Atheism +

[TaraJo]

Interesting. I like it when someone disagrees with me but when they have an open mind about it or are willing to explain things. Thank you.

Let's see what I can get from this, shall we?

According to a guy I was seeing recently, in his work online in various forums and on wikipedia as a volunteer, people with feminine sounding nicks or women whose nicks id'd them as women were three times as likely to get harassed, bullied or insulted. I was accused of a lack of empathy, as at the time he and I were having a conversation I didn't express myself as well as I would have liked to in regards to the whole thing.

Yeah, I can see that happening. There are several other factors in play there, though. For example, men are encouraged to just take it and 'be a man' and not complain when they get harassed or bullied, which, in turn, throws an extra variable into the theory. It would be a very interesting sociological study to do, but it might be difficult to take all the variables out.

Believe me, this problem stems from way further back than just Elevatorgate. I have some friends in the skeptic movement who have dealt with her histrionics, and the bullying of the skepchicks, for some time - men AND women who became disillusioned.

Watson's histronics? Do tell. I mean, I've been an atheist for years but I've only recently been interested in getting involved in an atheist community.

Do I think sexism and misogyny are a problem? Absolutely: but I think they're a HUMAN problem. No one ever promised that atheists were going to be rational people - we've had several members fly through here who embodied the essence of irrationality and were stout atheists.

I suppose that's somewhat true, but I do still question that. I've seen some of the extreme misogyny within religious groups (especially fundamentalist religious groups). I'm talking, these are people who believe vaginas are inherently dirty, women are only good for taking care of the home and raising kids and should be under the authority of a man at pretty much all times. At very least, I'm going to guess that skeptics and atheists will think that's bullshit.

I've heard that sexism and misogyny are a bigger problem in the skepticism movement because it's mostly made up of geeks who have no social skills.

Without a question, I can also see that. However, I do wonder, is it really misogyny if they're socially awkward dorks towards both men and women? At very least, this is misogyny out of ignorance, not malice; it's an important distinction because you can cure ignorance with a good dose of education. Malice isn't so easy to fix.

Unfortunately, I've not heard of any complaints from people outside of reports from the skepchicks. On the other hand, I don't spend my day looking this shit up either. I'd love to see one blog post from outside the skepchick realm surface describing how these conferences aren't safe, that women suffer horrible things there - all the things the skepchicks claim to happen. I even emailed assault and harrasment victim counselors to ask if they could forward a list of things we could do to ensure that at least the gatherings were safe.

That's true, too. From what I can see, we've got a handful of women who are making a mountain out of molehills while a small army of them are simply afraid to question those mountains.

The problem, when I boil it down - and I'm open to rebuttals

The fact that you're open to rebuttals is what I love most about this post. It seems to be a huge difference between you and them.

1) these women have no sense of humor,

I can see that. I've been around a group of them and it's really hard to have fun or make jokes when you're constantly walking on eggshells to try to prevent offending someone..... and then people get offended, constantly, anyway.

2) they act as if everything that comes out of a man's mouth is expected to be accepted and done,

I've seen this, too. It's really frustrating; they see men and masculinity as exclusively oppressive and as a result, anything bad about them that's said is well deserved. When I watch my boyfriend, who was raised in an extremely misogynistic environment and has rejected that environment, when I watch him go out and find places that will validate his thinking that misogyny is wrong but he's constantly bombarded by misandrists who tell him how evil he is for being male and when I see how much it hurts and upsets him...... that's when it gets personal. Heck, until I started seeing how much that mindset hurt him, I don't think I really started questioning feminism in general.

3) they allow themselves to get worked up into a lather and lose sight of the original argument and goal.

They seem to be in a constant state of lather.

4) they seem to think no one should suffer the slightest discomfort - or at least, women never should. I got news for you, cupcake.

Actually, they seem to encourage certain people to be talked about really bad. Just not people within their specific 'in' group. I see feminists who openly tell all men to just die, I see them attacking feminists who are the wrong type of feminist, I see people being under attack for being Christian, for being transgender, for whatever. Me, I've never been a fan of social movements that divide so many people, even among themselves.

Or I dunno. Feminism has done more good than harm, but any ideology can be taken to a dangerous extreme and I think I've seen a few too many feminists who are doing just that.