I’m editing this post, which was originally just a link to an awesome TED talk I enjoyed by Caroline Heldman about sexual objectification. I wrote the post this morning, and shortly after I scheduled it I happened to receive this message via the Skepchick contact form:
Name: John Smith
Email: [email protected]
Comment: Hi Rebeccahttp://is.gd/[URL REMOVED] Subject: News Item or Link
Time: Monday February 4, 2013 at 10:04 am
IP Address: 62.75.235.153
The link was to a pornographic MS Paint drawing someone made of me and posted to a Rule 34 porn site under the username “rand0mathe1st.” The image depicts me bound and gagged, covered in semen, with a dildo up my ass. It reads, “Rebecca Watson is an object.” Here’s a link to a censored but still NSFW version that may be disturbing to you if you don’t get this shit sent to you all the time. It’s interesting to think of how much time and energy that person must spend thinking about me, fantasizing about sex with me, and wondering how much one should charge to rape me. I, for instance, spend a lot of time thinking about sloths, but I’ve never spent that much time drawing one in MS Paint. I did just try it, though, and this is seriously how far I got before I got bored, 5 minutes in:
Usually the troll messages just go into my trash bin and I get on with my day, but I thought the timing of it was too good to not mention. For a start, it handily supports Dr. Heldman’s lecture about objectification, posted below. But also, it should help make it clearer what women like me, like the other Skepchicks, like Stephanie Zvan, like Greta Christina, like Ophelia Benson, deal with on a daily basis.
I want you to think about this the next time you hear Michael Shermer complain that Ophelia Benson’s mild criticism of his words is a “McCarthy-like witch hunt,” or when Paula Kirby complains that she’s being persecuted by feminazis because women are asking for better treatment, or when anyone complains that PZ and others are “Freethought Bullies,” or when anyone complains that I complain too much because once every few months I provide examples of the harassment I receive. Shermer, Kirby, and the others have no idea what it’s like to be hunted and harassed, because “our side,” the people who are speaking out against harassment, don’t do this to them. Michael Shermer isn’t told every day by atheists and skeptics that he’s worth nothing aside from the sexual gratification his body could offer someone. He isn’t told by atheists and skeptics that he deserves to be raped and abused. Atheists and skeptics don’t spend hours drawing images of him in dehumanizing positions. They don’t tell him that they’re going to sexually assault him if they see him at a conference. They don’t tell him he’s too old or fat or ugly to fuck. They aren’t so terrified of what he has to say that they’ll do anything they can to silence him. And they don’t tell him that his disinterest in putting up with any of the former makes him too sensitive to be involved in the atheist or skeptic community.
Instead, they focus on his words and on his arguments and they offer an opposing viewpoint. If that’s what Shermer thinks of as a witch hunt, then a single day of the treatment I get would have him boarding up the windows at Skeptic Magazine faster than you can come up with a bigoted nickname based on his name.
Anyway. Here’s how this post originally read when I scheduled it this morning:
I really enjoyed this TED talk by Caroline Heldman, one of the contributors to the excellent Sociological Images. She discusses sexual objectification, giving apt examples of what it is, evidence of its danger, and a call to action on how you can stop it:
This just reminded me of David Silverman’s comment “I am not enemies with anyone inside this movement”. Well, some of us don’t have the privilege to choose who our enemies are within our communities.
But we do have some saying in whom we consider part of our “community”. If there ever was such a thing as The Skeptical Community™, there isn’t such a thing any more. Instead of a single movement with some “deep rifts” in it, what we have now are two (or more) separate movements with no more communality between them than matter and antimatter. And it’s a good thing, because that means we can forget about “infighting”. There can be no “infighting” without and “ingroup”, and scum like “John Smith” or “rand0mathe1st.” are definitely not in mine.
Your critics all claim to simply to be men who just love sex and have no other motivation but to stop the supposed prudery of feminists, correct?
Interesting, for such pro-sex guys, then, that they see sex as a way to hurt and degrade. As someone who considers herself pro-sex, I think that being pro-sex means that sex should make people happy.
“I think that being pro-sex means that sex should make people happy.”
There’s your mistake, silly. Only men count as people.
Snobo,
That my friend describes the thought process of the typical male sexist pig.
I love sex. I’d love to have it with random guys. I can’t, because I have to do so much screening. Misogyny is the bottleneck here. It’s why all of our porn is crap and there aren’t a number of conveniently located straight sex hookup clubs in every city.
Yeah funny that eh? Real sexual liberation isn’t held back by feminism, it’s held back by sexism.
Also open relationships can be a satisfying alternative to not being able to select lots of hot anonymous partners.
Not “people” in general, only themselves (on women’s expense and without letting things like personal boundaries and lack of consent get in the way).
Shermer, Kirby, and the others have no idea what it’s like to be hunted and harassed, because “our side,” the people who are speaking out against harassment, don’t do this to them.
That.
You are definitely living rent-free in the heads of many of these pathetic creatures.
I’m sure this has been pointed out, but you have a fun dilemma with posting examples of online harassment:
Withhold examples, and you’re lying. “I haven’t seen any evidence of this so-called harassment!”
Give examples, and you’re a drama queen, professional victim, &c, &c, &c.
Seems a no-win situation.
The five minutes of effort you put into what turned out to be quite an adorable sloth picture added more beauty to the world than the many hours these assholes spend thinking about, trolling, and being dangerously hateful towards you.
I just wanted you to know that I admire and respect everything you do as a leader. If you ever have ideas about how we can better support you, I know a world of female scientists/skeptics who are feeling very helpless about all this and want to do more. But I’ll also keep thinking myself so the burden of solving this doesn’t also fall on you.
Not sure if Skepchick.org has any control over the ads that appear on your website. But, the ad that appeared on my computer is for a chat site with pictures of four young Vietnamese women. This ad seems to reinforce the image that women should be objectified, and clearly is at odds with Rebecca Watson’s excellent post. If Skepchick has any say on the type of ads that appear on their site, they might want to see about getting ads of this nature banned.
I should note, I am viewing this on my work computer, which, to my knowledge, has never been used to view adult-oriented sites.
From my computer the ad is blocked because it comes from a “Spam Source”(Google ad click). That tells me that you are likely seeing random content from a third party who pays Google or some other group to post their ads.
Hi there. If you click on the little triangle on the top right corner of the ad, you will see this little bit of information relevant to your complaint:
“This ad has been matched to your interests. It was selected for you based on your browsing activity. This Advertiser used Invite Media’s ad serving and targeting platform to determine that you might be interested in an ad like this.”
In other words, the ads are based on your browsing history. So………………yeah.
And, I read this blog at work on my break. I’ve had this computer for around three weeks. Unless someone is coming in after I leave for the day, this computer has not been anywhere near any dating sites or other adult oriented sites.
Will, that’s a tad unfair; “based on your browsing history” could mean that Jeff seems to be single, male and in a particular age range, not that he’s been surfing porn.
This. :)
Jeez louise! I didn’t even say anything about porn or dating sites. There’s some fucking guilty consciences around here! Pointing out that the ads are based on browsing history is not “a tad unfair”–it’s just a plain fact.
I point it out because people who come in complaining about the ads often do so while trying to make a “gotcha” point, but they are ignorant of how the ads are generated. That ad certainly could be generated simply based on this one blog article. Or it could be based on browsing another site that had that ad. Pointing this out does not in any way indicate that he was surfing for porn.
Not guilty at all. I own my browsing history! :)
I don’t think anyone here was trying to make a “gotcha” statement — it’s just that the whole add thing is weird and confusing for a lot of people.
Curious, does it check out other browsers? I get “Self Publish your book” and “I know why you don’t date online.” and an ad for doctors. Which is a bit weird :-)
I used to work on Invite Media, for Google.
It’s not solely your browsing history. It’s also (and this is often more important) your general physical location (usually to the level of US state, sometimes as fine-grained as DMA area, and limited by the accuracy of the geoip database in use), and local time of day. You wouldn’t believe how important local time of day is to some advertisers.
Also, Invite Media’s targeting system is mostly auction-based (and always is, when serving through Google’s AdX) so it also reflects whether other advertisers wanted to reach you at that moment. Very often, the shadier advertisers will go for quantity rather than quality and will therefore target very broadly but with a low bid price – the net effect is that they pick up the impressions no one else wants. Therefore, it’s quite possible to get ads like this not by having a browser history that chat site operators are interested in, but by having one that no one else wants. Go browse some car manufacturer sites and then if you really want to confuse the algorithms look at specific models of high-end shoes. The pornish advertisers won’t be able to afford your impressions anymore.
I’m glad you put “our side” in quotes since this is not two, coherent opposing teams as, I think, some people like to frame this as. This whoever is a horrible individual and I’d like to think that everyone in this “debate” is against such horrible behavior and treatment. So to the Shermers and the like (I hate to pick on one individual but it is so convenient given his recent writings), please RECOGNIZE that the problems we face are from people being horrible and please work WITH US, not AGAINST us, to make it better.
That is all I ask.
That is what Shermer said:
“So we should hang together in our fight against real discrimination, bigotry, racism, misogyny, and homophobia wherever we find it.” This kind of crap that Rebecca received, is what he was talking about.
He doesn’t seem to be applying what he said to Rebecca. He doesn’t seem to care about that sort of harrassment. He only cares about made-up “witch hunts” that really aren’t directed at him.
He also modifies the word “discrimination” with the word “real.” Pretend/imagined/exaggerated discrimination is beneath notice. REAL discrimination matters.
And obviously “real discrimination” is the kind of CommieNaziStasi witch-purging inquisition that Shermer faced at the hands of Ophelia “Torquemada” Benson, who held his feet to the implicit assumptions and assumed stereotypes, then shoved hot quotations under his fingernails while turning the screws on a single paragraph in a magazine article. As if crude photoshops and MS Paint drawings could possibly add up to such oppression!
(Is there an eye-rolling emoticon on here?)
Rebecca,
I can’t tell you how much I admire you. I had a long conversation last night with my boyfriend about how I wish I was braver, less sensitive, so I could do more for women’s rights. I’m just so damn scared of speaking out and being treated the way that you get treated by so many ugly souls. I can’t imagine saying some of the things that are said about you about anybody, no matter how much I disagreed with their ideas or positions. I don’t know, I just wanted you to know how much many of us appreciate what you’re doing.
Regardless of the disagreements you have with a person or how much you dislike them, nobody in their right and rational mind should even so much as think of defending, justifying, or even applauding this, no matter who it happens to. Fuck humanity, man. I’m moving to another planet.
Look, there are two sides to every story and the truth is always in the exact center of the most extreme claims. You and the others on your “side” may have some vague right to not be harassed, but does that really trump the rights of the other side to say whatever the fuck they want at all times without criticism? People of good faith can disagree on what prude sluts you all are. I think your side needs to be more open to the points the other side is making, because you know who also criticized his enemies? Hitler.
Hahaha, this is a really funny one!!!1!!111! (Please, please tell me it’s a joke.)
Because I would find someone creating an image of me being raped TOTES acceptable and beyond reproach. First amendment rights and all.
Note to everyone else, yes it is a joke comment, yes it would have better been executed with a more obvious “/satire” tag.
For me, the three main give-aways were: “the truth is always in the exact center…” (uhh, no), “prude sluts” (my, that’s an interesting combination) and the cherry on top was Godwinning the thread: “Hitler.” Your mileage may vary.
You had me at Hitler.
“some vague right to not be harassed.” There is nothing vague about it. The behavior documented by Rebecca Watson and the other skepchicks is harassment, plain and simply. In the U.S. and most other western Nations, this kind of behavior opens the harasser to both civil and criminal penalties. As far as rights of the other side, the right to free speech has its limits. You can not intentionally threaten harm to another individual or make false accusations against another individual.
The harassment dominated in the above post is a clear example of bullying. If you support bullying (which you seem to be doing) you do not have a place in civil society.
I really hope you’re trying to be funny, but if you are: Stop it. It’s really inappropriate.?
If you’re being serious … wow. And wtf? You’re making no real sense. Oh, and fuck off.
You know who also criticized their enemies? Franklin Delano Roosevelt & Winston Churchill. And they wooooooon!!
Sorry all of you have to go through this, day in and day out, but thanks for being here, Rebecca, & all of you.
I was trying to humorously point out the absurdity of the other sides arguments as well as those whose knee jerk reaction is to say that both sides are always equally wrong. I apparently did a poor job and I’m sorry. It saddens me that my sentiment was not obviously satirical. I suppose it speaks to the level of the arguments of our opponents.
In truth I am in awe of those who put up with this shit every single day for the cause of equality. It shows courage and passion well beyond what I possess, and I am so thankful for all they do.