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Dawkins sounds off. Lots of atheists upset.
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Just one thing in this seemingly endless struggle to point out what should be blindingly obvious - can you show me any post by a woman complaining strangers don't accost her in a very enclosed area and sexually proposition her, straight off the bat? Even if you did find such a thread - how many women do you think that applies to? Enough to render RW's plea as having no merit for the majority? I don't think so.
If you are looking for some kind of concrete rule book that applies to all women, it doesn't exist - in the same way that we are not robots with our friends and colleagues and every other human interaction cannot be mapped out...and yet we still have no issue applying the basic manners and social codes of conduct in those situations in order to ensure we don't deliberately step all over the feelings, wishes and rights of other people and get labelled creepy and oafish.
It's not about "being allowed to" do anything - that's still missing the point. This isn't parents and children. It's one group of adults trying to explain to another why the sensibilities they use every other minute of the day shouldn't go flying out the window just because they see an attractive woman or feel horny - and that's the expected right to privilege argued by some. Why bother pointing this out? Because the numbers of women put off by such an approach vastly outweigh any that are going to show interest...whether that be because of past experiences, fear, discomfort, annoyance, does the reason [all understandable, imo] even really matter? The fact is, it completely negates any chance they would have had in any further relations with that women in the vast majority of cases. Instead the woman may leave the encounter with a worse overall opinion of men and even thinking that particular man is just a creep. Is that what all these men arguing that the plea shouldn't have been made want?
The overall point, I think, was not trying to make ALL men out to be anything or prevent hook ups or suggest men cannot approach women - it's giving what should be considered a helpful hint that should really be fairly obvious and which would vastly improve the chances for any man who thinks following a woman into an empty lift at 4am to make an offer of an invite to his room is worth chancing your arm over. If men wish to argue for the right to turn off women in their droves and creep them out then be my guest - but you can't then complain that many others find that stance ridiculous.
O&O
Ickle.
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Ickle Magoo wrote: »Just one thing in this seemingly endless struggle to point out what should be blindingly obvious - can you show me any post by a woman complaining strangers don't accost her in a very enclosed area and sexually proposition her, straight off the bat?
What this man did was accosting RW ?
I think, Ickle, that you know my opinions on womens rights, especially regarding religion, quite well from my postings here and over the fence in the other forums.
The treatment of women by Muslims for example, is one of, if not the main reasons why I despise Islam above the other religions. You know this as I'm sure we've battled side by side on this very issue before.
If she was in any way harmed I would be firmly on her side. But she was not harmed, there wasn't even the threat of being harmed. An ill-timed and very questionably ill-mannered pass was made at her. She rejected it. The guy took it on the chin and life went on.
This was a non-issue. A non-event. It is beyond ridiculous that she brought it up.
I can think of dozens of situations where I felt 'uncomfortable' but I don't go whining on youtube about it telling half the human race 'not to do it' when I can't even define what 'it' was. Especially when 'it' was such a trivial matter.
I'm not straw manning but here's a question for you. I'm not saying the situations are the same.
My brother was out with me last Saturday night, finally took up the courage to go talk to a woman in a group of women and was shot down very rudely.
Has he the right to tell women not to do that ? Is this an issue ? Should this be taken seriously ?Even if you did find such a thread - how many women do you think that applies to? Enough to render RW's plea as having no merit for the majority?
You know that wasn't my point. I never suggested women wanted to be 'accosted'. Don't you see this is the problem ?
RW doesn't want to be chatted up, fair enough. How are men supposed to know this until we ask ? Some women want to be chatted up.If you are looking for some kind of concrete rule book that applies to all women, it doesn't exist
Are we finally making progress ?
Because the numbers of women put off by such an approach vastly outweigh any that are going to show interest...whether that be because of past experiences, fear, discomfort, annoyance, does the reason [all understandable, imo] even really matter?
So ? If elevator guy tried the same tactic 100 times and he succeeded once then should he not have tried that 1 time he succeeded or the 99 times he failed ? Or all ?The fact is, it completely negates any chance they would have had in any further relations with that women in the vast majority of cases.
Ickle, the vast majority of women that men make passes at in their life are not going to have further relations with them regardless of the tactics employed.
Can we just take a breath here and look at this situation objectively.
A man made a creepy / awkward / ill-timed etc pass at a woman. She rejected it. Man goes away.
Why is this an issue ?
Men and women are equal, but we are not the same.
If men acted like women regarding dating then Durex would be out of business in a month. That is not a sexist remark, it's a simple fact of biology.
If women acted like men regarding dating then there'd be a baby boom and rise in STD's like the world has never seen before. This is not a sexist remark, its a simple fact of biology.
Just because I make a pass at a woman, however awkward it is, doesn't mean I only think of her as a receptacle for my man juice.
Here we find a huge gulf in the sexes way of thinking.
To a man a desperate pass in an elevator late at night is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. And a woman rejecting it is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.0 -
This whole debate is ridiculous. There is a very simple point here.
A man approached Rebecca Watson late at night, in a confined space, after she has asked not to be approached. She then says afterwards - whilst keeping the man anonymous, which she didn't have to do - that it made her uncomfortable, and could guys not do that.
It is basic human decency; that if something makes someone feel uncomfortable then you don't do it. Men don't have to take a woman's feelings into account if they don't want to, but then where do we stand? Society revolves around making exceptions for people that you might not fully understand, but can appreciate that they do. So, guys, just because you don't get why it makes us uncomfortable, that doesn't mean you should ignore that it does. We're not calling you monsters or saying you're rapists - as Count Duckula has so disingenuously claimed - but that something you do makes us uncomfortable and it would be nice if we weren't made to feel that way.
To put it another way - a guy approaches a girl because he wants to get to know her better. Why on earth would he do it in such a way or time that makes her feel uncomfortable? That way leads to immediate and obvious rejection. Choose your moments, men, and you might actually meet with better success 0 -
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But it wasn't someone she'd never met! They'd been at a conference together, she recognised him from the bar where they'd been drinking and chatting as a group until 4am in the morning.
He said he'd heard her speak earlier - I missed the part where they'd met each other...if they'd been drinking and chatting as a group then I presume he deliberately ignored her saying she didn't like being hit on? Or was he in the loo or some other excuse for following her out of a social situation and into a confined area for an invite to, what was for the night, his bedroom.virmilitaris wrote:My brother was out with me last Saturday night, finally took up the courage to go talk to a woman in a group of women and was shot down very rudely.
Has he the right to tell women not to do that ? Is this an issue ? Should this be taken seriously ?
Well this is it isn't it - if he had posted about his experiences on a blog and asked "Ladies, don't do that", I wouldn't be here arguing for the right to be rude, make men feel uncomfortable and completely ignore how they feel as another human being given certain circumstances that are, let's face it, easily avoided...I'd be the first in the queue to agree with him.
I guess that's what's really so disappointing about this - the argument that women have no right to even ask men to desist from putting women in a situation than common sense should dictate she would feel uneasy, for the sake of satisfying his own wants and needs - a scenario that results in women declining and feeling creeped out the majority of the time. How can that possibly be deemed a celebrated technique to approach women under that's worth fighting for?
Ultimately it comes down to the right not to have to field such approaches Vs the right to make such approaches - and I think all RW was doing was asking for guys to exercise a bit of common sense and common courtesy when guys make approaches.0 -
This whole debate is ridiculous. There is a very simple point here.
I'm not sure there is. There is an alternative way of looking at it.
At the Dublin convention there was a panel entitled "Women Atheist Activists", here it is:
Now Watson wasn't on that panel, maybe she felt she should have been, who knows, however on her panel "Communicating Atheism" she uses her portion for a speech on sexism in the atheist movement, and very rudely calls out Paula Kirby by name, mocking some of the things she said in a very un-convention like way.
Then she goes on to talk about her stance on abortion, and various moves by the religious right in the US to curtail its availability. What happens next is strange, some atheists as we all know also oppose abortion, and it's an emotive issue, but she definitely equates opposing her stance on abortion to "sexism in the atheist movement".
She then goes on to mention sexually explicit fan mail, which propositions her, says she doesn't like it, says we all need to feel creeped out by it and asks everyone not to do send it. (I'm hazarding a guess that Dawkins reading out his his hate mail is no longer Watson's ring tone).
So then there's Watson's podcast
Where now magically she's right, she's creeped out and propositioned at an atheist conference.
The next step is when Watson used another speaking engagement to publicly criticise a female student who disagreed with her podcast, recounted by Stef McGraw here:
http://www.unifreethought.com/2011/06/fursdays-wif-stef-33.html
This caused a kerfluffle for a different reason, should Watson have singled out a student and named her and publicly had a go at her? She'd been asked to give a keynote at the CFI Student Leadership Conference on the religious right's war on women, she used a portion of this time to respond to a student blog post.
So now we get to PZ Myers post, defending the "naming of names" (and other parts of Watson's position)
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/07/always_name_names.php
On which Dawkins commented:Dear Muslima
Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don't tell me yet again, I know you aren't allowed to drive a car, and you can't leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you'll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.
Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep"chick", and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn't lay a finger on her, but even so . . .
And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
Richard
Which to understand you must realise that today (July 11th) is International Day against Stoning. All Dawkins seems to be saying (and yes this is a blog comment - so it may not be written perfectly) that when as a movement there is something important to be concentrating on (Muslim women's rights and stoning), it makes a mockery of it and lessens it to be ignoring it and concentrating on how one woman was uncomfortable in a lift in Dublin.
Watson then (as pointed out in the OP) went nuclear:
The Privelege Delusion
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This whole debate is ridiculous. There is a very simple point here.
A man approached Rebecca Watson late at night, in a confined space, after she has asked not to be approached. She then says afterwards - whilst keeping the man anonymous, which she didn't have to do - that it made her uncomfortable, and could guys not do that.
It is basic human decency; that if something makes someone feel uncomfortable then you don't do it. Men don't have to take a woman's feelings into account if they don't want to, but then where do we stand? Society revolves around making exceptions for people that you might not fully understand, but can appreciate that they do. So, guys, just because you don't get why it makes us uncomfortable, that doesn't mean you should ignore that it does. We're not calling you monsters or saying you're rapists - as Count Duckula has so disingenuously claimed - but that something you do makes us uncomfortable and it would be nice if we weren't made to feel that way.
To put it another way - a guy approaches a girl because he wants to get to know her better. Why on earth would he do it in such a way or time that makes her feel uncomfortable? That way leads to immediate and obvious rejection. Choose your moments, men, and you might actually meet with better success
Hold on a second. That is why he didn't throw his arms around her slurring 'jaysus babes, yer a fine lookin thing, fancy gettin it on in me room or wha..'.
The way he spoke to her was a text book way of testing the waters (if that was what he intended) while minimising the discomfort for both of them. Both were at liberty to take 'coffee' as 'coffee' out of innocence or courtesy, allowing her to reject his advances without making it clear 'I don't find you remotely attractive', and for him to judge her interest/disinterest without stating plainly 'I find you attractive and want to proposition you'.
A lift is not the perfect venue, but it is private allowing both to save face from public rejection or public knowledge of their hooking up. I don't think there are any hotels greater than six or seven floors in Dublin so it's not exactly a predators ideal stalking ground.
Seriously though, we're all going to encounter flirtatious or awkward propositions throughout life, but now men are supposed to act in accordance with the kind of girl he is propositioning as if he knows how every specific female will respond or feel in advance of actually reaching the stage when you could judge these things.
It's a bloody uncomfortable business for the majority of people, that is why people use indirect speech like this poor guy was using, to give each potential partner the respect and opportunity to reject you in a similarly indirect way.
Where will the next generation of feminists come from?0 -
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Ickle Magoo wrote: »Well this is it isn't it - if he had posted about his experiences on a blog and asked "Ladies, don't do that", I wouldn't be here arguing for the right to be rude, make men feel uncomfortable and completely ignore how they feel as another human being given certain circumstances that are, let's face it, easily avoided...I'd be the first in the queue to agree with him.
Come on Ickle I'm sure you rudely shot down a few guys in your time
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