Women and skepticism: the hate continues.

You may well be right. Let me explain my (limited) experience with and reaction to those organizations.

I'm an atheist who's annoyed when religious people say that "atheism is a form of fundamentalism" --- I'm annoyed because atheism is the rejection of a set of beliefs, not the affirmation of any alternative or opposite beliefs, so it can't be fundamentalist. But the rhetoric I see and hear in organized atheism lends support to that accusation. Naturally, I'm hearing only the loudest voices.

I would join an organization if I felt I was politically or personally at risk for being an atheist, but I don't think I am or ever have been. I have to wonder what motivates my peers who aren't content simply to reject religion, but must march against it. There's an energetic urge to combat there that I don't share. Why bother to attack when you can just turn your back, or mock if you feel inclined?

So when I see that this energetic misogyny is present in organized skepticism, I equate it with the rest of what I see coming from those quarters. That's all.

Speaking personally, though I have never joined an atheistic or anti-theistic organization, I can tell you that I was very much at risk, both physically and socially, where I grew up, for not being a christian. I was physically assaulted, verbally castigated by teachers, and publically humiliated by school officials on more than one occasion for my refusal to profess devout christian beliefs. That leaves an impression on someone, and I can certainly understand why some people would choose to actively work against the christian mainstream, rather than simply opting out, as I did. Whatever other virtues it may have or espouse, in some places of the nation, mainstream christianity is very much an agent of oppression against nonbelievers. I got off lucky, comparatively. I have very good friends whose lives were made a living hell in school for the crime of not being believers. I can't forgive that. It is not benign.

I would never call American religion or the behavior of typical schoolchildren benign, believe me.

The organized atheists I know grew up in the same places I did, so they didn't have to deal with religious bullying. I'm sure others did have to.

When I was eight,I was a Quaker in a Catholic school.

Eight year olds are not supposed to have nervous breakdowns...

American Secular Census has put out some numbers about women in organized secular groups. This is a survey of people self-reporting so standard disclaimers, yadda yadda. Here's the pull that's going to aggravate people who think their atheism makes them inherently better/more egalitarian than religious people.

Who will be the first to attack the methodology?

Holy shit. My respect for Richard Dawkins and Michael Shermer is now hovering somewhere a few molecules above zero thanks to this thread. I had no idea. This thread has killed my heroes and replaced them with fucking dolts.

"100%/0% - Can't get over my conditioning that religion is good and secularism is bad"

That's the bit that makes me want to strap on the spock ears and say "fascinating." The two-thirds versus one-third rough breakdowns elsewhere are depressing but not surprising, but for that one, a total gender disparity is weird. Culturally, do women get hammered even harder with the message that religion=good, non-religion=bad? Is there a big gender disparity in how "get over" is even interpreted? I'm sure some of the 0% male response is the stereotypical sperglord autodidact supergenius captain-of-my-soul affectation that emotional and cognitive states aren't deeply shot through and affected by past conditioning, so it's the 100% counterpart that really surprises me.

Since it's expressed as a gender ratio, we don't know what the proportion of the full survey it was. Maybe one person responded in that way, and happened to be female?

Mox Jet, apparently.

"Attack" is a bit strong, but yep, sadly, I've let everyone down yet again.

It's a self-reporting survey, so questioning the results is valid. There were also a number of women who refrained from participating because they didn't have faith in the people behind the survey. Some of them are now going back and participating because of this report.

Don't trust leaders, watch the parking meters.

BTW, I'm an insecure nerdy man and I've always found it kind of cool when I can share my hobbies with anyone, male or female. That must be why I ended up with someone who not only doesn't share my interests, but actively hates and/or disdains them all as compared to real men watching The Game before heading out for a round of ice fishing. But I digress...you can certainly see the difference in how women are treated online though, going right back into the BBS days. It doesn't seem to matter what kind of group it is.

http://skepchick.org/2013/02/objectified/

I am glad they keep giving the examples of the daily hate they receive instead of letting themselves being bullied into pretending that there isn't a problem by prominent male skeptics.

While I am in doubt that there is a problem in the "movement" I think reacting to stuff probably posted on /b/ is a bit foolish. Like YouTube comments, this content is entirely designed to get a rise, regardless of what the poster actually believes.

I guess it sucks if you are on the receiving end of it, but comments everywhere are the home of awful and shit contributions by bored people. As shit as they are, aren't they best ignored?

The comments sections of blogs written by straight, white, cisgendered men are by and large (shockingly!) free of things like people talking about how rapeable they are and how their points are invalid because they're ugly and fat and nobody wants to fuck them.

Maybe they should be...<strokes chin deviously>

U GOT A PURDY MOUTH, BOY

In all seriousness, how quickly would the police take things seriously if Richard Dawkins was getting the same kind of threats as Rebecca Watson?

Fuck this planet.

I've been using the internet on a daily basis for 18 years now (jesus christ doing that math) and no, "It's just trolls, ignore them" is not good enough. I've spent more than half my life aggressively, defensively policing my every behavior online so that I wouldn't be too feminine. So that I wouldn't look vulnerable. So that I would build respect and hope that if someone got creepy with me, someone else might actually listen when I speak out about it. You have no idea how many hours of my life have been wasted debating with myself if using smilies makes me look like a target. Or if my sentence structure is insufficiently masculine. Should I use completely neutral user names and risk being "outted" as a woman and punished for going undercover? Should I use aggressively feminine names so no on can accuse me of trying to hide? Should I use edgy yet feminine names and be called a feminist bitch?

Pretty much every single thing about my internet persona is crafted to avoid the harassment people think I deserve for typing while female. That fucking sucks.

Hey, look, male privelege that allows someone to say this sort of buffoonery without bothering to read the article in question. Because I can't imagine how one could read something where someone mentions that they are directly emailed, tweeted and commented this shit on a daily basis and come away from it saying 'hey, they should just ignore all that nasty stuff that is only posted over on /b/'. The specific example given was emailed to her through her blog's contact feature. It's not something she has to seek. The people who hate her for her gender make it known to her on a daily basis, using language and methods of communication that make it certain beyond a doubt that it is meant for her.

You are in doubt that there is a problem with the "movement"? Tell that to the women who have found themselves shat upon by Richard Dawkins. And who have then found themselves enduring a torrent of shit from his fanboys. Christ.

Aw, yeah, I guess it sucks to have people tell you on a daily basis that you should be raped and if they ever see you in real life they will rape you and that you have no greater contribution to the world than in the physical pleasure you can give your betters in the superior sex. I guess. I mean, if you're some kind of fat, crying, hysterical girl about it!

It is incredibly easy (and pretty goddam paternalistic) to say 'hey, just ignore it' when you aren't the one to whom it is happening.

Don't pounce over Calistas too much, I can understand his reasoning. Some folks just want attention, any kind of attention, so I could see that by posting about them on a blog, you feed their desires, so to speak. AKA feeding the trolls. They get off on offending people and getting a rise out of them.

What is this I don't even

You don't get rid of roaches by ignoring them. The first step is shining a light.

In this case ignoring the problem leads to people saying really awesome stuff like "While I am in doubt there is a problem" and "I guess it sucks". If the person who is being harassed never lets people know, no one will ever know that there is a problem. Or if they know there is a problem because they are being harassed, they will never know that it is happening to other people. By creating a web of experiences that can be recognized and traced, it becomes impossible to deny that a problem exists unless you decide to intentionally blind yourself to the truth or you are one of those who are participating in problematic behavior.

Hey guys, remember how we fought racism and homophobia by not talking about it and not calling people out on being racist and homophobic?

Good times.

Light? Fuck that. You get rid of roaches by mercilessly poisoning them.

That's the second step. Fire works, too.

The remarkable thing is that most prominent skeptics attract the ire or morons. But only women receive this kind of vile treatment. Men will be occasionally insulted, sure, but not threatened in this way; also, most of the time the trolls come from the ranks of quacks, or religious fanatics, or ideological enemies, while the people "trolling" the skepchicks identify as skeptics themselves.

The skeptical community does have a big problem, and the problem is that it's chock full of sexist assholes. Personally I started off completely oblivious to the issue and uninterested in feminist criticisms of the skeptical movement - surely, I thought, sexism must be a marginal if not solved problem in a liberal(-ish) community focused on rationality. Then I read around a bit about some of the controversies and holy shit! Holy shit, do skeptics go mental any time a feminist critic dares to speak out. They go fucking rabid. And in the process they prove the point of the feminists beyond any reasonable doubt. As they like to say, go with the evidence.

You don't get people to understand the issue by making their honest mistakes into a reason to be defensive. As an ally, don't attack; try to point out the issue with what somebody wrote without resorting to calling them a cockroach.
I mean this, of course, for when people are making honest efforts to understand. You don't need to coddle people who send others threats of rape, etc.

Who do you believe is being called a cockroach?

Agreed. Calistas probably doesn't recognize the privilege from which he's responding when he shrugs and half-heartedly suggests ignoring "the trolls." I thought Angie's response was spot-on, because she speaks to the issue in a way that makes it very clear why that just doesn't work, and why asking women to do so completely misses the problem. The subsequent responses re: cockroaches and such are less useful and (sadly, IMO) pretty typical around BF.

Calistas. I'm guessing you're asking because I'm wrong. Which is good.

I'm pretty sure he meant to say he has NO doubt about a problem in the movement.

I read Bahimiron's post as calling the people who post that sort of vile bile cockroaches, not calling Calistas one.

No one is calling Calistas a cockroach, you fucking pack of ninnies. Jesus.

It's amazing that a guy can't be bothered to read a blog entry and makes a suggestion based in ignorance and now people who can't actually be bothered to parse the responses to that person are getting all sensitive on his behalf.

Oh, wait, no. It's not amazing. It's (sadly, IMO) pretty typical around BF.

Aw. Passive-aggressive pouty face. :(

Aaron's got it.

Frankly, I don't even see how even a casual reading of what I said makes it seem like I was calling Calistas a cockroach. It's pretty clear that I was using cockroach as a descriptive not of those who say that the problem should be ignored, but as a reference point to a problem that cannot be ignored. The cockroaches are the trolls. Ignoring them only leads to a goddam mess.

I did call him a dumbass. This is because his opinions are dumb. If he doesn't want to be put on the defensive, he should get some better ones.

Usually when a woman posts something like what I just did we get told we are paranoid and hysterical and probably deserve it. So there's very legitimate reasons why not everyone wants to make a post like I did. I only did it because I was fucking furious.

Weird. I don't... you wouldn't accuse everyone else of failing at reading comprehension and then... and then just go ahead and fail at it yourself... would you? I mean, that would be hilarious, don't get me wrong here, but usually you're pretty sharp and that'd be a real amateur-hour kind of move.

To be fair, I accused everyone of failing at reading comprehension after I posted the quoted line.

And I'm still not sure I failed. At least one person clearly assumed I was calling Calistas a cockroach. And really, rereading your post

I'm still not sure where I went wrong. You aren't suggesting I'm calling Calistas a cockroach, so you're just casting general condemnation of the idea of referring to misogynist trolls as cockroaches? So I failed to understand your point, which was that it's not useful to compare a group of genuinely terrible people who use the strength of their anonymity to harass female skeptics to an insect known for hiding in dark places and spreading disease?

If that's really your point, then I guess we'll have to disagree. Comparing the people who tell the bloggers at skepchick that they will rape them if they ever see them at skeptic cons to cockroaches? Seems pretty valid to me.

Read Eduardo's posts. Then look at your posts in the context of being right after Eduardo's posts.

Does Bahimiron's interpretation of your posts make more sense now?

Is that a concern here, on BF? I would hope that you feel you can post that kind of thing without looking over your shoulder, but I don't know if BF is really as accepting and forward-thinking on gender issues as we often like to believe we are.

My comment wasn't so much about your post as about the tendency for some guys on this forum to use posts like Calistas' as an opportunity to indulge in competitve feministing. I don't think it's very useful, but I know it makes for great back-slapping, high-fiving moments. While I understand the appeal of using a good cause to internet-shame someone, as BTG said elsewhere, it can have the effect of turning feminism into a weirdly exclusive club. That doesn't seem like a very effective way to open minds or bring people into the fold who may have good intentions but be unaware of the very real, very frequent attacks that women face both online and off.

Sure, that's fine. You're back on track.