Tuesday, July 12, 2011

et tu, Greta?

To be fair, I'm unsurprised which side Greta Christina would come down on.  What I did find surprising is that she's somehow managed to miss, near as I can figure anyway, the conversation that's been going on.
So, let's see how Greta decides to bend the facts to meet her ineluctably proper conclusion, shall we?
A shitstorm in which many men, including Richard Dawkins, have argued that this is a trivial issue, or even a non-issue: that it's ridiculous for women to be cautious or fearful when they're propositioned by a strange man in a strange country alone in an elevator at four in the morning;
Richard Dawkins at no point said, implied, alluded to, or even danced near anything of the sort. He has said it's not a cause to whine and complain. He has not said, nor has anyone such that I've seen, or implied that a person is not entitled to feel whatever they'd like. But, maybe I'm misrepresenting Richard Dawkins, so let's see if what he actually did say bears any relation to the lie Greta Christina has just told.
If she felt his behaviour was creepy, that was her privilege, just as it was the Catholics' privilege to feel offended and hurt when PZ nailed the cracker.
Yup, sure seems like to me that Dawkins is implying she's not entitled to feel whatever she'd like.  He continues:
Rebecca's feeling that the man's proposition was 'creepy' was her own interpretation of his behaviour, presumably not his.
Apparently, she's still free at this point in the conversation to interpret the situation and feel anything about that interpretation as she'd like. This hardly seems congruent with Greta Christina's version of events. Maybe it's later on that he says Rebecca Twatson isn't entitled to feel whatever she'd like.
Muslim women suffer physically from misogyny, their lives are substantially damaged by religiously inspired misogyny. Not just words, real deeds, painful, physical deeds, physical privations, legally sanctioned demeanings. The equivalent would be if PZ had nailed not a cracker but a Catholic. Then they'd have had good reason to complain.
Oh, I see how she read that the way she did:  she just invents shit as she goes along - presumably under the guise of helping me to get laid, a dubious proposition.  At any rate, Greta Christina, Richard Dawkins, despite your libelous claim, says nothing whatever about denying to anyone the privilege to feel whatever they feel; he indeed argues precisely in the opposing direction. He goes on to elaborate that the issue isn't about feeling something; rather, the issue is about complaining about it - complaining about it one notes when Rebecca Twatson was in absolutely no actual danger.

To recap:  she wasn't in danger, but was still entitled to feel as though she were. After the situation ended and it was unambiguously clear that she was never in danger, she should have shut the hell up about it because absolutely nothing really happened. It's a non-event.

What else might Greta Christina have for our sampling?  Let's see if her honesty improves along the way.
We like sex. We like flirting. We like men. We're not saying you're all rapists. We know you're not all rapists.
No, you're not saying we're all rapists; you're implying that we should a.) all be treated as though we are, and b.) we should also think of ourselves as rapists as a guide to better know our place. She then trots out Schrodinger's Rapist (surprise!), which offers this little gem up for advice, which Greta Christina seemingly wholeheartedly endorses:
This means that some men should never approach strange women in public. Specifically, if you have truly unusual standards of personal cleanliness, if you are the prophet of your own religion, or if you have tattoos of gang symbols or Technicolor cockroaches all over your face and neck, you are just never going to get a good response approaching a woman cold. That doesn’t mean you’re doomed to a life of solitude, but I suggest you start with internet dating, where you can put your unusual traits out there and find a woman who will appreciate them.
Excellent advice for men there, Greta Christina:  if you're not attractive enough, stay home like good ugly people should so as to not scare off the women-folk.  That's outstanding, Greta Christina.  Say, we can ask the fat women to stay home? The ugly women to stay home? Or is it only the ugly, fat men who have to never ever under any circumstance approach a woman?

Why is this bit important? Well, only because just before it, Greta Christina said:
We're trying to make the world a less sexist place.
She apparently has some heretofore unknown definition of either "less" or "sexist" since this article which she cites to as being a guide to govern men approaching women states that a.) if you're undesirable (which you should know you're ugly already, right?), and b.) male, then you are excluded from ever approaching any woman unknown to you, anywhere, under any circumstance. Period. Nope, nothing sexist about that.

Hey, ladies with small tits, mind staying home so the men don't have to worry about being dealt the indignity of running into you? It would horrible if men had to run into a woman they might not find sexually appealing, huh? We already know that women think of this as an imminently reasonable solution (and of course, these radical, right-wing feminists here speak for all women!)

She keeps returning to this little bit of prose:
I have to assume that getting laid is not the point.
You don't need to do a great deal of assuming, Greta Christina; the man in question mentioned coffee, not fucking.  Or is it not possible that Rebecca Twatson being a paid, invited speaker at a conference makes it believable that someone, somewhere might actually want to talk to her over coffee? I can understand why it's hard to believe that; I've heard her give a talk. But buddy had been drinking, so she might have sounded smarter for a moment.

Unfettered by such inhibiting a factor as reality, she presses on:
that (among other things) women routinely get our professional/ intellectual/ artistic accomplishments dismissed in favor of a focus on our sexual attractiveness
Well, this could be true for some women. At the very least, though, men aren't telling you shut up and get your ugly ass back inside that we may manage to walk through our lives without having to be offended by how grotesque you are.  Chin up, Greta Christina, you can always look for a willing partner online.

I'm going to end quoting her because this article of hers goes on for like days, and it's just a bunch of nonsense wrapped around quite a few outright lies:
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.(emphasis mine)
We are listening to what women are saying. Your problem is that there are women who are saying you're wrong. You don't want us to listen women; you want us to only listen to you and those who think as you think. Your goal here isn't to get men to listen to women; it's to get men to do what you tell them to do.

And how does this even apply to me at all? I'm gay. When I ask a woman if she wants to get coffee, it means coffee.  That one of your emotionally crippled sisters might think me her rapist is not an indictment on my etiquette; it's an indictment on the extent to which she's emotionally crippled. And, if I might be so bold, her and your emotional instabilities are not my problem.  They are not anyone else's problem.  Your insecurities and fears are your problem. That you're an emotional cripple is not an argument for anything, and it is not an entitlement for you tell anyone they must do fuck all about anything.

One last quotation here, to make it clear the level of dishonesty at play:
People insisting, not only that she had no right to be upset over being propositioned by a strange man alone in an elevator at four in the morning... but that she shouldn't have said anything about it in public.
 No one is saying she's not entitled to feel what she feels. We are saying that her completely wrong emotional reaction to a non-event is something that doesn't entitle her to tell all men, everywhere what they may or may not do in the stead of all women everywhere. And I would argue that she should stop bitching about absolutely nothing at all. At no point in time was she in any actual danger; it was entirely made up in her head. It was a contrivance of her own mind.  She's free to talk about it if she wants, but one would think that she'd be more mature and discerning about going onto the internet and whining to potentially millions of people that absolutely nothing happened to her beyond her imagining in her head that she was in any danger.

Great, she's demonstrating the stereotype that women are too emotional by reprimanding the whole of the male half of the species for not respecting her inability to rationally and appropriately respond to a situation as it is actually happening. No, we must bow to her completely irrational feelings because, apparently, her discomfort for no reason is a good argument for something other than her needing a therapist and medication.




and hers at my zazzle store; links below.
Fuck that.
Now available in his















[edit: here's another nice article on it.

8 comments:

John D said...

Nice summary. I agree 100%. Glad I found your little blog as it makes me feel like I am not the only one sick of the atheist fembot invasion.

Anonymous said...

Again, you neatly sum and demolish idiocy and wrongness by making fun of people. Well played.

Justicar said...

John D: welcome. I'm glad you found me too! The sad part about all of this is that handled differently, almost everyone would have been like yeah, ok.

But she couldn't stop with just "man! I was creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeped out by some guy last night!" It had to from that to therefore all men everywhere must do x, y and z, and then to "potential sexual assault". Sorry, but histrionics aren't an argument. Stay tuned as I have some more blog stuff to put up. I'm just waiting on a couple of people to respond to comments I've seen that I'd like an answer to before I say something unkind. (Or, not say something unkind - they may answer in a way other than what I suspect)

Rsytefn, are you following me? You seem to be everywhere!

Help! I'm being stalkerated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Well, I followed you back to here from ERV... other than that, aside from waiting outside your home in a van marked as the local cable company and putting that minimic in your bedroom, I'm totally not stalking you. Unless you want me to. ;)

Anonymous said...

I agree with you: http://notungblog.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/the-not-so-skeptical-community/

Thank you for being another rare rational voice in the 'rational' community!

Justicar said...

Notung, I agree with your agreeing with me!
Nice article - I'll throw it up on my broglol.
Thanks, and welcome. =^_^=

Anonymous said...

Great stuff! By the way, I'm also commenting on Greta's article under the name "Zac". The whole thing has been doing my head in - really since Dawkins commented and was then instantly excommunicated.

Justicar said...

I think I am disallowed the 'pleasure' of commenting
on that highbrow forum. Pity too - I've seen so many, um, intellectually rigorous contributions that I kind of half want to partake so that I might be improved in the celestial way.