Much Ado About Nothing - Atheist Elevator Edition

Since I read assorted atheist blogs I couldn't help but notice a big controversy in the atheist blogosphere. Here's a brief summary of what touched it off. Rebecca Watson of Skepchick posted about an experience that bothered her. She was at an event and some guy propositioned her in an elevator late at night. She turned him down, and he went away. But she complained that what he did was inappropriate. Ok, no big deal so far. Then PZ Myers posted about it at Pharyngula. Commenter opinion was split as to whether she made good points or was a hypersensitive whiner. But then Richard Dawkins himself showed up, and ridiculed Watson in his patented sneering, over-the-top fashion, comparing her complaint to the horrible life and death issues faced by other women. Since then various atheists have weighed-in, and assorted perpetually outraged feminists have lined up to attack Dawkins and anyone who dares criticize Watson. Watson herself has apparently bought into the brain-poison of feminist ideology as exemplified by her post, "The Privilege Delusion." For example,

Richard Dawkins believes I should be a good girl and just shut up about being sexually objectified because it doesn’t bother him. Thanks, wealthy old heterosexual white man!

This is what happens to logical reasoning when your subscribe to the religious-like dogma of feminism. To someone not afflicted by its poison, Dawkins' wealth, sexuality and race are completely unnecessary to understand what he was saying. His comment had nothing to do with "privilege," the meaning of which has been disitorted by feminist ideology, which employs it as a type of ad-hominem against those who disagree. Even his gender is irrelevant. It is quite possible that a poor, young lesbian black woman could have said exactly the same thing. Anyone could think that a woman complaining about a harmless advance was being too sensitive. That position doesn't require you to be a rich, white, heterosexual male.

Whether or not Watson's complaint about being hit on was reasonable given the circumstances, or overly sensitive whining is simply a matter of opinion. Dawkin's response makes him a jerk because of the extreme way he went about it. But that's really all there is to it. The fact that Dawkins behaved like a jerk and launched an over-the-top attack on Watson says nothing at all about anything beyond his particular actions in this case.