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/

I'm sure you don't mean it like that, but saying, well there are sexists all over reddit, she should have known better, posting a picture, it's karma whoring, it was obvious what was going to happen, reddit is well known for it - all that type stuff - I can see why you are saying it but it's basic victim blaming stuff. That she should have known better than to post a pic, she should have known better than to use certain slang, she should have known. That's what people always say when women end up in bad situations.

She was 15, she posted a picture of herself with a book in order to talk about athiesm, then hundreds of men told her they wanted to rape her anally until she bled. How would you feel?

"That she should have known better than to post a pic, she should have known better than to use certain slang, she should have known. That's what people always say when women end up in bad situations. "

"she posted a picture of herself with a book in order to talk about athiesm"

If you post to an internet community then it is not unreasonable to expect that you have some awareness of the community to which you are posting and how it works. On Reddit, if a pretty female posts a picture of herself with a geeky object then that looks like karma whoring. It is not unreasonable to expect a redditor to know what karma whoring is. If you want a serious discussion of atheism and you post a picture that looks like karma whoring, then you definitely shouldn't refer to your anus. I am not saying and have never said that rape threats are or should be the expected response to that situation. But any regular poster on Reddit would know that a karma whoring picture followed by an anus reference would not kick off a nice atheism debate, so the comments about how this 15 year old rocked up to an atheist community (it isn't) and posted a nice post about what her mum got her for Christmas and didn't get a nice discussion about atheism, isn't that appalling are just showing a complete ignorance of Reddit. She shouldn't have expected a nice conversation about atheism given the community she was posting to and the thread she posted. If she did then it is not victim-blaming to point out that she should be expected to know the basic rules of how a community works before posting to it. That is nothing to do with her being female and it is also not saying that the rules of that community are good or right.

"I don't understand why you think the author should not have a complaint about what happened to this girl, your idea is that there are worse things out there?"

I don't think that at all. Again you seem to be putting words into my mouth. I said that this incident was terrible and that it was reasonable to write about it in horror. It is unreasonable to write about it as an example of how atheists are awful.

I thought she posted it in an athiest sub-community of reddit? And do 15yo girls really post photos of their faces holding books in order to illicit men to say they want to kidnap and rape them, in very graphic language?

I keep reading what you are saying and absolutely you are saying that she should have known better and she was asking for it.

It's exactly the same as saying, well she went out in a short skirt after dark, what did she expect, she should have anticipated what she would be walking into.

"She shouldn't have expected a nice conversation about atheism given the community she was posting to and the thread she posted. If she did then it is not victim-blaming to point out that she should be expected to know the basic rules of how a community works before posting to it. That is nothing to do with her being female"

How is it nothing to do with her being female? The males who had posted pictures of themselves with books didn't get lots of men saying stuff like that to them.

The idea seems to be that in real life and on the internet, some places are no go areas and if women are stupid enough to go there then they get what's coming to them. I think that is wrong. The fact that it is widely accepted to make these comments to a 15yo girl on teh internet reflects the fact that so many people think the same is true of real life - and that if anything bad happens to a female it must be because they didn't understand the rules properly, they were reckless, they put themselves at risk and all the rest of it. Nothing to be said at all about the fact that such places even exist, and that it is widely accepted that they exist as just a normal thing.

It's a terrible state of affairs.

I suppose my point is, they knew this was a real life girl who was 15 and had posted something innocuous, could they not have restrained from posting rape fantasies to her? Is that really too much to ask? I just don't think it is. But apparently I am in a minority there.

"could they not have restrained from posting rape fantasies to her"

But they didn't do that. They posted rape jokes amongst themselves, albeit recklessly as she could see it too.

Sardine, I don't think you're in the minority at all and I think you're spot on in your posts regarding noblegiraffe. It is a terrible state of affairs.

@noble. It's not unreasonable to write about how some atheists are awful, for I don't think for one minute Rebecca means that all are awful. You are clearly and willfully misrepresenting in order to to make a point (though what that is is not so clear).

Not at all sq, i totally agree, and am impressed at the lengths some people will go to in order to make this be about the girl in question - what she said, how she said it etc

let's absolutely not talk about the posters who said on that thread that blood and tears were nature's lubricants, oh no

let's not talk about the legion of atheists (and others) who did not then leap on those posters and tell them to stop saying rapey shit to a 15 year old

yup, she should have known.

fwiw the atheist community/atheists as a cohort will be just as misogynist as the rest of the culture

"I thought she posted it in an athiest sub-community of reddit?"

As I have said many times now on this thread, top posts on the atheist sub-community of reddit are also cross-posted to the main page of reddit. As I said before it is as if you posted on Feminism but your thread was also linked to from AIBU and Chat and then you use the content of that thread to slate feminists. Except Reddit is global and Mumsnet is tiny in comparison. The homepage of Reddit is visited by 0.8% of all global users of the internet. They serve 1.6 billion pages per month. 21.5 million people visit the site every month. That's an awful lot of potential contributors to that thread. In comparison the atheism subreddit has about 350,000 subscribers, so to suggest that the actions on that thread are the fault of the reddit atheists when millions of other users could have seen and contributed to it is a bit of a stretch.

"And do 15yo girls really post photos of their faces holding books in order to illicit men to say they want to kidnap and rape them, in very graphic language?"

No, of course not, and I have never said that. I have said that rape threats would and should not be the expected response. I have also said that a jolly thread soley about atheism would not be the expected response. However, women on reddit do on occasion post photos of their faces holding geeky books in order to elicit responses which sexually objectify them and in order to get upvotes based on their attractiveness rather than the purported topic of discussion.

"It's exactly the same as saying, well she went out in a short skirt after dark"

No it's not. It is saying that she went to a particular site on the internet with particular rules and a particular way of doing things and posted in a particular way on that site which would be recognised and responded to in a particular way, so wondering why she got a non-atheist discussion response to a reference to her anus is silly when the answer is obvious. She also got plenty of atheist discussion, btw. And she also got horrific rape threats which is completely unacceptable and which have been condemned by many on reddit and which have also been condemned by me, a point which some on here seem intent on missing.

ecclesvet what on earth are you talking about? If they had posted them in a private facebook group then I could see your POV but on a conversational thread it is a little different.

I also don't see how anyone can be certain (unless they have read the entire thing and know the people in question) that all of the comments were "jokes" or that none were posted "at" her.

@ecclesvet (TW for explicit content.)

"?The jeans I?m wearing right now are older than her. But then again, they?re full of holes.?

?Aaaaaand so is she??

?I was trying not to, but it needed to be said.?

"Relax your anus, it hurts less that way." Has 1,715 upvotes.

?Relax your anus, it hurts less that way.? (+1715, -648)

Followed by

?Blood is mother nature?s lubricant.? (+570, -175)

How are those not in any way to the girl.

Apols for repeating content but FGS it's not like there were a few chaps saying "ooh she's quite nice looking I'd quite like to see her drawers" or something.

Which would still be inappropriate given that the girl is 15 etc etc

"let's not talk about the legion of atheists (and others) who did not then leap on those posters and tell them to stop saying rapey shit to a 15 year old"

Did you read the thread? Did you ignore the posters telling them to stop saying rapey shit to a 15 year old?

How about these?

"Redditers tell her that they like her because she's attractive. First of all, sending the wrong message to an impressionable young girl. Second, making all of us look like creepy pervs. And, third, possibly scaring away a young female member of a movement which, let's face it, is male dominated."

"People like you are why I'm considering transferring my domains back to GoDaddy in hopes that SOPA passes and reddit gets shut down."

"lol we're just pointing out how there are a lot of creepy frustrated dudes who are commenting on your post. Reddit is kind of an ultra misogynistic place."

"I'm sorry, anonymity breeds assholes. I hope you enjoy the book greatly! You should watch cosmos if you have not yet, before Neil deGrasse Tyson makes his new one."

"Let me guess, she'd be perfect for you? How about you get a fucking life and not perv on random 15 year olds on the internet. Man, do guys really think most girls don't like talking about butts and poo just because they are girls?"

"WTF is wrong with all the sad people that feel the need to make overt sexual comments to a 15 year old girl? Fuck off to FreeOnes if you're in need of a quick wank. Call to arms to my fellow male atheists: Show the bastards talk of rape etc. is not done!"

"I think it has more to do with the emotionally crippling loneliness that can come with spending a lot of time online. It's a bit sexist, but mostly it's just an ignorance of appropriate social behavior. Not that this excuses it, of course, it's actually quite embarrassing as an r/atheism member."

"I think it's interesting this post is getting drama. "OMG, you're upvoting her because she's a girl and she's cute!" And spawning secondary threads.
When none of this drama would have happened if it was just a normal looking dude with the same story.
Stop being doucebags, reddit. Metadrama is lame."

"Don't give up. Not every male around here is a misogynistic tool bag. There are quite a few, and this is the internet -- an often male dominated land where people feel free to say or do anything they want because of the anonymity and, further, where people feel that it's okay to mercilessly make fun of people for no reason whatsoever (and then call it "trolling".)
Still, I think you should stick around. The more people we have around here who aren't misogynistic tools the better."

"anyone who is anything within the thinking world will take you seriously for the ideas and thoughts you have, not for your gender. don't worry about it, and sorry for the general sexual bent of the comments from the general community."

Shall we talk about them? There are many posts on that thread doing exactly what you just said no one did. Try not to speak from a position of ignorance, eh?

"The idea seems to be that in real life and on the internet, some places are no go areas and if women are stupid enough to go there then they get what's coming to them. I think that is wrong. "

Hey, I think that it's wrong too. Why didn't Rebecca Watson write that piece? Why did she write an 'Atheists Suck' piece in its place?

noblegiraffe I don't know what you are on about. You seem to have a bee in your bonnet about something that no-one on the thread is saying.

Your points seem to be

• Not all athiests are sexist arseholes and that thread can't be used as evidence that they are
• There were people on the thread who were disgusted with what happened

Yes we all know that, we all agree, so I'm not sure why you are labouring the point given that we all agree with you but never mind.

Additionally there is your point of she did something stupid and what did she expect etc etc which to me anyway is extremely problematical for the reasons I have said so many times.

I'm not the author of the piece NG so quite frankly I have no fucking idea.

You are trying to manufacture an argument when no-one here is disagreeing with you and it's tiresomes

Sardine, Dworkin - those comments were replies to other ones, so they weren't directed to her in the sense that she wouldn't have received 'orangereds' (notifications of replies to your comment). But yes, like I said, she would have been able to see them if she were to read through all the comments on the post.

SQ, it is strange that once again you are suggesting that I am not allowed to discuss the article that was put up for discussion in the OP, nor am I allowed to post comments discussing things which have come up in this thread, merely because you don't give a shit.

You can post whatever you like but why are you posting the same thing over and over again in an argumentative fashion when no-one is actually disagreeing with you?

I get that you have issues with the article, you have outlined them about 150 times. But none of us wrote the article so I'm not sure what you are hoping to achieve.

ecclesvet that is a terribly weak excuse for their behaviour. You seem to be implying that it would be unusual for people to read the responses to something that they posted. That;s a bit of a stretch, isn't it?

I mean, even with this example of really appalling behaviour there are people saying, ah yes, well, but, excuse, excuse, etc

Why do people find it so hard to say what happened was wrong and disgraceful full stop.

"Additionally there is your point of she did something stupid and what did she expect etc etc which to me anyway is extremely problematical for the reasons I have said so many times."

Are you suggesting that people should never pay attention to the rules of the community to which they contribute? If the expected responses are clearly laid out in the style of the community to which you are contributing? If you say WOHM are uncaring or FF is shit on mumsnet and you get pissy responses, then it is entirely the fault of the message board and not yours for assessing whether your comments are in the appropriate style to get the response you seek?

(I feel the need to say once again, because you keep ignoring this, I am not saying that the expected response was the rape threats that she got, but rather not the jolly atheist discussion some seem to suggest she should have experienced).

But she got rape threats.

So how does your comment make any sense.

Even under the usual standards of that community there was no way of predicting that was going to happen.

"But none of us wrote the article"

Dworkin however saw fit to start a thread inviting discussion about it. And post comments such as 'It may well be the case that r/atheism section has been infiltrated by MRA's' so an explanation of how the post reached a much wider audience than r/atheism is valid.

And 'A perfectly innocent posting about the child's religious mother giving her a Carl Sagen book' so an explanation of how her posting wouldn't be seen as perfectly innocent by the Reddit community is also warranted.

Forkful posted 'I was quite surprised about it as I think like many I wrongly assumed that athiests would have more enlightened values towards women '
Dworkin posted 'I agree there is a big problem with sexism in the atheist community.'
Forkful posted 'I think that a lot of the male athiests take their cues from biologial determinism being the logical extention from evolution/natural selection.'
Dworkin posted 'and given that a lot of male atheists have a scientific background or a skeptical mind, they know exactly the cause and effect that controlling women has. They aren't that bothered because they think women are there for sexual gratification only. '

So my post about how atheism and misogyny have nothing to do with each other was entirely warranted in response to these comments.

You then replied
"noblegiraffe I am sure that no-one on here takes this as evidence that all athiests are sexist monsters. So that is a bit off topic really."

It's clearly not off topic. And clearly there are people on here suggesting a link between an atheist mindset and sexism. Please allow me to reply to them without making it all about you, hmm?