That “Elevatorgate” bullshit got an article in USA Today recently. The actual content was a dead non-topic from the get-go because as Richard Dawkins said, “zero bad happened”, so I don’t care to rehash something the Watsonites lost long ago. What I want to talk about is this from PZ:
What this one incident did was expose a small, fringe group of obsessive sexists who suddenly had the privileges they took for granted questioned…and oh, how they did squeal, and continue to squeal.
There are two points to be taken from this. First, it is a blatant, bald lie to say it has been those who disagree with Watson and PZ that have been making this into a big deal. Who watches Rebecca Watson videos? Who re-blogs those videos (prior to controversy)? It certainly isn’t all those “obsessive sexists”. No, it is people who are fans of Watson, those who support her, those who wanted to make this into a big deal. How anyone can say it is the other side that has made this into something it isn’t – and PZ has said so at least twice – astounds me. It is obviously the fault of Watson’s side – especially the guy with a blog that regularly cracks the top 100 blogs on the Internet – that anyone beyond a few dozen people even know about this.
Second, “obsessive sexists”? Really? PZ obviously means those who have been vocal about disagreeing that anything bad happened here. After all, that is the majority of the dissent – not those who say disgusting things or make it a point to publicly comment on Watson’s appearance or gender. And who else is included in that majority dissent? Why, Richard Dawkins, of course. Has PZ called him an “obsessive sexist”? Nope. In fact, he has explicitly said he doesn’t think Dawkins is sexist. (PZ instead condescendingly said Dawkins was just removed from the situation, as if that wasn’t the case for every fucking person on the planet except two.) Weird, huh? It’s almost like a certain someone isn’t able to stand back and be objective when it comes to sex and gender issues.
Filed under: Politics and Social | Tagged: Elevatorgate, pz myers, Rebecca Watson, Richard Dawkins | 13 Comments »
For the Sake of Science 