
Biology-Online.org, "Urban Whores," And The Many Axes Of Douchebaggery - DanBC
http://www.popehat.com/2013/10/13/biology-online-org-urban-whores-and-the-many-axes-of-douchebaggery/
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kevinpet
> "Ofek" clearly intended "whore" to be a gendered slur.

This is not at all clear to me. Clearly "Ofek" is a jerk with a strong sense
of entitlement, but in the context of scientists being motivated by money as
opposed to pure altruism, this is a common enough term. Here's an example of
two men arguing in the media:

[http://www.mmamania.com/2013/6/11/4417740/nick-diaz-
unretire...](http://www.mmamania.com/2013/6/11/4417740/nick-diaz-unretire-
georges-st-pierre-anderson-silva-whore-dana-white-war-mma)

"Clearly" is frequently a code word for "I can't actually support this
argument."

Here's another example from the comments: "Especially, calling a black woman
"urban whore" is sexist and racist." Essentially, there's this point of view
that if you're a jerk towards a straight white man, you're just a jerk, but if
you're a jerk to some protected class, then you're clearly being a jerk for
sexist or racist motives.

I dislike this attitude because it undermines being legitimately inclusive.
It's the boy who cried wolf -- if people are crying "sexism" every time they
get cut off on the freeway, then people learn to ignore it.

~~~
blatherard
So, what you're arguing is that a good way to improve inclusivity is to be
open-minded when someone calls a woman a "whore"?

~~~
badman_ting
It's about the precise kind of jerk this person was being. And I agree with
the GP, it seemed more like he meant whore in the sense of doing things for
money that should be done for free. I'm not defending it, obviously it's
uncalled for, but it strikes me that people looking for something will find
it, if you know what I mean. I could be wrong, I'm just saying it doesn't seem
clear-cut to me.

~~~
blatherard
Why does it matter that the jerk be properly classified?

~~~
phaus
Because it should be bad enough that the guy is a jerk without attempting to
permanently label him as a sexist and/or a racist when there's a good chance
that he might not be.

Most agree that he is a scumbag who said something that he shouldn't, but that
doesn't mean he's racist or sexist.

He called her a whore because its a universal, non-gendered term for a sell-
out. If a person thinks that its a gendered term, then that person is an idiot
because there are lots of male and trans-gender prostitutes. That being said
He's both wrong and hypocritical for accusing her of being a sell-out,
especially when you consider he wanted her content for the sole purpose of
making money off of it. She should be entitled to make money off of her work,
especially when another entity is going to be.

He most likely called her an "Urban Whore," as a play on words using the title
of her site. He probably thought it was clever, but as we already established,
he's an asshole. Assholes often exhibit poor judgement. Yet when an African
American woman (or anyone else) calls herself an Urban Scientist, she loses
the right to be genuinely offended by the use of the term Urban. I didn't see
her state that she was offended by the word, but nobody else really needs to
be offended by it on her behalf. Instead, focus on the fact that this guy's an
asshole for calling a person a whore for not giving him free content so he
could make money.

There's a potential that he meant to be both sexist and racist, but there
isn't really any way to know for sure. That's why its stupid to suggest that
he was either of those things.

Does it really matter that an asshole is accurately classified? Not really,
but if we are going to talk about something, we might as well be accurate
about it.

~~~
philh
I suspect that "gendered term" is not very well-defined, and certainly I don't
have a very good model of what it means.

Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure:

> there are lots of male and trans-gender prostitutes.

It does not automatically follow from this that "whore" is not a gendered
term, and nor does it follow that anyone who thinks "whore" is a gendered term
is an idiot.

(I'm sure _some_ people have a definition of "gendered term" which implies
"can only be literally true of one gender". But I doubt that everyone agrees
on that definition, and I doubt that's how it's generally used.)

------
jedanbik
Which gender deserves to be called a whore in a professional context? There's
nothing acceptable about this behavior.

Her rebuttal was very classy by the way, well done:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9kTZx1vq7c](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9kTZx1vq7c)

------
justin66
From an author's point of view - particularly an author who might write about
something controversial at some point - knowing how far an editor will stick
their neck out for you is probably the primary measure of that editor's
usefulness. Doubly so in a format like blogging where the editor doesn't
intend to give direct feedback on the author's text.

Now the SciAm bloggers know.

------
derleth
Why does popehat assume Ofek is male?

~~~
DanBC
I don't know.

Ofek seems to be a male given name, or a surname. But I don't know enough
about Jewish culture to understand naming conventions.

Here's an editor for Biology Online calling Ofek a male ([http://www.biology-
online.org/biology-forum/post-157185.html...](http://www.biology-
online.org/biology-forum/post-157185.html#p157185))

Facebook searches return a few Ofeks who are not male.

------
gcb1
i was reading until he played the sexism card. screw that. the bad guys there
deserve to be put down socially for many dumb actions but sexism? just because
she used the whore word when cursing? its probably 3 woman in the discussion
to begin with. cursing is cursing. if you focus on the meaning you are
overthinking it.

