Atheism and misogyny

[Dworkin]

Some men sink to a new low when it comes to sexually objectifying a 15 year old girl on reddit. Sick and nasty stuff.

skepchick.org/2011/12/reddit-makes-me-hate-atheists/

Why propagate this?

I don't even want to click on it. What is it.

I clicked. That poor girl. Only read the first bit, will have another look later.

To be fair, saying one hates atheism based on posters in Reddit's atheism section is like saying one hates feminism based on posters in MN's Feminism section.

In other news: anonymous internet commenters turn out to be misogynistic and creepy. More at eleven.

It doesn't seem to be about atheism. I don't see any female atheists there fantasising about raping and sexually hurting a 15 year old girl.

@ecclesvet, one of Rebecca's points was the upvoting to the comments under the girls posting. The girl had been given a 'cool book' on atheism by her religious mother and posted a picture of herself holding the book. This was enough for grown men to make sexist remarks.

It may well be the case that r/atheism section has been infiltrated by MRA's but the upvoting was the test for me.

@lollygag - this is my first OP on this thread, though have been a long time lurker - with a couple of posts to other threads. Why would Kat Banyard write an explicit chapter 'The Booty Myth' in her book "The Equality Illusion" regarding porn content? Is she propagating porn by doing that?

The whole point of posting this was that a woman/girl cannot out themselves on internet forums without being subject to sexist and degrading comments btl. This is a feminist issue.

Not going to look because I don't want to see it or even give it clicks, but it has nothing to do with atheism and everything to do with certain men. Not all men, not all atheist men, but those particular men.

It's not the sort of link that should be posted on a site like this.

It's an analysis of some vicious misogyny, it would be odd not to post something like that here.

Well lets all just post links to pornography sites then.I'll start with youporn.

Dworkin, the upvoting was for the bad-taste jokes and pun-runs, no-one meant it seriously. Which isn't to say that bad-taste jokes are fine, but it would be wrong to suggest that that sort of content would still be upvoted without the humour.

Going to the post now, most of the offending comments are hidden, and ones complimenting the gift are higher up the page.

Moderators.Please remove this offensive link.

Are you really unable to tell the difference between a feminist analysis of some hideous misogyny and pornography lollygag?

If you're struggling that much with differentiating then maybe reading and thinking a bit more in this section would be a good idea for you rather than just reflexively posting stupidity.

Ecclesvet, could you give an example of one of these "bad taste jokes" that was upvoted?

Dworkin-ignore lollygag. It is important to recognise how innocent women are turned into objects of sexual violence just for existing online. MRAs have even tried to stalk feminists on here, out with this site.

One silver lining of the Internet is that mysogynists don't bother to hide their beliefs they way they do IRL. This makes their hatred more visible and thus gives easier justification to efforts to fight it.

I thought pornography was hideous misogyny but am happy to stand corrected.

feminist analysis of hideous misogyny

You deliberately missed out two words to change the meaning, so you could continue with this reflexive stupidity. :)

Have reported op to mumnset HQ with suggestion original poster is banned from site.

@stuffed, consider it done.

@eccles, what on earth is humourous about the phrase 'blood is nature's lubricant'?

Has it come to this that women cannot post on a forum as women? A perfectly innocent posting about the child's religious mother giving her a Carl Sagen book, is turned into a display of nasty misogynism.

The link serves to help the young woman, and she posts on it thanking people for their help and support; it also demonstrates that, thankfully, some men DO get it and find sexist behaviour intolerable.

@lollygag - why would I be banned for posting this? You've not clearly demonstrated why you find this offensive.

Well the phrase 'blood is nature's lubricant' offends me for a start.

Dworkin - I don't think you are "propagating" anything by starting a thread here. I am aware that there is a lot of discussion amongst women in the athiest community (on the internet) about the sexism they encounter.

I was quite surprised about it as I think like many I wrongly assumed that athiests would have more enlightened values towards women - but unfortunately just like in trade unions and other left leaning organisations - sexism knows no boundaries.

Rebecca Watson who founded SkepChic is a feminist and there are some interesting lectures on you tube from her around being a female in the athiest community and focussing on what the religious right in the US is doing to women.

You've reminded me that I've meaning to post for a while about a dreadful comment Richard Dawkins made.

Rebecca really respected and liked Richard and they were actually both on a panel at a conference in the summer.

where she talks about hate mail and rape threats.

Then soon afterwards Rebecca blogged about being propositioned in a lift at 3am after a conference (a different one I think) - she'd been talking about sexism and objectification etc and the difficulties being a vocal female athiest - then some bloke follows her to the lift at 3am and says he finds her very interesting. She said in a very light tone on her podcast "hey guys don't do that - especially when I've been talking about receiving rape threats etc" - anyway a whole storm blew up in the athiest community - how dare she have objected to this blah blah. Poor menz can't even ask women out now FFS.

See this blog by another athiest - then Richard Dawkins comments (see comment number 75).

The comment is dreadful but baring in mind that he knows Rebecca and has sat next to her on a panel with her discussing sexism.

He basically wrote a satirical letter addressed to a muslim women "Dear Muslima" extremely crudely referencing her "real" issues and telling this Muslima to stop whining because some american woman was asked for coffee in a lift in the US.

I was so fucked off when I read that. I had liked Richard's books but I cannot respect him now.

There is definitely a big problem with sexism in the athiest community.

The link is a femenist who is disgusted at the treatment of a young girl. How is that offensive?

I.don't think there is any humour in the comments, and the upvoters are as sick as the posters.

forkful.Thanks for the link.If you actually analyse what Dawkins is saying I think you'd have to conclude that he's right.

Thank you forkful. I remember that and I too lost all respect for Dawkins after that. There's no way women can feel included when he makes extremely unhelpful remarks like that. He was basically saying 'Shut up and be grateful for the male gaze western woman, just think of how bad things could be.'

I agree there is a big problem with sexism in the atheist community.

I think that a lot of the male athiests take their cues from biologial determinism being the logical extention from evolution/natural selection.

I would be interested to see what athiest men are saying about religion controlling women's bodies (contraception/abortion/sex outside marriage etc). Perhaps they just aren't that bothered as it doesn't effect them directly?