Asshole Alert

Look. I'm the first one to admit that the religious tradition I still participate in is fraught with stupid remnants of its damaging patriarchal past (indeed, some might argue foundation). This post isn't about why I believe it's important to effect change within or my feeling that the Church remains redeemable and that this is a worthy goal. For the record, I do.

It is, however, about how patriarchy and glaringly blind male privilege reach across cultural lines. It's not something that simply comes from or is found within various religious traditions. It's so embedded in our collective psyche that it rears its ugly head in unexpected places. Like a convention dedicated to reasoned and logical thought about the world around us, with at least a minimum of egalitarian allowance for wherever that reasoned thought originates.

While I'm stating things for the record, let me just say: Fuck you, Richard Dawkins. Now, just as I expect reasonable thinking individuals to approach men and women of the cloth with the courtesy of individual, rather than institutional, consideration for their thoughts, words, and actions, I am not inclined to make any sweeping statement or assumption about other Dawkins theories or even the atheist community as a whole. But I will say that the woman's presentation (as described in Meyer's post above the asshat Dawkins comment) makes a convincing case for there being just as strong a line of Mansplaining in this community as you'll find in other communities that claim to understand How to Think About the World.

Patriarchy hurts men, too. Schrodinger's Rapist is the best exploration of this phenomenon, though there are many other examples that I don't have time to outline here. Dawkins is so classically using privilege he can't even admit he has in order to discredit the very real experiences of a woman in his own intellectual community. Tacit knowledge reaches beyond the capabilities of language and this is exactly the sort of knowledge that women use to navigate whatever culture they inhabit, be it in sub-Saharan Africa, Ireland, Saudi Arabia, or even the US.

I appreciate PZ Meyer's willingness to rise above the mansplaining and lay out the inconsistencies and strange non-logic of his colleague's response to this woman's post. But nobody is immune to this crap and it's interesting to see it play out in communities of seemingly opposite lines of thought.