And more from the Department of Please Please Please Please Stop, Dawkins Division:
Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins Jun 14
“A moment to savour”? Really? Please, Guardian, could we just lighten up on the witch-hunts? #ReinstateTimHunt. http://reason.com/archives/2015/06/13/the-illiberal-persecution-of-tim-
Again with the putative witch hunts – again used by a man, to rebuke women for rebelling against casually contemptuous treatment. Wouldn’t it be nice if Richard Dawkins actually came out against some item of casually contemptuous treatment of women? Wouldn’t it be nice if he didn’t keep insisting that because stonings and forced marriages are so horrific, therefore women in places like the UK and the US should stop rebelling against casually contemptuous treatment? I think that would be nice. It would make a change, too.
And he didn’t say it in haste and then withdraw it, either. He said it and then defended it.
Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins Jun 14
@SquashedLumps I didn’t like Tim Hunt’s joke. But I loathe and detest mob rule and witch hunts and politically correct feeding frenzies.
And that’s the important thing. It’s never the important thing to say, “my dear fellow, with all the respect in the world, you really mustn’t talk about our women colleagues in that way; it’s not right.” No. That’s not the important thing to do. The important thing to do is to protest against the women colleagues’ protests, by calling the women witch hunters and mob rulers and PC piranhas.
So I wish he would Please Please Please Please Stop. But I know he won’t; he’s made that crystal clear by now.
He was at the CFI conference this past weekend. He was – naturally – at the awards banquet Friday where he was among those receiving an award. His was a lifetime achievement award. I naturally kept wishing he hadn’t mucked up the appearance of his lifetime achievement by indulging in so much hostility to rebellious women recently. It doesn’t adorn his record. It makes it harder to read his books with unalloyed pleasure.
In his remarks after receiving the award, he made a “People’s Front of Judaea” reference. For the millionth time, I wished he wouldn’t. It’s not petty little squabbles over nomenclature, it’s the horrible sexist bullshit that women still have to deal with and that he is encouraging. And now here he is again, back at work, belittling women and complaining of witch hunts. What a pity he won’t stop.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)