Yesterday on Skepchick, Rebecca Watson brought up the horrible misogynistic crap directed at a female journalist who interviewed Paul Offit. It involved talk of rape, whoredom, and the general stuff that gets thrown at women. It also featured a gross depiction of pro-vaccination people eating dead babies.
This is disgusting. Very much so. However, skeptics need to clean their own house of the same type of behavior. In less than one hour and five searches, I was able to pull up equally disturbing imagery and comments directed at Jenny McCarthy. I have also heard skeptics refer to Jenny and Oprah as evil on more than one occasion, and refer to Oprah as fat and insinuate she is unfuckable. Jenny McCarthy and Oprah are ignorant and pushing a dangerous agenda that is harming people. None of that has anything to do with their perceived sexual availability, their showing off of their bodies, their attractiveness, or YOUR interest in fucking or not fucking them. However, to go so far as to call them evil when our side is attempting to prove WE are the rational ones is ridiculous.
As Ben Radford brought up in his recent CFI Piece “Hollywood Hyperbole
“I know that hyperbole is typical of breezy, lightweight entertainment
“news.” But I hold writers to a higher standard. I expect them to know
the difference between literally and figuratively. I expect them to
give me that facts without inserting phrases which are obviously
untrue, and which blow the writer’s credibility out the window.”
I expect nothing less than skeptics as well.
_____________________________________________________________________________
For all of you clamoring for evidence of misogyny AND hyperbole, as well as general tackiness:
From Bad Astronomy
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/11/13/some-jabs-are-deeper-than-others/
and the resulting lovely comments.
1. Jim Says:
November 13th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Preposterous! Unicorns only approach
virgins, after all.
4. Dedjester
Says:
November 13th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Ah yes, but they will slay (read
impale) the wicked/evil people.
I would say something about the
slutty also but this is not that type of blog 
13. I’d rather be
fishin’ Says:
November 13th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
@#1 Preposterous! Unicorns only approach
virgins, after all.
Her brain is virgin!
“Millions of people across the world are taking this woman’s advice over
their doctors and pediatricians. And because of that, people are dying.
This woman got famous showing us all her boobs, had fake boobs in, fake
boobs out, complains about toxins while shooting her horse-face full of one of
the deadliest toxins known to man (Botulism marketed as Botox), ate her fake
vomit on MTV, and believes her son is a new-age ?Crystal Child?- the next step
in humanity evolving into higher beings. And she might just kill your
child and the human race.”
From
FB Page Links on “Stop the Australian Vaccination Network”
Her entire “proof” boils down to how
she gave birth to a child. We know you’ve got a vagina, Jenny, you used to show
it to us for rent money. When we have to choose between medical science, which
eliminated smallpox, and you, this is the one time in we’re going to go with
the “not tits” option.”
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/08/thanks_again_jenny_mccarthy_and_andrew_wakefield.php
One last comment, should Jenny ever read this:
Jenny, you ignorant slut, when actual deaths occur will you still be able to
look yourself in the mirror?
·
# mmarshon 09 Jun 2008 at 5:41 pm
Just once, I’d like to see a
scientist “debating” McCarthy on a program like Larry King begin a rebuttal
with, “Jen, you ignorant slut.”
http://blog.imperfectparent.com/2008/10/01/jenny-mccarthy-is-an-idiot/
Photo used
“Even though the general consensus amongst medical scientists around the
world are that such claims remain unproven and possibly dangerous and nothing
more than gossip/rumor, some parents look up to the protruding boobs of Jenny
McCarthy and take in the information as if they were listening to somebody who
actually knew what they were talking about and had some kind of medical or
clinical expertise to back it up.”
Comments
· 40. Ben Dover said:
October 14, 2008 @ 9:28
am
Jenny McCarthy is one dumbest bimbos in hollywood or anywhere else for that
matter. She is a helicopter mother living with another freak, Jim Carrey, as it
that will help her situation.
· 50. HothCold said:
July 27, 2009 @ 10:32
pm
I’ve loved Jenny McCarthy since I was 17 yrs old. I’m actually somewhat
jealous of Jim Carrey, & I think she still looks gorgeous.
I had a series of her posters, some of the Playboy magazines in which she
was featured, I bought a surfing compilation album just because she was
affilated with the CD, and sat through SCREAM 3 because she had a minor part in
that film. After her dreadful NBC sitcom JENNY was cancelled, her popularity
began to dwindle, and I moved on.
Years later, I learned she had written some books; one detailing her
pregnancy, & the other discussing how she copes with the challenges of
raising an autistic child.
After reading both, my first thought honestly was “That’s what you get for
posing nude”. My second thought was “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”
Practically, every second word was either f***, c***s*****, or m*****f*****. My
third thought was “So this is your career now, huh? You’re exploiting your
sons’ condition and posing as an expert on autism”.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this, (and I realize I completely missed
the point of your blog), but I don’t think it’s fair to call Jenny an idiot.
She’s a better mom than some of the others who appear in the tabloids or
certain hit TLC shows. I also think that she’s simply living by the mantra
“When life hands you lemons, make lemonade”.
If I admire Jenny for only one thing, it’d be her unmatched beauty.
· 11. a concerned parent said:
October 2, 2008 @ 2:29
am
I couldn’t agree more. Jenny McCarthy is an idiot. But she’s worse than
that, she’s exploiting her son the way she used to make money exploiting her
silicone implants, botox’d face and bleached hair.
http://skepticat.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/the-jenny-mccarthy-body-count/
Update 2/11/09. See Crispian Jago’s blog for a nice
wee video he’s made: The Jenny McCarthy body count. If you can stand it for long
enough, you get to see McCarthy’s tits.
http://www.kaytastrophe.com/vb/archive/index.php/t-6391.html
05-05-2009, 09:38 AM
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/04/26/the-australian-antivax-movement-takes-its-toll/
This makes me want to kill Jenny McCarthy.
–Apoplectic Spikey
iQuinn
05-05-2009, 10:40 AM
This makes me want to kill Jenny
McCarthy.
–Apoplectic Spikey
You’ll get no argument from me. I thought someone should’ve put their foot up
her ass a long time ago.
there_is_no_bob
05-05-2009, 12:53 PM
This makes me want to kill Jenny
McCarthy.
Make sure to hit Carrey and Oprah while you’re at it.
Oprah is giving the bitch a radio show.:mad:
______________________________________________________________________________
http://skepchick.org/blog/2009/05/amateur-scientists-jenny-mccarthy-song/#more-7311
phlebas
// May 15, 2009 at 5:26 pm
@dustc:
I disagree. Her cleavage is *exactly* why Jenny McCarthy has the fame she’s
currently leveraging. In my opinion, it’s entirely appropriate to highlight
that often-forgotten fact.
She has done no research and had no training or really even had the right
life experiences to back up any of the dangerous claims she’s made and will
continue to make. Yet people fawn on every word. Why is that, exactly?
Jenny has Playboy-caliber boobs. Because of that, she has been allowed a
platform (ha!) to spout this nonsense, and was put in a position to meet her
largest financier/boyfriend.
The path from Jenny’s breasts to kids with measles is an easy one to see.
Almost as clear-cut as the cleavage in question. It’s a ridiculous path to
tread, yet that’s exactly what people are doing whether they know it or not.
I don’t know if that was Brian’s intent, but he did a wonderfully unstated
job highlighting it.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Another blow against anti-vaccine hysteria — or is it?
By Michael Fumento
Caption used: You
can see why Jenny McCarthy is treated as an expert on childhood vaccines and autism.
The vaccine preservative thimerosal has jumped the safety hurdle. Again. So
indicates the Sept. 27, 2007 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
But as I write in
my TCS Daily piece, “again” is the problem. One huge study
after another has cleared thimerosal as a cause of child developmental
disorders, but there is a powerful lobby that couldn’t care less.
|
. |
There are over 150 anti-vaccine web sites. None will disappear as a result
of the new findings. After all, who cares what a multitude of huge
epidemiological studies from all over the world say when former Playboy
Playmate Jenny McCarthy, with her 38 C IQ, claims on Oprah and in the new book
she’s hawking that her son got autism from a vaccine?
The major problem with this hysteria? It scares parents away from
vaccination programs, even mandatory ones. And only mandatory programs can
confer “herd immunity,” meaning that immunization rates in the wider
population are high enough (for example, 85 percent for diphtheria) to protect
those not immunized.
Those who encourage parents to avoid vaccinating their kids are telling them
to become free riders, relying on those parents who do vaccinate. But if enough
people try to free ride, then herd immunity is lost and what follows is the
return of childhood diseases we hardly think about anymore. Diseases like
pertussis have made comebacks in countries as diverse as Australia, Japan, and
Sweden after anti-vaccinationist scares.
Better known as “whooping cough,” pertussis is a highly contagious
bacterial disease that causes uncontrollable, violent coughing. Pertussis cases
went from fewer than 8,000 in the U.S. in 2001 to over 25,000 in 2005.
Reaching parents who have already been practically brain-washed is hard, but
for the sake of our children we must do so.
October 24, 2007 02:25 PM · Permalink
This is an excellent point. There’s a degree of hypocrisy here that isn’t acceptable. The skeptic movement needs to not do this sort of thing. However, that said, the degree of misogynist behavior from the anti-vax movement is still noteworthy due to 1) the scale and virulence (which seems to be generally more than that coming from the pro-skeptic side) and 2) the strange nature given that the anti-vax movement is generally on the left end of the political spectrum (at least until recently. Post Gardasil this seems to be changing as the extreme right adopts similar arguments) which makes the misogyny all the more appalling.
Thank you for the excellent post. I couldn’t agree with you more. I have stopped reading a number of skeptical blogs due to this problem. We are better than this name calling, we need to stick to the facts.
Joshua, can you help me understand what you mean by the virulence and scale of misogyny on the anti-vax side?
Not being bitchy at all, its just that the Skepchick post was the first incident I have heard of.
I don’t know, maybe I’m missing some empathetic part of my brain or something… but I couldn’t find myself getting all that upset over the misogynistic, baby-eating anti-vaxxers or boob-obsessed skeptics. I think when there is such an emotional topic on the line, children’s health, people are going to get out of hand or talk about something irrelevant and, as far as I’m concerned, that’s just noise that will always be there.
I see your point, and it’s good every once in a while to remind skeptics to stay on topic. I just doubt that any group could eradicate that baseline noise.
Nicole, it probably always will be background noise. Considering your job, you are probably MUCH better at filtering through what is important and unimportant noise.
I just got SO sick of hearing Jenny McCarthy be called a slut and Oprah be called a fatty fat fat by people supposedly towing the rationalists line.
OMG I AM becoming Daniel Loxton.
Heidi
I agree. Jenny’s boobs really shouldn’t have anything to do with her political opinions or career after MTV. Who cares? WE DON’T OWN HER. As a celebrity she is not running for public office and so should not be subjected to as much scrutany.
When a pretty woman is in front of a movement it is polarizing. Some people will love her for her boobs and some will hate her. It divides the opinions much more then a boring middle aged man. The whole virgin-whore dichotomy. Perhaps the reason why people are attacking Oprah as unfuckable is that they don’t like her opinions but she isn’t young enough for them to view her sexually. After all she’s old enough to be many of our mothers; also consider the racism element.
Money also talks. Perhaps that is why some people seem incredibly threatened by her opinions, as medical supplies are very profitable, particularly if you don’t have to do any new research. Not all grass roots movements start with ordinary people, now culture has the priviledge of dedicated lobbyists too! Even if many people generally support the use of vaccines, I doubt that many of us would be moved to such virulent positions without encouragement. Who knows who starts these movements?
And why not debate medical issues? The impression I had is that it might not be the best idea to get rid of vaccines, but that some of the ingrediants could be bad for you. There is a third position that could be taken, that it might be good to plow more money into research and making better quality vaccines or at least admitting there should be no one model for our health, as the lack of intellectual diversity creates stagnation. This way of looking at the world will surely kill all chance of curing new diseases.
Just because there is pseudoscience doesn’t mean that there should be no debate. Debating the pseudoscience and intellectual dishonesty, as well as debating the science, is necessary.
I don’t know Heidi. As one of the articles you referenced as proof clearly stated, the only reason Jenny McCarthy has this “authority” in the eyes of some people is that she used to be a playboy model and is now a mommy. Neither of those are particularly intelectually challenging endeavours (i.e. any female with nice cleavage and a functioning reproductive organ could do what she did). A brain is not really needed.
So if she’s using her “accomplichments” as a basis for making her claims (as quite some anti vaxxers do by the way: “You’re not a mommy, so STFU”), I think it’s only fair to attack the message by attacking those pillars of their authority.
Likewise, I would critique a scientists buy-your-degree to put his credibility in question. Because it is.
I’m not defending people who attack Oprah merely for being fat. I will defend people who point out that Oprah got much of her fame by playing the fat-card, then got thin, then got fat again, etc…
I think she also plays the race-card frequently, but it’s just not socially acceptable to point that out.
Anyway, I suppose there’s a line there. The AoA folks clearly crossed it, as none of the scientists in the picture got to be authorities in their fields by eating babies, so it’s not a critique, but an outright insult.
You know I love this, since I’ve now told you on Twitter, FB, and here, too! I’ll say it again though. You ROCK!
Feminism works by defending sexist attacks, no matter who the person is. That doesn’t mean we support the person’s view or agree with them. So for me, I feel better calling myself a feminist when I call out sexism and misogyny when I see it.
One thing that’s irked me a lot lately, which I find kind of funny really, is when people use the line “you ignorant slut”. I’ll bet most of them don’t even know the SNL skit the line came from. I think the bit is funny, when seen in context, but when people use it in attacks like the ones you’ve shown, it’s tasteless and sexist.
Keep on being the awesome person you are!
To take a step back from the emotionally charged specifics involved, these sorts of comments are at core ad hominem attacks. Unless directly related to the issue at hand (e.g. calling someone claiming medical or academic credentials they didn’t have a fraud would be ad hominem, but also extremely relevant) ad hominem attacks make the attacker appear to have no valid critique of their target and thus resort to name calling.
In the case of someone like Jenny McCarthy or Oprah there are plenty of objective criticisms that can be made without even their gender, let alone their appearance/sexual mores/desirability/etc, being brought into the discussion.
I’m seeing the topic of women in skepticism being discussed more and more of late which I think is a wonderful thing. If we as skeptics want to reach more people we need to be able to communicate with all sorts regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc etc. Our movement is traditionally seen as beardy old white guys, not a sustainable demographic over the long haul.
It is my hope that the younger skeptical activists that are becoming more and more prominent around the world (Young Australian Skeptics, Righteous Indignation podcast, CFI’s Camp Inquiry, and many many more) will bring in more perspectives and people who will advocate for rational and fact-based debates on issues.
I think you and Daniel Loxton make a perfectly complimentary duo of skepticism.
I really just filter most comments on most blogs, or don’t even bother. Sometimes Jenny’s past career as a Playboy model come up as “yeah, this is why she was originally famous.” And I have no problem with that. Saying they are a position of authority for her is incorrect, she derives it from her “mommy instincts” which is a load of bull, of course, and that’s what skeptics ought to be railing against (and do at times.)
As for outbursts of hatred, maybe there needs to be a “safe space” where skeptics can vent when they want to be irrational but don’t want others to see them looking like jerks. As it is now, blogs are sort of like, except they are accessible to everyone with an internet connection.
For example, I try and keep my online persona polite, but I’m really a total bitch in person ;-)