Well isn’t this a pleasant surprise: Jen McCreight asked the BlagHag readers who they thought was the most influential female atheist of 2011, and they voted for me! MEEEEE!
They also voted for a number of other impressive people, like Greta Christina, Jessica Ahlquist, Maryam Namazie, Ophelia Benson, Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Amanda Marcotte, and the Godless Bitches Podcast team. Plus, the other Skepchick contributors got kudos in the nomination thread, with specific shout-outs to Natalie Reed, Maria Walters, Debbie Goddard, and Elyse Anders. If you’re looking for even more great women to start following, check out the comments for a lot of quality suggestions.
It’s flattering and also odd for me to be even included in a list like that. I know (from some of the surprisingly bitter comments that Jen had to delete from the announcement post) that some people feel I don’t deserve it, if only because I’m being rewarded for something that happened to me, as opposed to something I did. I find it very interesting that these people keep insisting on casting me as a victim, all while spitting on my supporters for, yes, making me out to be a victim. In fact, there was hardly a moment last year when I felt as though I was remaining passive, and those who supported me encouraged me to stay active and vocal.
Anyway, the important point is that I appreciate the recognition. I thank Jen and her readers, and all those who were an inspiration to me last year.
There is a tinge of sadness to my acceptance of this award. You see, while I may have won the “Screen Actors Guild Award of Atheism,” I was not even nominated for what is surely the “Oscar of Atheism,” The Hitchie, given out by the prestigious Examiner newspaper, which as we all know dates back to the early 19th Century when it published such noted writers as John Stuart Mill and Lord Byron.
The Hitchie, of course, is named for a true hero who we’re all familiar with. Taking a cue from Hitch’s strong moral fiber, award-giver Staks Rosch said he created his list of five Hitchie nominees based entirely on merit. Well, almost: “I tried to not pick the usual suspects (Dawkins, Harris, etc.),” he posted paradoxically, “because they always win these things and I wanted a more even handed award contest.”
He did make clear, though, that despite the fact that he was admittedly ignoring merit in order to even the playing field, he wasn’t going to make the field so even that any women or people of color [edit: other than George Takei and our dear friend Hemant Mehta, who insists that he is not just a very tan white person] could have stood a chance. Many commenters and several bloggers, like Ophelia Benson and Greta Christina, took Rosch to task for his suggestion that any woman or [additional] person of color on the list would have been a “token.” Rosch’s response to many of the commenters on BlagHag was, I’m sure you’ll agree, the only reasonable one considering his commitment to merit:
I think next year I’ll do it strictly by the numbers and Richard Dawkins can win it.
As for this year, the token non-Richard Dawkins winner was Friend of Skepchick Matt Dillahunty. Congrats to Matt! I should note here that if the Hitchie is the Oscar of atheism, then surely Matt is the Marlon Brando of atheism, since instead of accepting the award himself he sent a lesbian feminist to the ceremony dressed entirely in traditional feminist garb. He also pledged to use the surely substantial Hitchie prize money as a starter fund for a competing award ceremony called “The Bitchie,” which he says he named after me because, had he not, I just would have won it every year. Thanks, Matt!
Featured image can be seen & bought here. Hitchie statuette not available for purchase at this time.
Yayyy, Rebecca!
I believe that you deserved this award not for what was done to you but, rather, because you decided to take a principled stand. You could have been a nice girl and just shut up but, instead, you inspired a large portion of the skeptic/atheist community by standing in a shit storm for us. You displayed tremendous courage and I applaud any reward you get for it.
I thought speaking up was much nicer than shutting up, but appreciate your point about the expectation that nice girls keep their mouths shut.
Keep on speaking, and only make it nice if it should be!
I think I speak for *everyone in the Universe when I say “Boo-ya!”
*I do not speak for everyone in the Universe
Awesome.
Pretty ludicrous to suggest that the award was merely due to something that happened to you when you considered that that sort of thing most likely happened to lots of women last year. You’re just the one who decided to say something about it.
When I hear the words “female atheist” you are the first to come to mind so.. yeah!
congrats, keep up the good work and poo on folks who don’t understand feminism.
Also, don’t drop that, it’s frageelee.
I can’t think of anyone else that really spread like wild fire starting debates on every corner of the internet. I think even your detractors (who I am not one of) have to admit that’s a lot of influence. Congrats Rebecca. ^.^
Wait, you’re an atheist?
Only if it’ll net me a sweet award.
Congrats on being BlagHagtastical! Keep up the good work.
On a side note: while I can think of numerous women who have contributed more to atheism in 2011 than George Takei, aren’t he and Hemant Mehta examples of “people of color” nominated for the Hitchie?
Ah, I see you’ve amended that now. Very tan. Ha!
Yeah, that was my mistake. I glossed over it b/c of the Hitchie guy saying that Neil Degrasse Tyson would have been a token black choice who didn’t deserve it, and I expanded “black” to PoC.
Asserting that a force of nature such as Neil DeGrasse Tyson could be a token anything is high-grade assclownery.
I didn’t vote for you, but I sure think you’re a fine recipient. Congratulations! And I totally agree with you about the Hitchie.
Rebecca, I have a lot of admiration for you. You persevered when others would have given up. Congratulations! It’s much deserved.
Rebecca, you linked the Examiner newspaper in your post. Staks doesn’t write for the Examiner newspaper. He writes for Examiner.com, an online-only publication.
I don’t approve of the token language by any means and Staks could have presented himself much better.
I want, though, to address the initial concern which seems to be, at my estimation, that not including women in an atheist of the year poll of five persons is problematic to the point of warranting many blog posts including one alleging that Staks “forgot about women.” Some commenters and readers may even have gone far as to claim that Staks, in not including women in a poll of five people, is in some way sexist/not valuing women.
I find it hard to believe that it is a >huge problem< that women were not included in a contest of five persons. Perhaps if it were a poll of 25 or 50, I'd be more sympathetic to this concern.
On my group's website, http://www.nepafreethought.org, there is a poll titled "Who is your favorite freethinker?" in which 15 people voted. 7 of the freethinkers included in this poll are all males. Is this a huge problem? I'd like to know. Am I missing something here?
I agree with you and many others that women should be included in the atheist/skeptical movement and our 'frontrunners/persons on posters/whatever' should not be all 'old white guys.' Recent conventions have done a great job in doing this – particularly TAM, NECSS, American Atheists, etc.
“Rebecca, you linked the Examiner newspaper in your post. Staks doesn’t write for the Examiner newspaper. He writes for Examiner.com, an online-only publication.”
Hmm, no, I’m pretty sure that’s the one. Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, Staks Rosch, etc.
“On my group’s website, http://www.nepafreethought.org, there is a poll titled “Who is your favorite freethinker?” in which 15 people voted. 7 of the freethinkers included in this poll are all males. Is this a huge problem? I’d like to know. Am I missing something here?”
If you gave people a choice of seven people to pick as their favorite freethinker and you couldn’t think of a single woman (or person of color, I’ll note) between the time of Galileo and the present, then yes, I’d say that’s a pretty sad problem you’ve got there.
While it’s disappointing not to see any women, I think the larger problem is the language Staks used to address it. He suggested that any inclusion of a women (or an African-American person) would have been a “token” gesture. The implication of that word choice is that no women or African-Americans were actually deserving of the award on their own merits, which is demonstrably untrue.
Further, on being offered examples, he dismissed the accomplishments of the examples as not being good enough to merit award, yet two of the five winners have done nothing but be famous actors who happen to be atheists. The weren’t nominated for merit, but for popularity, so that kind of destroys the argument that this was a pure meritocracy.
It would be much less of a problem had there been five nominees with concrete and impressive contributions to the atheist community, and the response had been “there were many worthy women/minorities, but these five people just happened to have the biggest accomplishments this year.”
Not to mention that Neil DeGrasse Tyson is still considered a “token” because he’s black, even though his contributions are for *sure* greater than anyone included on the list. That’s incredibly telling, that even Niel DeGrasse fucking Tyson is considered a token.
Also it’s not fair to include Dawkins and Harris because people will vote for them because they deserve the award more than the people included, and it’s not fair to include Tyson, any other black person, or any woman because people will vote for them because they’re black and/or women and can’t possibly deserve it. Or something. His whole line of thought makes total sense.
What I am getting at here (mentioning the inclusion of women at conventions as speakers) is that there are indeed some concerns (and these are being addressed), but other concerns [such as what I see as a fundamental complaint that not including a woman in a poll of five people is a huge problem that warrants blog posts and leads people to conclusions that someone forgot about women or are otherwise sexist] don’t seem to be as valid or worth much of the discussion.
Yeah, those 8 sentences I wrote about it were really out of line. Well, 6 sentences if you don’t count his quotes.
Shorter justinvacula: “Yes, but. . .”
No, Staks doesn’t write for the Examiner newspaper. Examiner.com and The Examiner are quite different. I too, write for Examiner.com (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examiner.com).
Failing to include a woman in a poll of seven people or five people isn’t an indication that someone “could not think” of a woman, but rather that one was just not included. In such a small selection size, can one really expect to include a great deal of diversity? We can also say, “One could not think of a single Latino, Asian-American, Vietnamese-American, bisexual, transgendered person, etc…”
“No, Staks doesn’t write for the Examiner newspaper. Examiner.com and The Examiner are quite different.”
I’m pretty sure they’re the same.
“Failing to include a woman in a poll of seven people or five people isn’t an indication that someone “could not think” of a woman, but rather that one was just not included. ”
OK, I was actually being nice when I suggested you couldn’t think of a single woman or person of color to include on a list of favorite freethinkers. A list that could literally have any number of names you wanted. The fact that you could but decided not to is sort of worse?
Not only are they intrinsically related, but the Wikipedia article that was linked about Examiner.com says this;
“The company derives its name from Anschultz/Clarity’s 2004 purchase of the San Francisco Examiner which had previously owned the examiner.com domain.”
So, yeah, same company.
Also, you know that women are like, half the population, right? Because from your comment it seems like you don’t know that.
Welcome to this episode of Simple Answers to Simple Questions. Our guest today is Justin Vacula.
In such a small selection size, can one really expect to include a great deal of diversity?
Yes. Yes one can.
This had been another edition of simple answers to simple questions. I’d like to thank our guest Justin Vacula.
You know? I think I might bring back Comment o’ the Week just for this.
I’m not saying that what you are writing about is out of line.
Nope. You’re it “just saying” wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t a major issue, and it wasn’t worth the time. But you’re not saying it was out of line.
Yay, Rebecca! Keep being awesome in 2012. I have no doubt you will succeed.
Congratulations Rebecca!
Does the award come with a slow cooked baby, or do they just send it UPS in dry ice?
In October of 2011, I authored a post that listed five people who I would love to see debate William Lane Craig. I noted Michael Shermer, Theodore Shick, Matt Dillahunty, and Daniel Dennett. I also included Massimo Pigliucci even though he had debated Craig in the past.
Here is my reasoning, from the post in which I intentionally wanted to create a short list that I noted “obviously won’t include everyone”:
Theodore Shick
Shick, co-author of How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking in a New Age (and much more), is a great philosopher who can apply the methodology presented in his book to show that belief in God is irrational. It was a great pleasure to hear him talk at King’s College in Pennsylvania! Shick did so in “Think” magazine. Let’s see it happen in 2011/2012 in a debate.
Massimo Pigliucci
Pigliucci did an amazing job debating Craig and some others (Horner, Ham…) in the past, but it’s been quite a while. He’s easily one of my favorite living philosophers and would do atheists (and everyone else) a great service in debating Craig.
Matt Dillahunty (!)
Matt Dillahunty, host of The Atheist Experience, is a phenomenal debater who does amazingly in an impromptu setting (and even better in a non-impromptu setting). His show (and that of other ACA members) has worldwide renown and Matt is known by many as a fierce ‘defender of atheism.’ He’s addressed all of Craig’s arguments (or variations of them) on the show and would do really well debating Craig. The question for Craig should be this: “Why haven’t you offered a debate challenge to Dillahunty yet (or called his show to debate on-air)?” Matt, of course, as many fans know, is quite busy right now, but hopefully the future will bring a Dillahunty/Craig debate!
Daniel Dennett
Why hasn’t Dennett, one of the ‘new atheists,’ debated Craig yet? Dennett has debated McGrath, Plantinga, and D’Souza. Dennett obviously has a strong background in philosophy and would do a great job against Craig.
Michael Shermer
Shermer is a wonderful debater on so many topics. He is able to apply skepticism and decisively show that many arguments for supernatural claims (in addition to others) are deeply flawed.
Do you find a problem with this list?
So, which women and/or minorities did you consider before coming up with the final list?
I recently wrote a letter to the editor to a local newspaper that included text from one of Shick’s works, heard him speak live, read his “How to Think about Weird Things” book and had it as a textbook for a class. He would also be quite a ‘new face’ to many in the movement even though he is well-published.
Pigliucci, as I noted, is one of my favorite living philosophers. He did wonderfully against Craig in the past, I listened to every podcast of his, watched all of his debates, and enjoyed him speaking at NECSS. He was an easy pick.
Dillahunty, Dennett, and Shermer were also quite easy picks (and I’ve outlined the reasoning above).
I wanted a short list and these were some of the first people who came to mind who, as I noted, >I< would love to see debate Craig.
“So, which women and/or minorities did you consider before coming up with the final list?”
Wow. You couldn’t even answer that question with one woman and/or minority. Not even one. Which means that you didn’t even *consider* a woman and/or minority. Just white men. You do realize that that isn’t a good thing, right? Not when there are tons of examples of minorities, including women, that should be considered when these types of lists/contests/whatever come up. It means that you aren’t even *attempting* to branch outside of your “white, man” box. You aren’t looking anywhere else to even have the ability to know that other freethinkers aside from white men exist!
How do you not realize that that is a problem? That’s not to say you’re a terrible person, because we all have our biases and sometimes it takes a bit of a nudge or kick to realize those biases … but to continue to ignore that perhaps, just maybe, you might have a bias you aren’t totally aware of, means you probably are kind of a terrible person.
And have you ever read or seen Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Have you spent any time listening to Jamila Bey? Perhaps Hemant Mehta? Basically, you went with your first instincts based on what you were already comfortable with. Where you kinda fall short in terms of responsible journalism: you didn’t bother to research for subjects outside of your comfort zone to see if, maybe, your personal worldview wasn’t that wide to begin with…and btw, nobody’s personal worldview is by default.
What a dull list (not the people on it…the curation is what’s dull). Two guys who already debated Craig. One guy (Dillahunty) is a bit of a no-brainer.
Schick: “He would also be quite a ‘new face’ to many in the movement even though he is well-published.” Wow? Seriously? You don’t get the irony here? You see no problem with reasoning that one of your choices is an obscure white guy who needs to be publicized instead of an obscure woman or minority? And do you even know if he’s good at debating? You speak of lectures and books, but not debates.
Dan Dennett…aside from his impressive CV, you went with him because he hasn’t debated Craig yet? Good job…a lot of interesting people haven’t, but you went with an obvious guy yet again.
The problem is that you aren’t aware you have a problem. It’s like the wealthy people in Dickens’ novels who can’t understand why the poor just can’t find work…it’s not they’re problem, so they don’t even bother looking.
“I wanted a short list and these were some of the first people who came to mind who, as I noted, >I< would love to see debate Craig." — actually, there you are lying. You said it was your "webmaster's" poll. And I hope that's how you worded your poll's title: "A narrow shortlist of MY personal favorite atheists that users are being directed to select from".
Whoops, sorry, mixed up the posts on your post and your poll. My apologies for that last part.
So…why did you simply repeat your last post?
Do you have no opinions on, specifically, women and/or minorities, specifically, that’d be good debate opponents for Craig?
I mean, even if you focused just on the more minority options of your original list you still mentioned Dennett again who, while a fantastic speaker and thinker, is still Upper Middle Class Older White Guy.
You can’t be so uninformed about the online atheist community to not have any opinions on women or minority speakers, thinkers, and activists.
Why are you changing the topic? Did you forget about the previous one several inches up, in which you were wondering if there was something wrong with giving people the choice of seven white men from which to choose their favorite freethinker, and I told you that yeah it is, and then you ignored it? Is it because you don’t really want to know that you’re doing something wrong? You’d rather just keep doing it?
And think carefully about your answer, here, because I’m kind of thinking of banning you for evasion and general thick-headedness.
@justinvacula
I think Rebecca Watson, Jen McCreight and/or Greta Christina would destroy William Lane Craig. I am not sure why you haven’t consider them.
As would Beth Presswood, Jen Peeples, Tracie Harris, or Lynnea Glasser, and they get lots of practice taking apart ridiculous arguments live.
Well…to be honest I haven’t heard of those names…least yet. But since you appear to be a regular here in good standing, you’re probably right. :)
Congrats Rebecca!
I’d like to say that my vote was the one that put it over the top, but it was a landslide. I expect to see you spending the year cutting ribbons and thrift shop opening and using your weird natural “trolling, but in the best possible sense” to shine a light behind the refrigerator of the skeptical/atheist movement and set the roaches scurrying. :)
And like I said over at B&W (I think?), I seriously think that the reason Staks is getting his ass kicked up and down the Internet is directly related to ElevatorGate. Sexism that would have gone mostly unnoticed and unmentioned a couple of years ago, now gets called out immediately and very little slack is given when someone produces a half-assed notpology for it. This summer’s shitstorm was a catalyst for a lot of people to see things they didn’t want to see, and for a lot of people to see that they weren’t alone in the sexist bullshit they faced.
Rebecca, I think you get most of the credit for that, and there should be more awards coming your way. Plus a cookie the size of a hubcap. And a kitten.
I want to talk about the initial concern of “Not including a woman in a poll of five people is a huge problem,” so I’m providing other examples to see what you will say instead of just generalizing what you think across the board from only one example.
Let me elaborate on the poll of seven. Our webmaster put this poll up and these seven persons are his favorite freethinkers, so he selected these seven for the poll. Is this still a problem?
I agree that the token language is problematic. I don’t though, understand why not including women in a poll of five people is very problematic because, as I noted, one could object ad nauseum noting others who were not represented. In such a small poll, everyone — simply by the numbers — can’t possibly be represented.
I would, though, agree that out of a larger list whether it be a poll or a list of speakers, that ‘all white old guys’ would be a problem.
No for real though, you don