Women and skepticism: the hate continues.

I would love to be immune to nuclear bombs tho.

You'd be so gross though. So gross. :(


<-- has an irrationally and uncharacteristically girly reaction to cockroaches, which Ingmar finds hilarious

Speaking as a man, who by dint of being a man is clearly manly in all things*, squealing and running for cover when you see cockroaches is clearly the manliest of reactions. So I think you're covered there, Sjofn.

*This is similar to how a lady is always ladylike, because she is like herself. It's just simple logic!

seriously I hate them so much they are the worst

Do I need to come in here with a tupperware and a stiff sheet of card?

Saucy.

Oh you meant for the cockroach. Carry on...

Oh, I don't know.. I think I would have a certain sort of charm!

hey, nothing girly about hating roaches. If me, you, and AaronSofaer are in a room with a pair of these, I'll fucking fight you both for the spot furthest away from them.

Then again, roaches have *nothing* on these:



I would *happily* destroy entire ecosystems if it meant getting rid of the fuckers.

I find this interesting. In the comments section of the Rebecca Watson (skepchick) post that Angie linked earlier, there is a comment from PZ Meyers. PZ has been fantastic on this issue, constantly shining a spotlight on the kind of sexist bullshit that's been going on in the skeptical community. And since he began writing about this issue, apparently he's begun receiving almost exactly the same abuse that female skeptics and bloggers get. I find that interesting, because I'd always purely assumed it was an issue of their contempt for our gender - I'm not sure if this is an outlier, as simple as PZ Meyers being lumped in with us because he talks about the same issues, or if there's something more complicated in play here. I'll quote the comment, below.

If you don't make that your avatar I will shun you.

Seems to me that it's the gendered form of "race traitor" and similar, and the implicit ugliness at the core of "white-knighting" accusations made explicit.

Well, this is interesting.... The amazing atheist?


It's supposed to be funny, I'm sure would be the defense.

I have never looked into the various atheist "personalities" on youtube, which turns out to have been a cosmically great move. I found this summary of TheAmazingAtheist, which confirms what the above video already made clear: he's a colossal failure of a human being with whom I am ashamed to share even the narrowest of metaphysical beliefs. He also seems to be very popular, so unfortunately can't be taken as entirely unrepresentative of the sceptic, atheist (or whatever term is preferred) community.

Another is this guy who also seems like a right prick. And, it seems, uploads videos complaining about how the feminists are making up all the harassment.

Gah.

<------------ WHY HALLO THAR! *scitter scitter*

AUGH

NO

I was certainly amazed by the antics of the amazing atheist. At first I figured he was just a clown, like a court jester, a figure of fun for more serious thinkers. The thunderf00t deal was very depressing; he'd done a few videos I'd found quite interesting and appeared with other people I respect a lot (I heartily recomment AronRa, for example, and I think potholer54 is fantastic). But when the criticism of convention guidelines and policies started, he reacted with the ludicrous "why are you calling me a rapist?" stance and then refused to back down. This kind of "noise" in the ... videosphere? Generates DRAMA that triggers reaction videos, and it's there that you can see these stances and opinions are actually commonly held. All the videos of men clumsily saying "there is no problem!" itself forms all the evidence I need that there is a serious problem.

Urgh, that quote on rape survivors is just... well thanks for the link Lhowon, I'm glad I won't have to look at all his videos to make my mind, I've seen enough X__x

The Amazing Atheist is the guy who likes bananas a little TOO much, just, no NOT SAFE FOR ANYONE DON'T CLICK THIS.

Jesus... that's quite a website you've linked to....
Am I naive for having never seen it before?

Oh god the poetry

ONE OF US
ONE OF US

Yes

Why would you copy paste a thing like that!?!?

Honestly I could care less about the whole bananagate thing. I just hate that he's an MRA buffoon whose prime directive seems to be "act as confrontational as possible," which gives him a lot of points with his choir but does absolutely nothing to introduce new people to the skepticism or atheism movements.

ALL MUST SUFFER

That wiki, I just can't.

Seriously, I don't have the will to contemplate how this is a hobby for people.

Rebecca Watson sits on a panel about Reddit at SXSW. Results are sadly predictable.

That bit about Alan Schaaf is really disappointing. I actually had an Imgur tab open while reading that, and I closed it. That'll show him.

I'm just going to leave this here. I thought about digging up that obnoxious "you tried" gold star gif, but I couldn't be bothered.

I disagree.

Considering how things stood when I left the atheism and skepticism movement, "maybe we should moderate message boards and comments" is positive movement. Having to treat everyone like a special snowflake and call them to ask them why they are being hateful fucks is decidedly not, and don't be dramatic or divisive is the same old tone argument as always.

God, can you even imagine a blog post about how women are treated in the movement generating phonecalls from people demanding to know why you are making atheism look bad? On top of the rape and murder threats that will eventually be moderated from the comments, of course.

Good god. The owner of imgur should be ashamed of himself.

Apart, possibly, from the rape/death threats I would imagine that similar calls not to besmirch the movement are often levied against people trying to call a prevailing odious culture into question in idealogical/religious/poltical movements. I think the same would go for other groups that people identify with strongly, like police or armed forces etc, as well.

Here are some responses to the Open Letter from Secular Woman, Secular Census, and Skepchick that go into why this is wholly inadequate.

Jesus. Some chicks are impossible to please.

Sigh..

Yes RyanMM I know but sometimes it isn't funny if you have heard it said to you in absolute seriousness. I did not for a moment think the statement was in reality and if I did it would have been a 3 page rant. Probably incoherent but a rant none the less.

As it was , it just got a sigh.

Odd... it's precisely because I've heard that kind of trash spoken sincerely that I find that kind of joke funny. Gallows humor, and all that.

*shrug* Different humor for different folks, I guess.