[EDIT: I failed in writing this article. I have written an explanation of that failure here. I am not going to remove this article because, like everyone, I have to learn from my failures.]
My sister had big tits. Like huge. I remember her blowing out her sixteenth birthday cake and accidentally leaving two huge boob impressions in the cake. They were big enough that they caused her back pain. They were big enough that they had to be reduced through surgery. And they were big enough to bring out the really gross in boys.
Personally, I didn’t give a crap about my sister’s breasts. She was my sister. They could have been shaped like Alfred E. Neuman for all I cared. But I saw how guys were to her. They spoke to her chest. They accidentally brushed up against her a lot. They wanted to date her because of what they thought they could do to those breasts, and not because of who she was. And my sister, though she was nothing like me, was a great person. All of this crap frustrated her beyond belief, and it is with great joy that I can say she wound up marrying one of the best men I have ever known and living happily ever after.
But all that behavior really disgusted me. I swore I would never be That Guy, and I think I’ve done an admirable job of treating the women in my life. I just don’t understand why people have to act like that.
Rebecca Watson (oh yes, THAT Rebecca, the troublemaker who goes out of her way to ruin everything for everyone forever by *gasp* telling guys it’s not okay to be creepy and gross) posted a frustrated rant the other day about a picture of a fifteen year old girl holding up her Christmas present, a copy of Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan. This was posted in the r/atheism reddit, and it became the source of a lot of really disgusting misogynistic comments, never mind entirely inappropriate given the age of the girl. She was disgusted.
And you know what? She’s fucking well right. Even if you rule out the age of the kid, a picture of a pretty female does not make it okay for thousands [edit: this is an exaggeration on my end, please take it as such] of creepy guys to start talking about how many holes she has. That’s despicable, and we’re better than that. Only we clearly aren’t.
Now, not all atheists are misogynists. Nobody’s saying that. What Rebecca was saying, and what I’m reiterating and many others have as well is that misogyny is a problem in the atheist community. And it’s a problem we don’t need and I would hope don’t want. Life’s hard enough being an atheist, why do we need to make it worse for ourselves by not stepping up when we see behaviors that are disgusting and demeaning within our own?
Nobody is saying this is a problem only with atheists, but that’s one of the quickest rebuttals out there. Yes, the problem exists in other spheres of influence, but why does that excuse our allowing it to happen in ours?
If you think it’s okay for those kinds of comments to be associated with us, if you think it’s okay to call Rebecca a lesbian bitch whore, if you think it’s okay to treat women like second-class citizens, then I don’t want you around me or my friends. I’m tired of people asking why there aren’t more women at atheist events. We know why. We have done a piss-poor job of creating an environment where they feel like equals. We have created the situation by assuming that they are there because they clearly want to touch our privates.
Me, I like having women at atheist events. Not because dude that girl is hot and I bet she wants to do me, but because women are people with different experiences than mine and often have interesting things to say. So my promise to the women in my world is this; when I see misogyny, I’m going to punch it in the teeth. I would expect others to join me in this. I will be there to keep you safe and stand up for you when others are acting like it shouldn’t be a big deal or like you’re just misunderstanding. Bullshit. I’m in your corner. If I want to have you around, it’s because of who you are, and not because of what you look like.
Jim
[edit: At no point in the above post did I say that all or even most reddit users are misogynists. At no point in the above post did I say that all or even most atheists are misogynists. At no point in the above post did I say that misogyny is an atheist problem. It is a problem in the atheist community that should be addressed, and a problem in many areas of society that should be addressed. At no point in the above post did I say that people didn't have the right to say these things, I said I wasn't going to put up with it.]
Every time I try to punch it in the teeth at reddit I get downvoted. But I keep doing it.
“If you think it’s okay for those kinds of comments to be associated with
us, if you think it’s okay to call Rebecca a lesbian bitch whore, if
you think it’s okay to treat women like second-class citizens”Here’s the thing…IT IS OKAY to make those kinds of comments to anyone when not in a professional setting. IT IS OKAY to call Rebecca a lesbian bitch whore, welcome to free speech, it goes both ways.That being said…Under no circumstance is it acceptable to deny someone a job or housing or discriminate in anyway based on gender or skin color or religion. It’s a tough world, wear a fuckin helmet.
I understand that completely, Jason. Eventually we’ll make some ground up.
The problem with what Rebecca did is that she cherry-picked all the worst comments from a mound of good, positive comments in order to create drama. So should we call all atheist bloggers media whores because of what she did? No? Why not? Because obviously if one atheist blogger did something, it means they’re all like that. By Rebecca’s standards, apparently if a few people in the r/atheism subreddit made impolite comments, that means all 300,000+ of us are just as bad.Yeah, right. Thanks.
Actually, Yahweh, you missed the point by quote mining me. I wasn’t taking away anyone’s freedom of speech (and what a weak argument), I was saying that if you felt those things were okay, I don’t want you around me or my friends. And I don’t.
And you’re well within your rights to comment on that, Talia. What I saw when I looked at the comments on that picture made me sick. And what I got when I read Rebecca’s piece was not that she was saying OMG ALL ATHEISTS ARE BAD or even OMG ALL r/atheist POSTERS ARE BAD, but that sometimes it was hard to accept that this kind of behavior came from within the atheist community.
that’s a “texas sharpshooter fallacy”. I realize you’re attempting to get traffic to your shitty blog, but please, leave r/atheism out of your mindless rambling
misogynistic If you want misogynistic behaviours, just was Big Bang Theory. The attitudes of the males on that show are 100% sexist. Women are only good for one thing – Sheldon – “I’m going to have intercourse with your daughter’s vagina.” Nice. The attitude of the “brilliant” male atheists toward the millions of service workers around the world is disgusting. The fact that Penny continues to hang with men who degrade and mock her intellect and are attracted to her only for her body speaks poorly of someone who is clearly a role model (notice changing hair styles) for young women.
Hey!I found your post through Reddit, and I have but one thing to say – thank you so very much!I actually didn’t see either of the posts mentioned, but I’ve seen similar stuff, and it always disheartens me as a woman who is atheist. And then to see some of those same guys have the nerve to make comments about “why don’t we see more women around here” just makes me sigh in frustration.Either way, thanks for getting it, and for being able to see things from a perspective not your own.
Her age wasn’t known before many of those comments. Honestly, she looks like she is 17 or 18 and not 15.
Adam, does that make it okay? As I said, pretend her age wasn’t a factor. Hell, pretend she’s 40. Did you read some of what was said about her?
Punching misogyny in the teeth risks injury to one’s fist. Remember: punch to the solar plexus, and if one must strike the teeth, use your foot.
And Adam, those comments were shitty regardless of her age.
Hey Jim, as a female engineering physics student (1:20 female to male ratio at my department) I’d like to say thanks for discussing this here. It’s refreshing to hear a guy complain about this for once. Thanks
The problem with Rebecca Watson’s post wasn’t so much that she cherry-picked the extreme posts from that thread (although that was a glaring problem with her blog). It was the fact that she laid it all on the r/atheism community’s doorstep. What she failed to realize is that r/atheism has become a default sub-reddit on the front page when you first go to Reddit. That means that everyone sees the post and comments on it (not even close to just r/atheism). For all we know, it is possible that the majority of the misogynistic comments were posted/upvoted by non-r/atheism redditors.
It’s completely unfair to say that atheists as a whole, are any more misogynistic than any other demographic. You simply observed misogyny coming from a small group of atheists; there is reason to assume that all atheists, or even a higher proportion of atheists, are misogynists. Any other demographic may have reacted the same way to the picture, you have no right or reason to say “misogyny is a problem in the atheist community”. What makes you think that atheism even had anything to do with the misogyny? I would say that ALL men are more like to be misogynistic when they can remain essentially anonymous in doing so. It may be unkind, but it only casts a negative image on atheists as a “community” when people like YOU make it so, by making unfair presumptions, and avoid looking at ALL of the facts.You have created another negative stereopye for atheists. I hope you’re happy.
Right, maybe you should remember a couple of internet creeps doesn’t fucking represent the entire male gender. You need to realize every single human being is unique and stop categorizing this shit.
Actually, Alex, I said nothing about atheists as a whole being more misogynistic than other demographics. I said that it is a problem. I didn’t say it was a problem affecting every male atheist. You’re correct, any demographic may have reacted the same to the picture. My point is that I don’t approve of the behavior and will loudly say that when confronted with it as a means to hopefully remind people that it isn’t acceptable.
Dear Jim
Please hand in you manhood and exit.
Thanks,
AE
I find it stunning that people are making the illogical leap that I am attacking all men, all atheist men, or even most atheist men. Not what I said at all.
“Yahweh”:You do understand, don’t you, that there’s a difference between something being legally protected and being “okay”.Not every criticism of something someone has said or written is an attack on their free speech rights. For example, I’m sure you didn’t intend to question Jim’s right to write what he wrote.
I totally agree that the behavior was bad. I do not think it is an “atheist problem”. The thread started in r/atheism, a default subreddit with many subscribers, and quickly made it’s way to the front page for everyone to see and comment.
I agree, it isn’t an atheist problem, it’s a problem in the atheist community as well as every other community. At no point did I imply this was unique to atheists.
i’m all for your call against misogyny, i’m living it for quite some time now
but three things have to be made clear:“brace my anus” (by this girl, root comment of the whole creepy subthread) attracts (other) creepy comments, 15-year old girls understand that. most people get that if you talk about your orifices, they could become discussion objects, that’s just basic rules of communication.it weren’t necessarily atheists (as r/atheism is a front page site and has a tradition of attracting trolls)even if it were exclusively atheists: we are many on this subreddit, and you can’t blame the rest of our huge, heterogeneous group for what some did.
Here we go…. free speech again… I don’t get it…. I really don’t. Just because you have the right to say it doesn’t mean you should. We as a society realize this. When Michael Richards goes on stage, making racist comments and spouting the n word, he’s roundly vilified, with invective flying around saying he should be boycotted. And rightly so. This was beside the fact that not only was he exercising free speech, he was on a stage making speech that people paid to hear. I don’t really see how threatening a 15-year old girl with horrific acts of violence is much more acceptable than a few racist words….
Ridiculous. You’re trying to get women to notice you by pretending to be a champion for their rights. You are so transparent that it hurts. Ignoring all of the reasons your actual argument is wrong, which have been highlighted before I ever saw this terrible blog (took the time to read a couple of other posts. You’re pathetic, and your desperation is apparent.), this is enough to make me hate you. And believe it or not, I normally have quite a lot of patience for this type of behavior. Yours is simply astronomically worse than the types I’ve been exposed to in recent times.You make me sick. I may call out of work tomorrow because I stumbled onto this.
My care… There is so little of it, least of all for this.
It’s unfortunate that your sense of the “atheist community” is evidently derived from a thread that appeared on every redditor’s default front page (in other words, it was visible and open to millions of users who do not associate with the r/atheism subreddit at all). Contrary to your misguided perception, key leaders in the atheist movement have espoused the value of elevating women in oppressive cultures. Christopher Hitchens identified female empowerment as “the only cure for poverty.” Sam Harris consistently emphasizes the need for educating women in undeveloped countries.I doubt any well-informed individual would deny the pervasiveness of misogyny, and the need to expeditiously rid the world of it. But if you don’t see the atheist community as being among the forefront of that effort, you likely haven’t bothered to look.
Yikes … here we go again.Every Redditor who’s been there for more than a month or two sees the same phenomenon – the joke thread that riffs on a theme and spirals out into the ether, nonsensically. It happens in every subreddit, on any topic, and all it needs to start is some yahoo to make a seemingly innocent comment. Someone puns on that comment, and we’re off to the races. It’s HUMOUR.It may be humour in bad taste, or even in terrible taste, but it is HUMOUR. No one who posted in that thread actually wanted to rape that girl. No one really cared how many holes she had. No one really believed that blood was the best lubricant. They were all just riffing on the “pedophile” theme like they riff on EVERY theme in that place. It’s the same humour that gives you pedobear, dead baby jokes, period jokes, serial killer jokes and dictator jokes. None of them are in good taste, but they aren’t intended to be in good taste, because they aren’t intended to be taken seriously … on any level. Just like my generation tossed out dead baby jokes like candy, these guys toss out pedophile jokes like candy, too. That style of black humour isn’t going to disappear because a bunch of PC crybabies mistake the comments for actual desires and actual intents. It’s a website with a bunch of kids between 15-25, primarily. You’re going to get this kind of black humour. Deal with it. The real skeeve showed his face in the commentary and EVERYONE jumped on his case and told him to knock it off. Anyone with any sense could see the difference between the real perv and the kids just playing around with all of it.
I would really like you to respond to Hippie_Tech. It is common knowledge to most redditors how reddit works and I’m betting both you and Watson are familiar with it as well. It’s pretty unreasonable to blame r/atheism for too many upvotes and not enough downvotes from people who don’t even identify as atheists, much less are active posters in r/atheism. (Unless your goal is more page views.)
If there is no God, and all we are is a collection of valueless atoms, on what basis can you say that it’s wrong to treat women (other collections of atoms) badly? I’ll just respond by saying, “Well, that’s your opinion,” and go on my merry way.
That’s not how Reddit works, the post was on the front page, please don’t blame us when the entire of Reddit had the opportunity to post in that thread…I downvote bad posts sometimes, but there are so many, people with a brain would rather fill it with more interesting info than freelance moderation of tards…Freedom is quite the double edged sword, hopefully things will be better in the future.
Disbelief in God and the opinion that we are valueless atoms are hardly the same thing.
You lost the game, good sir.Your article is worthless. Yes, every man that has sexual feelings towards the gender of their choosing is “creepy.” I stopped reading after that, not that your article deserves reading in the first place.
Thanks very much for this post. It made you a troll target, I’m sure you knew that when you wrote it, and you did it anyway: THANK YOU. I don’t know if misogynists don’t have sisters, or treat their sisters as badly as they treat other women, or are just really good at embracing double standards — but maybe they’ll listen to another man more readily than they will to a woman. And by the way: many quiet atheists out there have not joined the online atheist community. It’s worth asking if this kind of thing might be one reason why at least some of them don’t find that community welcoming/appealing.
No Jim, the comments DIDN’T “come from within the atheist community”. They came from Reddit. As has already been pointed out, not only did the girl who originally posted the thread start the colorful comment train rolling down the track, but r/atheism is a front page default, which means that several million people can see it and comment on it, whether they’re atheists or not. Because of this, laying the blame at the feet of atheists for being misogynistic pigs is unfair and biased. Rebecca knows how Reddit works, yet she chose to act in what Reddit refers to as a karma-whorish way, and twist the whole thing to her own gain. Now here you are, jumping on the bandwagon and trying to drive hits to YOUR blog by beating this stinking dead horse. Don’t be a twat, Jim. I’m all for you being a nice guy and thinking that certain comments aren’t appropriate, but for goodness sake, stop laying this at the feet of the atheist community.
This is a post I tried making on her blog, it got deleted during the “moderation” phase all posts have to go through, from the discussion in reddit turns out that a lot of people had similar posts deleted:
The blog post boils down to “I shall protest the treatment of all women as sexual object by treating all male atheists as male chauvinists”.
Apart from the blatant lapse in logic in extrapolating from 500+ replies what 300,000+ people really think, there is also the problem that the site doesn’t work like what has been suggested. There is no litmus test for joining r/atheism, it is in fact a default subreddit that people are automatically signed to up when they join the site. Add to that the fact that anyone can comment on any post, this means that the million or so other redditors could post on the thread as well. Add to that the post making it to the front page and reddits ridiculously easy registration and you’re left with the simple fact that most people who read the article were not atheists and were statistically very close to the average internet user.
When all of that is taken into account all this blog post could reasonably say is: “Anonymous people online can be dicks”. Unless you were in cryogenic suspension from the mid 1980′s till now that shouldn’t come as news.
Very ignorant post. You need to sit down and have a class on how Reddit works, apparently. The post in question was in the frontpage – most of the people commenting, good or bad, don’t even call themselves atheist. Secondly, misogyny is a well-documented problem in the REDDIT community, not just the ATHEIST reddit. You people are so simple-minded that such a distinction is beyond you.
Big…Jim, I’d really be interested in your perspective on why a 15 year old girl, who was apparently familiar with Reddit’s testosterone saturated atmosphere, would sexualize a discussion by interjecting her anus into the conversation. I’m with you with regard to the plague of misogyny that infests Reddit and most every corner of the Internet, by why is this girl being given a free pass, despite being the person who actually made the first misogynist comment?
No one, not you, not PZ, not Rebecca, no one has dared address the inconvenient truth that is was the female “victim” who started the sh*t-storm of crude comments. Why is that? Why is it so hard, apparently, to call her out as a bad actor? Did she deserve the response she got? Of course not, but she undeniably contributed to it.
Yes, we should be talking about the second-class sexualization of women in the atheist community, but we should also be talking about why some women contribute to this sorry state of affairs. You sound like a reasonable guy, and the situation with your sister suggest you have some sensitivity to women’s issues, but tell me this, would your sister ever have made rude comments about her breasts in a conversation about atheism?
Thanks for posting this, I’m glad I wasn’t the only person turned off by some of those comments. I think some people posting in /r atheism forget that we’re a marginalized group and would do best to consider the effects of our behaviour on others. Not only that, but embracing women adds a lot more diversity and power to the outspoken side of atheism. And above all, talk to other human beings with a bit of respect – does that really need to be said?
The reason I perceive for a large number of people thinking this picks on atheists is obvious Jim. Words are not how everything is communicated, in fact, most meaning in face to face conversations is based in tone and body language. The one of those that is transient into words is tone and the tone of your piece shows dissent for atheists. In the quote ”Even if you rule out the age of the kid, a picture of a pretty female does not make it okay for thousands [edit: this is an exaggeration on my end, please take it as such] of creepy guys to start talking about how many holes she has. That’s despicable, and we’re better than that. Only we clearly aren’t” you can easily see the tone of disdain and in the piece, even if you say its not just a problem in the atheist community youu still are using us as an example. This piece uses atheists with a negative connotation and will cause people to infer atheists are bad. The media is very powerful if you wanted to really help the problem of misogyny in our society you probably should have pointed out numerous examples to focus on the problem not a group of people. On the societal problem of misogyny I completely agree with you, I just wish you did a better job illustrating it.
So few people have the slightest bit of reading comprehension. It always amazes me how you can write something and make your points as clear as possible and it simply will not matter. People will still project their biases and read meaning into your words that are in no way actually implied. Especially when you call out bad behavior. Excuses fly. Victims are blamed. You get accused of saying things you did not say and discussion is derailed and shut down. Bravo human species. When the fuck will you grow up.To Jim, keep fighting the good fight and thank you.
Dan,
Actually, I see your point. I hadn’t considered that properly, and the mistake is mine. That’s certainly not what I intended to imply, but you’re correct, I can see how that could be taken.
Richard,
I absolutely agree that the girl shouldn’t have said that. I could be wrong here, but I didn’t think she started it. In any case, her actions were as tacky as everyone who joined in, and she deserves the same scorn as all the others who joined in. I know this is beyond silly, but I do hope her parents caught wind of this and took her to task over it.
My sister wouldn’t have made rude comments about her breasts in a conversation about atheism. She certainly wouldn’t have said anything about her anus.
Actually, Monochr, I didn’t say that all male atheists are chauvinists. Far from it. I said that we as a community need to do better. That much is true. Most of the atheists that I encounter are not pigs, and that is the same for every community including reddit. I have not seen enough (in my opinion) of the atheist community standing up against that.
Now we just need a piece showing the misogyny in the workplace, in college, especially engineering schools, and in other aspects of society. One cannot show a problem condensed into one sample and expect a movement for change no matter how just the movement would be. Misogyny must be revealed in many samples of society, of people, n its worst light. Then with the proof seeping out of every crack the armor of false equality our society wears people will notice and maybe things will change. It’s hard to change any aspect of society when one group is winning freedom and the other is losing freedom in the ordeal.
The problem you and Rebecca seem to completely miss, is that yet again atheists have another broad negative stereotype to fight off simply because neither of you are willing to look at any of the facts outside of that disgusting SUB-thread. You don’t ask why, you don’t ask who. You just jump to your preconceived conclusion that r/atheism did it, ignoring the fact that the post hit the front page of all of Reddit, ignoring the fact that there were a lot of down votes and people scolding on that thread as well. Ignoring how much pro-women right articles get voted up on a regular basis, at a percentage that is considerably higher than Reddit as a whole. You want to know why you and Rebecca stepped on a landmine by using a brush way too broad and tarring the entire community with that of a bunch of creeps and non-r/atheist posters? Because as an atheist you should know we routinely have all sorts of nasty negative untrue shit thrown our way simply for being atheists. In many parts of the country atheists are treated considerably poorer than women. Last time I checked it wasn’t commonplace to ostracize someone from a family simply because they were a woman, while in many parts of the country that is true for atheists.If we don’t take mischaracterizations lightly when it comes to the vile spewed at us from the religious, why exactly do you think we are going to take this laying down? It was already bad enough we had to deal with that thread, now we have to deal with self-righteous assholes blaming us as a whole for that shit. And yes, Rebecca blamed us all for it. She did it again when she posted those vile emails in r/srs and blamed us all for it, again. Fuck that. I’m not part of that, never have been. Is there Misogyny in r/atheism that needs to be dealt with? Yes, but I’d say considerably less than the population as a whole considering we reject religion – where a great amount of it comes from. As far as I’m concerned Rebecca and r/srs have crossed the line into some Misandry.
biguglyjim, you didn’t say that and Rebecca Watson didn’t really say it either (to make it clear I’m posing what I said on her site and what got deleted there). She just drew a few circles around it and then added a few arrow pointing towards it, then left the people in her comment section to make the millimeter long plunge into assuming that most male atheists on reddit are pigs, most did.
The thing that is most disturbing about this isn’t the content of what happened on reddit, anyone who has been on any site with user generated content will have seen much much worse, the thing that bothers me is the soft censorship and rabble rousing that Rebecca has engaged in by deleting *most* comments that are even the slightest bit critical of her. If she wants to pretend to have a real comments section than dissenting views should be allowed, otherwise comments becomes nothing more than an echo chamber and ego stroking machine all in one.
Props to you for letting comments that disagree with you through.
You make a good point, and while you acknowledge that this is a problem in all of society, you still chose to focus on r/atheism and atheists in general.Did it happen in r/atheism? Sure. Were some of the people involved atheists? Probably.But had it happened in r/funny, I do doubt that your post would have been titled “Funny people misogyny”. And this is where the problem is.Mention r/atheism in your post, sure, that’s just accuracy. But by putting that title up there (and if you’re into journalism at all, you know the title shapes how people read an article, and in some cases, outright determines their opinion on the matter) means putting the description “misogynist” in direction relation to the community “atheist”.And that, sir, is where you did them wrong.
While I appreciate your efforts to make the atheism community a better place, I think that’s part of the problem. Because we tend to be so negative about religion, we hold our own standards ridiculously high. Even some of the comments here are quite hostile and it makes the whole environment unpleasant. We are united in our cause so I think we should treat each other with more respect so we can learn the most effective ways in getting our point across.I think we fall into the trap of thinking because we are all atheists, clearly we should all be doing X. But we are all independent people, not following a religion, meaning we have no rules.I would like to see a more friendly environment where we can have our jokes and separately work for the freeing people of religion. If atheism is a more positive community, then more people will be willing to join it.
I’m surprised that this is even an issue – she she have just took a pic of the book but I guess vanity got the best of her. Definitely agree we need to look into societal misogyny though I do not believe this is the blog post to discuss it in