New Atheists, Bunnies, and Hypocrisy

A few years ago, Gnu activist PZ Myers posted a cartoon of two little bunnies taking a different approach to solving a puzzle. The blog entry was entitled Yes! The religion and science conflict, only cuter!

The objective of the cartoon was to reinforce the atheist’s stereotype that religious people are dumb and blinded, while atheists are curious and smart. One problem. Whoever made the cartoon depicted the religious bunny as a girl and the smart bunny as a boy. This led to Bunnygate – another war between the atheists.
What I find especially noteworthy is the hypocrisy of Myer’s feminist-atheist acolytes.

Here is a sample of some of the early comments.

CrysT wrote:

Please tell me that in the above, it isn’t the little girl rabbit who is brainlessly insisting on believing the box whereas the intelligent little boy rabbit bravely insist on working out the solution for himself.
Because that would truly suck.

Carlie replied:

given the color coding of the word boxes, I’m inclined to believe that you’re correct. And it does, indeed, suck. Unintended subconscious sexism adding a teensy knife in the back of an otherwise fantastic comic ftw.*
*before anyone says it, yes, of course it’s possible to completely coincidentally have chosen the girl as the zealot and the boy as a skeptic. It just so happens that that follows right in direct line with every other trope about men being the intelligent rational ones and women being irrational and overly religious, that’s all.

and also adds

All xe did was point out that yes, it does suck when something so cute still subtly reinforces the idea that I’m not that smart because of my gender. You’re the one taking it badly.

Violette then wrote:

I also noted the girl bunny/boy bunny thing. I’m certain no intentional sexism was intended. And yeah, I guess I’m sensitive about it, but that’s because I see people buying into this very same stupid stereotype all the time. It’s just good to make note of these stereotypes when they pop up so people become aware of them.

Caine, Fleur du Mal wrote:

Have a decaying porcupine, Cupcake. It’s not paranoid to point out the standard sexism in what is otherwise a clever ‘toon making a good point.
The tropes are more than obvious (dress/pants, pink/blue, girl=no critical thinking/boy=critical thinking). When you see these things all your life, it gets tiresome seeing them still employed, even when it is a good cause and a good message otherwise.

In other words, the cartoon was fantasic, clever and part of the “good cause” when it was attacking religious people. But once the cartoon was also perceived to be attacking women, suddenly the cartoon was wrong. Y’see, it’s okay for these feminists to mock religious people and spread negative stereotypes about religious people. Atheist feminists are 100% in support of that and will laugh and cheer shoulder-to-shoulder with the “sexist” atheists. But when the exact same cartoon, with the exact same message is perceived to be targeted at women, all hell breaks loose.

Feminist-atheist reacting to cartoon that portrays religious people as brainless zealots: LOL! How clever! Nice one!

Feminist-atheist reacting to exact same cartoon perceived to portray women as brainless zealots: That’s sexism! That sucks! That’s wrong!!

What this all illustrates is that the feminist-atheists do not stand on principle. They are not opposed to negative stereotypes being spread about populations of people. They are ONLY opposed to negative stereotypes being spread about them (and their allies). There is no moral credibility behind their “concerns” for “social justice.” It’s just another dime-a-dozen example of tribalistic us vs. them thinking as part of their quest for power.

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