'Deep Rifts' Or 'The Humanity Of It All'... Part 1

A friend of mine was curious about the 'Deep Rift' that has been cooking in the atheist-skeptic blogosphere for about a year now, culminating in the Twitter storm over the FTBullies hashtag. I offered to make a timeline with bullet points. Little did I know that chronicling those cataclysmic events was going to be such a monumental task, requiring the last drop of my Google-Fu and reading/listening comprehension. Anyhoo, I must admit it was eeriely fun revisiting those events, and consequently, wondering anew how, atheist-skeptic or not, we all are subject to the very human foibles and frailties of ego, prejudice, presumptions, and sadly, blind irrationality. Vraiment, the humanity of it all!

Disclaimer: Although I shall try to be an unbiased as possible in preparing this chronicle, I find myself sympathetic towards Rebecca Watson and her fellow skeptics in this matter. YMMV, of course. Also, L-O-N-G-read!!!

Elevatorgate (June 2011)

• Rebecca Watson of SkepChick fame spoke at the 2011 World Atheist Convention in Dublin, Ireland, participating in a panel discussion on Communicating Atheism.
• Prior to that, RW attended a panel on Women Atheist Activists, featuring Paula Kirby, a writer specializing in freethinking organizations and the author of a brilliant piece on the incompatibility of religion and science. RW had a lot of disagreements with Kirby who doesn't have a problem with (nor does she acknowledge the presence of) sexism in the atheist community.
• She decided to discuss these issues from her perspective during her panel, and got a good reception from other panelists and the audience.
• RW encountered a rather deplorable situation. At 4 a.m., when she was walking back to her room from the hotel bar, she was accosted in the elevator by this man who invited her back to his hotel room for coffee and more discussion. Though he appeared polite, RW felt extremely uncomfortable, particularly from her perspective of "single woman in a foreign country at 4 a.m. in the elevator" with no one else around, and perceived this as the man sexualizing her - something that she spoke out against earlier the previous day. So, in a video blog (vlog) that she had put up, she recounted this incident and lightly admonished men not to take this approach; her words were, "Guys, don't do that.".
• There were many comments on the video replay of her panel session (posted by someone else), including some frankly nasty and misogynistic. RW concluded her vlog by saying that she was, in a way, thankful to them because people will hear her and then read those comments, thereby understanding the extent of the problem she talked about.
• In the comments after her vlog, many people agreed and disagreed with her. RW herself clarified her perspective several times. There were, however, amongst the commenters one or two who spectacularly failed to understand RW's viewpoint, and all but accused her of lying and making things up to make a point.

MOAR Fallout

• Amongst the people who vocally disagreed with RW, were a couple of women students, Rose St. Clair (who responded via a YouTube video, indicating that RW's reaction amounted to 'reverse sexism' towards men, thereby trashing Rebecca's experience) and Stefanie McGraw, who wrote out a post asking why RW thought that [I quote] "respecting women as equals and showing sexual interest (were) mutually exclusive" [End quote]. (My note: I hope that everyone who read RW's post and heard her in the vlog have by now understood the huge strawman in that line of argument.)

CFI Hullabaloo

• At the end of June 2011, RW presented a talk at the CFI Student Leadership Conference, titled "The Religious Right VS Every Woman On Earth".
• RW talked about her experience in Dublin. During the presentation, she put up a display of several hateful and highly misogynistic emails/messages that she had since received, noting that unlike her male colleagues in atheism/skepticism, she received messages that wanted to visit rape or other sexual abuse, or death upon her. (Another blogger put up a transcript of a part of her speech, and it was quite... illuminating.) The sad part is that not all of these came from crazy, unreasonable morons; some of them came from people who self-identified as atheists or skeptics.
• But the common thread in all these is the vitriolic misogyny that they expressed. While discussion how little these people seemed to be aware of feminism, sexism, misogynistic behavior, RW brought up the comments by Stef McGraw, saying that she [I quote] "wanted to use it as an example, not to embarrass this person, but to point out that we have a serious problem when young women are this ignorant about feminism." [End quote] 
• RW put up a paragraph from McGraw's post on screen, and took issue with McGraw's statement ("My concern is that she takes issue with a man showing interest in her."), saying that (a) this statement was laden with misogyny, and (b) there was a definite difference between sexual interest/sexual attraction versus sexual objectification. She went on to talk about many, many other issues related to women in atheist conferences and in general. It was a great talk.
• RW's detractors, however, pounced on this talk, painting a picture in which RW hatefully and viciously mangled a poor innocent student, ripping her to shreds in public ("naming and shaming" they have called it); to anyone who has actually seen the above video (or been at the event), on the other hand, it may be reasonably clear that the discussion of McGraw's post was civil, without any evidence of victimization or even any name-calling.
• This started a flame war. McGraw expressed her shock at being called out in public in an atheist conference, alleging that she felt powerless amongst her peers. She felt slighted at being placed within - what she perceived as - the same category of people advocating RW to be raped. (My note: This, even though McGraw admits that RW 'switched gears' after talking about the said low-lives, to focusing on atheist/skeptic community. Therefore, the 'same category' allegation doesn't wash.) McGraw made subsequent blog posts focusing on the fact that RW presented her observations from the podium in a conference, where she, as a student attendee, didn't have a voice.
• At the same time, PZ came out strongly in support of RW, saying that RW was firmly in the right to have been specific about her criticism of someone's (i.e. McGraw's) position about the Dublin incident.

Abbie Smith's Contribution

• At this time, Abbie Smith (of ERV fame) jumped into the fray. Exuding righteous fury, she took RW to task for what she considered 'bad form' and alleged that RW's observations about McGraw were in reality vindictive in nature.

Dawkins' strange interlude

• However, almost nothing was as bad as a strange response from Richard Dawkins, who, in a comment after PZ's above-mentioned post in Pharyngula (read it in Skepchick, because the Scienceblog Pharyngula comments are gone), basically arrogantly dismissed RW's experience altogether indicating that it didn't merit any discussion as an evidence of misogyny, because it wasn't as severe as, say, a Muslim woman's travails and injustices that she faces. (My note: This was so out of line, that I didn't even know how to react; RD's "Methinks the lady doth protest too much" comment dripped privilege, and it shocked me.) RD's comment was roundly criticized by many atheist bloggers, including PZ, RW's co-bloggers at Skepchick, Jennifer McCreight (Blag Hag), Greg Laden, Phil Plait (Bad Astronomy), and Amanda Marcotte (Pandagon). A powerful Open Letter was written by some victims of sexual assault addressed to RD.

The Saga Continued

• Now jumped in the Skeptic blogger Miranda Celeste Hale. Without much prelude, she roundly criticized what she saw as the 'Skepchicks' vicious "campaign"', calling it variously: "baseless scapegoating", "vindictive and self-serving", "bullying", "viciousness and nastiness of the highest degree", "a perfect example of groupthink at its worst", "acting in the most irrational, childish, and un-skeptical way possible", "nothing less than an attempt at character assassination", and finally, "truly vile" - without, of course, going much into the specifics of her invective; nobody in her echo chamber - which included some male skeptic bloggers as well - bothered to ask 'why', either.
• On the other hand, some prominent bloggers expressed great dismay at what they considered indicative of a serious attitude issue towards women within the atheist and skeptic community. Greta Christina wrote:
  

  I don't know anybody who actually enjoys starting an Internet shitstorm about sexism (or racism, or ageism, or classism, or whatever-ism) in the atheist movement... But I'm a whole lot more unhappy being silent about it. And I want to argue that we all should be a lot more unhappy being silent about it.

• The principal message these bloggers attempted to convey was that context matters, a lot; that it is possible to remain sex-positive, while respecting boundaries; that there are real-life situations in which a woman may become inherently defensive and it is important to understand the nuances of such situations.
• PZ laid out what he called The Decent Human Beings’ Guide to Getting Laid at Atheist Conferences:
  

  The first thing you must know is that you haven’t failed when the object of your desire says "no". That’s a perfectly reasonable response, and even if you do everything exactly right, you’re going to hear "no" more often than you do "yes". Accepting a refusal graciously is an important part of being a Decent Human Being... You have failed if the person you’re interested in calls your behavior creepy. That's where you need to step back and re-evaluate: you did something wrong. Decent Human Beings do not blame the other person, they recognize that they screwed up, accept their responsibility, and decide not to ever do that again.

• Greta asked some germane questions:
  

  When women explain to you... that there are some contexts in which your advances are less likely to be well-received than others, and you respond by sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming about ball-busting, man-hating feminists who are hell-bent on eradicating all flirting and sex and eroding your First Amendment right to proposition any woman at any time and place?
  
  When you resist hearing that hitting on a woman who's alone in an elevator in a strange city at four o'clock in the morning is not likely to be well-received, that it's likely to be perceived as a potential threat, and that you are likely to be perceived as an insensitive clod at best if you do it?
  
  When we explain ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times, that elevators are well-documented as a common place for women to get raped and that it's therefore not an appropriate place to make sexual advances - and you still reply, "But I don't understand what the problem is with elevators"?
  
  You want to know how to not have huge Internet blowups every time women in the atheist movement complain about sexism? LISTEN TO WHAT THE WOMEN ARE SAYING.

• Greg Laden wrote about how his wife, who was completely removed from the happenings around elevatorgate and thereafter, instinctively sided with RW when she found out about them, asking:

  "Do people get what it is like for a woman to have a man join her on an elevator in the middle of the night? Do they understand that this is ALWAYS something that raises one’s stress level, even if just a little?"

  She also said:
  

  "Sometimes more, sometimes less, it depends on your state of mind, the time of day, all sorts of other factors, but if I’m in a hotel somewhere in the middle of the night and some guy I don’t know gets on the elevator, my stress level goes up and stays there until one of us gets off. If he says something to me other than 'nice weather we're having' I get much more stressed. That's true to some degree for all women."

• Linda Bayerstein of the Big Think blog summarized the situation from a woman's point of view. She said:
  

  No one is saying that men shouldn’t flirt. On the contrary. When flirting goes well, everyone walks away with a little extra spring in their step, even if they walk away alone. Flirting is play. The point of flirting is to make the other person feel good--maybe to entice them to have sex with you, or maybe as an end in itself. Flirting is not high pressure sales.
  
  Men who want to flirt with women have to realize: Women live in a state of continual vigilance about sexual safety... If this frustrates you, try to remember that women are blamed for lapsed vigilance. If a woman does get raped, everyone rushes to see where she let her guard down. Was she drinking? Was she alone? Was she wearing a short skirt? Did she go to a strange man’s room for coffee at 4am?
  
  So, guys, if you want to flirt with a woman, your job is put her at ease, not to ratchet up her anxiety level. No one disputes that "Would you like to come to my room?" is protected speech. You have the legal right to say it, even in an elevator at 4:00am... But if you really don’t care whether your "flirting" is making a woman needlessly anxious or uncomfortable, that's creepy.

• Jen McCreight, an avowed feminist, wrote an excellent response as to the context, a guide about understanding the contexts under which the same flirtations and pick-up lines may be considered welcome/playful or obnoxious/insulting/demeaning.

Squabble, squabble

• In the meantime, other established bloggers had already engaged in pow-wows, either taking Stef McGraw's side and claiming she was humiliated and injured by RW's mentioning her in public, or taking RW's side and explaining how the charges against her were misguided.

This handy table may be helpful.

Poor Stef McGraw! Bad, bad RW!	RW did good!
Hemant Mehta (The Friendly Atheist) here and here	Amanda Marcotte countered all HM's points forcefully, calling him out on what she saw as 'sexist paternalism'
Russell Blackford (Metamagician and the Hellfire Club) castigated RW for behaving badly towards McGraw as well as Paula Kirby	PZ responded to RB's criticisms point by point, calling him out on what he saw as 'a consistent pattern' of gross misrepresentation from the anti-Watson camp
**Enter Abbie Smith** (ta-da!)
AS inveighed against RW and her defenders (coining the pejorative 'Twatson' in the process), and in the comments thereafter (July 19, 2011, 1:43 p.m.) responded to what she considered PZ's bullshittery in criticizing RB's comment, finishing with [I quote] "Once again, however, Watson gets to glide on the lube of entitlement and everyone else needs to STFU because they are WRONG" [End quote]	PZ expressed his disapproval and disappointment (July 19, 2011, 10:23 a.m.) and (July 19, 2011, 2:06 p.m.), saying that this "petty sniping" at RW was beneath AS. He also expressed surprise at AS's actions [I quote] "...to launch an unwarranted and scurrilous attack on a skeptical activist woman and to give a forum to the raging misogynists you’ve fostered here" [End quote]
	**Note the first reference to AS's commenters**

Ophelia Benson vs. AS

• Ophelia Benson (Butterflies and Wheels), in whose blog RB and PZ had the above tiff, weighed in, referring to AS's blog posts as a "slow-motion train wreck", expressing her disgust at "Twatson" and other obscene, sexist epithets hurled at RW by AS and her commenters.
• OB's remonstrances about the use of sexist language further goaded AS to make a post using clips from South Park, presumably to exert her right to use "Naughty Language", completely disregarding the idea that unlike general 'naughty words', sexist, misogynist slurs insult and demean a whole group of human beings, the women.
• OB herself endured sexist slurs from AS's commenters at various places, and at the end, she made a decision to block AS's commenters from commenting at B&W. (My note: Naturally, instead of engendering a turn towards civil discourse, this raised the cry of 'censorship' amongst the said commenters. More than a year after all this happened, OB still has enough justification to keep this block in place. But more about that later.)

Attack of the Mindless Drones

• If you, dear reader, have been following the blogs and comments I linked to, you'd notice that during all these, at some point, gradually the spirit of discussion and intelligent enquiry began to be replaced by blind, irrational vitriolic hatred towards RW and her defenders. Some of it was frankly stupid, but some were vicious, scary and creepy.
• RW pointed out at Skepchick some of the personal attacks she has had to endure: (Trigger Warning: I'm posting the original links as well; also, you'd notice how AS features in the comments after some of them, joking about the contents of the posts in - what seemed to me - an approving manner)
  1. The Curious Case of Hogle: Franc Hogle, author of Grey Lining, appears to be fixated on RW; he writes posts on her, trying to trip her up for every single mistake she may have made in her vlogs, suggesting that she is criminal and should be arrested, investigating her background and making fun of her liberal arts bachelor's degree. The vitriol in the comments after that post, targeted towards RW and PZ, is almost palpable.
  2. The Weird Equivocator: Blogger who goes by the name of "Skeptocouple" on Twitter started a weird ranty blog highlighting the disagreements between RD and RW with an image of an abused child, maligning various bloggers who defended RW, including PZ and Bug Girl, and coining the term "Skeptojihadi" for whoever disagreed with this weird and immature stance.
  3. The Weirder Stalker: A blog named 'Elevatorgate', which has "Rebecca Watson Must Be Sacked from SGU" as a byline, is not only fixated upon RW, but tries to vilify anyone who's even remotely associated with RW or appreciative of her work, including OB, young blogger Rhys Morgan (not sparing Rhys' family), PZ and others, using sexist language and attitude that others have long left in the kindergarten.
  4. The Fairly Creepy: A group named The Other Atheists, running an eponymous blog, maintains, among other things, an archive of RW's photos, all submitted by a user named John D (I don't know how he got hold of those photos, some of which appeared to be from social occasions far removed from RW's skeptic activism.) Franc Hogle appears to be highly active here, crossposting stuff from his own blog, impugning PZ and RW.
  5. All the above are in addition to the hate-filled attacks RW endures in Reddit subgroups, through her Facebook page and Twitter stream.
  
  Kudos to RW, she expressed a great sentiment in that post; she said,
  

  "...they can continue to call me a cunt. After all, they derive so much joy from it, and to me it only makes things clearer. "Cunt" is what misogynists call outspoken women with contrary opinions, in an attempt to silence them... That’s what this is really about: silencing. No one starts an entire site like the "elevatorgate" blog in the hopes of having a debate. No one comes up with a nickname using a word like cunt because he wants to resolve differences. No one tells a woman she would be lucky to get raped because he wants to offer solid evidence to contradict her point that misogyny is just as bad amongst skeptics and atheists as it is elsewhere."

• Hogle kept on droning. Continuing on his fixation on PZ and RW, he wrote strident screeds about PZ, accusing him of misandry. PZ's response was precise and swift; he said:
  

  Let me remind you what really happened... A woman was awkwardly propositioned. She said no. She later briefly addresses atheists in a youtube video to say, "guys, don’t do that"... If your version of the events requires comically strident exaggeration in order to make a case, you’re definitely wrong, and you are to blame for the discord and confusion. You are lying. And, by the way, if you even mention the words "misandrist blog industry", you’re a flaming conspiracy nut.

• There were even attempts to paint RW as a hypocrite and gender traitor, because she was caught on camera in some party engaging in raunchy jokes, and she posed nude for the Skepchick calendar. Time to clutch the pearls? It bothers me that some men and women can so spectacularly thick as to miss the point by a lightyear. As Jennifer McCreight wrote in her wonderful post, context matters. I wish I could make them read that post. How can a group of people, who claim to be rational skeptics, not get this simple idea?

Meanwhile, elsewhere...

• Onwards to Part 2, where I look at the genesis of the FTBullies hashtag; this section would be in form of a rebuttal letter to an Open letter that Paula Kirby wrote to the Skeptic Community.