Jenny Kutner at Salon also reports on Dawkins’s unfamiliarity with the Men’s Rights movement.
Noted evolutionary biologist and atheist thinker Richard Dawkins addressed questions of gender discrimination in science head-on at a recent event at Kennesaw State University, responding to a question about the value of feminism in science and the necessity of the men’s rights movement. Dawkins, who has been criticized for contributing to the atheist community’s endemic sexism, said he believes feminism to be “enormously important” — but he wasn’t so sure about men’s rights.
“Feminism, as I understand it, is the political drive towards the equality of women, so that women should not be discriminated against — nobody should be discriminated against — on grounds that don’t merit discrimination,” Dawkins said. “But I don’t, I hardly — is there a men’s rights movement to be supported?”
I look forward to a new series of outraged posts and tweets about these “smears” of Dawkins and his contributions to the endemic sexism in the atheist community. You know they will happen. But…they’re not “smears.” He said what he said. He is who he is – what he says influences many people, so when he says sexist things, yes, he contributes to the atheist community’s endemic sexism.