[Trigger Warning: rape, anti-theism, and appropriation of scientific authority by bigots.]

Richard Dawkins confounds me.

On the one hand, he’s brilliant. On the other hand, he tweets bulls*** like this series of tweets where he tries to argue that “logically” “stranger rape” is worse than “date rape”, but saying that “stranger rape” is worse is not necessarily an endorsement of date rape.

Those tweets may not constitute an “endorsement” of date rape, but why the f*** is Dr./Prof. Dawkins sitting around in front of his computer trying to rank the awfulness of different types of rape?

He “retracted” his original statement without actually retracting anything by saying “What I have learned today is that there are people on Twitter who think in absolutist terms, to an extent I wouldn’t have believed possible”.

Which makes it even worse. Because the people who were offended by his original tweets were not saying “Rape is rape” because they’ve been brainwashed into regurgitating absolutist dogma; they’re saying it because they want to point out that date rape can be incredibly, incredibly traumatizing and that Dr./Prof. Dawkins is NOT in a position to say that “stranger rape” is inherently more damaging/traumatizing/morally reprehensible. Continue reading “Dawkins’ ideas about cultural memes are what lead me to embrace feminism and social justice (So how did he end up being such an asshole?)” »