Richard Dawkins has done another frank and open interview. And it’s killing me. He’s just doubling down on everything.
He is, he said, not a misogynist, as some critics have called him, but
a passionate feminist.The greatest threats to women, in his view, are Islamism and jihadism — and his concern over that sometimes leads him to speak off-the-cuff.
I concentrate my attention on that menace and I confess I occasionally get a little impatient with American women who complain of being inappropriately touched by the water cooler or invited for coffee or something which I think is, by comparison, relatively trivial,he said.
Richard Dawkins is a feminist like Christina Hoff Sommers, who he praises, is a feminist … that is not a feminist at all, scarcely understanding what feminism is, and detesting every feminist cause they encounter. Anti-feminists love Sommers and Dawkins because they create a lovely gray zone in which even misogynists get to claim nominal status as being all for equality, when they aren’t.
Islamism and jihadism are serious problems, no question there. But having great big problems does not diminish the smaller problems into nonexistence — that women in Africa are being burned as witches does not mean there is no pay gap between the sexes; you don’t get to use a ranking of social ills to pretend that the lesser ones are to be ignored.
Guess how much working to end workplace harassment in the West harms the the effort to end female genital mutilation in other parts of the world? Not at all. Empowering women at home gives them the clout and the freedom to act for others. So who the fuck are you to tell American women to grin and bear it when they get fondled at the water cooler, in the name of Islamist oppression? This is a right-wing tactic, to use an external fear to silence criticism and efforts to correct inequities at home, and is a formula for futility — when you trivialize local, incremental changes that people can make, demanding that they instead deal immediately with larger problems directly, you get paralysis. Hey, you, stop working in that women’s shelter and instead get a gun and go fight ISIS!
That’s just annoying. But in the light of the next little gem, it’s infuriatingly hypocritical.
I don’t take back anything that I’ve said,Dawkins said from a shady spot in the leafy backyard of one of his Bay Area supporters.I would not say it again, however, because I am now accustomed to being misunderstood and so I will …He trailed off momentarily, gazing at his hands resting on a patio table.
I feel muzzled, and a lot of other people do as well,he continued.There is a climate of bullying, a climate of intransigent thought police which is highly influential in the sense that it suppresses people like me.
Richard Dawkins is worth over $100 million. Every book Richard Dawkins writes is a best-seller. People pay Richard Dawkins $10-20,000 to come lecture at them for an hour. When any news source wants to get an opinion from the atheist community, who do they turn to first? Richard Dawkins. Richard Dawkins gets to tell conference organizers who to uninvite from their speaker list. Richard Dawkins makes movies about Richard Dawkins.
And poor little Richard Dawkins is muzzled? After whining that American women ought to hush up about getting fondled in the workplace or harassed in an elevator, because they’re so well off compared to women in the patriarchal cultures of the Middle East, he’s claiming victimhood as a wealthy outspoken opinionated man, because people criticize him?
Jesus fuck. That’s pathetic.
Dawkins seems to have a list of people who get to complain. Women in Europe or North American nations get to complain the least or not at all. Women in predominantly Muslim nations get to complain about religious patriarchy (do they get to complain about drone attacks? I wonder). But Dawkins has put himself on the top of the list, as he gets to complain about people complaining about him.
While Western women don’t get to complain about outright harassment, he gets to complain that people have called him a misogynist. He, apparently, doesn’t think the harassment women face silences them, while the criticism he gets makes him feel “muzzled”. Now, THAT’S some cognitive dissonance.
Come on, PZed.
Tell us how you really feel.
Quoted for inadvertent truth.
It’s the “inappropriate” that infuriates me here. If he doesn’t think they’re right to complain about it, he doesn’t actually think touching women without their consent is inappropriate.
No. Richard Dawkins has over $100 million. /pet linguistic peeve
He is muzzled, but women are not being muzzled. Wow.
He has supporters with homes, which puts him way above a lot of people, right there.
And he does so best by trying his damnest to hush up those uppity American and European women and those *whisper* muslim women who tell him in frank words that they don’t appreciate his quite often racist and always patronalising efforts to liberate them and elevate them to the exact status he has deemed fit for women.
He’s basically still riding his hobby horse, Dear Muslima, while flogging the poor beast well past death.
In fact, I would quite honestly characterise him at this point as a professional troll. He was quite certainly telling porkies when he ‘apologised’ for Dear Muslima, and in that bullshit agreement he made with Ophelia.
How can we make the Deep Rifts wide enough so we don’t have to constantly hear his whining drone note about how muzzled he is, carried in every major media source? He’s like a bagpipe made of living cats at this point – the last thing you want to do is squeeze him or poke him, because then he’ll start playing his only tune, the MRA anthem “Restrainin’ Men”, to the tune of “It’s Rainin’ Men”.
Fuck him, and his hobby horse.
CaitieCat. #7:
Oh my goodness, has this been written?
Shorter Dawkins: “Stop telling to shut up when I’m telling other people to shut up.”
@8: not yet, but I’m still lying down for my morning meds. Give me til 17h UTC, should have it then. Then someone can karaoke that sucker with I’m Too Vulcan as the B side.
Well, good to know his not-quite-pology for Dear Muslima was in fact a definitely-not-pology. If I thought he was actually going to spend less time spouting bullshit on topics he hasn’t bothered to learn anything about, even just because he feels “muzzled” rather than because he’s actually learned anything, that’d be cause for some relief. Strangely, though, somehow, I just don’t quite believe it.
Hey, Dawkins. Men in Muslim countries are getting beheaded by their lack of faith. Can’t you take your own fucking advice and shut up about how you’re sooo oppressed? Practice what you preach, asshole!
There are real free speech problems in the world, Richard Dawkins. Maybe you should shut up about your first world wealthy celebrity issues.
It occurs to me that atheists also tend to have it far worse in the Middle East than they do in Britain or America. So why isn’t Richard Dawkins castigating all the atheists for focusing on prayer in American schools and public perception in America rather than decriminalizing blasphemy and apostasy in other countries? Why isn’t Richard Dawkins focusing his own efforts on this?
I can think of an answer, but it isn’t kind to Dawkins.
CaitieCat
Make sure the accompaniment is only bagpipes. It’s the only way it will work. Oh, the war-cry of the indefatigable yet somehow eternally muzzled MRA! Looking forward to your masterpiece.
Dawkins is far more troubled by complaints of inappropriate touching than by inappropriate touching itself. “Dismaying” is right.
Obvi, it would be sweet if someone with the clout of Dawkins was actually a genuine feminist, but it would be a big help if he would just shut up about it. Talking about feminism the way he does alienates feminists. Even if he was right, that would not be useful or productive. Just shutting up about it alienates no one.
I don’t understand why feminism has to be this major fault line. Atheists can disagree about other things without causing these “deep rifts”. But Dawkins (and Boghossian, and others) won’t let it go. He wants to be as alienating as possible. He wants to alienate us because he doesn’t want us in his movement. But it ain’t his movement.
I like what RD has to say about a lot of things. He shows great insight on them. This is not an example of that. On this he is in need of a great insight and he is too defensive for one to come to him. Perhaps if he cogitates on the old green movement saying “think globally, act locally” he might get there. Perhaps if he comes to grips with the term “multitasking” he might go “aha”. I don’t know. In the mean time lets all push for “the good” in whatever capacity we can and bypass RD on this one.
But if men in the US aren’t allowed to go on inappropriately touching women at the water cooler and cat-calling in the streets, then what is their incentive to go out and solve all those other women’s problems for them? You’d think the western women would be PROUD to play their small-but-vital role in making the problem-solvers feel more appreciated…
“I’m being criticized” = “I’m being muzzled”.
Why now? Dawkins’ writings and sayings have been roundly and harshly criticized for decades by creationists, religionists, etc. Why didn’t that make him feel muzzled?
What about being criticized for his remarks on other issues is different? Is it because he’s being criticized by some of his “own” people, i.e. some atheists or evolutionists or people who formerly praised him? Or what? He’s not as solidly convinced of his rightness as he was with atheism and evolution, so he needs praise or else?
Whatever. The result is the same, whether it’s christians or Dawkin crying that they’re being persecuted.
RD’s fee fees are hurt because he is not the dominant influence anymore…..poor him….
It’s fascinating that he would claim suppression (i mean, are you fucking serious?). I guess for someone like him not being told that their opinions are absolute brilliance constitutes suppression. I wonder if there are unicorns in that universe of his. Meanwhile he has the fucking guts to tell occidental women that they should put up with the constant shower of shit they get because those are trivialities, it’s nothing, you just shrug it off and move on…..but someone said something about him not being correct on the internet…abuse!!! Suppression!!! Oh, will somebody get these shackles off of me and ungag me!!!!
FUCK OFF RICHARD.
By the way, i’m glad you are FEELING suppressed (not actually being suppressed at all) because people refuse to let the sexist shit that you spit out pass without criticism, that makes me very, very happy.
Shorter Richard Dawkins:
“But I’m totes a feminist! Sure, I throw women under a bus, but it’s an Islamist bus! I’m so misunderstood! BAWWWW!”
@19 garnetstar
Bingo.
Becca, #14
Nailed it.
I can’t stand that whole “but in comparison to the Middle-East…” bullshit that he’s constantly pulling. And for him to outright say that women complaining about being molested… excuse me, “inappropriately touched”, is trivial? That’s just beyond the pale even for Dawkins. I can already hear his response, too. “Oh, I didn’t say it was trivial, i said it was trivial in comparison. Surely you agree mutilation and stoning are worse than inappropriate touching right? I can say ‘X is worse than Y’ without saying Y isn’t bad. I’m not saying Y isn’t bad.” If Y isn’t bad, and isn’t trivial, then why the fuck are you bringing X into it and lamenting that people complain about Y?
Hey, you wanna talk about muzzling? Try being rational in a conversation about feminism on the atheist pages on facebook or reddit, or basically anywhere else on the internet. Watch how your assembled comrades in atheism take seriously your points, and adjust their views accordingly as the data corrects their mistaken views… and then wake up to see the wall of text, built of screams of feminazi and fascism, dodgy studies, and quotes from Rush -FUCKING- Limbaugh.
There are only two good things that I’ve noticed coming out of these Rifts:
1) Some people are starting to get it, and those who don’t are making a point of distancing themselves from rationality.
2) I finally understand what some atheists mean when they talk about how isolating it is to be the only atheist in the room. It may not be quite the same, but wow, it’s pretty damned isolating to be the only feminist in a room full of vocal and wilfully (I actually used to doubt that it was wilful… but I’m starting to doubt that doubt…) ignorant anti-feminists.
@24: easy one. He introduces X because focusing on Y might mean he has to give up some of his Scrooge McDuck piles of privilege, while X allows him to feel moral and comfortable.
So Dawkins, is asked to be interviewed… for an article he knows is going to be published. And in the interview he complains that he’s “muzzled”? How can he not see the irony of that?
Wow. You grow up thinking someone is the very epitome of a a scientist, a rational and logical thinker. Then you find out they don’t even have a rudimentary understanding of the basic tenets of human equality, no respect for the struggles and challenges that fully half of humanity have to face every fucking day. It’s sad to watch someone destroy what was such a sterling legacy.
He literally can’t conceive of his being wrong about anything. His critics must be misunderstanding him, or overemotional, or just out to get him. He lashes out at emotionally at anyone who challenges him, however mildly, and his obsequious fans follow with threats and abuse designed to shut up his targets. Then he has the fucking nerve to say he feels “muzzled”. He’s a fucking spoiled child.
How did he become the spokesperson for atheism in the first place? It’s come to the point where I feel like I can’t identify as an atheist without qualifying “but I don’t like Dawkins”. He has nothing original to say about religion and just repeats tired stereotypes. Are people just so dazzled by a posh British accent that they overestimate the brilliance his words?
Aaaanyway, none of my #25 was what I actually wanted to say…
It seems, to me, that we need to keep progress going everywhere.
Yes, LGBTQ people are being murdered in parts of the world, and we need to stop that, but we still need to keep pushing for marriage equality in the west; it is not enough to say that we should simply not kill people for their sexuality or gender. What weight do our protestations against the violence have if we, in the supposedly enlightened west, still treat them as lesser beings? What are we saying there? “Oh, sure, they’re not real people like us, but you can’t just kill them – that’s not very civilised!” Fuck that! They are real people. Treating them as anything less than full human beings only serves to reinforce the notion that they are less than full human beings, and that can only lead to future mistreatment. What’s the point of being outraged by extreme mistreatment when we’re still engaged in more subtle mistreatments? “Don’t beat that poor man to death! Slander him, deny him access to the person he loves if they’re injured, deny him the inheritance that was intended for him, deny him validation, sure, these things are all well deserved. But you must never kill him, for that would be cruel.”
The same would seem to apply universally. They pay women less in the west? Must be because they’re simply less capable. People of colour in the west are more likely to end up in prison? Must be because they’re just criminal by nature. They don’t believe that atheists can be moral in the west? Must be because they’re just evil.
What’s the point of claiming a moral high ground if you’re not going to make one?
Oh, one last thing before I STFU.
I’m pretty sure that we don’t get to label ourselves as not misogynistic, not racist, or whatever. You can label yourself as not wanting to be those things, but I’m pretty sure the labelling is ultimately up to the people who’re effected by your actions or comments. I mean, I really don’t want to be a racist, but I’m pretty sure that the correct response if I’m criticised by a person of colour is not to claim that I’m not racist – pretty sure it’s to consider the criticism, and apologise if it’s required, not just brush it off.
I think I got it.
Mild criticism of Dawkins is bad. Violent criticism of Dawkins is worse. If you think that’s an endorsement of mild criticism of Dawkins, go away and don’t come back until you’ve learned how to think logically.
Doesn’t his whining here kind of contradict his whole “X is bad, Y is worse, that doesn’t mean you can’t criticise X” bullshit? It’s almost as if he doesn’t care about logic, and just wants to shit on women.
Well, it’s because after this he will never be able to give an interview without heavy security again. Because of the nature of this, he will have to go into hiding like Salman Rushdi, flee the country and not be able to return again like Taslima Nasreen. if he is ever caught he will not get away with a few thousand lashes like Raif Badawi, no, he will either be lynched like Henry Smith (TW for that) or be the victim of a witch hunt(TW, too), because his opponents are just a version of Nazis like the people who killed Sophie Scholl
On the question of muzzling, does Richard Dawkins have it worse than Taslima Nasreen? No.
Belonging in a country where equal pay has been law since the early 1970s and there’s still a measurable pay gap does he have it worse than British women disrespected in the workplace? No.
Does he have it worse than women in the UK where 20% of REPORTED rapes don’t even make it into the record – http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/18/police-dismiss-one-in-four-sex-crimes-watchdog? No.
Same problem most places. Trying to divide it by country or culture is an attempt to avoid the issue. End of story.
Dawkins seems to making an argument that could be called “It’s not sexism without misogynists.” All those problems with sexism so many of us perceive in Western society? It’s not real sexism, because it doesn’t involve men foaming at the mouth that they hate women, while trying to rape or injure any women they come in contact with.
It’s just like all sorts of racism isn’t really racism, because “It’s not racism without Klansmen.” It only counts as racist or prejudiced if the situation involves Klansmen burning a cross on the home of a non-white family,, while firing guns into their house. Police disproportionately stopping non-white people for random searches? Of course that’s not racism, it’s not like the policemen are shooting those people while shouting racist slurs at them.
I used to admire Dawkins for his science writing and for the stance he took against religion, but lately I find myself cringing whenever he opens his mouth. What the hell happened? Was he always like this, and no one ever noticed because the topic of feminism didn’t come up? Or has he spent so much time up on the pedestal where his fans put him that he has developed a blind spot the size of the solar system?
I guess it’s very hard to empathize with other people’s water cooler problems if you have your water carried to you on a silver tray.
Maureen Brian
Well, if those women had really wanted to jail the guy they never thought was going to rape them then they shouldn’t have done this thing X before. Of course rape is bad, tssss.
There aren’t words in the English language to express how much I loathe complaints about being constantly misunderstood. When your words pass your lips, it’s out of your fucking control what anyone understands from them. You don’t like being misunderstood? Make sure there are no implications in your words that you don’t want there.
At this point, I have as much respect for Dawkins’ views on feminism as I have for Ray Comfort’s views on evolution.
OMG, I am SOOOO going to grab that asshole in the crotch, look him in the eyes and say, “hey, sweetie! Let’s go get some coffee and you can unzip this toy.”
If he pulls away, I will say, “Oh, dear Muslima, don’t play hard to get! You know that only turns me on more!”
And then I’ll excuse myself, walk around the corner and puke my guts out for having sunk to his level.
phlo @ 37
I’m of the opinion that he’s always been callous and mean-spirited. We were just OK with it when his targets were all creationists and his arguments were all more or less correct. I think it’s only since he’s begun opining on things outside the non-existence of gods that it’s becoming plain that he couldn’t reason his way out of a wet paper bag.
Or he has all the empathy of a rotting fence post.
That’s what “callous” means, Nerd. :P The two things aren’t mutually exclusive.
Athywren; Kitty Wrangler@25: I was recently in a Facebook discussion where the host mocked the Time poll (with “feminist” winning the to-be-banned competition) and one of his “friends”, let’s call him The Willful Idiot, replied with saying he was totes for equality, it’s just that the word has been tainted by misandrists and feminazis. Another commenter, let’s call him The Learned Person, replied with actual names of possibly true misandrists (though a rare breed, there are some). The Willful Idiot didn’t pick up on that, just kept spouting about misandry/feminazi. The Learned Person offered that it was sounding like what TWI knew about feminism fit on the side of a cereal box. TWI offered that maybe his knowledge would take up the whole box but only if he drew some large illustrations. And repeated that feminism was irrevocably tainted by misandry/feminazis.
So yes, willful.
I am really bad at analogies, so can someone help me out?
Richard Dawkins : Feminist :: Depak Chopra : Quantum Physics
I am very disappointed in Dawkins here. He’s actually complaining about the need to be clear so that he is not “misunderstood?” But that’s supposed to be one of his strong points, his ability to explain things.
And Becca at #14 made my other point. Dawkins recognizes that the big problem which underlies religious extremism is a culture which grants automatic, unearned respect to “faith.” Small things turn into big things when there are no checks and balances. Why then can’t he extrapolate his feminism to recognize that a culture which automatically treats women as sex opportunities is giving fuel to the extremes?
Although there are probably some genuine examples of “bullying,” in general he ought to seriously consider passionate criticism as a check-and-balance.
rq, please do not malign the magnificence of bagpipes by using them as such accompaniment. I know the old joke about pipers always marching to get away from the bloody sound, but… ;_; I lurve bagpipes.
I’m honestly not surprised that he thinks a guy coming up and grabbing my boobs is not a problem, after all remember it was only ‘mild’ assault that he experienced as a child, so clearly everyone has to react the same way and we wimmins are putting up a godawful fuss about it when it’s totes harmless.
Richard Dawkins, you are an asshole. You have, in fact, concentrated so much assholery into one space that you are in danger of creating a singularity. Please look up the idea of ‘multitasking’ and apply it broadly. Yes, there are women who have it worse than I do, but that doesn’t mean I should be content having shitty experiences around men who then have the unmitigated gall to whine when women subsequently don’t want to be around them. Until you figure out why you are so damnably wrong about this topic you may kindly fuck off sideways, right into the sea.
I’m reminded of Sam Harris’ aside about having paused for a moment to consider whether his reflexive choice of words might be offensive. To some, that might be a good thing: an awareness that words mean things and that if you want to get a point across you need to consider what you’re saying from the point of view of other people who’ll hear it. To him, of course, it was a symptom of how insidious Political Correctness has become.
@31 Athywren
But i thought the only thing that mattered was to save face! If you apologise, you are admitting fault and that makes you look bad and that’s just not cool, because you must always, ALWAYS look absolutely righteous and perfect, even when you fuck up.
What’s that? Insisting that i’ve done nothing wrong and that saying i’ve said something racist is some kind of intolerable, hideous slander, is actually reinforcing the hability of people to say racist shit without consequences and silencing people who have a genuine criticism to make? Ah well, seems like a totally fair price to pay as long as my face is fully and well saved.
PS: I’ve been that arsehole in the not so distant past. It’s a lesson i’m still in the process of learning, and it’s thanks to this community. Thanks for that :)
Dawk’s ego could fly the Hindenburg. He couldn’t possibly ever be WRONG about anything because he is the great and powerful Oz… er, Dawkins. Do not arouse his wrath. Look upon his works and despair.
One of his speeches could fill it.
Seven of Mine @41:
You might be right about Dawkins’ change of “target”. But I’m not sure he is unable to reason, I think his main problem is his lack of empathy. If you start with the premise that (a) some problems are worth tackling and others are not, and (b) Richard Dawkins is the sole authority on which is which, then the rest of his arguments might even make sense.
God, Dawkins is so full of utter bullshit. Has he always thought like this, or did it come with age? Is he just aging into the stereotypical old white man?
So did it just get easier to focus all your attention on the one problem that nearly everyone in the world agrees is a huge problem, that every media outlet is focused on to the near complete exclusion of everything else, to which the western governments are dedicating the bulk of their resources, financial, law enforcement, and military far in excess of the actual threats posed?
Does it just feel good to jump on the bandwagon and join the chorus of the loud and ignorant because they happen to agree with the atheist position because it’s the religion they don’t believe in?
I mean, WTF, Dick, how about you do something other than pontificate about it then. If it’s so goddamned important that no woman not subjected to it can talk about any of the issues that she has to deal with until Islamism is dealt with, that WTF are you doing about it? Going on talk shows? Sending out obnoxious tweets? Telling Muslims how bad their religion is? You think that’s going to work, to help the women who need help? I’d love to see Islamism fade away, with the rest of religion, to an obscure relic that a few people find comfort in clinging to that has little effect on the larger world, but if ever there were a case where yelling at people about how their god doesn’t exist isn’t going to solve the problem, this is it. Islamism needs an enemy and Dawkins behavior conveniently gives it another one. I’m all in favor of criticizing Islam, I’m all in favor of saying religion is a bad idea, but if it’s such an overwhelming concern for Dawkins, then I’d like to see him put his money where his mouth is. Take some of those millions of pounds of wealth and go build schools and wells and hospitals in Africa. Go get your hands dirty doing it to learn about the situation on the ground. You want to end, for example, FGM? Educate and empower. You can have an effect on that. You can use your money, and the money of the people who (once) respect(ed) you to actually make a damn difference. That’s not always the right argument. Not everyone has to do everything to solve every problem, but when you’re telling people that their problems don’t matter, that they shouldn’t even talk about them until this other problem is solved, then you’re being awfully hypocritical if you don’t get involved in actually solving those problems. I mean, just imagine if Dawkins could cut out the actually islamophobic parts of his rants, and even just shut up about feminist issues in the West if he can’t bear to actually get on board, and use the RDF to actively educate and empower women in poor parts of the world who are subjected to this kind of atrocity. I think he missed that boat though, he’s already lost too much respect and support to go back to the conditions in which he could have made a real difference.
I confess I occasionally get a little impatient with American
womenand Western-European men who complain of beinginappropriately touched by the water cooler or invited for coffeecalled a misogynist or criticized or something which I think is, by comparison, relatively trivial,Dedicated to CatieCat:
(Well that’s as far as I got for now.)
Well, as long as it’s not legitimate rape…
Oh, what I really meant to say was this: Misunderstood? Fuck you, Dawkins. That’s bullshit. No one’s misunderstood you. You’ve been crystal clear and you’ve had more than enough opportunity to adequately explain yourself, but you just keep doubling down. It’s quite obvious where you stand.
Hindenburg…
Didn’t end well…
Standard New Yorker cartoon caption applies:
http://boingboing.net/2010/03/30/recaptioning-new-yor.html
phlo @ 52
I think the 2nd premise would be more like “I have all the information I need to decide which is which” but yes. However, that’s only logically valid, not sound. Reasoning from those premises wouldn’t produce correct conclusions except by accident. I think it just doesn’t occur to Dawkins that he might have preconceptions that are not based in reality. He is logical, therefor any opinion held by him is also logical, therefor there is no necessity to verify the truth of his premises or consider the possibility that anyone contradicting him might be right. I’m sure he’d do fine in Symbolic Logic 101 but there’s more to reasoning about the real world than that.
If he really thinks something is too trivial to be worth talking about, the least he can do is shut up about it.
And he is the MOST troubled by people asking him to stop when he tells women to shut up about their feelings about inappropriate touching.
Dawkins wrote:
I read that “impatience” as Dawkins accusing American women of being liars. That the touching didn’t actually happen, the women just complain about being touched.
And even if the touching occurred, “they should not complain about it, it was a compliment, donchanoe.”
tsk, tsk, tsk. Richard, don’t you listen to what you’re sayin? I am sure you could make much more coherent sentences. (or do you #need# that editor to make your written sentences coherent?)
I remember someone telling me that Dawkins had to have some sort of villainous plan behind all these dumb statements because he was a Scientist and had a Highly Trained Mind, whatever that means, and that by calling him a pinched-faced crank with run-of-the-mill privileged rich old people opinions rather than a villain I was somehow defending him.
Maybe eventually he’ll have produced enough half-baked drivel like this that people will acknowledge being good at one very specific job doesn’t automagically make you universally smart and knowledgeable. Richard Dawkins: Good at biology, bad at society. He has no idea what he’s talking about, but he sure doesn’t like all those plebes disagreeing with him.
That water cooler should be fired immediately!!!
But seriously, equating the above with
Is a giant bag of false equivalency used to minimize being touched at the water cooler that he admits is actually inappropriate (ie. It’s wrong Richard).
Then you have an appeal to his own authority
Fuck this human-shaped hole where a thinking human should be. Bring back Willow Smith. Basically, any interview where the first question asked of Dawkins is “Why haven’t you sought therapy to find out why you are the broken husk you are?” is a failure of journalism.
Of course, I blame Dick’s parents and friends for not taking a sterner hand to him.
I think we need to generalize Dawkin’s “Dear Muslima” arguments into a new informal logical fallacy called Dawkining.
Someone would be guilty of Dawkining an argument if they injected into the discussion an example of some “greater” evil occurring in the world and compared it to the “lesser” evil currently under discussion for the sole purpose of trivializing the person’s concerns about the “lesser” evil.
Implicit in this type of argument is that the person Dawkining is being ignorant to the fact that improvements in people’s lives can be made in many areas at the same time and that focusing on the “lesser” evil for some amount of time is not equivalent to ignoring the “greater” evil during that same time period.
Pretty sure the “invited for coffee” thing is a reference to Elevatorgate so it’s doubly dishonest. He’s equating asking a woman you don’t know back to your hotel room “for coffee” after cornering her in an elevator in the wee hours of the morning with actually asking someone for coffee and then further equating that false equivalence with inappropriate touching.
Hey, how’s about a kickstarter where money is raised to tie Dawkins up in duct tape and ship him off to confront ISIS for real, instead of tweeting shit about Rebecca Watson and pretending every tweet is a salvo at the Imams.
Fucking useless prick taking on Islam from the safety of $10,000 speaking engagements. Burn him.
(That last one was for the Mick Nugent fan club to quotemine.)
How profoundly dishonest to say that he concentrates his attention on islamism and jihadism regarding women rights, when every time “American women” complain about some of those other “lesser issues” he jumps right to his twitter account to mock it…
No one is asking Richard Dawkins to take it upon himself to fight for every feminist cause, but the ones he doesn’t care about, for whatever reason, he could very well just shut the fuck up about instead of spending so much energy opossing them.
Seven of Mine @60:
And the sad irony is that “not reality-checking one’s premises” is exactly what he (rightly) criticises in religious people.
It’s a tragedy; the man could be a great advocate for social justice. Instead he seems to side more and more with those who defend the status quo at all costs.
Dawkins has longed ceased to have relevant things to say outside of his field of expertise, and he is a liability to any atheist that wishes for more a left leaning politics. Asad AbuKhalil and others had used the term “colonial feminist” to describe folk who, like Dawkins, express concern for the plight of women in other countries, while being opposed to the empowerment of women in their own state. Although Dawkins’ own interactions with muslim women who have disagreed would call his support for them into question, as well. Wasn’t there a rather embarrassing Twitter moment when a Muslim woman remarked that she didn’t need rich white men like Dawkins telling her what’s best for her, and Dawkins responded like a good angry white MRA, saying her statement was extremely racist and sexist?
@ Anthony K
I’d also rather that no-one was tied up in duct tape.
Do feel the need to clarify the above. “Colonial feminist” was originally coined by Leila Ahmed, in her work “Women and Gender in Islam.”
@phlo (#62):
As has been observed elsewhere, Dawkins is an Oxford don – the very definition of privilege and the status quo in Britain!
How long until the Dawk launches into a personalized version of “If I Ruled The World”?
That’s so surreal.
To me it rather reads like he fully acknowledges that it happens – and doesn’t care, declaring it a completely harmless nonissue.
Does he know what it’s like to be bullied?
A Broda Restraint Chair, then.
It’s vomit-worthy. Why aren’t they interested in listening to actual scientists?
Becca Stareyes nailed it @14.
The irony is that Dawkins has spent most of his post-God Delusion career dealing with the charge that “well, not all religion is bad. Parson Jenkins is a splendid chap, and dear old Mrs. O’Leary down the lane is just a nice lady who likes to get dressed up and hear a choir sing once a week. Why do you criticize all religion instead of focusing just on the extremists?”
I’m sorry, theophontes (恶六六六缓步动物) @74. You were right to call out that comment and I was wrong to have doubled-down.
Also, Dawkins KNOWS what he did with that coffee comment. He knows what Rebecca Watson has gone through. He knows that when he brings it up he inflames the MRAssholes. And he did it anyway, because scoring his own point in a single interview is worth more to him than what he just did to her threat count for the next month.
I think that Dawkins is very well versed in bullying.
So Dear Muslima rides again? Why am I not surprised?
Becca Stareyes covered most of what I wanted to say @ 14 in a post consisting of pure, concentrated win, though I would also like to pick up on the excellent turn of phrase mentioned by HabashAndUsamaSkit @ 73 – colonial feminism.
It seems to me that privileged male faux-feminists like Dawkins have little to lose, and perhaps something to gain, by focussing on the ‘greater threat’ of the religiously motivated misogynistic violence of groups lilke islamic state. Going after islamism allows him to wrap himself in the flag of progressive, feminist values without actually having to address any of his own problematic behaviours; he can simply caste IS as the only ‘legitimate’ class of misogynist (just like their are apparently ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ rapes in the world according to rightwing talking heads, so it goes with ‘true’ misogyny). Since he is not a religiously fanatical, gun-toting islamofascist, he simply cannot be a msigynist in any meaningful way, since supposedly to be a misogynist you have to reach the bar (that should probably be sink to the level) of murdering, mutilating, and sexually enslaving women in the name of a magic sky fairy. Anything less than that (including raping and otherwise abusing women out of a sense of unfettered toxic social privilege rather than twisted religious devotion) , and it doesn’t count in the mind of people like Dawkins. This gives him a total free pass on the actual ubiquitous, day-to-day expressions of misogyny that, while not as extreme or brutal as the monstrous acts of IS, make up for it in volume of incidents and the disturbing societal acceptability attached to them.
It costs Dawkins personally, and the broader social group of privileged cis/het white men like him, nothing to oppose the misogyny of IS and their fellow travellers. They don’t need to give up an iota of their own privilege to declare the glaringly self-evident fact that what IS does is evil, and in the process they not only get to claim the cache of a forward thinking progressive, but they can also attempt to build up authority as a pseudo-feminist in order to be able to deliniate what counts as a ‘worthwhile’ topic for feminist discussion and what doesn’t. Even better, it also lets them put themselves on the same page as governments, other social elites, and anyone else who has a high profile podium from which to bray about how awful IS is and how we should therefore pay no attention whatsoever to the serious and wisespread problems of own own creation in our own back yards, which makes people like Dawkins even more attractive as speakers on media outlets and at conferences, and that means more money and a higher media profile, even if they are only invited as a means of demonstrating how broad the consensus of opposition to IS is – look, even the inherently evil dancing atheist monkey agrees that those Islamist bounders are bad news! And when even those with no foundation for their morality think that something is morally repugnant, you know it is really bad! We should bomb Syria/Iraq/the whole muslim world some more immediately!
At this point, Dawkins has added ‘useful idiot’ to his resume, right alongside the entry for ‘straw Vulcan high priest’.
Not bad, theophontes, but let’s see what I can do with it. :)
An anthem for the King of the MRAs, His Infernal Cacophony, Richard the Dawk:
Restraining Men (with apologies to the Pointer Sisters)
Hi! (hi!) We’re your Thinky Dudes (Uh-huh!)
And have we got news for you – and you’re gonna listen!
Get ready, all you ugly girls
And keep your slutty pieholes closed. (Amirite?)
Antipathy’s rising – our patience getting low
According to my butthole, feminists have to go
Cause tonight for the latest time
Those women who hate men
Have won what they wanted
To start restraining men!
Restraining Men! Dear Muslima! – Restraining Men! All men!
I’m gonna join up with GamerGate and make some clever japes
For unfairly muzzled apes!
Restraining Men! Feminists are
Restraining Men! The Brightest men!
Pale, grey, Oxford, don,
Smart and rich and famous, c’mon!
Weaker by their nature, married and single women too
They take off to Twitter, and tell me things I shouldn’t do
They want every group to have an oestrogenic vibe
So that each and every woman could muzzle every guy
Restraining Men! Dear Muslima! – Restraining Men! All men!
Restraining Men! Feminists are
Restraining Men! All me-nnnn!
I fear bitter women moving in / ’bout to begin
Hear the strident voices call for your head!
Make me a sandwich instead!
Weaker by their nature, married and single women too
They take off to Twitter, and tell me things I shouldn’t do
They want every group to have an oestrogenic vibe
So that each and every woman could muzzle every guy
Restraining Men! Yeah!
Emotions are rising – Testosterone’s getting low
I’m surer every day now, these feminists have to go!
Cause tonight for the latest time
Those women who hate men
Have won what they wanted
To start restraining men!
Restraining Men! Dear Muslima! Restraining Men! All men!
Restraining Men! Feminists are restraining Men!
And, for your viewing enjoyment, a karaoke version for you to sing along to. You wanna record it, you’re welcome, just credit me as (re)-writer. :)
“zero bad” is the term of art.
(Where the ‘art’ is dipshittery.)
Dawkins is the favorite atheist of the establishment because he conforms perfectly to their stereotype of what an atheist is and believes.
Being able to choose who leads the opposition to your ideas is the ultimate exercise of power. Think about Shermer debating Deepak Chopra. They choose people who are safe to debate.
Back in the Reagan era when Ed Meese wanted to ban all pornography, he went out and found a couple of ‘Feminists’ whose views on pornography matched his own and established them as the leaders of the Feminist movement of the day by treating them as such. They were not chosen because they were typical of the Feminist movement, they were chosen for conforming to the stereotype.
I am not sure what is driving the current rift. I understand why Dawkins, Harris, Schermer et. al. are now pariahs. What I don’t understand is why they wanted to be pariahs. Or maybe the kick for them is being the guy in the room proposing the outrageous idea everyone disagrees with.
parasiteboy @ 67;
I definitely support this notion. It is done so often by Dawkins and his acolytes, that we should really have a shorthand to refer to it by.
Perhaps we should add a principle attached to its usage – lets call it Parasiteboy’s Law;
“In any discussion involving feminism, the liklihood of an incident of Dawkining rapidly approaches 1.”
Huh? All three are still popular, still command high speaking fees, still publish books that sell very well. That’s an awfully peculiar status for “pariahs”.
What Richard Dawkins realizes (or is at least taking advantage of) is that sexism is much more acceptable than other forms of bias, such as racism. It’s not that you can’t get “in trouble” for angering feminists (see Summers, Larry) it’s that when feminists are mad at you, everybody has your back. Let’s remember that while Larry Summers did lose his job after implying that women aren’t as good at math as men, he was supported by pretty much everybody in the mainstream media as a victim of “political correctness” at the hands of feminists who “can’t handle reality”. Then he went on to run Goldman-Sachs and become Secretary of the Treasury. So yeah, his life was ruined. In 2 years, when Matt Taylor is still getting death threats over his shirt and major figures in astronomy are refusing to attend any conferences he’s a part of, I’ll consider the plight of the poor oppressed men who run afoul of feminists. Until then, I’ll consider feminism an easy target you can pretend to be brave by standing up to.
It’s clear that people just don’t understand how trying it is for an Oxford don to be muzzled like Dawkins is being muzzled. I think that in all of his future interviews, he should make a point of explaining how muzzled he feels; as more and more people realize the damage that’s done when Dawkins is muzzled by harsh criticism, surely he’ll receive an ever-smaller amount of harsh criticism.
CaitieCat, Harridan of Social Justice @ 86;
I absolutely love that song.
Now remember Richard, should you feel oppressed by the lyrics of this piece, then it would be musical oppression, and ‘bullying’ set to music surely isn’t worth complaining about, right Richard?
Get back to us when the ebil feministas start pulling your fingernails out with pliers, and maybe we’ll listen. Until then, suck it up and stop whining. Don’t you know there is real oppression of athiest going on in the world right now?
Gendered insults aside….Dawkins, this one’s for you:
Opening scene of State of the Union
CaitieCat@86:
I don’t think any apologies are due at all for your excellent work. But if any were, they would go to the Weather Girls (who originally recorded it) and Paul Jabara and Paul Shaffer (yes, the guy from Letterman), who wrote it.
I’m sure he would just fall back on this tweet, regarding your criticisms:
https://twitter.com/richarddawkins/status/511766192609304576
Back in the Reagan era when Ed Meese wanted to ban all pornography, he went out and found a couple of ‘Feminists’ whose views on pornography matched his own and established them as the leaders of the Feminist movement of the day by treating them as such. They were not chosen because they were typical of the Feminist movement, they were chosen for conforming to the stereotype.
Are you referring there to MacKinnon, Brownmiller, and/or Dworkin? Because, if you are, that’s an inaccurate summary. MackInnon’s critique of pornography was not conveniently chosen by a long shot; it was based on a sound moral argument that a woman’s “choice” to be content for pornography was at least partly compelled by economic circumstances – a critique that carries weight. Brownmiller’s argument was also not conforming to stereotype (nor was Dworkin’s for that matter) and was also a closely argued feminist critique that points out a great deal of porn is rooted in hatred of women. Wow, it’s like she was channelling Anita Sarkeesian or something, huh? Dworkin was the most cartooned of the three because her palpable anger was oh-dear-such-a-downer for the menz. Ultimately her words were taken out of context enough that she could be lampooned into a straw feminist; a smear-job that has stuck to this day. It was a straight-up attempt to silence her and, in some places, it worked.
Here’s a pro tip for you: if someone is being caricatured and lampooned, rather than having their arguments conclusively demolished – it may be because they have a point.
If you’re not talking about those three when you refer to “a couple of ‘Feminists'” who are you referring to?
I’m ashamed to admit that I used to accept the regurgitated wisdom about MacKinnon, Brownmiller, and Dworkin, when I was younger. Then, I actually – you know – read what they had to say. And it can be hard because damn, they had a point.
remember Richard, should you feel oppressed by the lyrics of this piece…
… suck it up, because writers in Iran have it rougher than you do.
How fucking stupid! So now that Malala Yousafzai is safe in the confines of Dicky Dawk’s benevolent Western world I can catcall at her? Accost her in an elevator at 4 fucking AM and invite her to my room for some coffee and a lil’ chit-chat? Pinch her ass by the coffee mess? Tweet out pics of her head photo-shopped onto porn stars? And she just has to shut the fuck up about it now that she has graduated from level one to level two of Dawk’s imaginary fucking scale of oppression?
“I must confess Malala, that I am getting a little impatient with your whining now that you aren’t as oppressed as you used to be…”
What an incredible fucking slimeball this guy is.
I love* how this system “works”.
The only women with the right to complain about sexism are oppressed to the point of being almost entirely silenced. Any women who can speak up about sexism may not use their voices to complain about sexism.
Convenient, huh?
Wait, it gets better.
Famous, wealthy, white western men like Dawkins may speak about ANYTHING they like AND Tell everyone else what they may speak about. Guess what those men want to talk about? They want to talk about those awful brown men who are not living in the west and how lucky western women are that their benevolent white masters don’t behave like THOSE men .
…and they think it makes them heroes.
*No I don’t.
Also for poor Richard Dawkins being constantly misunderstood:
When you sound like Humpty fucking Dumpty the problem is not other people, the problem is you.
+++
Actually, to me that sounds like a mixture of some 1960’s TV series and AVfM, voiced the moment before she gets some well intended slap to remind her of her place.
No, I’m not saying he wants to hit women, consciously, but he’s using that language.
+++
HabashAndUsamaSkit
Thanks for bringing that author to my attention
@37, David Marjanović
Not “completely harmless”, just (quoting): “by comparison, relatively trivial”
Which makes it all the more bizarre. As Marcus Ranum in 98 points out, this is completely nonsense thinking for us to have some kind of “impatience” with people complaining about “relatively” less horrible circumstances.
At least if it were the case that Dawkins believed these things people complained about were 100% harmless, it would then at least make sense to get “impatient” with people complaining about such things…
Paternalism much?
Women are complaining about things like rape, assault, death threats, harassment at work, in school and one the street. He responds by talking about women as though they are children who won’t stop playing with the power windows in the car.
Ooh, I’ve got something for “I’m too Vulcan”, with apologies to Right Said Fred.
“I’m too vulcan for your rant
Too vulcan for your rant
Rant’s gonna get quote mined
I’m too vulcan for this shit
Too vulcan for this shit
So vulcan I flip
And I’m too vulcan for discussion
Too vulcan for discussion
Elevators and social justice
I’m too vulcan for your movement
Too vulcan for your movement
No way I can be disproven
I’m an idol
You know what I mean
And I do my little turn in the media
In the media,
yeah I do my little in the media
And I’m too vulcan for my privilege
Too vulcan for my privilege
Too vulcan totally vintage!
That’s all I got now.
Hey, that’s based off another one of mine! (but good job!)
Cuttlefish has the poetry; I got the filkery. :D
People rightly critisized him when he generalized his feelings about the “mild” pedophilia he suffered in his youth….i seem to recall that eventually he clarified that he wasn’t trying to generalize his own perception of the experience to everybody else and that he wasn’t telling others how they were supossed to feel about their own experiences.
Now he is contradicting that by saying that if he deems something to be “relatively trivial” then people complaining about it are an annoyance that occasionally makes him impatient.
Couple that with him completely trashing and recanting his non-pology about Dear Muslima.
His “apologies” and “clarifications” were bare faced lies. People are not missunderstanding what he says, they understand it perfectly well and they are horrified by it, get that into your thick skull Richard.
His entire position is purely based on his own emotions, not reality (“i don’t feel that being inapropriately touched is important enough to do anything about”, “i feel women are complaining about trivialities and that makes me feel impatient“). Please tell us more about how rational you are….
Sorry, that made it look like they were quotes, and they weren’t, i was paraphrasing.
Marcus Ranum @ 98;
Absolutely true, not that Dawkins would care to listen.
Jackie #100
You know, that angle hadn’t quite sunk in, but now that you mention it; yes, that is awfully convenient. Western women aren’t allowed to complain about the harassment they face and Middle Eastern women aren’t able to speak.
That leaves only men to speak about these issues. By some curious coincidence, women have been entirely excised from the discussion on women’s rights, leaving only men to make the decisions. How about that.
If this was the first time I saw that kind of coincidence, I might accept it as such. These days I know better.
@Jackie #103
Not women, though. Only immature, narcissistic, and prudish American women. Because of course liberated British, Continental Western European, Australian, Canadian, and Scandinavian women are above whinging about all that. We know that the only sexism worth complaining about is directed at women living under religious totalitarian regimes who are at risk of death for saying anything at all.
[/s]
CaitieCat Absolutely, I should have made that clear. Glad you like it.
Hey, that doesn’t only make me a unicorn (because remember, there are no women on the internet anyway), it also makes me a serious winged unicorn (also calles alicorn), because no European women have any issues with everyday sexism*
*no really, it’s not like there’s a hashtag or campaign or something like that
Sorry, Dawkins, thought police is when some authoritarian asshole assumes they know your thoughts, and punishes you for them. Or you know, if you literally police your own thoughts, and physically or emotionally punish yourself for just thinking things.
It’s not “thought policing” when you “think” publicly in words on a fucking website and spew misogynistic, rape-rationalizing drivel, and people just criticize that drivel with comments or blog posts. That is not fucking “thought police,” you goddamn fool. You didn’t “thought police” Christians by criticizing their stated bad ideas as harmful.
There are real fucking fascists out to kill any with merely dissenting thoughts, and real fucking witch-hunts, all with more dire consequences for human life and free speech rights than making you feel bad about saying anti-feminist bullshit, so take your own shitty advice and shut the fuck up about your mere internet criticism. Maybe then I won’t see you as a fucking hypocritical shitbag.
Elsewhere in the article:
So much for his fucking apologies.
And this from the Friendly Atheist in that article:
Yes, the old “he is just bad at using Twitter” excuse. Doesn’t explain why he is continuing to say the same shit in full fledged blog posts and in interviews. It’s almost like he is actually anti-feminist and not just inarticulate! GASP HORROR
Meanwhile on Twitter, Dawkins retweets this shit:
https://twitter.com/HPluckrose/status/533977548242186240
https://twitter.com/godlesswonder31/status/533951088828096512
http://reason.com/blog/2014/11/17/liberal-feminists-stop-smearing-critics
(Yes, the last one was favorably retweeted from gibbertarian sewage site Reason.com. Fuck)
That’s a very fair point, in order for it to be thought-police, he couldn’t have said the shit he says out loud in a public fucking medium. The moment he did, it stopped being a thought, it became an action. He gets to think all the shitty sexist things he likes. When he writes them down for everybody to read, it’s fair game.
Too good not to share.
Just a little reminder that Richard Dawkins’ favorite feminist makes videos for Prager University. Yes, a sham organization that pushes a “Judeo-Christian” worldview and advocates for creationism.
Dawkins is just following the typical MRA script: Claim to be in favor of free speech, but then also cry foul any time somebody expresses any opinion that runs counter to your own.
They never really cared about free speech, as a principle. They just cared about free speech for themselves.
I used to answer people who criticized my criticism of Dawkins with “he’s rich and famous, like he cares…” but clearly he DOES care a great deal. Hey Richard, there’s a librarian in the USA laughing his ass off at you, not with you. Feel the burn!
;)
Dick Dawkins cries, defends the lies.
Ain’t that a shame
My tears fell like rain
Ain’t that a shame
You’re the one to blame
His twitter feed, filled with deceit
Ain’t that a shame
My tears fell like rain
Ain’t that a shame
You’re the one to blame
Oh well, goodbye, you chavish guy.
Ain’t that a shame
My tears fell like rain
Ain’t that a shame
You’re the one to blame
Read more: Fats Domino – Ain’t That A Shame Lyrics | MetroLyrics
To be fair, Dawkins said, “I feel muzzled” not “I am muzzled”. And I’m sure he does. He’s a rich, cis, het, white man from a wealthy country. He’s not used to even the slightest opposition or back talk and he can’t stand it. He feels muzzled because someone dared speak out against him and he doesn’t like it.
Tethys @120: Awesome! I bet Dawkins found his thrill on Honey Hill.
Calling us thought police is just typical Dawkins ego. As far as one can tell, no one with the authority to police gives two shits about what is going in Dawkins’ brain, no one who gives two shits about his brain is concerned enough about his petty, bog-standard bigotries to break out the handcuffs, and no one for one moment has confused his inane, sexist gargling and knee-jerks with “thought”.
Just like calling it a “witch hunt”. No, if you were a witch, you would be rare and interesting. If it were a hunt, it would involve some difficulty in tracking you down.
We are not thought police, we are just people that point out and sneer at sexism. Just like you do with religion.
We are not part of a witch hunt, we are part of an exercise in exposing obvious shortcomings, injustices, prejudices and hypocrisies. just like you do with religion.
You are not an iconoclast or rebel speaking against the oppressive, censorious power of the status quo. You are the authority. You are the status quo.
I simply do not understand how so many people fail to get this.
Alas poor Dick, he sets himself up as the Atheists’ God, then gets pissy when uncritical acclaim is denied him. See his petulant little thunderbolts of irritation.
People have tried to educate him. A lot.
So…just what has Dawkins done to reduce “that menace”? Has he spoken out against FGM? Lobbied the British government to ensure that women threatened with FGM, forced marriage, or other dangers of living in some Islamic countries are not forced on them? Has he founded or supported shelters for women seeking to leave families that insist they follow this lifestyle and might react violently if they left? Has he given talks in Islamic countries on the reasons why “honor killings” are wrong? Or has he simply proclaimed that he knows what Real Feminism should concentrate on and not done anything?
Apparently American and Western European feminist criticism of Dick the Dawk is like kryptonite. It robs him of any ability to use his atheist superpowers for the good of whoever he decides needs good done to.
@40 usernames
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he defended that he has the same stance both for women and men. After all he is quick to dismiss his own experience with abuse as trivial and unimportant. Of course, if you were to hypothetically do what you say, he would be horrified and there would be serious consequences for you, no doubt (like there’s any chance whatsoever that he would just smile and leave).
I also wonder what he would tell her daughter if she were to experience being inapropriately touched by the water cooler…i doubt it would involve something like “i wish you would stop complaining about something so trivial, there are women in muslim ridden places being gang raped in the streets, your whining is making me a little impatient now, love”.
He thinks he’s a “passionate feminist?” He thinks he concentrates on ending the oppression of women in Islamic theocracies? He only brings up the plight of Muslim women when he’s using them to put other uppity women in their place.
And I’m not sure why he thinks violence against women is only a problem for Muslims. Rape and IPV happen in every community, across the entire globe. And the attitudes that enable rape and IPV and keep victims from getting justice are the very same attitudes Richard Fucking Dawkins displays when he tells women they should shut up about being groped at work or harassed in public. Dawkins, You are the problem.
And where in the ever loving fuck does he get off telling western women to keep quiet about their own oppression? Hey, Dawkins, there are atheists in Muslim countries who are thrown in prison, mental institutions, and executed. So shut the fuck up about creationism being taught in US schools because it’s annoying to Christians. Seriously, how can a western atheist activist unironically tell other western social justice activists to shut up about their problems? Get some fucking self awareness and perspective.
Adding on to #97: When I was taking 1st amendment rights in law school my prof lectured on how awful a violation it was for MacKinnon/Dworkin to propose putting pornographers in prison for what they created! But I had just read Toward a Feminist Theory of State (MacKinnon) and I knew the law MacKinnon/Dworkin proposed (and which he was criticizing) was not a criminal one at all. He didn’t even feel the need to know what it was before slamming it, so prevalent was the pervasive disparagement of those two women! Instead, it proposed a civil action against pornographers for people (most likely women but not necessarily) who could prove a specific piece of pornography caused them specific harm. Research and public comment in their preparation for writing the law had shown that pornography was often used in the course of abuse by forcing women to “do this” as shown in the pornography or by providing it to children to instruct them in what was wanted or in hopes of gaining their cooperation.
I corrected my prof in the middle of his lecture but it made little difference. He continued as he planned with no obvious embarrassment on his part for his sloppy prep and inaccurate reasoning. Why? Those two women were hated, big time, for daring to suggest that women who could PROVE harm to them from pornography should be able to win civil damages from the one responsible for that harm. Their whole point was to put a dent in the money earned from pornography by repairing harm done with it and then, perhaps, women’s lives would matter a bit more to the world when they mattered enough to win money damages in a court of law. (There was an additional injunctive action they proposed as well.)
Dworkin, a lesbian, went on to partner with a gay man activist, John Stoltenberg, in life and in action against pornographers. His book, Refusing to be a Man, was powerful as well.
A lot of things well-said, people in this thread. Becca and toska come to mind at the moment, but there’s several more of you that could be named. Including the poets (that’s you, Cait and Gen!).
As for Dawkins, well… I hear they’re landing technology on comets these days. Or, alternatively, the Dawkins foundation should pony up and do humanity a favour and start their own one-man Mars mission, projected to land half-a-planet away from the one already planned. Individual survival and all that.
I’ll just post what I posted at Butterflies and Wheels.
I’m happy that Dawkins is giving us precisely what we need to make appropriately strong statements about him. You really can’t get much better than this. That he is being misunderstood is an assertion of fact with no evidence provided. That he refuses to discuss the situations where he believes he has been misunderstood means we can tell him to fuck off.
He was not misunderstood. He flatly refused and refuses to acknowledge his critics and explain why they are wrong. All he provides are hyperbolic characterizations which are just opinions. More assertions of fact so that’s two points where he can fuck off.
That’s alright you poor thing. I know that it’s hard to take that critical posture, what with the estrogen vibe everywhere and all. It’s just so terrible that we have gained the power to change your neural networks and control them, and to make you totally mute too!
/sarcasm
At some point hyperbole is lying. I assert that as dishonest people gain public rank and visibility the chances of their hyperbole being outright lying approaches 1. I assume this is true regardless of the group of primates in question.
borked the blockquote. Sorry.
Gregory Greenwood@89
Thanks for supporting the idea. You should have the law named after you since it was your idea:)
I should add my comment @67
That the ignorance can be willful ignorance, Like RD seems to be in these instances, and it’s bugged me all day that I left that out. So that part would now read
There’s already a name for that – the fallacy of relative privation.
Just read the article and the comments, and this part struck me:
I know the “invited for coffee” things has been bought up in the comments, and I believe it is an intended jab at Rebecca Watson. But that second paragraph, that got me. Where he said he is aware how his words can be taken and used to attack others, and he find it disgusting, etc. Right after making the coffee quip (I am making an assumption that the second part runs on from the first as he said it; the article reads that way to me).
I don’t think he is that ignorant to be unaware of how the “invited for coffee” could be interpreted, so it can only lead me to believe that he truly doesn’t care about those that are the “butt of (his) sarcasm”.
iammarauder #137
Yes of course “invited for coffee” is a jab at Rebecca. For some reason I can’t fathom, Dawkins has decided that Rebecca saying “Guys, don’t do that” was a horrible crime against dudes. He has publicly said that if Rebecca is ever invited to speak at the same venue he is invited to, he will refuse to attend.
He is a big bully.
@Marcus Ranum, 97
I’ve only recently started doing the same, for the same reasons – I’m still fairly near the beginning of Intercourse (thought I should look there first, as it’s the most frequently quoted for misandry) and, so far, haven’t found any man-hatred… plenty of anger, as you say, but hatred? Not really. I’m a bit disturbed by her description of good sex though… I get what she’s saying, I think, but I’m kind of attached to my skin.
moarscienceplz @138
It was the aftermath of “Guys, don’t do that” that angered Dawkins. He wrote the Dear Muslima letter and Watson was not pleased. She responded in the Skepchick blog, concluding with:
Dawkins is incensed that Watson committed the sin of lèse-majesté. How dare a mere woman publicly rebut him and then say she will not support him nor recognize his awesome awesomeness.
Is there any way we could arrange for a live debate between Professor Myers and Dawkins on the topic of social justice or feminism? Make it some kind of online pay-per-view and use the money for a worthy charitable cause. Tickets would sell both amongst the goodies (us) and the baddies (slimers, MRAs, casual sexists and the like).
Sometimes people need a more direct and even embarrassing live and in person encounter to see the folly of their ways. We would love to see the look on Dawkin’s face when he is schooled by Professor Myers on stage and in front of a camera with no easy way to twist words.
Fucking Dawkins. Again. I guess he decided to retcon his apology for ‘Dear Muslima’, choosing instead to double down on his “women can only complain if they’re getting acid thrown in their faces” schtick.
(I must say I’m shocked that 140 comments in and no Dawk-pologist has shown up in the)
So, he is aware of the effect he is having.
Then he makes sure to add that dog whistle for the people continuing to harass and threaten Watson.
Oh, I think he cares. I also think he knows full well what “Come up to my room at 4am for some coffee” means. He’s said that women getting groped at work is an non-problem. He’s said that if women do not want to be raped, they shouldn’t get drunk. He thinks it is fine to tell women when to abort. Let’s take the man at his word. Let’s stop pretending this guy is not purposefully using his fan base as a tool to bludgeon uppity women with. He thinks we need to keep to our place or else. He’s happy to encourage that “or else” too.
Every step of the way since the Dear Muslima letter people on the feminist side of this rift have tried to read this man’s words charitably. We’ve been wrong every time. I don’t know much. I never attended a posh university. I don’t have letters behind my name. But, I do know that placing faith in this man’s better nature is a mistake.
You want to know what else I think? I think he knows Shermer is guilty just like he knows Watson was ham-handedly propositioned on that elevator. He knows. He just thinks that’s what women are for. We’re for groping at the water cooler. We’re for popping out the appropriate babies. We may even be for buying his books. But, we exist to please him and men like him. We have no say in the matter.
If The Friendly Atheist wants to point at someone claiming Dawkins is a villain, he can point at me.
And me, Jackie. I agree with everything you said so well there.
iammarauder,
I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m putting any of that on you. I’m pissy, but not at you. Sorry. I should have spelled that out.
I agree with Jackie, too. I just don’t think any other explanation is parsimonious at this point. By now, he’s had it explained to him a dozen different ways. The only explanation left I can see is that, deep down, he doesn’t think women deserve to be treated better. I don’t think he’d ever articulate that, and I’m sure he would be horrified for someone to say that he thinks that, but a sexism implicit bias test? I bet he would score off the chart.
Thanks CatieCat.
I’ve decided. In honor of Terry Pratchett, I want to be a Social Justice Wizzard.
*scurries off to make it so*
Jackie;
I didn’t read it as you putting any of it on me, so no worries there.
I didn’t consider that his part about “knowing the effect his words have” would be a dog whistle of sorts. I really hope that this won’t see a fresh wave of attacks on people, but given how little reason some people need to take a stab at Rebecca Watson I won’t hold my breath.
I meant the “elevator” comment was the dog whistle.
Otherwise, I was pointing out that he said he knew the effects his words had. I was just saying that if he knows that AND he then mentions that elevator, he knows who will get that reference and he knows what they do.
So, for people who do logic exercises – is Dawkins’s latest misogyny bilespew about how women shouldn’t be complaining about being groped at the watercooler or cornered in lifts not contradicting his crap about “X worse than Y, not endorsing Y, blah blah”? He effectively is saying he endorses sexual harassment because it’s sooooo trivial if you haven’t actually been mutilated.
Yes, I’m snarking at him because he’s a loathesome fucking oxygen thief, but it’s also a serious question, because that’s how it reads to me.
2Kittehs@150
That’s how I read it as well but being the weaselly fuck he is he’s given himself an out. Technically he’s not saying he endorses sexual harassment, he just wants people to shut up about it. To me that’s a distinction without a difference but I’m not a famous science communicator so what the fuck do I know.
screechy @95 – Fun fact about the Weather Girls. One of them was the real voice of C+C Music Factory’s “Sweat” – EVERYBODY DANCE NOW! Also, cool fat lady power. *respeck knucks*
Also Jackie@133 – Righteous comment yo. Oh, and again @143. You on fire. Shame on the jerk what made you that way, even though the result is spectacular to behold.
@MJP 136
True. But there is something about combining technical things and cultural examples. “Streisand effect” passed around more than whatever it is in a more technical reference to emotional logic. “Dawkining” is awkward. But that’s might just be me (something about repeated syllables).
If all seven letters of his surname are used so that it becomes “Dawkinsing” rather than “Dawkining” it not only becomes more correct but also easier to say.
2kittehs:
You can even leave aside his past statements: it’s just plain incoherent. Saying in effect that “slightly bad stuff isn’t bad” is a straightforward internal contradiction which never makes any sense. He can of course keep blustering around and say he didn’t really mean it’s not bad (or worse: bad and not bad), but then what the fuck is his point supposed to be? That he’s irritable?
Or maybe he really does only have two settings: “trivial” and “I absolutely abominate and absolutely repudiate and abhor.” Hard to believe. Maybe he even knows how full of bullshit he is, so saying it might seem awful, but it’s meant to be some kind of desperate cry for help. Won’t you teach him the error of his ways? Of course it’s still really awful, since he’s knowingly and publicly harming feminism in the hope that somebody will come along to change his fucking diaper.
Or maybe he knows how incredibly stupid he’s being and doesn’t care whether it makes any sense, since his real audience also doesn’t care. This is what I would bet is actually happening. It’s similar to believers making a fine tuning argument: probably nobody on the planet believes in a god because of that idiocy, but saying it gives them the kind of outcome they wanted. Trying to make sense of it is perhaps something you’d still do if you’re interested, but theists have no intention of changing their mind about it either way.
2kittehs @150,
It’s very interesting how Dawkins chose to use a euphemism (“inappropriately touched”) rather than the term we all know he really meant which was “non-consensual groping.” That right there is an attempt to minimize the seriousness of the offense which is a prime example of how sexism, misogyny and harrassment become normalized over time.
Also it seems as if Dawkins believes that tacking on the words “by comparison” or “relatively” somehow means that he isn’t actually making an absolute claim about the (lack of) harm or seriousness of non-consentual groping. We can’t tell if he’s trying to say that he is in favor of personally groping women, or that he is in favor of other people groping women, or that he is against people who complain about being groped because it annoys him, or what.
We suppose it is at least technically theoretically possible that he was trying to say that being groped or inappropriately touched is bad, but that other things like FGM are [insert magic words: “by comparison or relatively”] worse. The point of such a comparison is lost on us though because all problems need to be addressed not just the ones at the top of Dawkin’s worst-of list. How does it help anyone to point out that someone else has worse problems? All it does is derail from the most pressing issues of the moment.
“I was misunderstood” is on a coin, the other side of which reads “It was a joke.” It seems that every privileged dude has one of these coins, and flips it when called out for saying something bigoted.
Then again, since it seems like both excuses are used in conjunction (here, with Dawkins, and also with Harris a few months back), maybe it’s not a coin after all. Just a cheat sheet? Written in permanent marker on their hands? Do they have a stamp with the phrase so they don’t have to bother writing it? Have each one set as a keyboard macro?
The “misunderstood” excuse would be far more believable if, when given the opportunity to give more long-form, nuanced statements, these guys didn’t just repeat and expand exactly what they said in short-form.
<blockquote.If all seven letters of his surname are used so that it becomes “Dawkinsing” rather than “Dawkining” it not only becomes more correct but also easier to say.
Dude, did you just Dawkins me?
How Dawkinsian of you.
I like it.
Why even make the comparison between inappropriate touching of women at the water cooler and religious-based violence? Dawkins can complain that his expensive jar of honey was taken from him at the airport, and even proclaim it proof that bin Laden wins. But he’s impatient with American women who complain of being molested on the job.?Why I there such a scarcity of things women are allowed to complain about? If he has the time to be impatient, why can’t he be impatient with whoever is doing the inappropriate touching instead?
What? Criticize men’s behavior toward women? Men who aren’t Muslim?
That’s only the worst thing ever that anyone could ever do, ever.
To the songwriters. CaitieCat, Gen and Tethys. Many thanks for the rewrites. My dubious attempts have given me a deeper appreciation of the effort it takes.
MJP@139
Thanks for the information. I figured there was an informal logical fallacy for the type of argument RD has been using in regards to feminist issues.
@We Are Plethora #156
I believe the term you’re searching for is “sexual assault”. He’s talking about women who, instead of being able to go about their jobs in peace, are targeted and sexually assaulted by their colleagues and bosses. The “at the water cooler” phrase also implies that this is an everyday, mundane, commonplace, to-be-expected occurrence for any woman in the workplace–as ordinary and therefore as trivial as office gossip and small talk about last night’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy.
@ theoreticalgrrrl
Actually, this is the one contentious statement that Dawkins has made that I think is actually perfectly valid. I would mock him in this regard, not for his argument, but that he actually makes such an argument – about a small, but rather pertinent issue – while at the same time denying the relevance of others complaints of the attritive micro-aggressions they constantly endure.
What could have been a real learning experience for him, he squandered.
Ibis3 #163, you make an excellent point regarding the trivialising and gaslighting bundled up in Dawkins’ carefully condescending phrase, which reminds me of when DJ Grothe characterised backchannel warnings against the harassing/assaulting tendencies of certain male skeptics as “distasteful locker room banter” and bragging about “sexual exploits”, because yeah that’s exactly what telling another woman which men to be extra-wary of is all about.
For anyone who wasn’t around for Grothe’s above effort in 2012, Justin Thibeault’s post on the quoted from which I’ve pulled the above phrases is a good primer.
QFT.
I work in an industry where many women remember not that long ago when men would chase them through the offices to grope them and kiss them. Where the female partner in a firm had to sit on a male partner’s lap to be allowed in the Partner’s Lounge. Where you could walk in on the boss giggling while watching porn, and he wouldn’t even turn it off. There is no such thing as harmless ‘inappropriate touching’ at a water cooler. That is sexual assault, and a hostile work environment to boot. There were plenty of things he could have chosen as an example of ‘frivolous’ complaining, and yet he chose this, something that is illegal, wrong & keeping women out of certain industries. Makes me wonder what his motive was in choosing those specific words.
It could be done as a Google hangout. I like the idea, but am afraid the trenches are dug by now and no meaningful conversation can be had anymore.
I have asked Rebecca Watson if she wants to do a debate with me while she is in Australia, like Dawkins is doing with Leslie Cannold. See how we go. I’m also trying to inform Cannold of these current issues with Dawkins’ statements.
Oh, I’m so glad that people are speaking up for Dworkin (and MacKinnon though I’ve heard that her work is rather transphobic so I’ll admit, I’ve been a bit hesitant – there are those who argue that Dworkin was transphobic too but I havent come across anything like that in her work that I’ve read so far, but I’m happy to be corrected if that’s the case).
I haven’t read all of Dworkin, but I’ve read a good bit and I’ve found her to make a huge lot of sense. I don’t always agree with her (though the things I disagree with are trivial and more about time and place than real substance), nor do I always like her arguments or the implications of them (it’s hard to face up to some of the facts and effects she highlights), but she crafts the arguments very well.
It’s even more poignant when you remember that they were writing in a time where things like marital rape was legal, and women were even worse off than now. I think they contributed immensely to feminist scholarship and to the effort of moving the Overton window so that the gains that were made were actually possible. I don’t like that they joined the republicans in the porn thing, but as feministhomemaker at 130 said, there was a very good reason and argument for it.
Also, I sincerely believe that every feminist should read I Want a Twenty-Four-Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape at least once.
Jackie @147
You had to do that, didn’t you? Now I’m seeing Picard in Rincewind’s hat.
bargearse @ 151, consciousness razor @155 and We are Plethora @156 – ta! I wondered if it was my nonscienceyfluffladybrain being unable to comprehend the Great and Powerful Dawkins of Wat.
(I know using this scene isn’t original, but here’s my contribution to that image.)
Tom Foss @ 157
I’ve been saying for a while now that these people (Dawkins, Harris, et al) use words like they’re Jedi mind tricks, knowing that they work on a large chunk of their fan base. Sam Harris advocates profiling people who “look Muslim”, people capable of thinking a few moves ahead realize the racist implications of a policy like that and criticize him, and he writes an addendum to his essay expressing his dismay that anyone could think he meant to profile people by race and his acolytes toddle off obediently to places like Pharyngula to tell us “Gosh, he said he didn’t mean race, alright?! Geez!”
I think that muzzles are another thing that Dawkins doesn’t understand. A muzzle prevents a dogs from biting, it does not silence the dog. I propose that we take up a collection to send the poor suppressed lad a proper ball gag.
Meat Debates are so ten minutes ago.
Let there be a TwitterOff.
I want a real, live pissing contest. Make it happen, people.
Only if there is actual pissing.
Tethys @171 – I was thinking a muzzle would be appropriate for Mr Darwin’s Rottweiler, but at the very least, he should have his internet access taken away forever.
consciousness razor @173 – can that be a “dumping a bucket of cold cat pee on Dawkins” contest instead? (she asked hopefully)
I’d argue against a formal public debate for exactly the same reasons debates against creationists are problematic: it gives the idea that “women are only oppressed in the ways I deign to acknowledge, and only in them foreign countries” legitimacy. But hey, it could be that debates change some minds. I’m just not fond of them, myself.
Remind me, what has Dawkins actually done for Muslim women? There may well be something I’ve missed or forgotten, but it seems to me that the only time they get a mention is when he’s telling Western women to shut up.
Formal debate is useless for actually getting at the truth, no matter the subject. On a topic where you have one person with expertise and another person arguing from absolute ignorance, it’s worse than useless. It lends legitimacy to the ignorant view by providing it with an equal platform. In my opinion, Dawkins’ views on feminism should be shown the same contempt we show for Ray Comfort’s views on evolution. YMMV.
Knowing that Dawkins’ vulcan rationalism prevents him from making hyperbolic statements, and knowing that he likes to adopt a rather donnish demeanour I think we can translate this statement so that we can see why he is the real victim in all this:
“…I concentrate my attention on that menace…” I’m so obsessed by religious bigotry and atrocities that I cannot thoughtfully address any other form of discrimination. Which doesn’t stop me commenting on it
“…I confess I occassionally get a little impatient…” I’m so embarrassed by my public inability to sympathetically engage with the issues that I lash out
“…American women…” Feminists.
“…inappropriately touched…” sexually assaulted
[shit! I hope that won’t be noticed or I’ll be publicly criticised again, and probably get a little impatient. Move on. Quickly! Er, say something witty and topical to distract.]
“..invited for coffee…” inappropriately propositioned and mildly annoyed as a result
[Bollocks! That’s a stupid in-joke with Christina, Michael, and Muslima, and telling it now just makes me look bad. Try to qualify it. That reminds me – I’ve not replied to Muslima’s letter telling me how heroic I am.]
“…I think…” I say. Often without thinking. It’s just an opinion, like “I think tea tastes better without sweeteners”. Opinion. Nothing controversial. Remember that I get a little impatient. Crabby. That explains everything.
“…relatively trivial…” Between 2.3450-4.6798 millidawkins of seriousness.
Dawkins is just a cuddly ol’ grump. Not a flaming arsehole at all.
Astonishing, even for Dawkins.
I understand the anti-feminists will re-frame ‘elevatorgate’ to being about a woman overreacting to a cup of coffee, but to so brazenly claim that women being groped – assaulted – is something they shouldn’t complain about (lest they make the almighty Dawk impatient)…wow. Incredible.
He’s as bad as the most loathsome right-wing religionists he claims to deplore.
@133 Jackie
I’m sorry to say the first time i read your post i thought it was too malicious. I’ve changed my mind, i think you are absolutely right. He is definitely trying to incite an emotional response in the anti-feminists, that’s exactly what all the surreal hyperbole is for, and there’s a ridiculous amount of it. He wants anti-feminists and passers by to be horrified about how vicious and extreme the actual, real feminists are. It’s all a giant fucking emotional argument. They must be wrong because look at how vicious they are with their tweeting and their blog posts, just like the nazis!!!1!! They are silencing me, i feel muzzled and supressed by these extremists, oh deary me…
It’s all about getting people emotionally biased against feminists, and i’m convinced he knows it and he is doing it on purpose. Whether he realises at a conscious level that his tactic is including and inflamming the worst abusers and harassers is irrelevant, because they are included nonetheless.
Dawkins reminds me of that old prof I had who simply started with the assumption Dworkin/MacKinnon were to be condemned and set about lecturing on their work without investigating said work enough to see their proposal did not implicate criminal punishment at all and even when that fact was pointed out it made no difference to him, so strong was his starting assumption that these women were plainly wrong, even if his reason was based in fiction. Dawkins has his starting assumption regarding western feminists, specifically Rebecca, and he isn’t budging. Like my old prof, he too is considered (by himself and some others) progressive or supposedly in the feminist camp. But not enough of a feminist, apparently, to give serious, good-faith consideration to the arguments in support of the women they are (were) determined to dismiss/hate.
Dawkins reminds me of that old prof I had who simply started with the assumption Dworkin/MacKinnon were to be condemned and set about lecturing on their work without investigating said work enough
^^^ This.
Someone in the atheo/skeptosphere, or one of the FTBbloggers maybe ought to do a retrospective on MacKinnon/Dworkin/Brownmiller and explain their ideas and outline their arguments clearly. I think that the anti-feminists are entirely too focused on, particularly Dworkin, or more precisely a caricature of Dworkin. They have this idea that there were these feminists to wanted to make all the porns illegal, and who thought that all sex was rape, and they have adopted those straw feminists as the marginal view that they’re reacting to. All too often when I ask people “which radical feminists are you talking about?” they don’t even know the names — but they proceed to parrot the caricature views of one of those three feminists. Then I have to explain that Dworkin didn’t actually even say “all sex is rape” or anything like it, and fought long and hard against that deliberate mis-characterization of her argument. And Brownmiller didn’t want to make all the porns illegal; she wanted to improve protections against that industry’s exploiting the vulnerable, etc.
My sense is that the reaction to Brownmiller/Dworkin/MacKinnon is eerily similar to some gamers’ reaction to Anita Sarkeesian: they immediately jump to a caricature of her argument and overreact to that. When I first encountered MacKinnon it was in the 80s and I fell for that narrative (“OMG! she wants to take away my porns!”) without realizing it was a lie. If someone actually steps into the argument and sees what the feminist critiques are saying, they’re…. um… they’re right.
This is one article I’ve sent links to many times:
Susan Brownmiller (“Let’s put pornography back in the closet”)
http://www.susanbrownmiller.com/susanbrownmiller/html/antiporno.html
The title lends itself easily to the kind of caricature I describe, unfortunately. I bet a lot of anti-feminists look at the title and immediately start imagining the jackbooks and whatnot. But it’s actually pretty reasonable! I mean:
Harassment is against the law. Specifically,
Defending “water cooler” stuff is defending probable violations of the law. Maybe women don’t have the same protections in the UK — but then the question to Dawkins would be “why not and what are you doing about it”? Rather than defending the rights of the harassers. Seems to me that a self-professed feminist would want to have universal acceptance of such laws.
BTW and FWIW: You’ll notice what’s missing in the current law is any mention of harassment due to sexual orientation or gender identity. Something else to advocate for.
My sentiments exactly!
As so many have pointed out, if you feel that you are constantly misunderstood, consider the possibility that it isn’t them but rather you. After all, and as a scientist, Dawkins should know this, every time you engage with someone else, you’re conducting a little experiment: Your words versus their interpretation.
What do you think a scientist would say if their apparatus was supposed to result in Phenomenon X but constantly resulted in Phenomenon Y? Is it because the apparatus is “misunderstood”? Or is it because no matter how much the “bright” scientist wanted X, he was wrong?
Once again, since I know he’ll need the repetition: If you’re constantly being “misunderstood,” consider the possibility that it’s you.
Dawkins on abortion rights: “Oh hush now, female genital mutiliation is a thing!”
Dawkins on the right to vote: “Oh hush now, there are places in the Middle East that are complete dictatorships!”
Dawkins on gun control and police brutality: “Oh hush now, look at the war zone that the Middle East is!”
Dawkins on racism: “Oh hush now, look at how poorly those brown people are behaving!”
Dawins on gay rights: “Oh hush now, look at how poorly the filthy Muslims treat teh gheys!”
Dawkins on atheist discrimination: “Oh hush….oh, wait, no, that is actually very serious.”
I imagine that Dawkins’ entire political worldview boils down to “Dear Muslima” insofar as he isn’t an abject hypocrite. Which, obviously, is not particularly far.
Oh, and yet another brilliant gem Dawkins has retweeted:
http://thefederalist.com/2014/11/17/its-time-to-push-back-against-feminist-bullies/
So he already favorably linked to an anti-feminist article from Reason, now he is linking to The Federalist.
If you are like me, you are wondering: “What the fuck is The Federalist?”
According to wikipedia:
Much as I love PZ, the idea of two men formally debating feminism sounds an awful lot like exactly what’s wrong with the way these conversations typically proceed already.
I’d like to echo LykeX @177: What, exactly, has Dawkins done for women in Islamic regimes? Does the RDF have any programs there? Has Dawkins done anything beyond gesturing broadly at the Middle East and said “there be misogynists”?
Maybe it’s because getting our house in order is generally better and more effective than playing White Savior to people in foreign countries. Does that fit into 140 characters?
This has been leeching into topics other than feminism as well. A few days ago, Dawkins Tweeted that he admired how dedicated Lord Saatchi has been to the memory of his dead wife. In the same Tweet, he said he doesn’t understand the objections to the Saatchi bill, a bill being debated in the UK now that purports to “unleash medical innovation” by in essence making it easier for doctors to use unapproved therapies. This isn’t the place to get into the details, but suffice to say that the Saatchi bill is a very bad idea, basically an open invitation to quackery and unethical human experimentation (see http://www.stopthesaatchibill.co.uk).
A number of people Tweeted links at him to explain why the Saatchi bill was such a bad idea, and, predictably, he behaved similarly. This time, he retreated into literality with a Tweet: “English is my native language. I say what I mean. Precisely.” This is so downright literal as to be laughable. Yes, In context, in which Dawkins praised Lord Saatchi before expressing puzzlement over the objections to the bill, it was not at all unreasonable to take that as a statement that he was at least sympathetic to the bill, if not a supporter of it.
He appears to have deleted the Tweet since. I can’t find it now on his Twitter feed.
It is ironic that the same people who say that Dawkins is wrong here and who believe that women’s rights in America are important even when women in Africa have it worse are the same people who, whenever a man complains about sexism that affects him, respond “Oh, quit whining. It isn’t so bad for men” as if the fact that women face worse sexism somehow makes sexism that affects men okay. Can we please cut the hypocrisy.
Sam Winston @192,
Suuure this happens. Sure it does. I mean, you wouldn’t just be referring to instances where someone tries to derail a discussion of sexism faced by women with a “but what about the MENZ?” non sequitur? No, I’m sure you have some completely legitimate examples to show us.
Because, you know, someone like PZ, who has his manhood questioned merely for supporting women’s rights, doesn’t know anything about sexism affecting men. No, it’s only through brave souls like you that such issues are brought to our attention.
Sam Winston @192
Please give an example of someone on Pharyngula or even FTB telling the menz to quit complaining about how sexism effects them.
Sam Winston #192
Please learn the meaning of the word ‘irony’.
also ‘hypocrisy’.
@anteprepro #188
If you try that line of argument full power will be diverted to the Dawkins-Deflector Shields. It is of course only about what people say and not who they work for, dummy. As long as they do not explicitly say that they hate women or tattoo a swastika on their forehead, the AEI or Pat Condell are perfectly respectable sources. They are just all misunderstood. And the day the Westboro Baptist Church has a convenient misogynist blogpost up that defends “real feminism” Dawkins will happily link to it, I have to assume.
Sam Winston @ 192:
Of course, anyone who actually bothered to read the threads about sexism would see repeated examples of the way that entrenched patriarchal sexism hurts men in addition to women.
I suggest you find someone who’s done that, Sam, and talk to them about it.
I mean, given that the clearly unacceptable alternative is that you actually read the threads yourself. Wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.
Sam Winston, #192
I see you have devised the “What about the ‘What about the Menz?!” Menz?!”
Sam Winston sez:
1. The purpose of “well what about sexism against men huh” argument is often to dismiss the sexism that Western women face. Which is why we oppose that argument while acknowledging that men do face (lesser) sexism.
2. The purpose of “well what about the horrible things women have to experience in Africa huh” argument is often used to dismiss that sexism that Western women face. Which is why we oppose that argument while acknowledging that Western women do have it better in comparison.
The irony and hypocrisy is that you are pretending that acknowledging the difference in power and treatment within a given country is comparable to dismissing the plight of people in one set of countries because of the worse plight in a different set. The former is pointing out injustice and rallying for equality, the latter is throwing the fight for equality under the bus by playing Oppression Olympics.
Sam Winston @192 –
There are different ways to talk about treatment of women in different cultures. There’s the Dear Muslim way, in which Western women talk about the problems we face and someone comes along and says BUT FGM! MUSLIMS! SHUT UP! And that is shitty. There could, potentially, also be a case in which oppression of Muslim women was being discussed and a white Western woman popped in to derail the conversation to talk about herself. I’ve never seen that, but it would also be shitty.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
What feminists object to is men doing that second thing. The feminists on this blog do not do the first one.
Sam Winston @ 192
We talk constantly about ways sexism has negative impacts for men. Seriously. All the fucking time. It’s just that the things dudebros tend to bring up like “oh em gee lots more dudes die in military combat” are examples of sexism against women coming back to bite men in the ass.
Seven of Mine:
Similar issue with the whole “women get custody of children in divorce more!!1!1!eleventy!1”. Which, insofar as it is true (which isn’t very, since a lot of the time they are ignoring that the men don’t even try to get custody and usually when men do, THEY GET IT), would largely be the fault of the sexist expectation that women are the ones who should be and must be the ones who take care of the children.
I guess that’s the other key issue with the “sexism against men”: not only is it largely used as an excuse to dismiss sexism against women and to ignore the power dynamic involved, but the claims are also largely a combination of spin or outright bullshit.
Except you aren’t working to change the menz problems, which are mostly caused by arrogance, stupidity, and ignorance. You like the status quo with all you the male privileges you have. The feminists are trying to get things done, and make you aware of your privileges, so you quit being such a chauvinist. Put your effort where you mouth is, and quit bothering those who are trying to accomplish something, until you can evidence you are doing something about the menz.
And it’s worth nothing, in relation to that specific example, that feminists have been pushing for more equality in the military for years. This is one example of feminist action that benefits men; an example that goes directly against what Sam Winston is trying to claim.
Another bullshit example of sexism: Men whining about how they are expected to be the breadwinners. It ain’t men’s rights activists who have been rallying to change that: it is feminists who have been fighting to get women into the workforce, rallying to get them paid equally.
Yet another bullshit example: Men whining about Shrodinger’s Rapist. You know the best way to get women to stop fearing every man as a potential rapist? Fight rape culture, support victims, punish victimizers, and lower the incidence of rape. Who does that kind of shit again?
See also: “Men are raped too”. MRAs love to bring up male victims but seem to just stop there. They don’t care about stopping it or making it better or anything, it’s just a Gotcha card in their deck. In fact, they outright lie, blatantly, and sometimes claim that men are the majority of rape victims, using bullshit assumptions about prison rape, while really only 10% of rape victims are men: https://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-victims
And while MRAs are spewing misinformation, feminists are acutely aware that men are also victimized. That is why they are fighting for EQUALITY not women supremacy. That is why they are trying to stop ALL rape and domestic violence, not ONLY the kind that affect women. These are all the ways that women are disproportionately mistreated, and that is why they are feminist issues, but the feminists are not saying “oh, it’s fine as long as a woman does it to a man”. Yet that is what the bullshit artists imply or sometimes even outright claim we are saying.
I was going to suggest that our latest shit-‘n-run troll Sam Winston search around a little – here at ftb or on the net in general – for words to the effect that “patriarchy hurts men too” – and take note of who is saying that before he chokes on all that straw, but I see it’s already been said, and better.
This, all the time. It’s amazing the number of menz who complain bitterly about how the human race will die out if their freedom to accost strangers in the street is diminished by a hair’s-breadth, but who never even consider making any effort to remove the poisoned m&ms from the bowl.
Sam Winston @ 192
Actually, a good way to metaphorically lose pieces of yourself that you’d really like to keep is to blunder into a thread with this bullshit. PZ occasionally posts stuff related to male circumcision and you’d be surprised to learn that you almost NEVER read a non-male regular spouting off about how much worse FGM is, even though it kinda sorta is. If PZ highlights a story about some poor guy who received the shit end of some stick, you’d be surprised to learn that you almost never read a non-male regular spouting off about how much worse not-males have it overall, even though they kinda sorta do. If it does happen, it gets smacked down pretty quickly.
You see, we can all acknowledge that things are generally a lot shittier for women in the Muslim world than they are for Rebecca Watson. However, just like gay marriage doesn’t stop straight people from marrying, Rebecca Watson asking guys to leave her the fuck alone in elevators at night doesn’t prevent anyone, let alone people with Dawkinsian (hat tip) levels of prestige, from fighting for the rights of women in the Middle East. Dawkins’ motives were total bullshit. Dear Muslima was about crapping on Rebecca Watson and other uppity feminists and had fuck-all to do with highlighting the oppression of Muslim women.
But I suspect you know that. I’m guessing your motives are total bullshit too.
Somebody needs to make a “white man’s first world problems” meme featuring Richard Dawkins and his inane complaints. Advice dog spinoffs: That’s the language the Internet at large understands. FtB is too text-wall-y, too jargon-y, too taxing on red-blooded, logical, sciencey men’s attention spans. They can’t be arsed to read through all that fluff. Sound-bites, talking points, that’s what they need. Dudebros are too fucking (self-)important and have no time for SJW rantfests.
Also, the lovely irony of “memes” biting their inventor’s own arse, so to say.
Shorter, translated:
“WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE FORESKINS!!!111!!”
yeah… fuck off.
“I’m a feminist, but …” is the new “I’m not racist, but …”.
“I’m a feminist, but not like those feminazi SJWs with their constant hysterical campaigns and crusades against everybody who disagrees with them! I feel afraid of even speaking out publicly! MY FREE SPEECH IS THREATENED BY THE RISK OF NEGATIVE FEEDBACK!!11 I, and those who think like me, must be coddled and pandered to at any time, but everybody else who demands that is a fucking pussy!”
(In #209, I should have written “rich white man’s”.)
@49 azhael:
In short, you must defend your honour as a man, lest you be perceived as something less of a man, such as a woman, or a gay man. Admitting that you’re wrong, and apologising (especially to assertive women), like Matt Taylor, makes you either a “mangina” or somebody who was pressured virtually at gunpoint into such dishonourable behaviour.
It’s a worldwide conspiracy of tiny minorities (extremist feminists, blacks, homos and Jews) who are oppressing the white man by forcing him to think before he talks out of his arse. Cultural Marxists, alias Frankfurt School disciples (i. e., dogmatic commies whose goal is the elimination of free speech, guns, the market and private property, and the precious, precious white race). Is Dawkins really unaware how he and his allies echo or outright parrot a classic far-right conspiracy theory?
By the way, I wonder if those “progressive” and totes not far-right-leaning atheists who love using the term “feminazi” so much are aware of Rush’s original definition:
Yeah, he conveniently ignored that himself very soon.
Someone here asked what good dawks does for people oppressed by islam. In the only spirit of charity I’m willing to extend him, there’s this: http://freethoughtblogs.com/maryamnamazie/2014/11/21/onwards-to-establishing-an-international-front-for-secularism/ There’s a thanks to his foundation for helping make the event happen.