Richard Dawkins is not Sexist. He's Dawkinsist.

[miss_s_b]

Much of the furore surrounding Richard Dawkins' asshattery this weekend has involved accusations of sexism. Now, yes, his basic premise involved a startling lack of empathy for the woman he was denigrating, and he used a huge number of logical fallacies in his attack on her quite reasonable statement. But I think that accusing him of sexism based on this is possibly a leap too far. I think Dawkins would have behaved in exactly the same way - derailing, using straw men, invoking whataboutery - had he disagreed with a statement made by a man.

Dawkins does not specifically target women whom he disagrees with. He sees everyone as an intellectual inferior, male or female, black or white, wherever they fall on the queer spectrum, and whether or not they are ablebodied.

And to be fair to Dawkins, he probably has some justification. A lot of people are intellectually inferior to him. Where he gets it wrong, IMHO, is to use this as a starting premise. This person disagrees with me, they must be wrong is very rarely a good place to entrench oneself. I'm not saying I have never done it, but I do recommend this person disagrees with me. I wonder if they have just cause to do so? *examine evidence* * evaluate evidence* *come to conclusion* as a much less fraught way to proceed in a debate.

Just sayin'.

Comments

[pseudomonas]

Since Dawkins used until recently to be a professor of public understanding of science, "This person disagrees with me, they must be wrong" sets a particularly bad example.

[miss_s_b]

I agree. And apparently he does it a lot.

[pseudomonas]

I think he spends too much time trolling and being trolled. I suspect this is toxic to one's grace and humanity.

[(Anonymous)]

The question is: how many people disagree with Dawkins, and how many, as a result, find him wrong?

[telegramsam]

This.

And whether sexist or not, acting like a pompous ass (for WHATEVER reason) isn't a very productive way of arguing a point, nor is it particularly conducive to his cause.

And he's obviously intelligent enough to know that, which makes me wonder what the heck he was thinking sticking his foot in it like that in the first place...

[ginasketch]

Yeah "he's not sexist because he's an arse to everyone" doesn't sit right with me personally. I've met plenty of sexist people who can be arseholes to people who aren't women. They just have many levels of gittishness.

Just my opinion. I am a lot less tolerant of this type of behaviour from blokes now than I used to be.

[telegramsam]

Yea I'm not convinced either, but it's not like I was really a fan to start with. *shrugs*

[ginasketch]

Me either. I nearly got into him once because yay! science! But shrieking that people are idiots and creationists everytime you disagree with his stance is...ahem..not very scientific.

[ginasketch]

I'm glad PZ handed his arse back to him. Most people were defending him simply because he's Richard Dawkins.

[telegramsam]

You'd think a group calling themselves skeptics would not be prone to such "hero-worship" stuff.

Go figure.

[ginasketch]

The internet has taught me never to be surprised. :(

[innerbrat]

"But I'm not sexist..." is never an excuse for acting sexist. ESPECIALLY if it's succeeded by "...I hate everyone."

And "he would have acted the same way were she a man" is a feeble excuse when she was talkig specifically about her experience as an identifiable woman.

What he said ws disgustingly sexist and even more racist and he deserves to be called up on propogating misogyny and islamophobia.

I'm really not interested in whether people are themselves sexist or racist, as if that's some sort of internal quality like being gay, or good at maths. I do care about pulling out acts and saying "that's sexist, you ass", and that applies very strongly in this case.

[miss_s_b]

I guess that really my point is that labelling a person is less productive than identifying and examining the problematic behaviour. Which is what your last bit says, essentially.

[telegramsam]

Well that makes sense, and gives me a bit of relief. From the post I thought maybe you were letting him off the hook entirely (which seemed a tad out of character for you), but I guess I misunderstood your point.

[innerbrat]

It's true, I agree with that point. I just didn't think I got that point from the post - my bad.

It's the Ill Doctrine "how to tell people they sound racist" thing. But still, people do it, and people also use 'but I'm not racist' as an excuse.

[ginasketch]

Racism and Sexism are learnt behaviours. Telling someone they have acted sexist is not saying they are inherently so. It's telling them "Hey, you acted like an arse and you hurt someone. Own up to your behaviour and listen."

And if they carry on it's not my job to educate them, especially when several people have tried doing so in a calm way and had it thrown back in their faces.

[telegramsam]

He actually pulled that "IT'S YOUR JOB TO EDUCATE ME. AND DON'T USE THE WORD 'FUCK' WHILE DOING IT" thing, I saw it somewhere in that morass of comments on Pharyngula's blog (I'd go find it but it would probably require a team of Sherpas at this point).

It made me a sad panda.

[ginasketch]

YES. ><

[telegramsam]

Now I'm just waiting for him to pop up going 'SUPRISE, IT WAS ALL A ~SOCIAL EXPERIMENT~!!1!' and his Derailing for Dummies performance shall be complete.

[neohippie.livejournal.com]

Another problem with treating everyone like they're dumbasses is that it makes it hard to win people over to your side. If you start right off with being a jerk to someone, they usually get defensive rather than listening to anything you have to say.

This is something I have to remember a lot, as a person who finds herself looking into making a career of science education (if America ever starts having JOBS again). Even if someone IS stupid and ignorant, if I actually want to teach them something, being an asshole to them never works.