I mean, I understand what an elevator joke would be, but not why they would be near-compulsory.

WTF is an elevator joke?

How many elevators does it take to change a light bulb? Two, one to change the light bulb and one to play soft muzak.

Urm... okay, not a very good one.

There was a huge meltdown before TAM.

Picture it like Buffy fandom, and Dawkins is Joss Whedon, and Rebecca Watson is me. Those are your two players. Got it? So here's the story:

Rebecca Watson was on a panel in Dublin, talking about their skeptic fandom stuff, and then went out to party with some other fans. At 4am, she said, "I'm exhausted, I have to go to sleep," and left the bar.

A man followed her into the elevator and said, "I think you're really interesting. Do you want to go back to my room for coffee?"

Watson declined.

Later, when doing a podcast, Rebecca mentioned that Elevator Guy went about things the wrong way, that it isn't cool to ask a woman alone in an elevator to go back to your room at 4am, it's just sort of creepy.

Just like that. It was sort of off-the-cuff, since she often gives talks on male privilege and inappropriate behavior toward the few women who attend these events.

Of course, the dudes in the skeptic fandom went completely ballistic about how silly women are, and the women went ballistic about how fucking clueless men are.

PZ Myers, who often falls on the side of the angels in matters such as these, wrote about it on his blog.

Dudes again went ballistic on the sheer stupidity of women and such. (women did this as well)

One of the dudes was Dawkins, who posted a diatribe on how privileged Watson is to be afraid of men in elevators when her sisters in Africa are getting their clitorises cut off.

The logic fail in Dawkins argument was pointed out to him several times, but he dug in.

Phil Plait (kind of the Tim Minear of the fandom) took it all over to his blog and ipped Dawkins a new one.

Everyone who has posted about it gets flooded with MRAs who are butthurt that women can vote.

This all happened just a few days ago.

You need an ax to cut the tension.

OH JEEZ.

There is and has been a really hostile environment towards women at these events. A couple of years ago, there was an event somewheres, and a panel about what they can do to get more women to attend. The panel was five dudes.

Someone asked, "have you considered inviting them to your diversity panel so you can ask them yourself?"

SERIOUSLY. It's a very white male privilege and VERY ANGRY when you call it out sort of thing.

I've been listening to Chuck D for days. Public Enemy makes me behave differently, I think.

Wow. I just. I don't even.

Everyone who has posted about it gets flooded with MRAs who are butthurt that women can vote.

The lack of clue has been kind of staggering. One reader on Ta-Nehisi Coates's blog summarized it all with something like, "But if I can't ask out absolutely any woman I ever like the second I see her, even at 4 AM in a hotel elevator when she's exhausted after a long day of lecturing about how women don't like being sexualized by their colleagues at professional gatherings, then I will never be able to meet the mother of my atheist children and the terrorists have won. WHY DO YOU HATE MEN SO MUCH?"

Speaking of anger, remember big boss in NY who wouldn't promote me? (And who still hasn't congratulated me on my new job, when everyone else in my group has, including her boss and her 22-year-old assistant.)

Well, her last act was to disinvite me from the big launch dinner next week, when I had already deleted it from my calendar and, in fact, will have already left the office! Seriously, she went out of her way to send me and another guy who moved to sales cancelled invitations via Outlook.

I am very glad today is my last day.

Blargh, megan. What a petty little asshat weasel-fucker she is.

"But if I can't ask out absolutely any woman I ever like the second I see her, even at 4 AM in a hotel elevator when she's exhausted after a long day of lecturing about how women don't like being sexualized by their colleagues at professional gatherings, then I will never be able to meet the mother of my atheist children and the terrorists have won. WHY DO YOU HATE MEN SO MUCH?"

I love T-NC.

Yeah, atheism is white dude central as much as any other western belief power structure, which is like OH GOD THE HYPOCRACY, and I read about this Dawkins gender fail last week, and was like, that's going to make for an interesting conference.

Give 'em hell, Allyson!