because it turns out you just can't milk a controversy enough…
Elevatorgate was an incident worth talking about and what it means for the future of skeptical conferences. Watson turned it into a personal brand instead.
One would think that by now talking about Elevatorgate would go way past beating a dead horse and into the territory of savaging the bleached, brittle bones left as its only remains. But you're severely underestimating the sheer amount of mileage Rebecca Watson is trying to get out of it by writing an article on Slate about her sheer bewilderment as to how sexist and misogynistic the online skeptical community supposedly really is. By the title alone, you'd think that her account about being propositioned in an elevator ending with a "guys, that's creepy, don't do that" just threw open the floodgates of rape threats. Really, at this point the cow has been milked until it's bleeding from its udders and Watson yet again manages to summon the cloak of feminism to do what she does best and deflect the number one criticism of her handling of the affair by enlisting the help of internet trolls who sound as if they were called from the darkest corners of the web to deliver the kind of misogyny you'd expect from a rabid Muslim cleric on Saudi TV.
Rape threats, while horrible, cannot be simply attributed to the skeptical community at large and doing so is either trying to establish guilt by association, or by labeling everyone who can visit a wide open public blog as part of the skeptical movement. I find it very difficult to swallow that with so many skeptics out there submitting their critiques of Watson's blanket declarations, only the most vitriolic trolling is featured and highlighted, especially since she has a very heavy-handed moderation policy on Skepchick. The trolls aren't just being fed, they're given a feast the likes of which would be hard to find outside Valhalla! Every time they strike in response to her claims of widespread misogyny among society in general and skeptics in particular, she raises them on a pedestal and uses their most unhinged threats and sexist smears as supposed examples of the criticism she gets, giving them even more fuel to send her vicious threats. Rinse, repeat, ramp it up, soak up the hits in a disservice to her fellow skeptics, both male and female.
By the end of the day, one would think that the only comments she gets are either from devoted, supportive fans proud of all the fine work she's doing or threaten her with gang rape on her way from the grocery store with nothing in between. Indeed, the skeptics have been so bad this year that we're now not allowed to have adult themed calendars as we're all pigs and don't know how to be mature about sexuality, we'll just stare at women and drool because that's what we were told to do by mass media and a patriarchal society. Seriously, there's feminism and there's just going too far and Watson has been doubling down on going to far at every opportunity. Instead of fixing the legitimate problems she complained about and moving on, this has become the year of the Elevatorgate for the skeptical community and the so-called leaders of skeptical groups are now mired in melodramas that happen in bars after skeptic meetups and blog networks. So much for teaching people about science and skeptical inquiry, right? After all, geek drama, angst, and gossip are so much more important and worthy of our time…
