What do feminists want?

[Antiquehunter]

As a woman who has been addicted to exploring the world since I was about 12 years old, I've found myself in a handful of very dangerous places. I can probably count them on 2 hands. It happens. Especially when you are naive until you've experienced that particular mistake, then you know not to do that again.

But by far the vast majority of the places I've been, including ones people warned me about, which people tend to do a lot, never turned out to be dangerous. People are normal everywhere you go. They have families, they go to jobs, they aren't looking to rob and rape you around every corner. Crime occurs, yes, as do assaults. But these things are not the overwhelming natural state of things everywhere (with a few exceptions that evolve and devolve mostly around the political situation in certain locations).

If anything I've feared vehicles including a small plane in Guatemala that had smoke pouring out of the engine like an old car burning oil from bad valves, a taxi in Mexico City with no seat belts that went 80 mph, a bus in Peru at night on a narrow road on the winding cliffs south of Lima, and the fact a lot of low rent hotels are also fire hazards much more often than I've felt fear from dangerous people. And I have traveled alone a lot.

I'm not disputing this at all - I have crossed off 62 countries myself, including Afghanistan, North Korea, Nigeria, East Timor, Tajikistan etc... I can genuinely tell you that the 'Western' in Downtown Las Vegas is a not-very-safe-feeling place. Nor was 'The Don Hotel' in Darwin, Australia. FWIW - only place I've been mugged: New York City.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

....).

Yes, you can be politically and economically liberated and still be afraid when a man threatens you physically. There's absolutely no connection between the two, and I find it odd that people are making this leap.

While I agree with you about the false dichotomy, did I miss something here? Did the guy in the elevator actually threaten Rebecca physically?

No, he did not. I refuse to be offended by a guy who makes a pass. Creeped out, sure, depending on the guy, but this not wanting to be "objectified"? Like I said, unless that was my boss or something, asking a woman if she's interested is not objectifying her. It's a natural thing guys do.

 

[TraneWreck]

As for hotel elevators being dangerous for 'the weaker sex' , that's just a difference of opinion between myself and TraneWreck as to where to draw the line on the continuum of places women should be afraid to be alone in.

"Should" is your word. I have been very clear that I don't think women "should" be afraid in elevators, all things being equal. There were, however, many other relevant facts that made that elevator come-on concerning. It's not a normative claim about how all women should feel, it's a statement that this woman was correct and rational to explain why and how that person's behavior was troubling.

I really don't understand why you feel compelled to generalize my statement every time you articulate it. It's obviously easier to argue against it once it's been attenuated to point of absurdity, but then you're just swinging at windmills.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm not disputing this at all - I have crossed off 62 countries myself, including Afghanistan, North Korea, Nigeria, East Timor, Tajikistan etc... I can genuinely tell you that the 'Western' in Downtown Las Vegas is a not-very-safe-feeling place. Nor was 'The Don Hotel' in Darwin, Australia. FWIW - only place I've been mugged: New York City.

Central America when the Contras were in Nicaragua, the death squads in El Salvador, and the death squads in Guatemala were active, camping on the beach in Hawaii if your skin is too light, Mexico currently (though in years past the danger was always exaggerated by people who hadn't been there), wandering the side streets in downtown Amsterdam, outside the Capitol area in WA DC, (lots of cities in the US and elsewhere have dangerous neighborhoods), rural Louisiana in the 70s when you look like a hippie, ....

I am seriously having a hard time remembering very many places I actually feared for my safety from the people around me. Dangerous transportation and fire traps, I can recall many of those.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

"Should" is your word. I have been very clear that I don't think women "should" be afraid in elevators, all things being equal. There were, however, many other relevant facts that made that elevator come-on concerning. It's not a normative claim about how all women should feel, it's a statement that this woman was correct and rational to explain why and how that person's behavior was troubling.

I really don't understand why you feel compelled to generalize my statement every time you articulate it. It's obviously easier to argue against it once it's been attenuated to point of absurdity, but then you're just swinging at windmills.

You are defining "should" to mean something different. Maybe you are getting my meaning wrong as well.

I'm not afraid of hotel elevators. I should not have to be afraid, of course, but I also don't need to be afraid either. You seem to be saying women need to be more fearful than I think they need to be. Am I getting your position wrong there?

 

[TraneWreck]

While I agree with you about the false dichotomy, did I miss something here? Did the guy in the elevator actually threaten Rebecca physically?

Did you watch the video at bookitty's link?



I don't think the guy in the elevator threatened her. I think he was an insecure idiot that was liquored up, that was lucky. Nevertheless, his actions placed Rebecca in a position of weakness and apprehension.

This is the legal definition of assault:

"...an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact."

Compare the bar to the elevator. The question, with the exact same phrasing, become different depending on where it's asked. That change of venue moved it farther down the line, closer to assault.

No, he did not. I refuse to be offended by a guy who makes a pass. Creeped out, sure, depending on the guy, but this not wanting to be "objectified"? Like I said, unless that was my boss or something, asking a woman if she's interested is not objectifying her. It's a natural thing guys do.

I agree with that. I don't really buy the "objectification" complaints, though Rebecca Watson is welcome to feel that way. Generalizing a come on as evidence of rampant sexism or misogyny in the skeptical community is pretty ridiculous. I have no problem with the concept of hitting on smart, liberated women.

But again, it wasn't "just making a pass." It was pursuing a woman into an elevator early in the morning when she's by herself, then, without any prior conversation, offering a proposition. At best this is really creepy. He should have talked to her in the bar if he was interested. At worst, it's threatening.

Watson is then on an elevator in a foreign country at 4am wondering what the hell is about to happen. It can range from "he accepts the rejection" to "she gets sexually assaulted" and there's nothing she can do about it. She has no control over the situation, it's just a matter of how he will behave. Obviously she can fight back to limit the damage caused by the assault, but by that point significant harm has already been caused.

That's the point. In the bar, she could say yes, she could say no, and that's that. She was in a position to make a decision absent that latent coersion. On that elevator, she has to consider a number of possibilities. Whether or not anything physically harmful occurs, it's not decent to put anyone in that position, and the spectre of sexual assault is even more potent when the male-female dynamic is present.

 

[TraneWreck]

You are defining "should" to mean something different. Maybe you are getting my meaning wrong as well.

I'm not afraid of hotel elevators. I should not have to be afraid, of course, but I also don't need to be afraid either. You seem to be saying women need to be more fearful than I think they need to be. Am I getting your position wrong there?

Again, I don't think they "need" to be afraid. But we're not just talking about two people standing in an elevator. The details, the additional facts, are what make Watson's statement that the man behaved inappropriately reasonable.

As a general rule, men should not cold-proposition women in situations where they are vulnerable. Maybe there are exceptions, but that power dynamic and implicit threat are very real. Regardless of what the man intends, it shouldn't be hard to understand why that would make someone uncomfortable.

But hey, maybe a guy and a girl are sitting at a bus stop together, alone, at 3am, and they strike up a little conversation, head to a bar, and hook-up, great. I'm all for it, but surely we can see the difference between that and just saying, out of the blue, "you want to go back to my place with me?"

 

[shawmutt]

Heaven forbid that we take one woman's concern seriously if, on the off chance and against strong evidence, we don't share that concern.

http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/because_of_the_implication

That article was linked to on today on PZ's site. It made me angry again at dismissive feminists with comments like:

In sum, men who corner women know what they're doing. And yes, they are relying on the fear of rape to grease the wheels towards getting laid.

and

...that whenever a bunch of dudes start freaking out on a woman who called out some egregious sexism, there are a bunch of women willing to back those dudes up in order to get that coveted male approval and attention.

To hell with me "abusing my privilege"--that's just insulting to men and women alike, and was a common brushoff in the crazy PZ posts.

Well, because out of the eight posts PZ so far today, two of them were a big "screw you misogynist atheists and skeptics!!oneone11one" I decided to drop him from my feed. I'm sure I'll be missed

 

[AvalonXQ]

Don't forget that anyone who disagree's with Rebecca's assessment of the situation is the same as a rapist.

She's not just a sexist... she's a bully too. Why does anybody listen to what she says?

 

[epepke]

Well - not exactly. We have the above, then we have a whole bunch of actions around what happened AFTER the incident above, which has devolved into a media circus the likes of which Fox News and/or the Howard Stern Show would be proud of (within the somewhat more restrained halls of the skpetical blogosphere).

Yeah, that's quite true. The trigger was, however, a fairly short utterance, and it had legs.

- Its all a good lead up for discussion / drama before a major skeptical event. I DO think this will be a topic of discussion in one week at TAM, and I do think we'll have some sparks, if not fireworks over it.

Cynical much? Well, I agree.

- Rebecca does a terrific job of self-promotion. And yay for her - she is kind of a public figure now, so I'm not being judgmental here, I'm just calling it as I see it.

- We (the broader skeptical community) don't really have a lot of any substance to talk about, so lets all chime in on this one.

Hmm... Well, you know, I do remember an event some years ago, involving a rather prominent male figure here, engaging in some rather egregious attempts to seduce another man who wasn't interested. I think I shall be cool about it, though, and sit on my hands. I won't get any points for that, though.

 

[Antiquehunter]

Hmm... Well, you know, I do remember an event some years ago, involving a rather prominent male figure here, engaging in some rather egregious attempts to seduce another man who wasn't interested. I think I shall be cool about it, though, and sit on my hands. I won't get any points for that, though.

Want to come up to my room to discuss it? I have coffee...

 

[shawmutt]

Christ, now it's infected the Bad Astronomer...

Can't wait to hear about it on SGU...

 

[epepke]

Have you seen the video in which Rebecca discusses the incident? She clearly says that everyone there (which would include the men in skepticism) were great. There was just this one guy and could he please not do that.

Yup. That was fine.

You are now accusing her of lying because...I don't know why.

No; I am not accusing her of lying. I tried to explain this. I am making a comment that skeptics should understand about the reliability of second-hand evidence. Memory is not a videotape.

Yes, my previous answer was flippant. Every time an issue comes up that is even distantly related to feminism, it turns into "Play gotcha! with the feminist."

I've read your stuff. I know you're a good guy. I'd bet real money that you've been in a great, respectful relationship, friendship, acquaintanceship with many women. You are in no way, shape or form, my enemy or even an adversary. All the feminism stuff is just another topic for you to sink your teeth into, play with some ideas, toss out some notions, and all that fun, fun stuff that keeps people (myself included) coming back to this forum. It is an intellectual exercise rather than something really, really care about.*

I must admit that's a pretty fair armchair psychoanalysis. I'll argue positions, sometimes even positions I don't agree with, for the purpose of stirring things up.

There is a point, though not an agenda. It's because, when I see a lot of what I consider groupthink, I like to throw a monkey wrench into it. That's because I think it's better when people see things from multiple perspectives. Sometimes (actually, rather often), something good comes out of it. Often, it's someone else who would never have otherwise broken the groupthink perimeter saying something genuinely interesting.

Anyway, the whole schtick that I see has little to do with the initial incident or Watson's reaction; it's about the circus surrounding it, with third parties that used it for their agenda, one of which I quoted.

As for feminists, why should they be exempt? When you become a feminist, do you get a magic wi-fi halo with a force field? To steal from Tim Minchin, feminists are just monkeys in shoes, like everyone else. What makes them so special, such that it is a special sin to point out their fatuities?

So it's a little difficult for me to get excited about playing intellectual exercise with something that has bummed me out on too many occasions. I'm just too tired. Playing devil's advocate for the idea of equality is just depressing after a while. I don't want to play. I have faith that the majority of people in the various movements already get it. That most are open to learning, that a lot just need time and that a very, very few will be clueless forever. Conversations that boil down to "No means no. No really. It does." or "b****s aint s***" make me lose faith.

Well, then don't do it. Really, you don't have to. You can easily avoid such discussions. To me, the conflict between women wanting to be equal and women not wanting to be equal is an important thing. The reason that it is important to me is that without resolving conflicts, I don't think that any progress with respect to equality of the sexes can be made.

If that's an "intellectual exercise" for you, and you don't want to engage in it, then don't. You don't have to.

And it seems that many feminists don't want to. Which, of course, they don't have to. However, a consequence of having so few people do it may be that a lot of stuff doesn't get fixed or gets fixed a lot more slowly than they could.

*If you actually do really, really care about anti-feminism, the above may be void.

Not sure what that means. I care about feminism a lot. I care about anti-feminism a lot. I even care when anti-feminism is feminism, and when feminism is anti-feminism.

 

[epepke]

Want to come up to my room to discuss it? I have coffee...

Sure, sugarlumps, but you can bribe me much better with beer.

 

[Antiquehunter]

Sure, sugarlumps, but you can bribe me much better with beer.

Misogynist bastage. I shall have at you on YouTube!

 

[ProBonoShill]

It's never going to happen, men and women have different biological switching, they do things and determine things differently. The whole idea that they can be the same is rubbish and in the end that means that the only way men and women are going to be able to get alone is to recognise that difference and moderate their behaviour about the other so as not to offend them or give out the wrong signals.



Sorry, you're wrong. Now don't get me wrong here, I'm all for women having the same oportunities, pay, political voice and so on and so forth, but at the end of the day, even when all those things are finally sorted out, men are still going to treat women in a different way than they treat another guys, and generally that's better. They won't say or do things to women that they would to another guy, trust me you're better off with that. Likewise women aren't going to, or at leass shouldn't, treat guys like they do their girlfriends, and if they do, they'll get the same backlash.

Men that actually do treat women like they treat other men are the very ones that feminists hate the most, often calling them misogynist and sexist. Honestly, you don't want any part of that world.

Perhaps I'm in a sort of unique position to see this, but the reality is that women need to understand that they can't and won't ever get men to act like they do. It doesn't matter what you do, men are different to you, they work in a different way. When you understand this, you'll understand what I am saying and also why equivalence is the best it gets.

To finish, let's look at an example:

A man has been speaking at a conference and after chatting and drinks, heads to the elevator to head to his room. Another man runs after him and gets into the elevator, then says, "I found the stuff you have been talking about really interesting, would you be interested in coming to my room and discussing it futher."

Compare that to this....

A woman has been speaking at a conference and after chatting and drinks, heads to the elevator to head to her room. A man runs after her and gets into the elevator, then says, "I found the stuff you have been talking about really interesting, would you be interested in coming to my room and discussing it futher."

and then this...

A man has been speaking at a conference and after chatting and drinks, heads to the elevator to head to his room. A woman runs after him and gets into the elevator, then says, "I found the stuff you have been talking about really interesting, would you be interested in coming to my room and discussing it futher."

Get the difference and why men and women can never actually be equal.

Neil Peart from Rush wrote a song about this almost 20 years ago called "Animate" , he talks about how he came up with the lyrics here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7Y8Y2O0dAM&feature=related

 

[Antiquehunter]

Neil Peart from Rush wrote a song about this almost 20 years ago called "Animate" , he talks about how he came up with the lyrics here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7Y8Y2O0dAM&feature=related

Is this the moderator-acceptable version of kittening?

 

[bookitty]

Well, then don't do it. Really, you don't have to. You can easily avoid such discussions. To me, the conflict between women wanting to be equal and women not wanting to be equal is an important thing. The reason that it is important to me is that without resolving conflicts, I don't think that any progress with respect to equality of the sexes can be made.

You have no way of knowing this but I did take a month or so off from the JREF because it was making me despair for the human race. Having recognized that as an illogical response, I pulled back to reflect.

You're caught up in a really bizarre description of equal. I got no answers for you. On one hand, it seems like the word game is all and you're looking for a bumper sticker slogan. On the other hand, the concepts of privilege are really difficult to explain. No single example can ever sum it up and most definitions are vague.

For example, I know intellectually that being a white American female of a certain body weight, social standing and of good health gives me advantages that I don't even see. That someone who was different in any of those categories would face challenges that would never occur to me. Even if I can emphasize with them, I won't notice them daily. How many times have I noticed whether or not a favorite restaurant is wheelchair accessible? Maybe never. But if I had a friend who was in a wheelchair and they mentioned it, I would see it more. I'd start looking for restaurants that had access before inviting them to lunch. I might even start talking to the managers even if my friend wasn't with me.

A lot of what Rebecca is saying is like that. Like "Here's something you may not have noticed because the way I move through the world is parallel to you but not the same."

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Again, I don't think they "need" to be afraid. But we're not just talking about two people standing in an elevator. The details, the additional facts, are what make Watson's statement that the man behaved inappropriately reasonable.

As a general rule, men should not cold-proposition women in situations where they are vulnerable. Maybe there are exceptions, but that power dynamic and implicit threat are very real. Regardless of what the man intends, it shouldn't be hard to understand why that would make someone uncomfortable.

Meh. I fail to see the big deal. We should agree to disagree here lest we keep going round the mulberry bush.

But hey, maybe a guy and a girl are sitting at a bus stop together, alone, at 3am, and they strike up a little conversation, head to a bar, and hook-up, great. I'm all for it, but surely we can see the difference between that and just saying, out of the blue, "you want to go back to my place with me?"

A bus stop at 3 am with no one around would be much more uncomfortable. But ignoring that, how did this conversation start that differed from the elevator encounter? The fact he asked her to come to his room? This is the modern world. It doesn't seem all that unusual. Maybe it isn't smart but neither is going to a bar at 3 am with a stranger at a bus stop.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Christ, now it's infected the Bad Astronomer...

..

That's because PZ and Phil are good friends of Rebecca's.