I'm reminded of the time a woman well known in the skeptics conferences as a writer and a speaker
had a man approach her in the lift at 4am and invite her to his hotel room.
She wrote a public blog post (not naming the man) about how this made her feel sexually harrassed and unsafe
"I was a single woman, in a foreign country, at 4 a.m., in a hotel elevator with you—just you—and don't invite me back to your hotel room, right after I have finished talking about how it creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable when men sexualize me in that manner"
Whereupon men piled on in the comments saying "he could have just wanted to talk"
She pointed out that she had been in the bar chatting with friends for several hours, *and he was in that same bar where he could see her*, and he had never once said a single word to her until she got into the lift.
She received DEATH THREATS and RAPE THREATS from the internet for saying she didn't want to be sexually harassed at a conference
"The controversy that came to be known as "Elevatorgate" originated with a video Watson made following the June 2011 World Atheist Convention in Dublin, where Watson spoke on a panel, which also included biologist Richard Dawkins, about her experience of being sexualized within the atheist movement on account of her gender.[4]: 100–101 [21] According to Watson, several members of the panel and audience later gathered for drinks in the hotel bar, which Watson left at around 4 a.m., saying she was going to bed. In a vlog posted following her return from the trip, she described how a man from the group, whom she had not spoken to before, followed her into an elevator and, once inside, asked her to go back to his room for coffee. Watson said this proposition being made in the confined space of an elevator made her "incredibly uncomfortable" and advised, "guys, don't do that".[22]: 198 She went on to say:
I was a single woman, in a foreign country, at 4 a.m., in a hotel elevator with you—just you—and don't invite me back to your hotel room, right after I have finished talking about how it creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable when men sexualize me in that manner.[4]: 101 [23]
A negative response by the online atheist community to Watson's account of the elevator incident, which was a brief part of a longer video about other topics,[22]: 198 soon spread across several websites, including Reddit, and became highly polarized and heated.[24][25][further explanation needed] Writer and biologist PZ Myers wrote a post on his blog Pharyngula about the incident, and the debate steadily grew to include the overall status of women within the secular movement, with most of the movements's prominent figures offering their opinion on whether the elevator incident was sexual harassment. Religious scholar Stephen LeDrew writes that this discussion attracted "a continuing vitriolic backlash", with commenters online labeling women who spoke up on the subject as "feminazis" and other misogynistic slurs.[22]: 198–199 Watson experienced death threats,[4]: 101 with commenters on her blog saying in graphic terms how she should be raped and murdered.[22]: 198
The controversy attracted mainstream media attention when Richard Dawkins joined the debate.[22]: 199 Writing in the comments section of Pharyngula, he satirized the supposed indifference of Western feminists to the plight of oppressed Muslim women:[26] "
no subject
I'm reminded of the time a woman well known in the skeptics conferences as a writer and a speaker
had a man approach her in the lift at 4am and invite her to his hotel room.
She wrote a public blog post (not naming the man) about how this made her feel sexually harrassed and unsafe
"I was a single woman, in a foreign country, at 4 a.m., in a hotel elevator with you—just you—and don't invite me back to your hotel room, right after I have finished talking about how it creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable when men sexualize me in that manner"
Whereupon men piled on in the comments saying "he could have just wanted to talk"
She pointed out that she had been in the bar chatting with friends for several hours, *and he was in that same bar where he could see her*, and he had never once said a single word to her until she got into the lift.
She received DEATH THREATS and RAPE THREATS from the internet for saying she didn't want to be sexually harassed at a conference
Wikipedia entry here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Watson#%22Elevatorgate%22
"The controversy that came to be known as "Elevatorgate" originated with a video Watson made following the June 2011 World Atheist Convention in Dublin, where Watson spoke on a panel, which also included biologist Richard Dawkins, about her experience of being sexualized within the atheist movement on account of her gender.[4]: 100–101 [21] According to Watson, several members of the panel and audience later gathered for drinks in the hotel bar, which Watson left at around 4 a.m., saying she was going to bed. In a vlog posted following her return from the trip, she described how a man from the group, whom she had not spoken to before, followed her into an elevator and, once inside, asked her to go back to his room for coffee. Watson said this proposition being made in the confined space of an elevator made her "incredibly uncomfortable" and advised, "guys, don't do that".[22]: 198 She went on to say:
I was a single woman, in a foreign country, at 4 a.m., in a hotel elevator with you—just you—and don't invite me back to your hotel room, right after I have finished talking about how it creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable when men sexualize me in that manner.[4]: 101 [23]
A negative response by the online atheist community to Watson's account of the elevator incident, which was a brief part of a longer video about other topics,[22]: 198 soon spread across several websites, including Reddit, and became highly polarized and heated.[24][25][further explanation needed] Writer and biologist PZ Myers wrote a post on his blog Pharyngula about the incident, and the debate steadily grew to include the overall status of women within the secular movement, with most of the movements's prominent figures offering their opinion on whether the elevator incident was sexual harassment. Religious scholar Stephen LeDrew writes that this discussion attracted "a continuing vitriolic backlash", with commenters online labeling women who spoke up on the subject as "feminazis" and other misogynistic slurs.[22]: 198–199 Watson experienced death threats,[4]: 101 with commenters on her blog saying in graphic terms how she should be raped and murdered.[22]: 198
The controversy attracted mainstream media attention when Richard Dawkins joined the debate.[22]: 199 Writing in the comments section of Pharyngula, he satirized the supposed indifference of Western feminists to the plight of oppressed Muslim women:[26] "