Atheism and misogyny

Richard Dawkins : "But my point is that the 'slightly bad thing' suffered by Rebecca was not even slightly bad, it was zero bad."

To paraphrase Mandy-Rice Davies : "He would say that, wouldn't he".

Nice bit of mansplaining there, Richard.

ooh snap dworkin

this is derailling a bit from the general thrust of the thread, apologies

again, 'not backed up by any proof' isn't quite the same as 'evidence of insuffiently degree of robustness towards securing a conviction in a court'

Chibi,
You are right.I shouldn't have used the word false.I should have said 'not backed up by any proof'.

none of which demonstrates that her accusation is false, only that, as I said previously, prosecutors did not feel that the evidence was robust enough to secure a conviction, and so dropped the case

oh, and she may have lied about other stuff. so what. that doesn't mean her allegation was false. it may mean she may be considered an unreliable witness by a court, but it doesn't invalidate anything and everything she says.

there is a distinction

Although forensic tests found unambiguous evidence of a sexual encounter between Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a French politician, and the woman, prosecutors do not believe much of what the accuser has told them about the circumstances or about herself.

Since her initial allegation on May 14, the accuser has repeatedly lied, one of the law enforcement officials said.

Senior prosecutors met with lawyers for Mr. Strauss-Kahn on Thursday and provided details about their findings, and the parties are discussing whether to dismiss the felony charges. Among the discoveries, one of the officials said, are issues involving the asylum application of the 32-year-old housekeeper, who is Guinean, and possible links to criminal activities, including drug dealing and money laundering. [emphasis mine - ed.]

do you have important evidence that could exonerate Strauss-Khan? I was under the impression that the prosecutors had decided that the evidence against him wasn't robust enough to be able to secure a conviction, and so dropped the case

which isn't quite the same as there was a false allegation - i imagine they would prosecute the woman who made the complaint, and that he would sue otherwise

but if you have any info not available thus far do please share

Hotels are dangerous places.Wasn't it in a hotel that Dominique Strauss khan was falsely accused of sexual assault?

Dawkins whole argument seems to come down to the notion that words are just words, and people have the 'privilege' of finding them offensive or not. But it really isn't worth discussing because they are just words.

Most of his anti-religious argument collapses then, doesn't it? Why does he complain about church schools all the time? They don't beat the children; they just tell them words that Dawkins doesn't agree with.

that is so true.

also, neither do atheists. Dawkins should really stop whinging then, huh, the priviledged so-and-so

Well women in the West DON'T get stoned to death because of adultery.

please elaborate, lollygag

I think Dawkins has a fair point.

You're all making too much of it!

Same old names on here trying to blame the girl or suggest it's an 'Internet' thing when it's quite clear that similar male posts don't attract the same abuse.

I skipped a few pages, so apologies if I missed it, but no, the fact that men also attract abuse online isn't the same as the abuse isn't the same and saying it targets their gender - or 'weaknesses' - is admitting that it's sexist.

I've posted on here about the online misogyny, including graphic sexual threats, that is targeted at women who blog or who gain any media notice eg Gail Trimble of Open University fame. The same people pop up to explain why it's not actually misogyny.

The saddest thing in that article is the suggestion that the atheist section may have been infiltrated by MRAs. Those commenting are most likely not MRAs at all. Just men who feel that it's acceptable to treat girls and women this way online. And why wouldn't they? There are plenty of women on here saying we're all making too much of it and the girl has attracted this attention through her unwise posts. There are no consequences for those who behave like this, so why should they stop.

Well at least now we're getting somewhere.

I'm not sure what's distressing me more right now, the misogynistic wankers on the OP's link or the subsequent bitchfest going on here in response to it. Shameful.

wow noble, so since i misread the number of comments on that thread, my entire argument that the thread contains a lot of shitty rape threats by posters who felt entitled by virtue of the OP being female, and undeterred by the fact that she was underage, and furthermore this is really quite congruent with the endemic misogyny of the internet/human culture as a whole, and thus while not a function of atheism, really unsurprising if depressing...

has been obliterated!

I wus totes wrong! Whatever you say! You are a wizard!

as a side note, are you one of those fun lovin' people who goes around correcting other peoples' grammar and punctuation? i bet you're a real hit at parties

Not sure where the argument is and not sure how many comments.