Atheists are people, too

[james_davis_nicoll]

Unfortunately that means some of them are terrible people.

I’ve been writing about atheism for about 10 years now. What has driven me is a combination of awe at the amazing insights produced by science, so much deeper and more substantial than any collection of myths, and a furious rage at the lies and injustice and corruption of humanity by religion. For a while there, in the middle, there was also an ebullience at the growing success of atheism, and hope that someday we would be able to cast aside the follies of faith. The awe is still here, the rage is still burning, but the optimism is fading and is being consumed by a new anger at the incompetence and betrayal of the self-appointed atheist leadership.

Comments

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

The thing is, there is (back to the beginning of this discussion, at James's link) more than one oppressed group here. Atheists are oppressed. So are women. So are nonwhite people. Many of the major atheist conferences have had incidents and/or policies where women were sexually harassed and made to feel uncomfortable. Several prominent name-brand atheists are viciouly dismissive when you critique representation and harassment issues.

My particular objection to Richard Dawkins is that he has constantly belittled sexual harassment as an issue, and has gone so far as to classify which rapes he does and does not think are traumatizing.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/richard-dawkins-says-date-rape-is-bad-stranger-rape-is-worse-on-twitter-9634572.html

http://freethoughtblogs.com/entequilaesverdad/2014/09/19/dear-richard-dawkins-your-hypothetical-is-still-rape/

an endless collection of statements to the effect that abuse/rape victims brought it on themselves,
Indeed.

Here is Sam Harris being asked about why his audience is heavily male:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2014/09/is-sam-harris-sexist.html

“I think it may have to do with my person[al] slant as an author, being very critical of bad ideas. This can sound very angry to people… People just don’t like to have their ideas criticized. There’s something about that critical posture that is to some degree intrinsically male and more attractive to guys than to women,” he said. “The atheist variable just has this—it doesn’t obviously have this nurturing, coherence-building extra estrogen vibe that you would want by default if you wanted to attract as many women as men.”

You cannot get out of "atheists are unwelcoming and dismissive of the concerns of women and other non-majority groups" with "atheists are oppressed". You can be both oppressed and an oppressor.

When I think of rudeness and atheists, I do think of Dawkins, and of Harris, and of all the other people within the movement who have attacked individual women for speaking up about women's issues and their own experiences. That's where I'm coming from. I should have stated that clearly in my original post, and I apologize for not thinking more clearly then. (Edit: Just to clarify: My initial statement should have been what I said right here, rather than wiffling about the Guardian.)

I'm not saying "One prominent feminist said something extreme, therefore I can ignore all of them". I'm saying "Lots of prominent atheists dismiss women and sexual harassment, and they're being endorsed as the public face of the movement by such means as headlining conferences and book sales." It's the difference between "Margaret Sanger and Marie Stopes were eugenicists" (true) and "The current Planned Parenthood organization and its spokesmen support eugenics" (false).

[scentofviolets.livejournal.com]

Well, put! I don't agree, but that doesn't keep me from acknowledging that was fairly said.

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

Speaking of shifting the subject, this is the first point at which this discussion has been about shitty statements on gender by prominent atheists rather than impolite dismissals of religion. It is an important point, though.

Both Harris and Dawkins are widely considered within the atheist community (particularly by the Skepchick and FTB crowd) to be complete arseholes, and their appalling attitudes to gender equality and rape culture are the primary reason why (Harris' racism doesn't help him either). This is also why a large proportion of atheists do not consider Harris and Dawkins representative of anything but Harris and Dawkins and their respective fanbases.

Their repeated misogynistic arseholery does not, however, appear to have any causal link with their atheism. It's not part of the scripture. And the vast bulk of the criticism they face from outside the atheist community itself has nothing to do with their statements on gender and everything to do with their statements on religion.

Ophelia, Greta, P.Z. and others have been advocating for some time for the exclusion of obnoxious speakers from conferences, and the active promotion of equality in stagetime and general conduct at conferences. The demented Slymepit reaction to Rebecca Watson was a reaction against the growing profile and authority of women in organised atheism.

It's a perfect mirror of the crap that's been happening in gamer circles with Anita Sarkeesian, also echoed in the recent harassment scandals at tech and science conferences, also echoed in recent fandom scandals. Geek boys on average are shitheads on gender.

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

If you follow James's link, though, it is specifically about the atheist community and women. That's why (I presume) he made the post. That was the jumping-off point of the whole thing.

But both Harris and Dawkins are widely idolized/admired within the atheist movement, too. They aren't fringe figures *within the movement*. There are a lot of people who object to what they say, but there are also a lot of people shouting down people who criticize them.

Yes, gaming, fandom, atheism, open-source ... there's a specific sort of "The woman I hypothesize myself being wouldn't have this problem/complain about this/mind this" person who is much in evidence.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

PZ is an interesting case for separating the strands of this argument: he's as strident and sometimes obnoxious about the "magic sky fairy" stuff as any New Atheist, but he's specifically calling out the sexism in the movement.

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

Yup.

"Dawkins is a dickhead on gender issues" is a whole separate thing from "public advocacy of atheism is just as obnoxious as the behaviour of religious evangelists". The reputation of both Dawkins and Harris has been plummeting within the atheist community for years, and you'll be hard pressed these days to find any defenders of them at Skepchick or FTB. Amongst the libertarian/MRA faction over at JREF or richarddawkins.net, however...

PZ's post is about the first (and other things); this thread began with the second. Sharp and unyieldng criticism of self-appointed atheist leadership is a notable feature of the Gnu's. So is being bluntly honest about religion (e.g. "no, actually I do think that your religious tradition is both destructive and blatantly idiotic to the point of being an obvious scam, and I will not be politely silent about that view").

It's the second factor which shapes the public criticism of organised atheism. Criticism of the first comes almost entirely from within the atheist community.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The gender-issues fight, though, is really just a small piece of the gender-issues fight happening within the larger world of everything identified as "geek" (science and engineering, the computer and software industries, and science-fiction, comics and videogame fandom). And that definitely is getting some press.

PZ Myers works in an area of science in which degree programs are rapidly becoming majority female, which might be one of the things driving him to take relatively enlightened positions there.

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

PZ Myers works in an area of science in which degree programs are rapidly becoming majority female, which might be one of the things driving him to take relatively enlightened positions there.

Unlikely.

1) PZ does not appear to be the sort of dickhead who requires a personal stake before he'll do the right thing.

2) I come from a female-dominated academic background (psych, although on the relatively Y-chromosome heavy neuro side of the field). No shortage of misogynistic douchebags there (put it this way: the mother of my professor's child was one of his ex grad students), despite it having been a majority female profession for quite a long time.

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

But Skepchick is both one of the loud feminist voices within the movement *and* the person Dawkins directly attacked over complaining about harassment. The whole thing occurred within PZ Myers's blog, which again has been decrying women's sidelining within the movement for years. Saying "Skepchick and Myers are good on feminism and dislikes Dawkins" is very very much beside the point.

There are voices within atheism saying "Stop. This isn't cool. Back off." There are equally (at least) powerful voices within atheism saying "These women and their allies are being ridiculous." It isn't a settled issue. It is an ongoing issues, with ongoing flareups. The most recent I could find was August 2013, where atheist leading lights James Randi and D.J. Grothe, of JREF, bungle a sexual-harassment case badly.

This is a big problem; it can't be isolated to a few bad apples.

I apologize again for getting sidetracked into Guardian comments. That wasn't what James was posting about, and it wasn't what I should have talked about.

[dionysus1999.livejournal.com]

D.J Grothe is a sexist douche bag, it wasn't bungled, it was monkey-wrenched.

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

Yup. There's been a campaign (finally successful!) to oust DJ for a few years now.

I'm one of the people contributing to pay for the lawyers on the plaintiff side of the harassment case.

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

It is a big problem, and no, it isn't settled. It's not just a few bad apples; it's a steaming cesspit of scrumpy.

But it's a minority cesspit, and it's on the way down (IMO). The MRA crowd are self limiting; they repel everyone except themselves.