As I end my short period of internet isolation (sometimes it pays to remind yourself that there is, in fact, a real world offscreen from time to time), I find myself glad to have had the opportunity – if only for a moment – to miss some of the goings on. It was nice to have a little respite from feminism and the other social ills plaguing our culture.
However, it’s time to get back to the serious business of deconstructing feminism. On the male feminist front John Scalzi and PZ Myers have been engaged in some serious attention-seeking recently. There seems to be a certain histrionic flair in the male feminist, which suggests to me that they do in fact identify with women on some deep personal level.
Hugo Schwyzer (mercifully) seems to be out of the picture, and I’m not really interested in Scalzi’s defensive boasting, as it doesn’t contain any lessons or important information about anything other than Scalzi himself, but Myers’ involvement in a rape accusation against a fellow atheist activist is worth some attention.
PZ Myers is known for a scathing hostility toward religion, and Christianity in particular, as opposed to the typical atheist’s apathy. I’d guess that somewhere from a third to a half of men are skeptical about religion, having essentially the same attitude as St. Thomas, i.e. “I’ll believe it when I see it.” It’s a masculine attitude, and entirely natural. In most cases this is exactly the Atheist position and the source of objection to religion, but in Myers’ case something far different appears to be at work.
Rather than being driven purely by skepticism and a refusal to accept that for which there is no objective proof, there is something else that drives Myers’ hatred for religion, and, apparently, for men in general.
A few weeks ago, Myers claimed to have received emails from a reader about Michael Shermer, who has attended a number of Atheist events and is a fairly prominent Atheist in his own right. This alleged reader accused Shermer, who is now nearly sixty years old, of being a serial rapist who stalks and assaults women at Atheist conferences. Myers has refused to divulge the identity of the reader because, I suppose, the right to confront one’s accuser doesn’t apply to rape accusations. Or perhaps he made the entire incident up.
Myers tries to cover his tracks by saying he has “no personal, direct evidence that the event occurred as described,” but nowhere does he suggest that the “event” itself may be entirely fictitious. Instead, he claims that he is doing a good deed by lending credence to the accuser, because “she has no other option” besides making an anonymous accusation. So much for skepticism…
Indeed, one might think that a rational, skeptical individual would question an accuser who claims, seven years after the fact, that she was raped by a fairly old man at a conference attended by many people. There was no surprise ambush, no seizure by force, use of weapon, etc. Instead, at an event with many people, he brazenly coerced her into sex, and got clean away with it.
The accusation:
At a conference, Mr. Shermer coerced me into a position where I could not consent, and then had sex with me. I can’t give more details than that, as it would reveal my identity, and I am very scared that he will come after me in some way. But I wanted to share this story in case it helps anyone else ward off a similar situation from happening. I reached out to one organization that was involved in the event at which I was raped, and they refused to take my concerns seriously. Ever since, I’ve heard stories about him doing things (5 different people have directly told me they did the same to them) and wanted to just say something and warn people, and I didn’t know how. I hope this protects someone.
It truly requires a leap of faith to take this accusation at face value, and even more so to take the step of publicly airing it. Repeating anonymous accusations has always been viewed with suspicion, and for good reason. When key elements of evidence are “secret,” there is no way for the outside world to verify the truth. In general, it is fair to start from the premise that secret or anonymous accusations are false. In science, much cherished by many skeptics as proof that religion is false, men deliberately set about to disprove hypotheses before accepting them as fact, and the idea that any secret or uncomfirmed results should be given consideration would be rejected immediately. Objective truth does not just take people’s word.
But that’s what PZ Myers has done with the Shermer accusation. And by refusing to name the accuser he has cast doubt not only on the story, but his own credibility as well. Myers is asking people to believe without any corroborating evidence aside from the alleged accusation of some mystery woman. It is more of a stretch than the miracles of the Bible, in which witnesses at least identified themselves. This behavior throws doubt on any previous claims Myers has made about his skepticism toward religion being based on reason. A man so willing to believe with so little proof has no leg to stand on in attacking people for their faith in God. He has revealed himself to be, above all, a malicious hypocrite and prejudiced bigot.
The other explanation, of course, is that PZ Myers is a scheming liar who made the entire thing up to discredit a rival. In that case, I hope Michael Shermer sues him for defamation.
