Guest post: It has been a very long wait
Originally a comment by Maureen Brian on The allegations that convinced him are not public.
I am glad that Jerry Coyne got there because, as Ophelia notes, he has been both dismissive and pretty rude to people many a time in the past. So I’ll modify that: I am glad Jerry Coyne got there at last.
It is interesting to think of the interplay here between incident and pattern. We all have examples, either personal or told to us first hand, of describing an event only to be dismissed. We are told that it is minor, that we are making too much of nothing, that we should be flattered by Big Guy’s interest but whichever of those it is we should just shut up and go away.
Start from the other end, then. We describe a pattern of behaviour – I think here of @docfreeride – involving one person, involving many, which disparages us, puts us at a disadvantage, leaves us struggling to restore our own credibility as a functioning human, opting out of activities which we could do perfectly well and might even enjoy.
Remember Rebecca Watson’s video? The take-away message from that was not that she met a gormless oik in an elevator – we meet so many that the tale would not be interesting. It was supposed to be, “Guys, don’t do that.” A general and mildly expressed admonition, except that 50% of the brains on the planet had already blown a fuse. I now think that some of those fuses were blown quite deliberately to avoid addressing the issue, only to be followed by armies of bandwagon jumpers most of whom had no idea who Rebecca is let alone bothering to see the video. It was, though, actively encouraged by the great thinkers who are now coming to the realisation if a little late.
So, when wearing our “scientist” hats, we can argue that this interplay between incident and pattern is what counts. It doesn’t matter in tackling it whether the “incident” is sexual or simply obstructive, though the sexual ones can be truly nasty and will need a different response. Even Darwin, in a quite different era, realised this. He had his theory in the 1830s, remember, and did decades of research to back it up. He soon realised that where he saw repeats or correspondences, that was where he should be asking why. A point lost on one of his more famous devotees!
So we are in limbo. The men insist that the women fail to understand their own experience. I have been told that in so many words though not, of course, on this blog. What, all 75 years of it? Meanwhile, the women have given up on all but the best of men.
Then along comes Harvey Weinstein. Everybody knew but there was nowhere to go. Now suddenly the whole of Hollywood rises up against him.
Now, suddenly it becomes possible to say that people, both men and women, are capable of behaving badly. If they get away with whatever it is, they will probably do it again. I’ve seen it less with women but I do know that men carve those notches on their metaphorical bed heads and that men mimic each other. The question becomes not whether doing such-and-such is a good idea in itself but whether they can get away with it.
Well, now they can’t and it is good to see some of them asking themselves whether all the “rumour” they have so readily dismissed might be telling them something. It has, though, been a very long wait.
Of course distancing oneself from one particular sleazebag doesn’t necessarily mean “getting it”, but yeah. Everyone has to start somewhere..
Bjarte, I would ditto that. I suspect that is just a measure of just how sleazebag Krauss really is, since Coyne says the things that convinced him are not public.
If he’s actually more of a sleaze than Shermer, that could be…just wow.
I have to admit that given Coyne’s track record, I think his only being convinced by non-public info is a way to try to be on the right side while still rejecting the accusations that have been made publicly. In other words, giving up as little of the asshole nature as possible. I’d like to be wrong about this.
To accept the accusations that have been made publicly would lead to the obvious question: Why is it different for Krauss than for Michael Shermer or [fill in name of prominent figure that has been accused of sexism and defended publicly and loudly by assholes).
Perhaps the answer is that he knew Krauss better, and was aware of it all the time? And said nothing? I don’t know. I have no clue why the difference on this one and every other accusation, and I’m certainly not accusing him of anything other than inconsistency.
I think it goes a little beyond inconsistency. That’s what I meant by “Oddly enough, that’s also how the BuzzFeed reporters saw it, which is why they reported on the story. There were a lot of allegations, independent of each other, describing a pattern” in the original post. My point was to query why Coyne disbelieved the pattern until he talked to his own friends, and by extension why he’s been so hostile to the whole idea of widespread sexism and hostility to women in the atheist movement since 2011.
One of the big problems with this entire debate is that it is based on a very misleading and inaccurate representation of that specific actual event.
First, Watson added on — and made the creepiness specifically follow from — the idea that he “sexualized” her. Since at the time this was a theme that she was frequently talking about, it would be perfectly reasonable for people to assume that that was the main theme of the video and not a simple “This is not something you should do”. Now, being charitable, I am more likely to conclude that you’re right and that this is something that annoyed Watson and so she felt the need to post a video about it, because that’s perfectly in line with her personality, but it’s not unreasonable for someone watching that video and want to address the issue of sexualization.
Which is, in fact, what the presumably harshest response to it — or at least harshest unexpected response — did. It wasn’t from the 50% that you claimed had their brains blow a fuse, but was from Stef McGraw, who essentially argued that just because someone expressed sexual interest in her doesn’t mean that it was sexualization. That this is the response that most bothered Watson is confirmed by the fact that she felt the need to call that response out directly and didn’t even seem to make any reference to other responses.
At this point, there STILL wasn’t a huge response, until Watson decided to call out McGraw directly, in a speech at a conference, where Watson was talking about the sexism of the religious right and decided to claim that McGraw failed Feminism 101 (this coming from someone who had thought that being feminist meant that she could now make rape jokes, so you’d think she’d have more sympathy). Moreover, this was at a conference where McGraw was an organizer and was in the audience. THIS spawned reactions, but generally not of the “Watson was wrong to say that guys shouldn’t do that” but more of the “Watson called out someone by name in a VERY harsh manner when Watson had more power and there were many reasons why McGraw wouldn’t be willing to reply”.
Watson then tried to defend herself by saying that someone should always name names with stuff like this, people disagreed, and THEN the whole thing exploded. Dawkins’ “Dear Muslima” comment was on a thread at P.Z. Myers’ blog linking to this very defense that Watson made, and came after many feminists were defending the overall idea that what Elevator Guy did was very, very bad and very sexist. Dawkins was replying essentially to what he perceived as an extreme exaggeration.
So, no, it isn’t the case that Watson said a mild “Guys don’t do that” and 50% of the brains on the planet blew a fuse, deliberately or not, to avoid dealing with the problem or no (many men said that what EG did was a mistake, but didn’t consider it egregiously sexist). There’s a whole lot more there that explains the reaction that you’ve left out.
Shorter Verbose Stoic: “It’s all about ethics in conference presentations!”
I guess Verbose Stoic thinks “verbose” is a good thing?
Also, boy is there anything we need more than a verbose relitigation of “guys don’t do that” a mere SEVEN YEARS later.
#8: Well, I need to ponder that some more. Let me get back to ya in, say, seven years? If you can wait stoically.