I Can Solve This Whole Richard Dawkins Problem

Richard Dawkins was a big player in reigniting the atheist movement and possibly the skeptic and humanist movements too, with the release of The God Delusion. This made him a sort of focal point for a lot of 'New Atheists' and people of that ilk and caused religious groups to equate with a Pope-like figure.

Now, really we should all know that we have, in the (borrowed) words of Margaret Sanger, 'No Gods, No Masters.' We should hold no one up to the standards of near-infallibility. The whole point of skepticism and its subsidiaries are to reserve doubt, to question and not to follow blindly. So the first and most obvious point to make is that, obviously Richard Dawkins is not the final word on everything and people who just sponge up everything he says need to stop it.

See, Richard Dawkins, now that he's strapped himself into the social media machine, has continued to brain-fart across the twittersphere for all and sundry. This has revealed his ignorance and his privilege when it comes to social justice issues that many in the skeptic arena are moving to embrace. He is often as arrogant and dismissive as you might expect a septuagenariat white, male emeritas professor and best-selling author to be; his plasticity is somewhat rigid at this point.

This doesn't excuse the crap he says (with annoyingly increasing frequency), but I think we need to remember this: Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist. That's his expertise. Those are his credentials. That's not to say people can't speak knowledgeably and legitimately outside of their fields but Dawkins is no social scientist, feminist or theologian and often hasn't done the legwork required to give his brain-farts the acknowledgement being given. When he dismisses modern feminism, I like to think as if he's dismissing House music or Danny Boyle films. Why should we care what he says about these things? He has nothing to do with them and knows little about them.

Of course, the problem is that people do care about what he says, whatever he talks about. He's a lauded figure. But we need to uncouple these experts from the things they know next to nothing about. Just because you're a respected and listened-to figure in certain areas, doesn't mean that every word leaving your lips turns to gold. If we can keep reminding ourselves that the further speakers are from their expertise, the more evidence we should demand from them to back up their assertions.

Or, stop listening to Dawkins unless he's talking about the Gene Theory of Natural Selection.

About the 'What About the Men?' Response

There's a common... conception among a lot of men that men have become the undermined sex, these days: that they are the easy target, that they can be the stupid characters in adverts, that jokes can be made about men without consequence, etc etc. So, whenever women complain about patriarchy and sexism against women and all that jazz, men rise up and start pointing out all the ways that men and maleness is being undermined.

And to some extent, they're right.

Wait, wait, bear with me on this. I mean, you must have noticed the "stupid dad" trope, common to a lot of adverts - that the father figure is a clumsy fool who can't do anything right and has to be saved by the resourceful mother character. And yes, there are a lot of jokes about men and how they only think with their penis or whatever. And there is some genuine debate to have about child custody, etc, etc. And these are just a few of the ways than men can be maligned by society.

But here's the important point - this doesn't wipe out the fact that we're still in a patriarchal society which still quite significantly favours men over women in a lot of ways. What's happened is that men notice when they are the butt of jokes, or if they are discriminated against in some way. Suddenly, it becomes a big deal. And this is a good opportunity to once again explain privilege.


See, men, we just don't notice when it's other people being maligned. Because we are privileged enough not to suffer in the same way as women: that we don't get looked over for better jobs as often, that our opinions are taken more seriously, that we get better characters in film and TV, that we don't have to be sexualised to be noticed, that we aren't expected to be barbie dolls, that we have to worry much less about being sexually assaulted, that our national-level sports are basically ignored, etc etc etc... We don't notice because it's not happening to us. But it is still happening and has been happening for way, way longer than any of these men-biased issues we've started to notice.

The balance hasn't turned in women's favour. Men just are blind to all the shit women still have to deal with. Check yo' privilege. Okay?