The amazing disappearing context

[lexica510]

You may have heard about the recent "Richard Dawkins doesn't get it" kerfuffle*. I wasn't going to write anything about it, but I think it's interesting that a certain piece of context is getting dropped from the story.

This is how it was described on Bad Astronomy in a post titled Richard Dawkins and Male Privilege:Here’s what happened, boiled

Comments

[rimrunner]

There is so very much I could say on this, but I'm in the middle of something AND tired, so I'll just say that Dawkins always kind of struck me as either a jerk, terminally clueless, or both.

Right now I'm going with both.

(Obviously there's more to this, Dawkins's response is just symptomatic of the larger problem, but even thinking about trying to address it just makes me even more tired.)

PS

[rimrunner]

P.Z. Myers, to his credit, does get it, but I'd advise against reading the comments without something to strengthen your stomach first.

Re: PS

[communicator]

So, that made me read it

Re: PS

[rimrunner]

As I say, the boys were never shown this video. They never got those lectures, or those chain letters. How would they know that such a situation would be, at best, annoying, at worst, terrifying and triggering? Nobody has ever thought to teach them.

That's a huge part of the problem, right there. I really do believe that at least some of these kinds of incidents are unintentional on the man's part, and all Watson did really was point out why that's a bad thing and how to do better next time.

I had a similar conversation with my husband a couple of years ago that was a real eye-opener for him. He'd never thought of it that way before, of course. Why would he?

And I mean, he's a good guy! He'd be mortified at the thought of putting me in even a mildly uncomfortable situation...but nobody had ever pointed out to him how or why certain things might be uncomfortable.

I refuse to allow worry or fear of what might happen to keep me from moving freely and behaving as I choose...but that doesn't mean that the possibility isn't lurking at

Richard Dawkins: RE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

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[communicator]

This is an excellent summary of the case. Dawkins has not covered himself in glory over this whole incident. Thanks for pulling everything together into a coherent narrative. I think she did right not to mention his name, but giving a real life example is actually reaching out to the male atheist community and saying 'see, this is the kind of thing that upsets us.' And the reaction from some 'shut up, your emotions are stupid'.

Wow. Schrodinger's Rapist

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[cartman94501]

I'll have you know I've never raped Schrodinger. :-)