Richard Dawkins Dives into the Gender Row
Acclaimed evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has tweeted his support for Kathleen Stock, philosophy professor and author of Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism, saying:
Dr. Stock has been subjected to a relentless smear campaign for asserting the importance of recognising the reality of biological sex in certain key areas, such as safeguarding, sports, crime statistics and sexual orientation. She describes herself as a gender-critical feminist and argues that sex denialism, which some call ‘gender identity ideology’, erases homosexuality and negatively impacts the rights of women and girls.
The three-year long hounding culminated in an organized demonstration at the University of Sussex, where she was employed, demanding her dismissal. Students involved in a group named “Anti Terf Sussex” set off flares and held up banners reading “Stock Out” and “Terfs Out of Sussex”, and had also placed posters on the walls of an underpass she used to walk through to get to campus reading, “We’re Not Paying £9,250 a Year for Transphobia… Fire Kathleen Stock.”
Shortly after the student-led demonstration against her, Stock resigned from her post, saying that her “personal tipping point” came after the University of Sussex’s branch of the University and College Union responded to this harassment by calling for an investigation into ‘transphobia’.
The widely-publicized bullying of Stock resulted in hundreds of academics pledging their support for her views and divulging stories of their own experiences of being harassed and attacked. Academics from top universities in the UK spoke of how they had faced death threats, masked protesters and petitions calling for their research to be shut down. One such academic is PhD student Raquel Rosario-Sanchez, who is suing the University of Bristol for failing to protect her from abuse for her feminist principles. Another is Professor Jo Phoenix, who has been “vilified” by her colleagues at the Open University for her views on sex and gender.
A few hours after Dawkins tweeted his support for Stock, he doubled down by signing the Declaration on Women’s Human Rights and sharing a link to the Women’s Human Rights Campaign (WHRC), asking for others to follow suit.
The WHRC is a volunteer organization of women from around the world raising awareness of the importance of defending women’s sex-based rights. The open declaration asserts that enshrining “gender identity” into law effectively nullifies sex-based protections, and was authored by feminist academics Maureen O’Hara, Sheila Jeffreys, and Heather Brunskell-Evans.
In short, the document focuses on women’s sex-based rights, including the right to fairness in sport, reproductive integrity, and “the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and girls that result from the replacement of the category of sex with that of ‘gender identity’, and from ‘surrogate’ motherhood and related practices.”
According to the declaration:
“The confusion between sex and ‘gender’ has contributed to the increasing acceptability of the idea of innate ‘gender identities’, and has led to the promotion of a right to the protection of such ‘identities’, ultimately leading to the erosion of the gains made by women over decades. Women’s rights, which have been achieved on the basis of sex, are now being undermined by the incorporation into international documents of concepts such as ’gender identity’.”
This is not the first time Dawkins has voiced an opinion on the gender identity debate. In March, Dawkins said:
The following month, Dawkins was stripped of his Humanist of the Year title, awarded by the American Humanist Association (AHA) in 1996, after he questioned gender identity and compared the claim to the opposite sex to the concept of transracialism.
In a statement from its board, the AHA said that Dawkins had “over the past several years accumulated a history of making statements that use the guise of scientific discourse to demean marginalised groups, an approach antithetical to humanist values”.
In April, Dawkins also asserted his belief in the importance of accurate language:
Dawkins’ willingness to stand up against the unscientific and misogynist dogma of gender identity ideology is a boon in the fight to defend women’s rights. As an internationally renowned academic, author, and biologist, it is hoped that his voice will lend courage to others who may currently be remaining silent out of fear of being ostracized.
This article was originally published by 4W, a women-run news team.
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JK Rowling liked his tweet about the Declaration.
Several are criticising RD for not speaking up earlier, and I do see that as an issue - I also wish he had. But one way to look at this is that he may have been quite smart at using these delayed 'stealth' tactics and entering the fray. A Tweet - then nothing for a while, then repeat. One of his earlier 'stealthy' messages of support was him commenting on Twitter that he was reading some of JKRs books (perhaps 'reading' on audio actually) and he said how well written and constructed they were. The subjects of JKRs books wouldn't seem 'appropriate' for his tastes from what I know, so I wondered at the time whether it was a small did at the haters, and a message for 'our side' so to speak. Perhaps..
Having read most of his books, I never doubted which side of the toxic divide he would land, but yes, I do wish he had spoken up earlier and more strongly. But here we are with a powerful voice of reason on our side. That can only be good.