Dawkins: At War With The Feminists?

[stripes4]

SLAP!!!

[Geoff]

[JimC]

No. I am not concerned, I CAN JUST SEE THAT IN CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES IT WOULD MAKE SOME WOMEN FEEL A BIT THREATENED AND NOT VERY SAFE. Like it or not, rape happens. Females raping males is rare and biologically unlikely!!! Men DO rape women so women DO tend to be on their guard when alone and it's late and it's dark and there aren't many people around. Men that do NOT understand and appreciate this are autistic morons, I've found. DO YOU UNDERSTAND YET??? PROBABLY NOT. See recent DIAGNOSIS

It is perfectly understandable for a woman to feel uneasy in some elevator/late night/man asking her back for coffee scenarios. Men should indeed have the sensitivity to recognise these contexts, and keep invitations to coffee for other times.

However, what was irritating about the original blog was the the somewhat exaggerated way the incident was fitted into a particular brand of feminist theorising, one that does tend to tar all men with the same brush...

Even avuncular, bearded chaps wearing cardigans...

[Gallstones]

For the record, regardless of context, I--me--am not going to the hotel room of some guy I don't know and never met. I don't care what he says he wants to do there with me.

So, then if a guy asks you there for coffee, and you say no thanks, and he goes off on his merry way, has something misogynistic happened?

No.

Odd thing though, there are men who will say a woman's refusal of an advance is a refusal to submit to her role and is, in their perverse minds, misogynistic.

If she refuses him has anything misandrous happened?

[Gallstones]

When a woman says, "I don't like this. Don't do this" Fucking don't do it. Get it?

When a guy doesn't "do" anything, but merely asks her up for coffee, then he didn't do anything to stop doing. When she says "no" and he says "o.k., have a good night." Then nobody has done anything wrong. Get it?

Fuck you. You aren't paying any attention to what I get or don't get.

Don't call her frigid or a nut or a harpy.

You must be thinking of someone else.

Since I don't know you, I can't mean you, now can I?

When we say these things we are doing you a favor--it is so you can be successful in connecting or even hooking up. Make sense?

Not in the least. You're not talking about what actually happened in the incident in question. You're apparently referring to some other incident where someone was told that a woman didn't like something done to her, and refused to stop doing it. That has about as much to do with some guy asking a woman up to his room for coffee and her saying no, and he saying o.k., as a rabbit with a pancake on its head. Make sense?

Now I am talking about you--you don't get it.

[Gallstones]

not automatically, no. I didn't say that, as well you know.

So, based on exactly what Skepchick said, what's the big deal about the dork asking her to his room for coffee? She said no. He left.

Big deal?

It was a non-event, until Dawkins chimed in.
Get that?

[Gallstones]

No. I am not concerned, I CAN JUST SEE THAT IN CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES IT WOULD MAKE SOME WOMEN FEEL A BIT THREATENED AND NOT VERY SAFE. Like it or not, rape happens. Females raping males is rare and biologically unlikely!!! Men DO rape women so women DO tend to be on their guard when alone and it's late and it's dark and there aren't many people around. Men that do NOT understand and appreciate this are autistic morons, I've found. DO YOU UNDERSTAND YET??? PROBABLY NOT. See recent DIAGNOSIS

In certain circumstances yes, but this wasn't one of them.

Like most people who've posted, I really don't see why she thought it worth mentioning.

Here's the problem with Monday morning quarterbacking, none of us were there to witness body language, or affect or tone of voice or anything. We are all speculating and we can only speculate based on what we know and what we have experienced ourselves.

Anger doesn't come from out of nowhere--so there is some fire with all this smoke.

And another thing, I'm fucking tired of being asked to be considerate of the feelings of the poor (allegedly) shy and socially awkward man--I have insecurities too, like for my personal safety.

[hadespussercats]

Haha. Charlou. It must be something about fantasising about having the 'decision' taken out of your hands. I wonder?? In REALITY, I think I would feel a bit nervous and vulnerable to be propositioned in a lift. In a bar, a club, a supermarket, or any other area with other people milling about, bring it on!!! but for me, if a man made the decision to proposition me in a confined space and with no one else in view, at best I would think him an insensitive dick head.

Context is important. He hadn't just seen Watson in the elevator-- he'd been listening to her talk about sexualization/objectification of women, for hours. How is it not clueless of him to ignore everything she said? If you want a woman not to feel objectified, paying attention to her clearly stated likes and dislikes is a good place to start.

And how is it not clueless of him not to realize that asking someone back to your place has a different effect when it's four in the morning and you're alone in an elevator, versus maybe asking her back at the bar, before she decided to leave? Or at any other point in the long day he'd spent as part of her audience?

Just saw you there, XC-- and...word.

But, is coming on to a woman one finds attractive, even in a clumsy or "inappropriate" manner, to be considered the sexualization/objectification of women? I mean, surely women who don't like to be objectified still might like to ride the baloney pony now and again?

How is it ignoring everything she said to make a clumsy attempt to ask her back to his room for coffer? Maybe he really did want to have a chat and grab a cup of coffee - it was 4am. Lots of people like a bit of coffee when it's late and they've been up all night.

As for the choice of location. He may well have not had an opportunity to talk to her. Maybe he was nervous. Maybe he wound up with her in the elevator purely by chance and thought "what the hell, I'll be nice and try to non-sexually ask her for a cup of java" to show her that he was a modern man who can invite a woman back to his room for something other than banging her. That's "clueless?" Maybe he had no interest in her except for intellectually - she's not that hot anyway, so maybe the guy really did want to have a chat?

I think one needs to make some really big assumptions about this guy in order to question his motives and call him clueless. And, even if he is clueless, and found her attractive but went about it the wrong way asking her in the wrong place at the wrong time - for the love of noGod - was the error of such monumental proportions that he is now to be considered a woman-hating sexist pig? From his clumsy approach, he sounds more like a nerd or a geek who had a couple two many drinks and made a dopey attempt to get to know this chick.

I'm not calling him a woman-hating sexist pig. Rebecca Watson didn't call him that, either. Her ire, as I understand it, was primarily directed at Dawkins' ridiculous response to her anecdote about a you-say-dopey, I-say-clueless (and the difference is...?) dude who asked her back to his hotel room in the wee hours of the morning.

As for whether his request that she come back to his room for coffee, after they'd incidentally just left a place that served coffee, was sexual in tone... you're right-- it might not have been a come-on. Maybe he was just that socially retarded that he didn't realize that to most people, getting someone alone at four in the morning and asking her to come back to your hotel room might likely come across as a come-on.

I'm glad you brought up that consideration. We've neglected the possibility that Rebecca Watson is poking fun at the socially retarded. And it's not nice to make fun of people who are challenged.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

For... research purposes, could those Ratz ladies that would be comfortable with me shagging them stupid in a lift please let me know so that I don't accidentally commit some gross faux pas? kthx.

[MrJonno]

Posted this on ratskep as well

Been to Skepchick site and I've come to a conclusion this isnt a Male versus Female thing its a American conservative (small c) culture versus British/Irish cultural thing.

I gather that in America the normal way of starting a relationship is find someone you have something in common with, go on a few dates confirm this have sex.

That is pretty rare in the UK (and I bet Ireland), where the norm is find someone you don't know that well but think is a bit fit ,get drunk, wait till they are drunk , seperate target from friends (as they can be judgemental even through they do the same thing) make pass , get rejected or accepted, have sex, then start going on dates and determine if you have enough in common to contiune the relationship.

Ever person who I know in the UK who is in a relationship started it by the 2nd method not the American date method

[Audley Strange]

The responses to this have been somewhat predictable though as usual fascinating. It would seem to me that since sexual abuse of women not only happens but is commonly reported and is feared, it would make sense that given certain settings many women are likely to feel anxious and vulnerable around men regardless of the men's intention. As such what might be an innocent attempt by a man to talk to a woman, perhaps even an attempt to make a woman in such a situation feel less anxious may end up increasing it.

How many of us guys have been alone at night and seen a gang of boisterous drunk guys coming towards us and wondered if they were going to start something? More often than not they just keep going yes? Does that invalidate the sense of caution? I remember on such incident where said guys noting me attracted my attention which instinctively raises the game so to speak, I felt like I should turn or confront them but as it was they were quite innnocent, they offered me a pizza having bought one to many.

Completely innocent, Friendly even but that does not them make me think all such gangs of drunken guys are going to be the same.

I don't think it unreasonable to make people aware that in certain settings people can feel vulnerable. In fact I'd say if anything what it is, is an attempt to introduce some social manners into a fuzzy situation.

Given that women ARE raped and abused and given that men DO have the shit kicked out them by gangs of other men, would it be reasonable for the bumbling Dawkins to suggest that men who are nervous in the West when confronted by gangs should suck it up since in Somalia there are gangs that would chop him to death with machetes?

I think not. While I agree wholeheartedly that there is a lot of ludicrous Feminist Claptrap. Asking a man not to approach you in a lift at 4 in the morning pales in comparison. As I say I see it more a suggestion of manners or courtesy.

[Tyrannical]

Feminists are at least as deluded as theists. Why shouldn't they be an open target for ridicule?

[devogue]

I consider myself sane and mostly rational and I think Dawkins was wrong and Rebecca Watson did nothing outrageous or deserving of his ridicule.

It has been a fact, in my lifetime and in Richard's, that women in the western world suffered violence at the hands of men--their partners and fathers--and had no legal recourse. Similar in extent to what some women still suffer in some non-western cultures. It hasn't been that long, for those of you who have no experience of that. And it hasn't been that long--because it still happens today--that women are blamed for the violence they experience at the hands of men, even though they do have legal recourse now. So attitudes are not that changed yet.

And for a person who has survived a sexual assault, the attitudes of some of the people they encounter after, even when good intentioned, reinforces the emotional trauma. So pardon us for being sensitive, OK?

All of what you say is true and I really, honestly, completely agree with you.

But it is completely removed from this woman's rather trivial experience!

How/why are you qualified to make that^^ assessment?

Do you know from a reliable source that Rebecca has no experiences in her history that could have sensitized her to feel uncomfortable when approached for "coffee in my hotel room", in an elevator at 4 AM?

Or does her receiving weekly (and even daily) rape threats for several years in a row, as a response to her being an outspoken woman atheist, not qualify as a sensitizing experience?

Or is a requirement for having "good enough atheist credentials" or "being adult enough for the Internet" to never take email threats seriously - to never react with worry or disgust, whatever the wording of the threat has been, however often the threats have come, however often from the same sender?

Or does a person not taking one's word for that one dislikes X (getting hit on in crude and clumsy ways in Rebecca's case, which is what she had been talking about for a part of that day and also a part that evening/night, specifically with the group in the hotel bar) not qualify as a reason for making someone (male or female) feel uncomfortable?

Doubting a person's word is IMO per definition disrespectful and therefore likely to cause a negative reaction (e.g "feeling uncomfortable") - in various contexts showing that one doubts another person's word could very well be described with terms like "guilt-tripping", "objectifying", "dominating", sexists" or "trollish".

Her experience in the hotel lift was rather trivial. Nothing happened.

Man asks woman to share coffee with him. Woman says no. Man says 'k.

=

trivial.

No violence, no rape threat, no sexual assault, no need for legal recourse, no emotional trauma, no disrespect, no nastiness, no objectifying. Nothing.

The lift door opens five seconds later, trivial encounter is over.

Imagine the furore if the fucker had farted in the lift.

[MrJonno]

No violence, no rape threat, no sexual assault, no need for legal recourse, no emotional trauma, no disrespect, no nastiness, no objectifying. Nothing.

I think its the objectifying bit that people are complaining about but I'm not exactly sure what is meant be it.

People have multiple parts of their nature and sexual object is one of them. There are times when only some should be relevant, when my boss asks me to do something at work he isnt doing it as a friend or someone who needs one, he isn't doing it because I'm a forum warrior he's doing it because I know something about email systems.

I'm quite sure there are times when people want sex with someone else and arent particuarly interested in whether they are high level philosophers but quite simply because they have tits, so what!

[devogue]

No violence, no rape threat, no sexual assault, no need for legal recourse, no emotional trauma, no disrespect, no nastiness, no objectifying. Nothing.

I think its the objectifying bit that people are complaining about but I'm not exactly sure what is meant be it.

People have multiple parts of their nature and sexual object is one of them. There are times when only some should be relevant, when my boss asks me to do something at work he isnt doing it as a friend or someone who needs one, he isn't doing it because I'm a forum warrior he's doing it because I know something about email systems.

I'm quite sure there are times when people want sex with someone else and arent particuarly interested in whether they are high level philosophers but quite simply because they have tits, so what!

Good point.

I "objectify" Mrs Dev when we have sex and she "objectifies" me. I like to give her a good fucking and she likes to get it. None of that "making love" romantic sanitised shit.