Elevatorgate: Rebecca Watson's CFI Talk

[Aneris]

Objection! Here's the often forgotten CFI Talk by Rebecca Watson that escalated the whole Elevatorgate situation at the time. I only included the part before her main talk, I believe is relevant. The context before the controversial part is summarized. The section that fired up the Elevatorgate flame war is included as a full transcript.

According to the Elevatorgate article at RationalWiki (which is Ms. Watson and FreethoughtBlog friendly), Ms. Watson's original video on Elevatorgate “went mostly unnoticed, except for two other female atheists who disagreed with Watson and believe the man's comment wasn't aggressive” (one of them was Stef McGraw) and then devolved into “typical nasty YouTube comment fare”. This is clearly a contradiction to the storyline served up in the mainstream movement, which claims that Rebecca Watson's passing remark in the video itself caused the atheist-skeptics movement to explode. RationalWiki then states that even with YouTube comments included it “did not cause anyone else to care”. The writer of the article is puzzled where the internet flame war came from and is apparently incapable of taking the events into account that follow (which are then cited), stating that “[t]his was the impetus for years of hate” with bewilderment. Apparently, it wasn't, as demonstrated!



Why bother with something that is years old? Why bother with religions, which are more than two-thousand of years old? Since many members of the so-called atheist-skeptics movement continue to tell falsehoods and build all sorts of serious claims on false premises (such as smears) the actual sources and information must be made available and accessible as it is. Stef McGraw was in the audience at the time.

Rebecca Watson
The Religious Right vs. Every Woman on Earth | CFI Leadership Conference 2011

Structure

General Hate mail
[1:45] Rebecca Watson discusses experiences of women in the atheist-skeptics movement and acknowledges that “not everyone has the same experience” [2:45]. Around [3:00] she states that she gets most hate mail from YouTube and claims that these come from “people agreeing” with her [5:00]. Various hate mail is shown.

Feminist Hate mail
[5:55] She states she got anti-feminist hate mail and shows more examples specifically in that context. She goes into detail of someone who objects to her claim that female genital mutilation is worse than male circumcision. She then leads over to Elevatorgate and explains it...

Explains Elevatorgate Situation and hate mail
[8:50] Rebecca Watson explains the Elevatorgate situation, how she talked to people past 4am and then wanted to go to sleep, and how a man got with her into the lift and asking her over to his room. She mentions she made a now infamous video about the situation then also reads [11:08] Elevatorgate video response hate mail.

[youtube]aqzE16UsNW4[/youtube]

Stef McGraw Incidentâ„¢

[12:03] There is another comment I found on a blog, from actually one of your own. I want to use it as an example not to embarrass this person but to point out that we have a serious problem when young woman are this ignorant about feminism. So let me read it to you. This is from the UNI Freethoughtblog; Stef McGraw, she posted a transcript of the story that I just told you [mumbles] and she writes:

“my concern is that she takes issue with a man showing interest in her. What’s wrong with that? How on earth justifies that he is creepy? Are we not sexual beings? Let’s review. It’s not that he touched her, or made a unsolicited sexual comment. He merely asked if she liked to come back to his room. She easily could have said, and assuming did say, ‘No thanks I am tired I would like to go to my room to sleep’”

[13:00] So there are many things wrong with this paragraph, I won’t really go into them all. I mention that, asking someone back to your hotel room at four in the morning who you’ve never spoken to, is the definition of unsolicited sexual comment and in the transcript that Stef posted, she conveniently edited it to begin after I told everyone at the bar that I was exhausted and going back to my room – kind of important point, in which I exactly state exactly what my desire is, because later this man in the elevator, specifically trying to talk me out of doing that. So I did actually made it quite clear, that I was tired and going to my room to sleep. But the real problem is actually in the first sentence. And it’s sort of the same problem that the other commenter has: “my concern is that she takes issues with a man showing interest in her”.

[13:56] This is unfortunately a pretty standard parroting of misogynistic thought and it’s not new. It’s something that feminist have been dealing with for ages. In fact, it’s feminism 101. In fact, it’s covered on a blog called “feminism 101” which you should definitely check out, because it’s great. They go over a lot of concepts that maybe new to many of you. But in this case, what we’re talking about is the difference between sexual interest, sexual attraction versus sexual objectification. Objectification has a few things about it that separate it from interest. For instance focusing on the physical aspects of a person, ignoring their individuality, and their stated desires; for instance my desire to go to sleep, my desire to not be hit on, which is all I’ve been talking about all day and also a disinterest in how your actions will impact the object in question and that is really a serious point I think you should consider especially if you want to encourage more women to join to your groups. [15:00] Because there are people in this audience right now, who believe this, that…

“A women’s reasonable expectation to feel safe from sexual objectification and assault at a skeptic and atheist events is outweighed by a man’s right to sexually objectify her.”

[15:14] That's basically what these people have been telling me, and it’s not true [clapping] – thank you Melody [Hensely/CFI Exec Director, DC]. Since starting SkepChick, I’ve heard from a lot of women who don’t attend events like this because of those of you who have this attitude. They’re tired of being objectified and some of them actually have been raped. Quite a number have been raped or otherwise sexually assaulted. [15:40] And situations like the one I was in, in an elevator, would have triggered a panic attack. They’re scared because they know that you won’t stand up for them and if they stand up for themselves, you’re going to laugh them back down. And that’s why they aren’t coming out to these events.

[15:57] So the reason why I’m here is entirely due to my support network of men and women who value me as a human being and critical thinker and as a women who can offer a perspective in this community that is otherwise missing. And that’s what we gain from diversity. If it weren’t for that support network, I would have quit years ago when these messages first started coming in. And so I really just want you all to know, that despite the fact that it’s really painful to read daily messages from people saying that you need to get raped. It’s actually worth it, because I have a chance to convince a few of you, I hope, to work to make your groups more diverse. More inclusive. And in doing so, you can actually help tackle some really serious human rights issues that are currently being handled by feminist organizations, which I see as a branch of humanism. And so there are lot of places where the goals overlap. And that’s why I am here... [Continues with main talk 17:00]

[/quote]

[Aneris]

Rebecca Watson claims, verbatim, that Stef McGraw and others were parrotting “miysogynistic thought” [13:56], where pro sexual assault and rape, and would laugh down rape-victims who stand up for themselves. This is shown in the section that starts at [15:00]“Because there are people in this audience right now, who belief this, that…” and in the slide that is shown, and further “They’re scared because they know that you won’t stand up for them and if they stand up for themselves, you’re going to laugh them back down.”

Let's call this the The Original Smear™, where we now have ample of evidence that this is a modus operandi. I also call attention to the fact, that Rebecca Watson throws everything into a blender, from hatemail to rape victims, things that are not apparent in the discussion with McGraw. In other words, Rebecca Watson has introduced these things. At this point, nobody talks about rape or rape victims. The subject was a guy who asked her in the confined space of a lift for a coffee and who apparently accepted a “no”. There is no sexual harassment or rape (however I agree that it the situation is uncomfortable and it was inappropriate).

As clearly demonstrated, Rebecca Watson herself has escalated the issue up to eleven and used this escalation since then, together with many others in the mainstream movement, to seriously smear other people and as a way to put her ideological views onto the agenda.

[Skep tickle]

Thanks for transcribing & posting this, Aneris.

I'd emphasize that it was crucial to the narrative that the man in the elevator had been aware of Ms Watson's repeated comments during the day (at the conference) and at night (at the bar), and that he heard her comments just before she left the bar about how tired she was & that she was going to sleep. Yet there is no confirmation that he was a conference attendee or had had any opportunity to hear her comments during the day or in the bar.

These parts of the transcript you provided above of Ms Watson's talk are pertinent (bolding added by me):

...in the transscript that Stef posted, she conveniently edited it to begin after I told everyone at the bar that I was exhausted and going back to my room – kind of important point, in which I exactly state exactly what my desire is, because later this man in the elevator, specifically trying to talk me out of doing that. So I did actually made it quite clear, that I was tired and going to my room to sleep.

But in this case, what we’re talking about is the difference between sexual interest, sexual attraction versus sexual objectification. Objectification has a few things about it that separate it from interest. For instance focussing on the physical aspects of a person, ignoring their individuality, and their stated desires; for instance my desire to go to sleep, my desire to not be hit on, which is all I’ve (or: I'd) been talking about all day…

Because there are people in this audience right now, who believe this, that…

“A women’s reasonable expectation to feel safe from sexual objectification and assault at skeptic and atheist events is outweighed by a man’s right to sexually objectify her.

So, if the man who spoke with Ms Watson in the elevator had nothing to do with the conference and hadn't heard the content of her comments, his approaching her in the elevator would have been even creepier (IMO), however the crucial assumptions about it having anything to do specifically with A/S conferences, and specifically with women and men in the A/S community, and specifically with men who had heard yet ignored what a woman expressed about her wishes and "stated desires", all goes out the window.

So - what else is out there about whether or not the man in the elevator had been at the conference and/or at the bar?

Greg Laden's blog, July 2011: http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/ ... a-dresche/ (again, bolding added by me in the quoted sections below):

...You may recall this post about “Naming Names at the CFI Student Leadership Conference" by Rebecca Watson. Here’s the story in a nutshell. First, some guy known as “The Elevator Guy” hit, rather lamely it seems, on Rebecca in a way that one could easily argue was not only sexist but ironic. Rebecca had just given a widely loved speech addressing sexism and stuff; She had indicated that it was long past time for her to go back to her room and sleep off the day; And when the Elevator Guy and Rebecca found themselves on the elevator, he suggested they stop at his room for a drink or something. Later, Rebecca mentioned this incident, publicly, as an example of annoying sexist male behavior, though really the moment was, I think, being noted for its deep irony more than anything else. ...

<snip>

My second point is about elevator guy. First, I am amused that we don’t know who he is. I wonder about him. Does he know we are talking about him? Does he have the same version of this story that Rebecca has provided us with? Her story is pretty simple, and I can’t imagine that his version could be much different, but it could be. For instance, although Rebecca does not recall any communication with Elevator Guy before the Elevator Incident, maybe there was one but she did not notice or forgot. This can happen with guys. Some guys, especially when drunk, can see signals that are not there, and over-interpret them. Maybe Rebecca failed to look away from one of his glances, or smiled to herself about something in her own head at the same time that Elevator Guy was across the room telling a joke. If he saw either of these (accidental) signals, would it not be reasonable for him to assume that she might want to have sex with him as soon as possible?

Well, no, not really. Possible, maybe likely, but not reasonable.

It is possible that Elevator Guy has miscalibrated “Hey there, handsome”-dar. It is possible that he lacks social skills. And, perhaps we could just leave it at that and chalk this up to the fact that men are generally oafish and clumsy and not too smart owing mainly to the damage done to their brains by testosterone during puberty. The problem is, this is not really good enough in our modern world. The act of not paying what may sometimes seem like excessive attention to the signaling process, among educated thoughtful progressive adults, is itself a sexist act, though I quickly add perhaps not the worst kind. But still.

(cont'd)

[Skep tickle]

(cont'd)

Justicar October 3, 2011 http://integralmath.blogspot.com/2011/1 ... tical.html (once again, bolding below was added by me, and in this case I've also removed alterations of 2 names below):

So, I'm over at the blog Almost Diamonds (archive link) where there's a discussion happening about Rebecca Watson. It's a hypothetical set of four propositions which purportedly is a way to convince people like me that what happened to Watson was actually bad. Like, you know, not 'zero bad'.

Anyway, I don't accept her hypothetical for one primary reason. After laying out the four propositions one is invited to take on board, she says this,

Just for now, just assume those things. I won’t hold you to them later. I may point out that it’s creepy to assume a woman is lying unless you’ve got corroborating evidence, but I won’t say, “Well, you said here….”

Well, it's that unless I've got corroborating evidence bit. I do. I've written about it. It's publicly available, independently verifiable and not contested by any of the relevant parties as being a genuine photograph of the time in question, the place in question, and the people in question. It is, therefore, direct evidence. And it is relevant.

Now, we are met with a story (I don't mean that in a pejorative sense one notes) about some set of events that are alleged to have happened. 1.) is that EG was at the bar and 2.) EG was listening to Rebecca Watson.

Ok then. 2 propositions. If either or both of them is correct, one should expect that a randomly taken photograph of the group at the table would have EG in it. It doesn't. Further, this is a wide shot of the bar, and seems to include everyone in the bar in it except for the photographer (Prof. Myers) himself. No one disputes this.

It is therefore a proper question (at least in keeping with the maxim that one should always name names) to ask of Rebecca Watson: which of these dozen people is the one in question?

And ask it of her I did. She answered. Apparently, she has an extremely rare and yet proven-to-be-congenital brain defect which prevents her from being able to recognize faces, called prosopagnosia. I'm no expert on this, but let's do that thing that skeptics do: analyze public information. ...

<snip, follow the link to Justicar's blog for all the information he presents there>

....So, let's have a look at Watson looking at pictures to see how she fares: <snip Skepticon 3 video, you can see it at Justicar's blog linked above> ... Watch this video... At about the 9:20 mark, she puts up a photograph and correctly identifies 100% of the people in it, to include the stranger in disguise. ...

So, she claims to have this disorder, but could recognize EG in the elevator having never before met him (only having seen him in attendance at two disparate events), but can't pick him out of a picture the day after? Wow! This condition of hers is mysterious!

One also notes that, despite their attempts to suggest otherwise, it is not at all my problem that the public evidence freely available to all doesn't comport with Watson's versions of events. That's her problem entirely since she's the one expecting people to believe her. ...

...The 'reason' for my skepticism is that I'm being given a positive claim that obviates all need for (Rebecca Watson) to make any effort to identify her coffee-inviter. And it's a very, very rare condition that isn't demonstrated to be congenital. There's no information anywhere indicating she's taken a blow to the head. So, seeing all of that together, I decided to start looking through some of her 'lectures'.

The very first one I opened finds her accurately identifying and putatively recognizing 100% of the people in a photograph.

Add to this her perfect ability to recognize and intercept celebrity atheists at conventions and it makes one rather dubious of her ad hoc claim to having a very rare brain defect. ...

From the comments at Almost Diamonds (archive link here) that led to the above blog post by Justicar:

Yes, Justicar. Lying or uninformed. Rebecca has said she can’t identify EG (so much for him needing to worry about being all persecuted) because she has prosopagnosia. She can’t tell you whether he’s part of any picture, unless the people in it have something very distinctive about them.

Here's PZ Myers' comment in a thread at his own blog about the discussion at Laden's about the photo (archive link):

Man, those crazy people at Laden’s are nuts. I don’t pay much attention to any of them: Scented Nectar is the wacky anagram dingbat with her weird pigeonholes for feminists, and Justicar is just an obsessive kook. He’s doing a lot of silly analysis of a photo I tweeted in that bar in Dublin, counting people and making genuinely stupid arguments about Elevator Guy (hint: I was in the middle of a crowd of people at many tables in the bar — you cannot make quantitative arguments about the people there from my photo). There was a large and lively group there: I know, I was there. Justicar wasn’t. That doesn’t stop him from making shit up, though.

Large & lively group, many tables; this situation could have made it less likely Ms Watson would take notice of any one person there she didn't already know (or would never recognize later), but also less likely that he might have been within earshot to hear her comments, and also (one would imagine) more likely that someone would have met him, talked with him, and noticed when he left the bar immediately after Ms Watson (though, of course, memory is fallible...as are communications between people).

I haven't seen the photo; anyone have a copy or know where to find it?

[Kirbmarc]

Rebecca has said she can’t identify EG (so much for him needing to worry about being all persecuted) because she has prosopagnosia. She can’t tell you whether he’s part of any picture,

I didn't know that Rebecca Watson claimed that she has prosopagnosia. Does anyone know if she ever talked about it before Elevatorgate?

[Kirbmarc]

In the interest of honesty and integrity I have to point out that I've just found out a post from Watson where she claims she has some trouble remembering and telling apart the faces of strangers four years before Elevatorgate

Help out some researchers at Harvard by taking this 5-minute test on short-term visual memory!

I scored a 3, which is slightly above the supposed average of 2. It’s interesting because I’ve always had a problem with one specific kind of visual memory — faces. I can’t remember a face (short-term or long-term) to save my life, but apparently if all the people I meet every day had faces composed for an Atari game, I’d be okay.

I've heard of a disorder in which people just can't remember faces at all, even the faces of long-time friends or relatives. I'm not that bad, as eventually I do learn. Unless a person has extremely distinctive features (say, three noses), it takes me about a dozen times of meeting them before I can confidently identify them in a small crowd, though larger crowds and unfamiliar settings throw me off.

[Skep tickle]

In the interest of honesty and integrity I have to point out that I've just found out a post from Watson where she claims she has some trouble remembering and telling apart the faces of strangers four years before Elevatorgate

Help out some researchers at Harvard by taking this 5-minute test on short-term visual memory!

I scored a 3, which is slightly above the supposed average of 2. It’s interesting because I’ve always had a problem with one specific kind of visual memory — faces. I can’t remember a face (short-term or long-term) to save my life, but apparently if all the people I meet every day had faces composed for an Atari game, I’d be okay.

I've heard of a disorder in which people just can't remember faces at all, even the faces of long-time friends or relatives. I'm not that bad, as eventually I do learn. Unless a person has extremely distinctive features (say, three noses), it takes me about a dozen times of meeting them before I can confidently identify them in a small crowd, though larger crowds and unfamiliar settings throw me off.

Yes, that's been identified before - thanks for finding it & including it here.

Sure, it undercuts Justicar's assessment above (but, still, what she's describing here isn't the medical condition). But more importantly it undercuts the claim that Elevator guy had been present and had heard her comments earlier in the day & that night in the bar before getting into the elevator: how would she know that about him, if she couldn't recognize him?

And AFAIK no one else who was there has offered independent observations that place "the guy in the elevator" into the set of {any of the many guys at the conference & bar who had had opportunities that day & night to listen to her comments & thus learn her preferences and point of view}.

[Skep tickle]

For that matter, if she wouldn't remember meeting a person before a dozen face-to-face interactions, who's to say they might not have spoken at least briefly several times through the day, in a way that's a common experience for her conferences but more unique for him and which he experienced as an opening to the future conversation?

[aratina]

I have to say thank you to Aneris for posting this because I can't bear to not put in my two cents about it as well and it was the impetus to create an account here. Here was my overview of elevatorgate at the time. I still get a kick out of it. As you probably know if you read that RationalWiki entry in the recent past, I also transcribed the relevant portion of the talk.

According to the Elevatorgate article at RationalWiki (which is Ms. Watson and FreethoughtBlog friendly), Ms. Watson's original video on Elevatorgate “went mostly unnoticed, except for two other female atheists who disagreed with Watson and believe the man's comment wasn't aggressive” (one of them was Stef McGraw) and then devolved into “typical nasty YouTube comment fare”. This is clearly a contradiction to the storyline served up in the mainstream movement, which claims that Rebecca Watson's passing remark in the video itself caused the atheist-skeptics movement to explode. RationalWiki then states that even with YouTube comments included it “did not cause anyone else to care”. The writer of the article is puzzled where the internet flame war came from and is apparently incapable of taking the events into account that follow...

You're right, that isn't the best summary. From what I understand, the nasty comments began being directed at Watson soon after she posted the video, and the two women who responded to it, one via a video (Rose St. Clair) and one via an official university group blog (Stef McGraw), were directed to Watson's video by their group's president and urged to comment on it by him. Watson has also said that she was already catching people saying bad things about her on Twitter over it and getting lots of YouTube hate before her speech (otherwise, how would she have been able to collect all that stuff she mentions in the speech). As far as the Slymepit is concerned, that she called out McGraw during the speech is definitely the most noteworthy controversy, since it basically led to the events that created the 'Pit.

I don't agree that there was any smearing done by Watson or that Watson turned things up to eleven or any of that. If anyone smeared anyone else, McGraw did by claiming Watson was "demonizing men"--talk about turning it up to eleven! McGraw had written from an official blog, and that university group was attending the talk. To think that McGraw had some kind of right to privacy is ridiculous in that case. And people have argued for years over whether or not being asked to go back to a stranger's room for coffee is harassment or "zero bad", but it's really a case of "to each her own" and Watson felt it was so who are we to tell her otherwise? I mean, that's part of the whole problem here is that too many atheists/skeptics are too willing to force their views down everyone else's throat; "You can't have an opinion if it doesn't match mine!" kind of thing. Maybe we should stop this silliness and start listening to each other, be charitable to each other, allow others to have different opinions instead of tearing them a new one for disagreeing.

Now, about her not knowing his face, there was a study just recently released that showed a remarkable thing: we can know that an event happened but not remember even the biggest detail after staring right at it. The authors call it "attribute amnesia", which you can google for the article. It's very possible, if attribute amnesia is real, that she could remember he was there and the incident in the elevator and yet not remember what he looks like. But there are other possibilities as well, such as she might be protecting the guy's identity and simply lying about not knowing, or maybe she was so caught off guard by it that she didn't get a good look at him, as would happen if some fool chased you out of a restaurant asking for money and you said no and kept walking, not looking back. So, there are a lot of valid possibilities that would explain things without having to go with the story that it was all fabricated.

I still can't believe such a little thing has caused all this commotion for so long.

[Karmakin]

I still can't believe such a little thing has caused all this commotion for so long.

I'm actually going to do something I don't usually do and name names. Not doxx people, of course, But..I do think some people are more responsible than others. So let me tell my story.

I was on the other "side", on your "side" for a while. I'm a feminist. I think the problems facing women are important. I also think there are problems that face men, but I think generally speaking the former outweigh the later. But we're talking like 60-40 and not 90-10. But, I'm simply not impressed with that type of feminism, to put it bluntly. I "switched" basically over the whole discussion over convention anti-harassment policies when I became convinced that the majority of people talking about it really didn't care about the issue itself, more about the ability to use the issue for social standing.

Then I found that generally speaking egalitarian communities (including this one) are actually fairly friendly to people with my point of view where I agree on some things and disagree on others.

Anyway. For the whole "schism". I don't blame Watson. I don't blame Myers. Who I do blame is Zvan, Laden and Thiebault. They wanted to turn the Atheist movement, or more specifically the feminist arm of the Atheist movement into a mirror of the ShitRedditSays community on Reddit. Which, after Zvan posted about I checked out, lasted about two seconds and NOPED the hell out of there.

It's just nothing but non-stop attacks and the promotion of the simplest ideas imaginable. It's just horrible feminism. As it should be, once you understand that SRS is basically a creation of the Something Awful goons in a way to troll Reddit. It's purpose is pure trolling, basically, for social cachet. Yet, over the last few years, it's ended up being extremely popular, namely because it's so massively (and obviously) wrong, it makes a VERY convenient way to separate the in-group from the out-group. (And yes, it's why people compare it to monotheistic religion) Push the concept of unidirectional gender power dynamics (which to most lay-people sounds somewhere in the realm of climate change denial or creationism) to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Anyway, it's gotten to the point where IMO the same trolls who started SRS are basically fueling the entire GamerGate thing by sending all sorts of threats and harassment to both sides.

Like it or not, this is larger than just the Atheist movement, and there's a lot of moving parts. Now, the whole Atheist movement served as a case study of sorts for it, but again, this is a much larger issue.

And that, is why this issue persists.

Solution? Get everybody involved to decry the notion of unidirectional gender power dynamics. Good luck on that one.

[Kirbmarc]

Maybe we should stop this silliness and start listening to each other, be charitable to each other, allow others to have different opinions instead of tearing them a new one for disagreeing.

I'm all for that, and I'm willing to admit that Watson felt harassed even if the guy, in my humble opinion, didn't intend to harass her. Intent may not be magic but is a factor to always take into account when we evaluate someone else's behavior.

He was probably more than a little clumsy and awkward, but being clumsy and awkward isn't a crime or a moral failing. And Watson's first video was actually pretty restrained considering the amount of drama it generated.

What I don't like about Watson is exactly what you wrote: she's too willing to force her views down everyone else's throat. I know many women who wouldn't have felt harassed by Elevator Guy. Many others would. Ultimately what is harassment and what isn't is subjective to a degree. Stef McGraw didn't think that the "elevator incident" was a big deal. Rebecca Watson did. They're both right when they're describing their own experiences, and probably both wrong if they think that all women agree with them.

The problem comes when a side decides that all women who disagree with them are "chill girls" and have been "brainwashed by the patriarchy". All too often Watson or other feminists claim to speak in the name of ALL women when they're only speaking for themselves.

I find this attitude unproductive and obnoxious and many others agree with them. You seem to think that forcing your opinions down someone else's throat is wrong. Do you agree that claiming to speak in the name of all women is, indeed, a way to force your opinions down someone else's throat?

[Aneris]

I understand that some people want to have a “first cause” and spent enormous time picking the lift ordeal apart, but to me that is misguided. There was no first cause. We have now a pretty good idea about the “social justice warrior” phenomenon, and how it works. It would change little had she made it all up. I don’t believe she lied. It’s also plausible to not remember who some stranger was. At the time she didn’t know that it would become important later (and it was early in the morning, she was sleepy, and had probably a few drinks). And she has trouble with remembering faces. All granted.

As I wrote above, I agree with her that being hit on in a lift is not really appropriate and can be creepy. However, people can be scared when someone with a big dog comes towards them. You can be startled and almost fall off your bike when the firefighters turn their siren on. There are situations that are inconvenient, triggering, gross, startling. Do we really have to quantify that to the last decimal place? We can operate and function without making a perfect calculation. Frankly, the Faux Vulcan streak in the atheist-skeptics movement is annoying. It wasn’t “zero bad”, but nobody was harmed, either. It was somewhere in between, but certainly not towards the severe side.

To my mind, Rebecca Watson turned the thing into a political issue and combined it with her agenda and she did that here. That cannot be controversial: she herself states that she was already discussing feminist topics before. Here she makes it personal.

I don't agree that there was any smearing done by Watson or that Watson turned things up to eleven or any of that.

Which is something I cannot understand at all. She goes from double entendre in an elevator to rape and you claim that’s not an escalation? I am curious how you explain that. Are you aware what she states? Her claim was, that some people including Stef McGraw would disagree with this statement:

“A women’s reasonable expectation to feel safe from sexual objectification and assault at a skeptic and atheist events is outweighed by a man’s right to sexually objectify her.”

Then she goes even so far and claims the McGraw and others would “laugh down” on rape victims who stand up for themselves! A moment ago, this was about the lift, now that’s outright support of sexual assault! Is this escalation in any way justified? I wasn’t there. But to say that there was no escalation seems grotesque. To me, that sounds extreme. It’s a devalued word, I mean E X T R E M E. Like nukeing the neighborhood, because the neighbour didn’t say “hello” the other day. Let’s do the excerise. She’s states that people subscribe to this:

“a man’s right to sexually objectify her outweighs a woman’s expectation to feel safe from sexual objectification and assault”

She claims that Stef McGraw and others were actually okay when women get sexually assaulted. I mean. Really? And then laugh down rape victims?! If that isn’t extreme I don’t know what is. Granted, she could have claimed that McGraw was a rapist herself or murdered people or organized a genocide. But all of these things would be so much over the top that people would see it as rhetorical exaggeration. But the way she presented it, was as extreme as possible without that it became surreal.

In a normal (semi) professional setting, that would be a reason for a permanent exclusion of Rebecca Watson. Hands down. In any other endeavor the organizers would have given her a last chance to retract and apologize, or pack up her stuff and GTFO. That anyone would support her at that point in in time is incomprehensible to me. She has extreme fanboys like PZ Myers who are just very euphoric about her. I cannot understand this in any other, rational kind of way.

But maybe I miss some crucial information. I have another reason to believe that some people are extreme fanboys: that Rebecca Watson got away with calling for a complete Richard Dawkins boycott and that her fans years later would condemn Richard Dawkins when he stated he doesn't want to share a stage with her. That's not how rational, thinking people would behave.