shit about when doin' it is at stake, that's hardly a mark in his defense. I don't know anything about the guy, he was probably just Socially Awkward Penguin; my ire is directed at the legions of people who should know better who have risen to his defense. Something similar happened with my wife once - not in an elevator, but similar in the sense that she expressed how an interaction made her uncomfortable and angry, and then an enormous number of people, including some of her closest male friends, fell all over themselves to defend the behavior of this completely anonymous guy they had never met and to tell her what an overreacting bitch she was being. (We refer to this as the "cookie incident" and around my house it's a codeword for the code of Omerta that seems to exist for guys, especially nerdy guys, and their obligation to defend each other, sight unseen.)For what it's worth, if I genuinely wanted to invite someone to a hotel room for conversation, the only refreshment I would probably be able to offer is coffee, because hotel rooms usually have coffeemakers and coffee in them. I'm a bit of a socially awkward penguin too so would I stop myself before I inadvertently propositioned a woman? I don't know. I know that I didn't, the one time I remarked to the cute waitress who had just told us that they didn't have any more tortilla chips that "we've eaten you out!"Out of chips! Chips! To this day I'm sure she thinks I was a creeper.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

I feel like, if there's one thing that people like us can learn from this, it's that while we may think our terrible attempts to be sparkling betray how lowly and ineffectual we may think of ourselves as, a lot of women are having the experience where these comments make them feel tiny, vulnerable, and unsafe.Rather than simply dismiss that viewpoint as a widespread misapprehension, rather than getting angry and defensive, I feel like that should lead us not just to a greater reflection about the kind of environment we foster with our social interactions, but also to the realization that social interactions are something that frequently women are pretty bad at, too, and that we can't really sit here with the luxury of thinking "oh, I'm just a nerd; who could ever possibly think highly enough of me to be afraid?"There's almost no way to say this that it comes out right, but reflecting on my own ability to make women feel unsafe, while disturbing in many ways (and prone to making me angry and defensive about it in others), also had a profound positive effect as well. I realized that I wasn't a social non-entity. If I could be a threat, then I could be significant. Some people take that realization in a sick direction and derive self-satisfaction from making women feel unsafe but there's a healthy direction to take it, where you realize that the woman you're trying to talk to isn't a goddess on a pedestal for whom you're beneath her notice, but a human being who shares your vulnerabilities and aversion to awkward social interactions. I find that takes a lot of the pressure out, and turns it into a responsibility to act like a human being instead of trying to find the secret Konami code to panty-town.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

No, I'm pretty skinny and nerdy looking (or was, not too long ago). You really don't have to be an enormous dude to skeeve out a woman, but realizing that (and watching for it in your own behavior) is powerfully freeing. I'm not trying to push the blame onto you, or connect you in any way to that reprehensible behavior, but it very much was guys like you and me who are out there trashing her on the internet. That's what many of us do when it feels like "one of us" got the short shrift from someone; especially from an attractive woman who we imagine might have been one of the "popular girls."Consider the enormous reaction to Jon Finkel incident. In this case, the sentiments expressed were (IMO) the correct ones (except for the sentiments that Alyssa Bereznak should in any way be harmed), but the enormous outpouring of support was par for the course. It's what the Nerd Herd does when one of its members is threatened. And a lot of guys just like us, who know that they can hide behind anonymity on the internet, think little about expressing that support in the most misogynist and bullying of terms.

I gained a fair amount of weight between 2003 and 2005, due to a night shift desk job (and just plain not being 23 anymore.) "Fat fuck" was a bit of wry hyperbole, but I apologize for giving an inaccurate impression. (But it's nice of you to remember!)Currently, having tacked on about 30 pounds onto the frame of a willow tree, I have an appearance somewhat akin to a snowman, or perhaps what you might imagine if you tried to fashion a human figure from pipe cleaners and a Bartlett pear.

What ever happened to taking no for an answer?

So what would a "fake phone number" have accomplished, since he wasn't asking for her number?Your comment really was a strange non-sequitur.

Is that your understanding because that's what her detractors have said she said? I would caution you not to ascribe to Rebecca Watson any words except those which you have heard from her own lips or pen, since her opponents are usually just flat-out lying about her remarks. When, specifically, did she make this statement? So what you're saying is that you've never felt threatened or scared to hang out with any of the men you've worked with except for the man who made you feel threatened and scared to hang out with him.Isn't it a bit of an issue that it happened even once? As a man in the leans-female field of biology, do you know how many times I've been threatened by or harassed by female colleagues?Not even a single time. I don't consider that some kind of amazing achievement on my part; I consider that the bare minimum of working in civilized society. Is there some reason you don't? You know what, though? Adults know the difference between when they're flattering the subject of their attentions by stating their sexual availability, and when they're enjoying the delicious sensation of power from making the subject of their attentions feel threatened and diminished. Nobody calls someone every night for three weeks thinking that's a charming way to break the ice. They do it because they're thinking "that stupid fucking bitch, she thinks she can say no to me? I'll show her." He's sitting there, getting a charge just from the notion that someone else is huddling by her phone thinking about him because she's scared of him. And it's not being "naive" or a "feminazi" to say "that's not right." Did you attract them by making them feel scared inside their own homes? No? You're saying it occurred to you that that would be a pretty terrible way to actually get laid? Then why would you assume that it doesn't occur to men? Your own experience, as stated by you, seems to bear them out. You've just decided to join with the rest of society in saying that when a man decides to derive pleasure from terrifying women, that's not a big deal and nothing to get upset about. But don't you kind of think it should be?

I guess, but then why do public women who aren't saying anything about elevators getting the exact same messages? How do you explain the treatment of Sierra Bates, for instance?

Are you sure that there was even one such t-shirt worn by an "extremist feminist"? My impression has always been that the "all men are pigs" wing of feminism is largely the invention of its detractors, in the same way that nobody actually urinated on troops coming back from Vietnam (but they were spit on, as it turns out - almost always by right-wing supporters of the Vietnam War angered by the progressive views and permissivity of the young people sent to fight in it.)

Oh, well, forum posts!As you'll recall, though, I asked you about t-shirts. I mean, are you sure we want to start characterizing entire groups by what people claiming to be them are saying on the internet? I suspect you might be shocked by what we could find young, white males, or perhaps even your demographic, saying on the internet. What is misogyny if not male-supremacy and female-demonizing? In your opinion, why is turnabout not fair play in this situation? With so many voices advocating for a diminished role for women - and with real political power behind that view - why is it so unreasonable to have a handful of voices advocating for the reverse?

Not anywhere near as extreme as labeling prominent women prostitutes, which is something that passes almost unnoticed nowadays. And is it not accurate? On what basis would we conclude that a man had no potential whatsoever to commit the crime of rape?Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Sure, it'd be fair to judge me on my forum posts.Would it be fair to judge me by Hooah's, though? That's the standard being used, here - Rebecca Watson is being judged by the forum posts of anonymous "feminists" she's not even associated with. T-shirts were what was claimed. If T-shirts are suddenly not terribly convincing, well, I'm not the one who suggested that one could identify an "extreme feminist" by their choice of garment. I disagree, and further I reject the notion that it's "bad behavior" to put forth a viewpoint that you, personally, don't agree with. I'm not sure I agree. You can't fight unfair privilege except by taking it away, and it's always going to be inherently unfair to take away privileges that others don't have, in the same way that a law against sleeping under a bridge isn't an equal burden for the wealthy man compared to the homeless man. Well, except that it's not. You've not quoted any feminist saying that "all PIV sex is rape." You've simply discovered examples of feminists arguing that heterosexual sexual activity is more burdensome for women than it is for men. A statement that is completely uncontroversial and trivially true. That's your "radical feminism"? I never made such an assertion, so of course I'm going to defend no such thing. Stop being ridiculous.

Not when Dawkins believes the situation is not a problem because there are other women in the world with bigger issues. Remember, his message wasn't written as though it was directed at Watson, it was written as though it was directed at "Muslima". We can't simply disregard that context - Dawkins' reply was meant to dismiss Watson's complaint by saying it wasn't as bad as undergoing ritual clitorectomy.It's actually pretty gross to use the issue of FGM as a whipping stick like that, especially in the service of disregarding a woman's concerns about how she's treated by the movement atheists organized in part by Dawkins' efforts. What an incredibly stupid thing to have done; I'm still amazed by it. Like I say, I'm puzzled by how you continually tell me I'm wrong and then restate my position. There's no daylight between these views. When you say that something that is a problem actually isn't a problem, you're ignoring the problem. Obviously if you're ignoring a problem, you do so by saying there's no problem there. It's like when you're not thinking of elephants. The way you do that is, your mind contains no thoughts about elephants; you don't actively try to not think of elephants (since that's a thought about elephants.) That's the gag behind "quick, don't think of an elephant."