Plus he totally fell in love with his wife for her spicy brains.

One of my favorite Lawrence Miles lines:

Religious extremists are people who plant bombs in family planning clinics and fly aeroplanes into heavily-occupied buildings. Evolutionary extremists are people who write overly smug blog entries and shag Lalla Ward.

The Guardian How We Met piece on Dawkins and Ward from 1994 [link]

Why does it bother you now?

Mainly the "Bright" thing. Also

his fairly-typical 70 year old highly science educated white guy's cringe-worthy foot-in-mouth gender statements

I just think he's kind of an ass, and I don't want to be automatically associated with him. But I guess eventually someone was going to take the helm of the atheist flagship, and it seems likely that a person so inclined might be kind of an ass, so whatever. I'm not saying he's not brilliant and hilarious.

If you're trying to find a movement with no asses, your search will be long and fruitless.

Good god, why isn't this status report writing itself?

I'm not trying to find an assless movement, ita.

I think that psychologically, it's somehow easier for me to deal with clueless sexism than it is for me to deal with carefully thought-out justifications for sexism wrapped in just-so stories that seem to make the ass feel as though his privilege is somehow...earned?

That was for Zenkitty, who didn't want to be associated with a movement with Dawkins in it. I don't know how you find a movement where everyone passes muster. It would say a lot about people. We probably wouldn't need movements.

I wasn't looking for a movement at all.

Timelies, all. I'm in Sydney today - we are finishing our 42 day Asia cruise, and it is going to be WEIRD today to have other people on the ship. 42 days is a long time, it felt like we were all friends!!

Plus my roommate/ship best friend goes home today as well, and I am NOT holding it together too well. This being my first contract I'm not yet used to people just leaving all the time. There may have been lots of tears at the crew bar last night. I felt like such a child. But I'm emotional, always have been, probably nothing to do about that now!!

Next cruise is 17 days up over the northern coast of Australia with a quick stop up to Bali. Should be nice!!

I wasn't looking for a movement at all.

I've been eating Activia.

Well, sure, Allyson: it's always better to feel that someone is just clueless, and maybe a little education could open up their eyes versus "Well, this person is actually smart and has thought about it, and has an opinion which is egregiously wrong to my eyes/the actuality OR is just smart AND an asshole."

I deal with sexism by not really having close people in my life who are unopen to examining different POV's, by calling people out on things in my classroom (all the time -- when I'm in an active role as an educator, I feel bound to do this) or in social situations (when I feel sharply or arsed enough or energetic enough to do so.)

I combat the preconceived notions of sexism by just being a well-rounded person, and not accepting bullshit dichotomies -- I still use Ms. but am not really bugged if people call me Mrs., I kept my last name, I choose a relationship that's very equal, gender-wise, and I keep myself educated and pass along information as I feel I am able to.

It's...like some people have a calling for things, be it a religion or teaching or a social cause, and they build their life around it, and that's great, and the world needs people who feel that pull, just like the world needs people like me, who don't feel the activist pull, but just do small, constant things and live their life doing the things the activiist peeps need to use to point out "Hey, lots of people do/think/believe this, see?"

Some people are the wires, some people are the electricity. I'm a wire that throws out an occasional spark.