Scott Adams says women are no different from the mentally handicapped

The Washington Post‘s look at Dilbert — the rise from obscurity to wild popularity (I certainly enjoyed it) to seeing hundreds of papers drop the strip — doesn’t leave me with any sympathy for Adams. He’s playing the Deliberately Being Provocative defense (“I shook the box intentionally. I did not realize how hard I shook it,” ) but like most people who use it, he apparently thinks he should be able to provoke people without consequences. Too bad, so sad.

I merely want to note that his misogynist posts (The WaPo references them) in the past are just as offensive. For example he claims there’s no point to arguing with women who want equal rights:  “The reality is that women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It’s just easier this way for everyone. You don’t argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn’t eat candy for dinner.”

Then there’s his view that banning rape is a lot like ordering lions not to eat zebras: “If a lion and a zebra show up at the same watering hole, and the lion kills the zebra, whose fault is that? Maybe you say the lion is at fault for doing the killing. Maybe you say the zebra should have chosen a safer watering hole. But in the end, you probably conclude that both animals acted according to their natures, so no one is to blame. However, if this is your local zoo, you might have some questions about who put the lions with the zebras in the same habitat.”

He then goes on to compare this to male rape and harassment of women, which he concedes is the men’s fault but still seems to think it’s unfair making lions play by zebra rules. Of course, as Echidne of the Snakes says, the metaphor is a bad one: lions don’t marry zebras where lots of men marry women.

I’ve said in the past (but don’t have a handy link) that for all the “feminists hate men” bullshit from ranters on the right, nobody hates men like anti-feminists. They, after all, are the ones who make arguments that rape is normal and natural for guys, and that men are all sleazeballs who will never buy the cow once they get the milk free (like most statement about gender, the latter is true of some men but not a universal rule). And that it’s up to women to adapt to this reality by changing their behavior because men are incapable of change.

Adams probably thinks he’s on men’s side with arguments like that. I don’t think so.

I dissect the delusions of Adams and other misogynists in Undead Sexist Cliches, available as a Amazon paperback, an ebook and from several other retailers. Cover by Kemp Ward.