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But whether those words are hurtful to people is not up for discussion.
Context: Surly Amy of Skepchick made a post about the recent DDoS attack on Skepchick and a couple other sites. She included a pic of a piece of art she made in response to the attack that she's selling to help fund the site. Gist of the art is that the DDoSers didn't think this through: Skepchick et al won't be shut up, and the DDoSers' attempting to force them silent only proves them right.
I'm with Surly Amy so far. This really isn't the wisest decision antifeminists have ever made.
But.
Key words on the art: "stupid", "idiot", "I'm literally impressed you remember to breathe every day".
Some people I know with cognitive and/or developmental disabilities, including one whose med side effects include not always remembering to breathe, complained about this in comments to the post and on Twitter. (I have not been following this, or really much of anything, on Twitter. I know stuff has been happening there but I'm not sure of any of the Twitter handles involved and I don't think anyone's Storifyed it yet—or equivalent; I recall Storify being one of the sites we're boycotting because of reasons—so it's hard to check.) And if Amy, and the person whose words Amy used on the art (I believe this was Elyse, but don't hold me to that), had stopped and thought and then said words to the effect of "that was ill-considered of me, I'm sorry, I'll fix it" and then redid the words on the art to not include the ableist terminology, that would have been the end of it.
They didn't.
In fact Amy tried using the fact that she was triggered by the responses to the post (which I understand and sympathize with) as a get-out-of-jail-free card for triggering the people who were triggered by her art.
Rebecca Watson joined in. Rebecca frigging Watson; if you're an atheist feminist you know and respect that name, you know? And she joined in on the side of "'stupid' is not an ableist term". Which, uh, it really is. As the post title says, it may or may not be an ableist slur, but it is sure as hell a weapon against people with cognitive and developmental disabilities. When it is used against willfully ignorant people—and I know how hard it is to excise the word in that sense from one's vocabulary; I'm not yet done with that task—its use is in suggesting that the willfully ignorant person is willfully ignorant because they have a cognitive or learning disability. Not unlike 'lame', where its use in the sense of 'pathetic' is in suggesting that the pathetic thing is pathetic because it lacks a certain capability in the same manner that a person with a mobility disability lacks a certain capability.
And then Watson started gaslighting. Direct quote: "It appears as though you’re seeing insults that just aren’t there." If that isn't an example of rejecting the first speaker's reality to substitute the second speaker's own, I don't know what is. I understand Amy has also been engaging in abusive tactics, but that part seems to have all gone down on Twitter, so I can't cite examples.
The best bit for my money is this quote from Watson's post: "And if I was friends with any of those people and I used one of those words in their presence and they took me aside and told me about their pain, I would absolutely avoid saying those words in their presence." Newsflash, Watson: there are a lot of people who read Skepchick telling you that these words cause pain. Please stop using those words in the presence of these people. There are ways to describe willful ignorance that do not cause splash damage to people with disabilities. Use those instead.
It's getting really hard to maintain respect for Rebecca Watson over here.
Context: Surly Amy of Skepchick made a post about the recent DDoS attack on Skepchick and a couple other sites. She included a pic of a piece of art she made in response to the attack that she's selling to help fund the site. Gist of the art is that the DDoSers didn't think this through: Skepchick et al won't be shut up, and the DDoSers' attempting to force them silent only proves them right.
I'm with Surly Amy so far. This really isn't the wisest decision antifeminists have ever made.
But.
Key words on the art: "stupid", "idiot", "I'm literally impressed you remember to breathe every day".
Some people I know with cognitive and/or developmental disabilities, including one whose med side effects include not always remembering to breathe, complained about this in comments to the post and on Twitter. (I have not been following this, or really much of anything, on Twitter. I know stuff has been happening there but I'm not sure of any of the Twitter handles involved and I don't think anyone's Storifyed it yet—or equivalent; I recall Storify being one of the sites we're boycotting because of reasons—so it's hard to check.) And if Amy, and the person whose words Amy used on the art (I believe this was Elyse, but don't hold me to that), had stopped and thought and then said words to the effect of "that was ill-considered of me, I'm sorry, I'll fix it" and then redid the words on the art to not include the ableist terminology, that would have been the end of it.
They didn't.
In fact Amy tried using the fact that she was triggered by the responses to the post (which I understand and sympathize with) as a get-out-of-jail-free card for triggering the people who were triggered by her art.
Rebecca Watson joined in. Rebecca frigging Watson; if you're an atheist feminist you know and respect that name, you know? And she joined in on the side of "'stupid' is not an ableist term". Which, uh, it really is. As the post title says, it may or may not be an ableist slur, but it is sure as hell a weapon against people with cognitive and developmental disabilities. When it is used against willfully ignorant people—and I know how hard it is to excise the word in that sense from one's vocabulary; I'm not yet done with that task—its use is in suggesting that the willfully ignorant person is willfully ignorant because they have a cognitive or learning disability. Not unlike 'lame', where its use in the sense of 'pathetic' is in suggesting that the pathetic thing is pathetic because it lacks a certain capability in the same manner that a person with a mobility disability lacks a certain capability.
And then Watson started gaslighting. Direct quote: "It appears as though you’re seeing insults that just aren’t there." If that isn't an example of rejecting the first speaker's reality to substitute the second speaker's own, I don't know what is. I understand Amy has also been engaging in abusive tactics, but that part seems to have all gone down on Twitter, so I can't cite examples.
The best bit for my money is this quote from Watson's post: "And if I was friends with any of those people and I used one of those words in their presence and they took me aside and told me about their pain, I would absolutely avoid saying those words in their presence." Newsflash, Watson: there are a lot of people who read Skepchick telling you that these words cause pain. Please stop using those words in the presence of these people. There are ways to describe willful ignorance that do not cause splash damage to people with disabilities. Use those instead.
It's getting really hard to maintain respect for Rebecca Watson over here.