What can be said about Rebecca Watson that hasn’t already been said? From the moment she burst onto the scene with Elevatorgate, the Atheist community has been divided on the issue. This thin-skinned harpy tried to turn an invitation for coffee into evidence that Atheist men are sexist.
Let me make one thing perfectly clear: not all male Atheists are alike. They come from a variety of backgrounds and hold a variety of different opinions. The one thing they have in common is the lack of a belief in a deity. So for someone to say that all male Atheists are sexists is like stabbing them collectively in the back and then calling it constructive criticism.
Rebecca Watson runs her own echo chamber, I mean blog, where she and her team of dancing marionettes talk about being “feminist skeptics,” which is in itself an oxymoron. I say that because to be a feminist activist and a skeptic is to be a shitty skeptic—because it means that you are skeptical about everything except for the thing that is most important to you. In short, it makes you a hypocrite, but as you’ll find out, Watson has no problem being a hypocrite when it suits her.
When anyone builds up a bad reputation, I try to go in with an open mind, look at the facts, and then develop my own opinion. What I’ve found is that many of the criticisms about Watson have a lot of weight to them. For example, I’ve called her thin-skinned and easily offended.
“I’ve been triggered once before and it was extremely unpleasant, to the point that I laid in bed in the fetal position crying for a few hours. A person who is triggered by words like ‘stupid’ and ‘idiot’ must quite seriously live a horrific life dominated by fear and pain, and I sincerely hope they get therapeutic help.”
Now let’s see how my claim of hypocrisy holds up in the same article.
“’Stupid,’ on the other hand, accurately describes a thing or a person or an action that is foolish, ignorant, or vapid, and we cannot drop useful words like that from our vocabulary entirely because some people find them upsetting. Elyse’s valentine specifically addressed people who were incapable of learning that silencing us is impossible – a fool’s errand, if you will. The word ‘stupid’ and its synonyms must be used to make that clear, even if those words are also used to insult people with developmental disabilities.
So yes, just as we won’t stop using the word ‘creep’ to accurately describe people and behaviors that we deem ‘creepy,’ we won’t stop using words like ‘stupid’ to accurately describe people and behaviors that we deem ignorant or foolish.”
Basically she just said that she knows harsh words hurt people. She also consistently complains about the online harassment she receives. What she means to say is that she reserves the right to use harsh words when they are useful while complaining about hurtful words that are hurled in her direction. We couldn’t find a more textbook hypocrite if we tried.
If you type “Rebecca Watson is” into a Google search, you get some pretty nasty things. Yet most of them are legitimate criticisms because I’ve watched her videos and read her blog. Her online presence is drier than the Sahara Desert. It is a train wreck. She has the personality of pocket lint, and she makes watching paint dry seem like a fun-filled activity.
She is, in essence, that kid you went to grade school with who took everything personally, acted like a total shit, and then wondered why she didn’t have any friends. For me that would be forgivable if she provided something of use to the community, but she doesn’t. She couldn’t construct an argument to save her life. The information that she does provide is the same stuff that has been regurgitated over and over in the Atheist community—and by far more entertaining individuals.
The only interesting thing about Watson is how endlessly vindictive, narcissistic, and ignorant she manages to be while remaining completely oblivious to those things. I think, though, that she is fully aware that the most interesting things she has to say are the remarks aimed specifically at insulting men. She’ll throw in a hateful comment about male atheists and MRAs at the drop of a hat.
There are several hints at Watson having some kind of mental illness. She’ll allude to needing to go to therapy, taking medications, and being triggered. So I’m thinking that it’s safe to assume that she has at least some kind of disorder. My guess would be something with co-morbid depression because I’m thinking that people experienced her bullshit first-hand, told her that she wasn’t nearly as smart as she thinks she is, and she’s never forgotten it. Now, most reasonable people would try to improve themselves in that situation, but not Watson.
You may be asking, “Rachel, what does this have to do with me?” Well, if anything, Watson is an example of how feminists can hoist up a person into the public eye whose only talent is being an insufferable bigot. It is an example of the ways in which feminism manages to latch on to any group in its path and then grow like a cancerous tumor. Watson can be anti-science in her arguments, hurl around sexist insults, and be a hypocrite of epic proportions, and her hugbox will endlessly shower her with money and support.
It is simply stunning to see the ways in which feminist Atheists protect her to the point that it goes against everything the community stands for. People can fail to follow through with the scientific method and they will rip them to shreds, but it’s okay when Rebecca Watson does it. Men can say sexist things and they will call them every name in the book, but when Watson does it, she’s met with thunderous applause.
This is how science dies. Many of us in the Atheist community have long felt that critical thinking could be killed with religion, but I think that social justice groups have a better chance of doing that. They can shut down important research or deny it all together because it doesn’t align with their agenda.
They can accuse the producers of a study of having gendered or racial biases even when there are none. They can over-run the branch of social sciences until it, too, becomes a self-protected echo chamber.
Rebecca Watson is promoting the very things she claims to be against and remains untouchable in her ivory tower. Shielded by her unyielding narcissism and her own insufferable stupidity, she spews forth the only thing that gets her page views and attention. It is for this reason that some Atheists choose to call her a cunt.
It’s not because she’s a woman or that the community is sexist. It’s because she popularizes pseudoscience while denouncing it. It’s because people like her are turning the Atheist community into a hostile environment that ignores basic critical thinking the moment gender politics are involved. There is literally not enough room in this article for me to extensively mention every instance of hateful misandry and hypocrisy that has come out of Watson’s mouth.
I have written this article three times, trying to articulate just how much of a hateful cunt she is, and it ended up being like a short novel. On a personal note, I’ve seen some hateful folks in my day, but none were quite as inept at comedy as this woman is. Her idea of a joke is an outright hateful comment. They don’t even count as jokes. The last time I checked, jokes had something resembling a punchline.
I’m not a comedian, but even I can write a passable offensive joke, so that’s how I’ll end this article:
A wizard, an MRA, and Rebecca Watson walk into a bar. Immediately Watson begins hitting on the wizard, saying that she loves his cosplay. He proceeds to explain to her that he’s undergone real wizard training and that it isn’t cosplay. She rolls her eyes and shrugs it off because he’s hot. She says, “Fine, prove it!” The wizard produces a glass vial from his pocket and hands it to her. He says, “This potion reveals your true self.” She snatches it from his hand as the bar TV switches to a Hooters commercial.
The wizard and the MRA look at the screen, grinning slightly. Watson looks visibly disgusted and says, “Oh my FSM! This is so sexist! How can you watch this?” The wizard says that the body is natural, and the MRA says that he appreciates the power inherent in the female form. The wizard stares at the potion. “Be careful with that! Are you sure you want to know your true self?”
She laughs. “I’m sure you’re full of shit!” Watson angrily drinks the potion and turns into a giant hairy vagina covered in every terrible STD that you can have and not die. The wizard smiles, and the MRA falls off his bar stool. “Holy shit, you’re a giant cunt!” he says. Watson’s voice begins to echo from the flapping vulva: “You asshole, that’s just the kind of sexist thing you would say!” Mouth agape, the MRA says, “No, really, you’ve become a giant cunt!” Furious, Watson flaps her labia like wings and flies through the bar window. Five years later she’s elected President of the United States.
That, my friends, is how you write an offensive joke.
Helpful Links
Patheos article on Rebecca Watson’s anti-evolutionary psychology lecture
Rebecca Watson compares disagreeing with feminism to rape threats
- Angry White Men - August 4, 2015
- Amy Everson is a fucking lunatic - June 6, 2015
- Honey Badger Radio: The unkindest cut - January 16, 2015
by 
Wasn’t the term “threatoid” spawned by the hugbox of FreeThoughtBlogs (bwahahahahaha) to explain how when _they_ threaten and bully someone, it’s washed clean by the power of endless catechosis and holier-than-thou grandstanding?
Many of us in the Atheist community have long felt that critical
thinking could be killed with religion, but I think that social justice
groups have a better chance of doing that. They can shut down important
research or deny it all together because it doesn’t align with their
agenda.
ABSOLUTELY !!! I have not been able to understand why being a misogynist is a disqualification to be an atheist ? Who has made these people the arbiters? LOL! I am not saying people should be misogynists mind you.
But to call these people critical thinkers is sacrilege
I’m actually a religious (not “spiritual”) person,though not a Christian. Many atheists would say that my thinking is clouded,or I am laboring under a delusion, nevertheless I saw the SJW coming 15 years ago and stopped bashing Christians all the time.
Some ideologies are much worse. The uncompromising fanaticism and willful stupidity of the Communist, the stifling and mediocratizing influence of the feminist,and the scourge of the perpetually-pubescent,mentally-deranged,hormonally-imbalanced upper middle class bourgeoisie who are forever traumatized by growing up in a rich family,never wanting for anything, and getting an expensive college education courtesy of their parents. It is this latter that is so hypersensitive that the sight of men sitting on a train the way that men sit “triggers” them into having panic attacks.
A whole generation lost to this mental sickness. Millions of them running around hyperventilating about facts of life that toddlers comfortably adjusted to psychologically just 20 years ago. So sad.
I hate to tell you atheists, but you can’t fight these people or their disorder with logic (I really do hate that this is the case, because despite my practice of religion I am a fan of philosophy and science). The only ways to fight it are to pray it gets better though it probably won’t, dispense massive amounts of anti-psychotic drugs, lock these people up in asylums, or some combination of all of those.
Brilliant ! You have nailed it. What gets me is the blatant hypocrisy of these so called SJW s but yet somehow they have usurped the moral high ground with the culture’s blessings.
The uncompromising fanaticism and willful stupidity of the Communist,
the stifling and mediocratizing influence of the feminist,and the
scourge of the
perpetually-pubescent,mentally-deranged,hormonally-imbalanced upper
middle class bourgeoisie who are forever traumatized by growing up in a
rich family,never wanting for anything, and getting an expensive college
education courtesy of their parents. It is this latter that is so
hypersensitive that the sight of men sitting on a train the way that men
sit “triggers” them into having panic attacks.
LMFAO! The truth can evoke both anger and humor.
Watson is an example of how feminists can hoist up a person into the
public eye whose only talent is being an insufferable bigot. It is an
example of the ways in which feminism manages to latch on to any group
in its path and then grow like a cancerous tumor. Watson can be
anti-science in her arguments, hurl around sexist insults, and be a
hypocrite of epic proportions, and her hugbox will endlessly shower her
with money and support.
This shit keeps happening over and over again so much so that it has been normalized.It’s amazing how they can be so oblivious of their own hypocrisy as they go about zealously to change the world .
“This is how science dies. Many of us in the Atheist community have long
felt that critical thinking could be killed with religion, but I think
that social justice groups have a better chance of doing that. They can
shut down important research or deny it all together because it doesn’t
align with their agenda.”
Brilliant!!! I have had this feeling for quite some time now….and it is troubling indeed. I am glad to see someone calling Miss Watson out for what she really is.
“Feminist skeptic” is not inherently an oxymoron. Many people are able to strongly espouse a socio-political opinion without their ideology trumping evidence. I’m a feminist, bleeding-heart liberal, but if evidence appears that strongly refutes my political position, I’ll have to change my opinion. (It may be an oxymoron to be an MRA skeptic; their premises seem so silly that they must require ideological blinders.)
I don’t know what’s going on with Rebecca Watson, but she has shown some remarkably immature reactions to confrontation or even contrary opinions. Definitely not someone I’d consider a “leader” in skepticism. (If we need leaders. I’m not a good follower. We need clear, honest argument.)
And, no, that’s not how you write an offensive joke; it’s not actually a joke.
“It may be an oxymoron to be an MRA skeptic; their premises seem so silly that they must require ideological blinders.”
And those premises that you find “silly” are?
What a silly cow.
You, I mean, not Watson.
Rebecca watson is a stupid, retarded cunt