Privilege vs. Social Position?

While I think that the concerns of the Feminists on the A+ forums, and FTB are valid, I do think that they miss the mark on their scope and domain of the problems.

Yes... There is a difference between First World problems, and the problems of the Developing, or Undeveloped world problems.

And that difference is a monumental difference in scope.

But the Rape Threats were just outrageous.

People should be outraged by those threats, even if they were just trolling (defined as behavior or speech explicitly intended to cause outrage, anger, or other intensely emotional responses or reactions).

But we should put those threats into the scope in which they occurred.

They occurred to a person who is very comfortable compared to the Developing/Undeveloped World, and who has the luxury of voicing her concerns to a large audience on the Internet (which is easily accessed by all of the people concerned). RW, for instance, does not have to worry about roving bandits who might rape her, or kidnap her and sell her into slavery, or kill her as a witch in order to satiate a superstitious population who is angry at their situation and wishes to take it out on someone (Scapegoating).

But that difference should not diminish the outrage, it should just alert us to the fact that we have more tools with which to fight such behavior, and that there is a relatively huge population of women, children, men, boys, girls, etc... who have no such capability, and we need to be giving voice to their concerns as well.

Or...

Even better, we should be trying to provide them with a voice of their own which would be heard by a large population who might work to better their situation in ways that don't intentionally harm others (and work to minimize unintentional harms as well).

Matthew Bailey

Matthew Bailey wrote:But the Rape Threats were just outrageous.

I agree with the overall tone and message of your post, but I'd just like to point out that (according to RW herself) the only people who have seen the "legitimate rape threats" (again her own words) are the FBI. So, there's no way to comment on them specifically.

Having said that, yes any rape threats are outrageous.

I've also read her "page o' hate".. Some posts are "I wish you would be/you deserve to be raped" type stuff, a few posts are actually legitimate criticisms of RW, and most of it is just mean spirited nonsense. Also, while there are many emails, tweets, messages etc a lot of them are from the same people over and over.

uncrystal wrote:

Matthew Bailey wrote:But the Rape Threats were just outrageous.

I agree with the overall tone and message of your post, but I'd just like to point out that (according to RW herself) the only people who have seen the "legitimate rape threats" (again her own words) are the FBI. So, there's no way to comment on them specifically.

Having said that, yes any rape threats are outrageous.

I've also read her "page o' hate".. Some posts are "I wish you would be/you deserve to be raped" type stuff, a few posts are actually legitimate criticisms of RW, and most of it is just mean spirited nonsense. Also, while there are many emails, tweets, messages etc a lot of them are from the same people over and over.

Also important to note: the threats she's published all come from AFTER the EG scandal and her talks on it, wherein she calls people like Dawkins, McGraw rape apologists. Somehow I think that might be more than a mere correlation.
....and no they aren't threats. "I wish you'd die/get raped " is a hideous thing to say, but it's not a "terroristic threat". If it was, they should be rounding up the people at FTB who want miscellaneous critics of atheism+ to die in a fire.

"I INTEND TO RAPE YOU" is a rape threat. "I hope you get raped" isn't. The difference isn't semantic, it's highly relevant to the urgency of the "threat".
Rebecca Watson tried to justify her paranoia with elevatorguy with "threats" she got after the EG incident.....which weren't threats.

Why is anyone still taking her seriously?

I tend to think of the issues with RW, and others, at this point, as a bit of a distraction from the actual goals of A+.

And, I tend to think that many of the people who are so myopically obsessed with the RW, Greta, and Jen McCreight issues have other issues which they need to address before they take on the task of Political and Social Activism.

Some of their behavior is Pathological and toxic to their stated goals and causes.

I am not sure how to even address many of these people who do not seem to understand the rules of evidence, context, and discourse (I am not saying that we must always communicate as if in a formal debate, but there are minimum standards of acceptable communication to which many people do not adhere or even accept). These people seem to be more wedded to their outrage than they are to progressing a cause.

It seems that no matter how much you validate their outrage at these incidents, that it is not enough.

And the issue of Privilege vs Social Position, as I have pointed out, is loaded with implications that present huge problems with the terminology and ideological assumptions connected with this language (due to its origins).

This also presents a communication block.

We really need to advance beyond these issues.

Matthew Bailey

Rebecca Watson and others have the right to say what they like, even if you disagree.

You have the right to say what you like, even if others disagree.

Once anyone on any side starts pulling out the ad homs and judging people on a personal, rather than a principled manner, they reveal themselves as juveniles.

Skeptical of some claims? fine. Does that mean the person making the claim is a liar? No. Does that mean that the issues brought up by the claims are not worth some consideration? No.

I'm skeptical of some of the claims I've heard. I think some of the claims I've heard may be overreactions. However, the reaction seems much more hyperbolic and immature.

Atheist Dude wrote:

Fred wrote:I think well educated vs. poorly educated makes more of a difference than rich vs. poor.

I think a poor person, even with few resources, would be able to better themselves and their circumstances if they had a good education.

There are many well educated poor people.
Much of the purpose of getting an education is to earn more money.
How do you get a formal education without money?

Military.

lpetrich wrote:

AliRadicali wrote:It's why all this hubbub about injustices visited upon Rebecca Watson, Greta Christina, Jen McRight and the rest of the well-to-do professional blogger crowd is so off-putting. It really does make it hard to take these injustices seriously when you know the person writing about suffering from them is someone who makes a comfortable living working from home, getting paid to fly over the world to give talks. It really does stress the "first world problems" aspect, especially when you know the majority of the women in the same country, let alone the rest of the world, have it worse.

AliRadicali, what would they have to suffer before you get outraged? Seriously.

Is what they've gone through something that you consent to suffer for yourself? People who are supposedly on your side vilifying you and attacking you and talking about how you ought to be rear-end-raped or murdered, with some of them threatening to do so.

Also, AliRadicali, if you were living in the British North American Colonies in the 1770's, would you have sided with King George III on the ground that the American revolutionaries are a bunch of crybaby spoiled brats from the upper crust of society?

Suffered? That's laughable. Those people are not supposed to be on their side. They are skeptics hearing dogmatic crap coming from wealthy privileged women bitching about how hard their life is.

Not one credible threat has been made. Most of the comments that RW quotes is from other websites where people made comments about her. They were NOT threats. They were derogatory comments. Boo fucking hoo. We have all been insulted. Everyone that is moderately well known has lots of people all over the internet saying nasty things about them.

AliRadicali wrote:

lpetrich wrote:

AliRadicali wrote:

lpetrich wrote:

AliRadicali wrote:It's why all this hubbub about injustices visited upon Rebecca Watson, Greta Christina, Jen McRight and the rest of the well-to-do professional blogger crowd is so off-putting. It really does make it hard to take these injustices seriously when you know the person writing about suffering from them is someone who makes a comfortable living working from home, getting paid to fly over the world to give talks. It really does stress the "first world problems" aspect, especially when you know the majority of the women in the same country, let alone the rest of the world, have it worse.

AliRadicali, what would they have to suffer before you get outraged? Seriously.

Something more than emotional distress at an imagined threat. I'm sorry if I don't prioritise RW's failure to understand how internet trolling works, or her inability to report groping to the authirites over, say, (fe)male genital mutilation .

So trolling is OK with you? Especially if it's you being trolled by people who are supposedly on your side.

Define trolling. The term has become so diluted by misuse that I don't know what you mean. Is playing the devil's advocate trolling? Is disagreeing with feminism when you claim to be supportive of social justice issues "trolling"?
Or are you talking about people who deliberately piss people off for attention?

I have a high tolerance for assholes and idiots, as long as I get to call them such. Engaging them and proving them to be ignorant and bad at logic is a lot more productive and satisfying than trying to lock them out while you cower under the bed.

Well said.

lpetrich wrote:

Westprog wrote:It's not unreasonable for people to be concerned with issues that involve them directly. However, if one wishes to focus on such problems, it's not surprising when some other people are primarily concerned with issues that effect them, and other people are more interested in issues that they consider more significant. If you insist that harassment experienced by well-off white women is an important issue, then don't be surprised when somebody else raises issues important to well-off white men. To a rape victim in the Balkans, or somebody starving in Africa, or someone imprisoned for voicing opinions in China, it's unlikely that one problem looks more important than the other.

I'm not impressed with this attempt at divisiveness. One concern does not exclude another concern.

I think that a Third World feminist might get let down if she learns of issues like what Rebecca Watson has had to go through. An advanced country and still plenty of obnoxious sexists and feminism-haters?

People disagreeing with Watson are not being sexist or feminism-haters. I support feminism. I simply do not support RW's brand of feminism. I am also not remotely a sexist for disagreeing with RW's brand of feminism.

Eldin Alvere wrote:Not one credible threat has been made.

Says who? Rebecca Watson has gotten rape threats and the like, and she's reported some of them to the police.

Such arguments would imply that Dennis Markuze is 100% innocent, and does anyone here believe that?

Eldin Alvere wrote:People disagreeing with Watson are not being sexist or feminism-haters. I support feminism. I simply do not support RW's brand of feminism. I am also not remotely a sexist for disagreeing with RW's brand of feminism.

Why do you consider yourself a supporter of feminism?

What do you think RW's sort of feminism is, what do you think is wrong with it, and why?