Author: Ophelia Benson

Phil Plait is another who disagrees with Richard Dawkins about the zero badness of asking a stranger for sex on an elevator at 4 a.m.

An important point that came up multiple times is that many men do not truly understand what women go through in such situations.This point was driven home when Richard Dawkins spoke up about it. Through his own words, he proved quite clearly that a lot of men just don’t get it.

And lots of other men on various other sites have been demonstrating the same thing. They don’t get that it matters, they don’t get that women aren’t a public commodity, they don’t get that it’s not all about them, they don’t get that they don’t know better. It’s a depressing spectacle. (Lots of men do get it though. Lots. No need to tell me that. Not that you were going to, but…but some of you probably were.)

This is a societal issue; sexism (conscious or otherwise) is still a strong force in our society, and a lot of men will dismiss claims of sexism from women. As has been made very clear here, we all need to make sure that all men understand the woman’s point of view, or else this type of thing will continue to happen… and people will continue to dismiss it as no big deal.It is a big deal. If Dawkins — a leader in the critical thinking movement and a man known for defending women against religious oppression — can take such a dismissive stance, it’s clear that we have a long way to go. I don’t know if it was sexism on Dawkins’ part or just plain obtuseness, but this attitude is shared by far too many men. It trivializes the justifiable fear women have to live with as well as their point of view, and that’s just plain wrong.

It’s not actually primarily about fear, for me (which perhaps puts me right back in “it’s no big deal” territory – except that I don’t think so). It’s primarily about not wanting things to be divided up as: men do thinking and talking and women do looks and sex.

There are the usual many comments saying things like

Men are not allowed to speak to or even make eye contact with women without express written permission, signed in triplicate, notarized with at least two witnesses. Because all men are potential sexual predators and all women are delicate potential victims. Sexism, much?

That’s only six comments in, and it’s not even the first one saying “wull how are we supposed to ask women for sex then?”

Miranda raises an interesting issue about this idea of “getting it.”

Attempting to silence and/or shout down those who dissent or disagree is rude, immature, irrational, and counterproductive.

And engaging in that attempted silencing and/or shouting down of dissent or disagreement by telling someone that they “just don’t get it” is gallingly condescending, patronizing, presumptuous, childish, arrogant, and rude.

Yes but…there also really is something to the idea that we don’t “get” everything, and that our circumstances can prevent us from “getting” what things are like for people in different circumstances. Privilege can get in the way of comprehension. It’s always possible to exaggerate that, or to see it when it’s not there, but it doesn’t follow that there’s no truth to it at all. I think I have been seeing a lot of not getting over the past couple of days.

Where were we. Rebecca Watson said about elevator guy, a student said about Watson about elevator guy, Watson said about the student at her CFI talk, lots of people said about Watson saying about the student at her talk, while, meanwhile, Dawkins said about Watson about elevator guy. Dawkins said something sarcastic the point of which was that women living under Islamic laws have things worse than Watson. This did not go down well. Lots of people pointed out, with some heat, that the fact that X is bad is not a reason to be quiet about less-bad Y, and that Dawkins was being clueless about Y, and that he shouldn’t do that because he was never going to be subject to Y.

Still with me?

There was some doubt that it was actually Dawkins who had said that, but then PZ got home from wherever all the atheists were this weekend and confirmed that it was Dawkins, and then Dawkins said.

Many people seem to think it obvious that my post was wrong and I should apologise. Very few people have bothered to explain exactly why. The nearest approach I have heard goes something like this.

I sarcastically compared Rebecca’s plight with that of women in Muslim countries or families dominated by Muslim men. Somebody made the worthwhile point (reiterated here by PZ) that it is no defence of something slightly bad to point to something worse. We should fight all bad things, the slightly bad as well as the very bad. Fair enough. But my point is that the ‘slightly bad thing’ suffered by Rebecca was not even slightly bad, it was zero bad. A man asked her back to his room for coffee. She said no. End of story.

End of story, yes. End of discussion, no. Should be end of discussion, no. Zero bad, no, which is why should be end of discussion, no.

It’s too boring and wearying to go into, why not, and 7 million people have already done so anyway. I’ll just give the tiniest flick at why not, and move on. Because it wasn’t really “for coffee,” for a start – why the fuck would she want some coffee at 4 a.m. when she had said she was tired and she was on her way to crash and there was coffee at the bar they had both just left anyway? “For coffee” was just a euphemism for sex. He asked her back to his room for sex. That’s not zero bad. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s not zero bad, either. It sounds like more of a treat to at least some men than it does to most women, but surely Richard is not completely unaware of that. Would he think it ok to go up to a stranger in Waitrose and say “want to come back to my house and have sex?” I doubt it. If I’m wrong, then this part of my case falls apart, but if I’m right…he should be able to see that it’s not zero bad, especially not at 4 a.m. in an elevator.

And because of all that, it’s a way of treating women as if they’re fundamentally there to be sexual prey. That’s not zero bad.

There was one last bit that as many people have pointed out is quite funny and quite ironic for multiple reasons:

No, I obviously don’t get it. I will gladly apologise if somebody will calmly and politely, without using the word fuck in every sentence, explain to me what it is that I am not getting.

Tone troll! Hahahahahahahahaha.

So anyway, they’ll all be at TAM in a few days so they’ll either work it out or make it worse. The Atheist Movement sways back and forth in the wind – will it totter, will it crumble, will it fall?

I dunno. I have all I can do not to get into fistfights with the neighbors.

There’s been some back and forth about the term “passive-aggressive” and what its exact meaning is. I’ve been using it loosely in what I took to be the vernacular sense, not in what I took to be any kind of technical sense. On being questioned about this, I looked it up; I hadn’t realized it was technical in quite that way, included in the DSM and all. It’s a personality disorder, by gum. I thought it was just a bit of outdated descriptive psychology of the kind that Woody Allen likes to throw around – a bit of pseudo-Freudianism.

What, exactly, is the difference? What’s the difference between an official personality disorder that appears in the DSM and an outdated bit of quasi-Freudian vocabulary? I, frankly, have no idea. The DSM also includes Oppositional Defiant Disorder, which always makes me laugh like a drain, because it’s me all over and because I don’t think of it as a disorder, I just think of it as an approach.

So anyway. I’ve been using it informally, not formally or technically, and I’m going to go on doing that, because people (most people) seem to know exactly what I mean by it, and because it describes something real, that we keep seeing. So what have I been meaning by it when using it informally?

I’ve been meaning (and I have in fact spelled this out a few times) being aggressive while trying to hang onto the credit for being non-aggressive. Having it both ways. Being bossy and censorious while pretending to be gentle and sweet.

I’ve never gotten along well with people like that. Never. I suppose that’s my Oppositional Defiant Disorder playing up again. I get all oppositional and defiant about them. I want to kick them until they drop the goody-goody act and admit they’re just being hostile and quarrelsome like the rest of us.

My view is, if you’re going to be bossy and censorious, then be it. Don’t pretend you’re being Little Saint Lovely of the Blossoms, just get on with it.

I also mean, sometimes, people who praise themselves without admitting that they’re doing it, at least when they are people who also do the bossy-censorious thing. People who say things like “oh my goodness I’m so amazed that everybody loves me so much.” That kind of thing makes my oppositional defiant demon laugh a coarse laugh and scratch its bum. Come on, sweety, you’re not amazed at all, you’re gloating and boasting. Don’t try to fool us – just say “excuse me for a minute while I gloat and boast.” And don’t combine “oh my goodness I’m so amazed that everybody loves me so much” with “if only all of you could be as loving and compassionate as I am everybody would love you so much too.” That’s fatal, darling, we see right through it.

That’s what I mean by passive-aggressive. How about you?

So there are various atheist and skeptical conferences, and Rebecca Watson talks at them and says things about sexism, and at the Dublin one she talks to people afterwards until 4 a.m. at which point she says she’s exhausted and going to bed, and she gets in the hotel elevator to do that and a guy joins her in the elevator (just the two of them, how romantic) and says

Don’t take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting, would you like to come to my room for coffee?

And she says, mildly, “Guys, don’t do that.”

Quite right. Nobody should do that, really. In the afternoon, fine; in the evening, well, it depends, use your judgement; at 4 in the morning, unless you’ve both been making googly-eyes already, it’s just obnoxious, even if it’s not a pass. But maybe that’s just me. I can’t imagine doing something like that, because it would feel so incredibly intrusive and presumptuous – “Hey it’s four a.m. and you said you’re exhausted but hey wouldn’t you rather spend time with me than go to sleep?” I’m frankly not conceited enough for that, and don’t want to be.

There’s been a lot of drama and disagreement about all this over the last whatever, few days or a week or whatever it is, to which I’ve been oblivious. (I’m out of the loop.) But PZ did a post on it this morning, mentioning my eccentric neighbor along with Elevator Guy, and along came lots of men’s rights idiots to say lots of idiot things.

It’s not just about sexism, it is (as some commenters said) also about just plain manners. No, it isn’t manners to accost a stranger in an isolated place and ask for sex. (Ok for men that works, which is why there are cruisey parks. Fine. But for straights and lesbians, it isn’t manners.) (Maybe from men’s point of view it would be manners if only women would oblige. But to us it doesn’t feel like manners [sex workers excepted, obviously] so we mostly don’t oblige. You’ll see women doing that in movies and things, but it’s a male fantasy.)

PZ made a different point about manners: when you disagree with someone, name names. It’s passive-aggressive not to.

As Watson says, she loathes passive-aggressive behavior. So do I, and this is a fine example of it. Name names, always name names, and always do your best to be specific. It is right and proper as good skeptics to confront and provoke and challenge, and you have to be direct about it…

The skeptics movement has a surfeit of that passive aggressive attitude right now. As exhibit #1, I’ll mention the infamous “Don’t be a dick” speech by Phil Plait, which, while representing a good goal of asking for more tolerance, was turned into a flopping issue of disagreement specifically because it was all about tone, not substance, and because Phil could not found any of his arguments in specifics, keeping everything vague, and often cartoonish.

I too loathe passive-aggression. (I don’t know that neighbor’s name though, and I don’t want to.)