OK, Let’s try this one last time.
If you want to achieve a goal then it helps to engage in steps to fulfill that goal.
If goal = increase female attendance at conferences then it helps to engage in steps to fulfill that goal.
A good strategy has been hit upon–one of the steps you’re taking to fulfill that goal is to ask women who attend and don’t attend the conferences what might make the atmosphere more welcoming to women attendees.
If a woman attendee says in good faith, one of the problems is that, when they do attend, many ladies feel they are being constantly hit on in slightly creepy ways (and here, she specifies, is an example) then correct responses to the solicited information include:
Listening in good faith, evaluating whether there are ways to address the problem without infringing on other things you value about the convention, responding in good faith.
Correct responses do not include:
Calling her a bitch, a hysteric, a man-hater.
If goal = I, a man, would like to tempt this lady into sexytimes then it also helps to engage in steps to fulfill that goal.
Among other good strategies, listen to ladies when they explain why an approach may or may not work.
If a woman says in good faith, an approach that probably won’t work is to make a cold advance at a stranger who has previously expressed disinterest in such advances when you are both in a confined space at 4am in the morning, because (despite your assured best intentions) this is a situation in which violence could (and does) occur, then correct responses to the information include:
Listening in good faith, evaluating whether or not the objection is reasonable and can be incorporated into one’s behavior without infringing on other things one values, responding in good faith.
Correct responses do not include:
Calling her a bitch, a hysteric, a man-hater.
If goal = I, as a socially awkward person, want other people to understand that when I enter situations where my actions could be misinterpreted, I’m not malevolent, just clueless then… and you’ll be shocked by this… it helps to engage in steps to fulfill *that* goal, too.
Strategies can include: gathering information about social interactions when people attempt to make those rules explicit so that you can more easily intellectualize and follow them.
If a woman says in good faith that while any given stranger–including you!–probably has the best, if somewhat clueless, intentions, sometimes strangers don’t… and if she adds that therefore you should avoid making sexual advances when the object of your desires is confined and isolated… then correct responses to this information include:
Listening in good faith, evaluating whether or not this guideline makes sense and can be incorporated into an intellectualized set of social rules, responding in good faith.
Correct responses do not include:
Ignoring everything the fuck out of everything that just happened so that you can insinuate that she called you, personally, a rapist.
Smartest and most straightforward commentary I’ve read on this in a while.
Brilliant. Well-put, I’ve rambled for ages, and this is the point. *Applauds*
Nice! Well done.
I’ve been waiting for this for a week or so !
It’s nicely written.It saddens me to see that so many of my fellow atheists, supposedly rational people, didn’t get the idea by now.
Actually there’s three things that Rebecca Watson did wrong that partly explain the reaction to her:
A. Yes, she was fair to Elevator Man in that she didn’t name him or call him any obnoxious names. On the other hand, she had quite a bit to say about misogyny and atheism and so its easy to see how people misunderstood? and thought she was lumping Elevator Man in with misogynists.
B. No, she was not fair at all to Stef McGraw. The format of the discussion she was at prevented any rebuttal, and putting Ms. McGraws comments in amongst a bunch of horrible misogynistic personal attacks that Ms. Watson had received was unfair.
C. I fully intend to buy some of Dawkins books that I do not already own specifically due to Watson’s call for a boycott. One doesn’t have to agree with R. Watson to be a good skeptic or atheist, and I find the emotional over reaction from this supposed female leader of the community distasteful.
That’s my take on the whole thing.
Instant Fail. See:
And the emotional over reaction of a male leader in the community (Dawkins) is admirable, in fact, so much so that we should give him money for it. Hooray!
I love sexism.
That’s almost like saying don’t call a spade a spade.
I mean , really, boycott Richard Dawkins? That man has accomplished more for the skeptic community (and dare I say the world community ) than just about anyone else in the community, and if he makes people on the left and on the right see red than it just goes to show me he’s not afraid to speak what he regards as the truth. I applaud him for that, same as I supported the right of Ms Watson to talk about her experience with Elevator Guy. Indeed, had it ended there, I’d probably be one of the ones defending her and saying she was misunderstood. It’s really her reaction to Dawkins and McGraw and how she handled them and the reactions of some her more radical supporters (which she isn’t responsible for, though I haven’t seen her disavow them) since that have created my bad perception of her.
I’ll gladly retract my statement and indeed I’ll even join her boycott if someone can explain to me in rational language (without using arguments about privilege or misogyny) an interest of the skeptical community that will be served by the boycott, and if one can balance this interest against the other interest of people in the atheist and skeptical communities being able to speak their mind without excommunication from the “church”.
Is there an actual, organized boycott going on? Or just some folks saying they’ve been put off from buying his books? It’s not the same thing.
Arguments that mention privilege or misogyny (i.e., arguments that mention sexism) are automatically irrational.
Good to know.
Rebecca Watson said she, personally, wasn’t going to bother reading Dawkins anymore.
That’s not even close to a boycott. Sorry, Clarence, you’re being hysterical.
@Clarence: So honesty matter more than trying to make your beliefs fit reality? How far should we take this principle?
Dawkins used bad arguments and a trivially false claim about escaping from elevators in order to mock a fellow atheist. This deserves a few words of reproach, if in fact we value truth-seeking.
Clarence, you’re so emotional about this whole thing that in @5, where you were telling us ‘three things’ that Watson did wrong, you actually gave us two, and the ‘third thing’ was actually your opinion on why she was so awful. You couldn’t even keep up the pretense of objective discussion that long.
There was a rough sequence of events here:
1) Watson made some comments about Elevator Guy as part of a longer speech.
2) Atheist community blew up with controversy over #1.
3) Dawkins injected himself into the controversy with a fallacious argument.
4) Lots of other atheists reacted to #2 and #3.
5) Watson commented on 1-4.
6) Watson stated that she, personally, would no longer choose to give money to Dawkins given #3.
It’s funny, listening to the controversy, to see how many people angry at Watson pretend that the sequence was something like 1, 4, 2, 3, or who completely ignore 2 and 4 and pretend that 3 was actually something clever, and who think that 5 was a call for a general boycott of some sort.
(If you can’t imagine why Great Leader Dawkins could be thought ill of, try this: imagine that an atheist made a comment about “I went to a football game, and my friends decided to lead the whole audience in Christian prayer, and that was not cool, yo” – and then some theist leader posted a reply to “Dear Oppressed Atheist in A Muslim Country,” expressing fake sorrow for the fact that said atheist lived with the daily threat of harassment, violence and death for simply not wishing to participate in the dominant faith, but oh, you see, Oppressed Atheist, some privileged white atheist guy in America, who has the Establishment Clause and the ACLU ready to ride in and protect him, was made uncomfortable at a football game. I don’t think in those circumstances, skeptics would have a shred of difficulty perceiving the cluelessness, the condescension, the not-my-problem-so-shut-up attitude, and the plain ol’ logical fallacy of ‘if somebody else has it worse, you cannot possibly have a problem’.)
The reaction from the atheist community is hardly unique; you see it all the time in subcultures where people pin a lot of their identity to membership in that subculture and see it as making them a cut above. (SF/F fandom and LGBT groups are two obvious examples.) And so when somebody within that group says that there is a problem of exclusion or hostility, you get some very predictable reactions:
1) People are angry because they have invested a great deal of their ego and self-worth in the group, and any negativity about the group is perceived as a personal attack.
2) People who believed that they are smarter, more logical, more moral, more aware of their prejudices, etc. than the average bear do not like to hear that may not be as true as they wish it to be.
Whenever you have cognitive dissonance – here, “I think I/my group is wonderful and it’s a major part of my identity” conflicting with “There are serious problems in my group and perhaps me that do not match my perception, or at least the way I would like to perceive my group” – that’s uncomfortable, and people want to resolve it. An easy way to resolve cognitive dissonance is to throw out one of the conflicting thoughts (“there are no problems!”). Another way is to add a third belief that reconciles the other two (“those problems are very minor and this person is just an asshole”, or perhaps “those problems only exist because this person is talking about them”).
I still maintain that what the people trivializing her experience need is a very large man with well over half his body tattooed and an “I know violence isn’t the answer: I get it wrong on purpose.” t-shirt repeatedly telling them how cute they are in a really slow elevator at 4 in the morning.
You know, someone that could easily overpower them acting creepy as hell in a place where they can’t get away while no one else is around.
@Clarence
“I find the emotional over reaction from this supposed female leader of the community distasteful.”
But the endless claims that she called this guy a rapist and therefore called all men rapists don’t count as emotional overreactions?
Ugh, actually, it’s probably time to let this one die. Calling for a boycott is extreme, I enjoy the guy’s work.
Excellent post. Glad to see more and more people ‘getting it’, despite the way some are running interference and frankly trying to smear Ms Watson. It should never have been a big deal – what made it so was the outburst of spite and hysteria from her initial critics.
I recently picked up a home/personal security leaflet in the reception area of my local police station while waiting to give a witness statement. In the personal security part, I read that a man (or men) shouldn’t approach a woman who’s on her own, out at night or in any public space and start chatting to her because even if they mean her no harm, she doesn’t know them and therefore cannot know they don’t mean her any harm.
What is so hard to understand about that?! Which makes me suspect a worryingly large number of these clever menz do not actually want to. Or can’t see beyond their privilege and entitlement.
Kristin @17: pretty much. You say “Here are some things that are creepy, don’t do them, yo” and they hear “All men are rapists, plus I am telling you what to do.”
I don’t understand why this isn’t obvious to everyone, at least once it’s pointed out.
And oh, beautiful–“how will the interests of the skeptical community be served by this boycott?” Subtext being, “women are not part of the skeptical community and in fact are not even people worth listening to, much less keeping safe.”