The Boys Call Out Misogyny Among the Anti-Vaxxers : On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess

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The Egyptian goddess Isis was celebrated as the ideal wife and mother. The blogger known as Dr. Isis has some fancy-sounding degrees and is a physiologist at a major research university working on some terribly impressive stuff. She blogs about balancing her research career with the demands of raising small children, how to succeed as a woman in academia, and anything else she finds interesting. Also, she blogs about shoes. In fact, she blogs a lot about shoes.

...And behold, he raised the motherfucking Jameson on high as Isis bedecked her feet in glory, and the masses were sated. -- The Holy Gospel According to PhysioProf

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The Boys Call Out Misogyny Among the Anti-Vaxxers

Category: Calling out Asshats • Feminist Stylings • Lovely Sciblings • Science-y Sounding Meanderings
Posted on: November 1, 2009 9:52 PM, by Isis the Scientist

The other evening I was laying bed, watching the first season of NCIS on DVD as our technician ordered me too, and being generally hot when I got an email from one of my favorite bloggers in the universe - the great anti-anti-vaxx crusader Orac from over at the Respectful Insolence blog.

I am aware of the anti-vaccine movement because I have been a loyal reader of Orac's blog for sometime. In fact, when I first considered moving to ScienceBlogs, he was the first person I wrote to. Part of me wants to feel some sympathy for the passionate anti-vaccine advocates because I can understand the fear that comes with being a parent. I know the panic that comes with being faced with a decision you fear could permanently and irreversibly harm your child. I know that bad information is plentiful on the internet and that, with the right nurturing, the seed of doubt in a mother's mind can grow quickly into the tree of crazy.

Figure 1: Two young mothers, about to be engulfed by the tree of crazy.

That said, I am a strong believer in the benefit of vaccination and Little Isis has received all of his vaccines in accordance with the American Academy of Pediatric's Immunization Schedule. As a scientist I feel confident enough in the current body of literature demonstrating the safety of vaccination that I have chosen to contribute to the herd immunity, and our personal immunities, by vaccinating my family in accordance with the yearly recommendations. I don't follow the debate as closely as others because this particular battle on pseudoscience is being waged by better warriors than I.

However, it seems the debate has taken a turn that Orac believed would interest me when he wrote:

O Goddess,

I thought you might be interested in the utter sexism and misogyny being exhibited by J. B. Handley, one of the leaders of the anti-vaccine movement through his role as founder of Generation Rescue, which now uses Jenny McCarthy as its spokesmoron:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/10/the_anti-vaccine_movement_strikes_back_u.php

This is a pattern for him:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/12/winning_friends_and_influencing_people_o_1.php

They guy is a frat boy who never grew up. In any case, if you know of appropriate feminist blogs where they might want to publicize this I'd be appreciative.

Orac

As a bit of back story (although you really should read Orac's blog for the full story. Actually, you should just read Orac's blog. After you read mine, of course.), a journalist named Amy Wallace recently published an article in Wired magazine entitled An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All. Colossal cockweaseldouchemonkey, genuine asshat, and founder of the ultimate denialist's association, J.B. Handley...well, here it is from Orac:

Well, as an interview on NPR with Wallace has shown, the shitstorm has arrived, and it is just as stinky as the term implies, complete with misogyny and sexism...

I've been called stupid, greedy, a whore, a prostitute, and a "fking lib." I've been called the author of "heinous tripe."

J.B. Handley, the founder of Generation Rescue, the anti-vaccine group that actress Jenny McCarthy helps promote, sent an essay title" "Paul Offit Rapes (intellectually) Amy Wallace and Wired Magazine." In it, he implied that Offit had slipped me a date rape drug. "The roofie cocktails at Paul Offit's house must be damn good," he wrote. Later, he sent a revised version that omitted rape and replaced it with the image of me drinking Offit's Kool-aid. That one was later posted at the anti-vaccine blog Age of Autism. You can read that blog here

Stay classy, J.B. That's exactly the behavior from you that we've come to know and despise, and this is the sort of behavior that we expect from the anti-vaccine movement:

I've been told I'll think differently "if you live to grow up." I've been warned that "this article will haunt you for a long time." Just now, I got an email so sexually explicit that I can't paraphrase it here. Except to say it contained the c-word and a reference to dead fish.

I told Orac when I responded to him that I would certainly blog about this if I could add something productive to the discussion. When I started writing this post all I could come up with as material was a picture of J.B. Handley fucking a horse because I assume that someone who would write such heinous things must be into fucking animals.

Figure 2: However, for me to post and say that J.B. Handley is a horse fucker would be inaccurate because it is simply not true. And, we all know how important the truth is to J.B. Handley. So, please, in the name of civility and truthiness, do not Google "J.B. Handley is a horse fucker" over and over and click on this blog post so that future searches for him return this post about him fucking horses. Please. That would be unkind and we all know how important kindness is to J.B. Handley. Horse fucking is certainly not important to J.B. Handley. I do not think J.B. Handley fucks horses.

But, at the end of the day and a weekend of thinking, all I could come up with was 20-30 photoshops of J.B. Handley doing more and more perverse things to non-human members of the kingdom Animalia and one of him doing something absolutely vile to a member of the kingdom Monera. Still, what does that accomplish but to spread untruth? It's certainly not adding much to the discussion.

I think there was a reason I felt like I didn't have a lot to add here. While I feel for Amy Wallace, I think these recent comments are disgraceful, and I offer her nothing but my sincerest support, I am not surprised by her treatment. Sexual intimidation/suggestion is nothing new in journalism/blogging/science/the academy in general. After all, there is no end game retaliation more effective than threatening or humiliating a woman sexually.

This is something I see happen to my female writing/blogging colleagues routinely and we have discussions that our male colleagues aren't privy to. For a tamer example, you only have to look here to see one dude's reaction to being anonymously called out. I get fairly regular sexually explicit email from readers, including a recent one where some guy told me that he's "always fantasized about having a goddess sit on his face while he has his fist in her ass." Charming. This guy let me know that he touches himself while he reads my blog. Then there was the time a comments thread turned into a discussion of lesbian prison fantasies...And these are only the examples that affect me. If my blog sisters could talk...

So, I have to admit that sometimes it's hard to notice something on the radar when your radar is so damned full .

Figure 3: Dr. Isis prepares for a quiet day.

But, thinking more and more about this, I realize that the fact that this incident has made it on to another radar - Orac's radar - is a great thing. The fact that Orac, a dude himself, has written publicly condemning J.B. Handley's misogynistic comments as misogyny is a great thing. While I know that it is Feminist Rule #37 that we do not give the boys a cookie because they are doing the right thing, it makes me feel hopeful that men are becoming aware of the types of attacks female writers face and are willing to take the misogynists to task. We women certainly don't need no stinkin' men, but it's nice to have them in the fight.

So, Brother Orac, in response to your email here is what I am going to do:

You have my feminist seal of approval on this one, my friend. But, you really didn't need it. Your analysis was spot on.
I hereby ask all of my feminist-blogging readers to post in support of Amy Wallace, in response to the vile comments made by anti-vaccine crusader J.B. Handley.
I hereby ask all of my readers, including the ones who don't regularly think of themselves as feminist-blogging, to post in support of Amy Wallace, in response to the vile comments made by anti-vaccine crusader J.B. Handley.

Leave a link to your post in the comments section. It might be nice if Amy knew there were an army of people who thought J.B. Handley was a real goatfucker*.

The bat signal is up, Orac. Hopefully someone will see it.

* J.B. Handley probably does not fuck goats either. Probably.

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Comments

Here's my post http://noadi-scribbles.blogspot.com/2009/11/stopping-fear-and-misogyny.html

Posted by: Noadi | November 2, 2009 12:41 AM

I was going to say I pity the horse that has to get fucked by J.B. Handley, but going by what I have heard about the psychological issues of petty little men who rant and stomp their feet when they get the smackdown from intelligent, powerful women, the horse probably wouldn't even notice anything was going on.

Posted by: isles | November 2, 2009 3:25 AM

What'd the horse ever do to deserve J.B. Handley?! I know horses. I like horses. They have more sense in their ear-hairs than J.B. Handley has in his entire benighted body.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go die of the 'harmless' influenza... >:(

Posted by: Interrobang | November 2, 2009 4:49 AM

Orac is mighty but Abel Pharmboy crossed the finish line first in the J. B. Handley misogyny-calling.

All the posts through Friday on Amy Wallace, the Wired article, and the misogyny and lies at AoA: Amy Wallace's Pro-Vaccine, Pro-Science Article in Wired and the Reactions To It.

Posted by: Liz Ditz | November 2, 2009 7:02 AM

Orac is mighty but Abel Pharmboy crossed the finish line first in the J. B. Handley misogyny-calling.

True that, and I gave him credit where credit was due. But he didn't write the Goddess for advice first, now did he? :-)

Posted by: Orac | November 2, 2009 7:59 AM

I am sure there are several brilliant posts and many comments on this topic that I am not familiar with out on the interwebz. I'd encourage people to link to them so that others can read what is going on. However, as my dear Brother Orac points out, he is the one who emailed me for advice.

Posted by: Isis the Scientist | November 2, 2009 9:39 AM

"Still, what does that accomplish but to spread untruth?"
I know! I mean, the five kingdom myth has surely run it's course.

"While I know that it is Feminist Rule #37 that we do not give the boys a cookie because they are doing the right thing, it makes me feel hopeful that men are becoming aware of the types of attacks female writers face and are willing to take the misogynists to task. "
I've always thought Rule #37 was stupid. I like giving cookies. As soon as Orac praises some anti-vaxer feminist or calls out some pro-vaxer misogynist, I shall give him many cookies. With frosting! And maybe even sprinkles.
Being a socially decent person when it serves your main agenda isn't half so impressive as being a socially decent person all the time.

Posted by: becca | November 2, 2009 10:27 AM

I find it entertaining (as a pediatrician, mother, and consumer of mass media) that at the same time the anti-vaccination movement is suggesting that we allow our children to die of preventable diseases, the news is showing mobs desperate to get a vaccine for influenza. [As a health care worker, I got seasonal flu in the left deltoid and H1N1 in the right 11 days ago.]
Now, I am not dissing the porcine flu. It has proven to be a nasty sucker, and it is killing people. But I have seen what pertussis and meningitis do to children, and these bad boys are the true goat-fuckers when it comes to infectious diseases (not that they actually fuck goats; that is just a figure of speech). I am glad to be able to say I have never seen polio, just the residual effects in immigrants (another G-F'in disorder), and reading descriptions of diptheria and tetanus is enough for my imagination (these sound like goat & horse F'ers). Compared to these disorders, even the current flu seems pretty tame. Yet people are mobbing for prevention for H1N1, while questioning the need for protection from really, truly major badness diseases.
There's a lesson here, but my brain is still on Pacific time, so I haven't learned it yet.

Posted by: Pascale | November 2, 2009 10:40 AM

Whoa, Becca! I guess time will tell if our brother bloggers get a cookie, eh?

Posted by: Isis the Scientist | November 2, 2009 10:43 AM

How many times do I have to type a particular search query into google before it auto fills? :D
http://ladydid.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-many-times-is-too-many.html

Posted by: ktbug ladydid | November 2, 2009 11:46 AM

I've always preferred the epithet ratfucker, myself. A horse is at least a noble and awe inspiring animal. A rat? Well, it's a rat. As is, metaphorically speaking, Handley.

Posted by: Rev Matt | November 2, 2009 12:26 PM

A horse is indeed a noble beast, but I remind you that the lowly rat nevertheless provides great services in support of the expansion of scientific knowledge and the improvement of human health, and are in these respects the very opposite of J.B. Handley. I believe that we must move into the realm of pathogens and parasites to find an appropriate romantic partner for Mr. Handley. May I suggest tapeworm?

Posted by: trrll | November 2, 2009 1:45 PM

Rev Matt: No! Not the poor rat! Rats are small, and might suffer pain from being used in such a manner. At least the horse probably wouldn't feel something that small.

Posted by: graduatesinnever | November 2, 2009 1:46 PM

Oh my gosh!! I was laughing so hard my kids came to see what was so great, and I had to minimize quickly. I will use that image whenever I need a good laugh. thanks! I will google that a few times just for good measure.

Posted by: Lisa | November 2, 2009 2:06 PM

*pulls out the trusty quotefile*

Isis:

I know that bad information is plentiful on the internet and that, with the right nurturing, the seed of doubt in a mother's mind can grow quickly into the tree of crazy.

I love that metaphor, and with the picture you posted, it immediately makes me think of The Little Price, by Antoine de St-Exupery.

Indeed, as I learned, there were on the planet where the little prince lived-- as on all planets-- good plants and bad plants. In consequence, there were good seeds from good plants, and bad seeds from bad plants. But seeds are invisible. They sleep deep in the heart of the earth's darkness, until some one among them is seized with the desire to awaken. Then this little seed will stretch itself and begin-- timidly at first-- to push a charming little sprig inoffensively upward toward the sun. If it is only a sprout of radish or the sprig of a rose-bush, one would let it grow wherever it might wish. But when it is a bad plant, one must destroy it as soon as possible, the very first instant that one recognizes it.

Now there were some terrible seeds on the planet that was the home of the little prince; and these were the seeds of the baobab. The soil of that planet was infested with them. A baobab is something you will never, never be able to get rid of if you attend to it too late. It spreads over the entire planet. It bores clear through it with its roots. And if the planet is too small, and the baobabs are too many, they split it in pieces...

becca:

Being a socially decent person when it serves your main agenda isn't half so impressive as being a socially decent person all the time.

Regardless of whether or not one is Christian, I think this particular text summarizes that sentiment extremely well:
"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that." (Jesus, Luke 6:32-34)

Posted by: Calli Arcale | November 2, 2009 3:02 PM

Hey, hey, hey Calli. Watch it with the scripture quoting today, sister. Isis can only handle one group at a time ;)

Posted by: Isis the Scientist | November 2, 2009 3:07 PM

May I suggest tapeworm?

Nah, nothing more intelligent than an antivaxer. I'm thinking a pool of molten lava, or perhaps Cheney.

Posted by: blf | November 2, 2009 3:17 PM

I do love it when the smart kids gang up on the bullies.
http://sanemomblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/jb-handley-christ-what-asshole.html

Posted by: han | November 2, 2009 3:32 PM

Hey blf! Don't insult Lava! It's totally Awesome!!!!!!!!! And can kill you....more so than Cheney.

Posted by: ktbug ladydid | November 2, 2009 3:32 PM

May I suggest tapeworm?

I'm not sure the psychologists would appreciate that. Although, I suppose that both are useful for study in that field.

I'm rather more inclined to think of a dung beetle. Yes, it serves a useful purpose despite it's unpleasant habits. In that I suspect that ol' JB may also serve, if only as a bad example.

Posted by: D. C. Sessions | November 2, 2009 3:58 PM

The funny thing is that most of the anti-vaxxers were probably vaccinated as children, even though they don't want their own kids or others' kids to be vaccinated. I don't read up on this issue, mostly because I think the anti-vaxxer arguement is pretty lame, though, so I may be wrong in guessing about the vaccination records of the anti-vaxxers, themselves. All I know is that one of my non-science professor acquaintances refuses to vaccinate her child, and her child is probably one of the sickest little kids I've ever seen. : (

Posted by: LadyDay | November 2, 2009 4:13 PM

Great quote, Calli! I think most of the major world religions (and probably many minor ones) have a similar sentiment...such as the Egyptians. That's probably why Isis came after you...you plagerized her stuff and then gave credit to the wrong folks. ;-)

Re: giving boys a cookie and we don't need no stinkin' men. Sounds a bit misandronystic or at least condescending to me. I prefer not to engage in such talk myself because you quickly get called out as hypocrite when you then turn around give some misogynist what he so richly deserves.

And speaking of richly deserves, that J.B. and the horse part of your post, Isis, had me falling over with laughter. I'll have to show it to my "steenkin' man-boy" when he comes home tonight. By the way, he went online shortly after JB's attacks (and others) came out and lambasted a number of those horse-fuckers, and then went after them on their own websites (where addresses were available). I gave him a cookie for that. lol!. Must make me a terrible feminist.

Posted by: mariana | November 2, 2009 4:51 PM

Here's my post: http://skepticalem.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/in-support-of-amy-wallace/

Posted by: Em | November 2, 2009 5:36 PM

Dude, I hate it when Jesus goes around copying me. And here I was feeling bad about being a little harsh, compared to how wisely Dr. Freeride had summed everything up.

Posted by: becca | November 2, 2009 5:46 PM

How depressing.
Do female bloggers really get such horrific email all the time? I am appalled.

Posted by: Michel B. | November 2, 2009 7:23 PM

@ktbug I think you need to throw some numbers on that one -- Cheney vs lava death toll, at least on a short time frame (say, the length of an average male's life); I think Cheney might have lava beat.

Not to detract from current discussion; I managed my H1N1 today you nutter anti-vax peeps!

Posted by: gnuma | November 2, 2009 9:12 PM

I have it on good authority, namely my clogged up brain that J.B.s Truename is actually Needle Dick The Bug Fucker.

Posted by: Christ Davis | November 2, 2009 9:20 PM

If there is anything that pisses me off immensely is fuck-wits who don't see the problem with using rape to indicate anything aside from actual rape. http://recoverlostmarbles.blogspot.com/2009/11/jb-handley-misogynist.html

Posted by: LostMarbles | November 2, 2009 10:21 PM

Hey, Isis,

As much as I laughed at this post, I'll just throw in my two cents. When you use imagery as graphic and, frankly, pornographic as you did, I think you cheapen your message as much as JB did when he attacked the rational mind at the heart of this issue. That what he said was irrational and completely inconsequential to the argument at hand is a given- he's simply attempting to evade the core debate by resorting to gross hyperbole and exaggeration. He's concealing his lack of real substance.

But I don't need to talk to you about logic - scientist yourself. This is why it saddens me to see you produce fodder for the "enemy" by posting what you did. In the future, I think it would be beneficial to keep the level of discourse at a mature level, if only to demonstrate that we can make a clear argument using simply logic and not grade-school name-calling. Just think: what would a yet-impartial observer, just getting in to this debate, gain from this post? That those on the pro-vaccination side are even-minded scientists who have simply read the evidence and made a decision? Or that we're as biased and unsophisticated as Oprah or JB?

Posted by: BASc Undergrad in TO | November 2, 2009 11:03 PM

@BASc Undergrad, Your idea that because Isis is educated she should somehow be above using crude language and insults to get a point across is nice, I guess, but most of the liveliest crudity comes from the educated segment of the population. Idiots rarely come up with clever insults.

Posted by: Christ Davis | November 2, 2009 11:34 PM

I think it would be beneficial to keep the level of discourse at a mature level (#29)

I'm confused. What is a mature level of discourse with JBH? "No, the fact is that Dr Offit didn't drug and rape Ms Wallace." That's not discourse - it's a one-way airflow, contributing only to gobal warming.

Posted by: David | November 3, 2009 9:33 AM

You know, I kind of appreciate envy Undergrad's ability to think that all people can be reasoned with logically. I, obviously, don't believe it, but I envy the ability to have that outlook.

I'll have to remember his comment for Science Online...

Posted by: Isis the Scientist | November 3, 2009 9:36 AM

As a scientist I feel confident enough in the current body of literature demonstrating the safety of vaccination

See, as a scientist, that kind of statement drives me crazy. Given: 99.9% of anti-vaxxers are insane with no capability of risk assessment.

But... what does "the safety of vaccination" mean? That's so loose as to be meaningless. Are we talking the benefit/risk ratio? What vaccine or class of vaccines are we talking about? Over what time frame? How are we judging this? Are we talking single-safety, or cumulative safety?

That's not a scientific position. That's a statement of group membership. There is a huge amount unknown -- inevitably so, given the natural ignorance when faced with epidemiological studies over long terms in highly diverse populations and so on and so forth... Just do a pubmed search on influenza vaccine, longitudinal, ... there's still a lot of question about which populations it's efficacious to vaccinate.

What you go on is a best guess at a risk assessment. I'm not "confident in the safety of vaccines" -- what I'm confident is in the danger of most diseases we get vaccinated against, and how low we can drive the at least prima-facie risk of vaccination. That's sufficient -- because that's all we can know.

On the other hand, I'm not contributing to "herd immunity" (and oh please, give me a quantitative definition of that!) on cyclic, low risk diseases that hit tiny subpopulations that can be easily vaccinated. Not every infection on the "recommended list" is actually a general threat -- some apply in very small subsets, and giving everyone a shot for a public health issues that could be treated much better by say improving living conditions in slums or improving wages is backwards.

Posted by: frog | November 3, 2009 10:43 AM

Isis...that was freaking brilliant.

Now if only I knew someone who could write a program to keep Googling a certain phrase...

Posted by: IrishMom | November 3, 2009 4:45 PM

"...that could be treated much better by say improving living conditions in slums or improving wages is backwards"

Respiratory diseases couldn't care less as to how much you make or whether you have a clean house and toilet. They are dedicatedly equal-opportunity infectors, as demonstrated by the outbreaks in wealthy non-vaccinated "very small subsets". Wake up to the real world, froggie.

Posted by: momkat | November 3, 2009 5:57 PM

Isis, I think you don't cheapen your message one iota. Logic and Handley haven't been found in the same room together, so using logic, reason, compassion, etc. would only convince Handley that you too were a kool-aid drinker, and weak, to boot.

Posted by: kwombles | November 4, 2009 6:48 AM

http://topyourfragileself.blogspot.com/2009/11/vaccinations-and-insanity.html

Posted by: JLK | November 4, 2009 12:15 PM

O Godess,

I spread the word via Facebook but, as a friend pointed out, there are some issues with continuing to spread the word today:
"I read the article you linked to on Facebook. I considered going to Google and searching "J.B. Handley is a horse f*cker" as the article asked everyone to do. When I got to Google, I couldn't do it. As it happens, today is the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street, and I found I couldn't type something that offensive into the search line with Big Bird looking on."

Hmm. Maybe we should use Yahoo or that Microsoft search engine (can't remember the name at the moment).

Posted by: Matlatzinca | November 4, 2009 1:18 PM

Alright, 2 points for Matlatzinca. That made me laugh so hard I peed a little.

Posted by: Isis the Scientist | November 4, 2009 1:37 PM

O Godess, turnabout is fair play!

Posted by: Matlatzinca | November 4, 2009 2:50 PM

This is possibly the funniest thing you've ever written. I base that on the fact that I've been back a dozen times this week to reread the bit

"However, for me to post and say that J.B. Handley is a horse fucker would be inaccurate because it is simply not true. And, we all know how important the truth is to J.B. Handley. So, please, in the name of civility and truthiness, do not Google "J.B. Handley is a horse fucker" over and over and click on this blog post so that future searches for him return this post about him fucking horses. Please. That would be unkind and we all know how important kindness is to J.B. Handley. Horse fucking is certainly not important to J.B. Handley. I do not think J.B. Handley fucks horses."

And passed it around to everyone I know. And encouraged them to do searches on it.

Posted by: Rev Matt | November 6, 2009 5:20 PM

I get Bert&Ernie, not Big Bird.
I think they can handle the horse fucking. It's gotta be less freaky than whatever they use all those bottlecaps for. Not sure they can handle J.B. Handley though.

Posted by: becca | November 6, 2009 7:54 PM

http://open.salon.com/blog/anthropologist_underground/2009/11/06/yay_vaginas_and_other_awesome_girly_bits_nsfw

Thank you Goddess Isis!

Posted by: Anthropologist Underground | November 7, 2009 1:42 AM