Growth


Since I’m already receiving angry accusations that I ‘pressured’ Cristina Rad into becoming a radfem or something similarly silly, I will just point out the fact that I have no power over her other than as one host of several on a blogging network, that the financial incentives in this business are not compelling enough to get her to compromise her principles, and that Cristina Rad explains her intellectual journey in some detail without mentioning my name, the handcuffs, or the whip.

It’s a good description of a woman waking up from awareness of “the way things are” to “the way things ought to be.” It’s trivializing her experiences to say I had anything to do with it.

Comments

  1. joshnankivel says

    It’s pretty mind-boggling that anyone could think Christina would be manipulated into a position on any topic. They must not know anything about her.

    Rational people change their minds when the evidence points in a different direction – it’s kind of part of the definition, actually.

  2. says

    I’m sure in a few days we’ll see a Thunderf00t post with a quote mine fo her latest video/article which is really mostly about Rebecca Watson.

  3. smhll says

    I figure having the opportunity to fly to Minn for CONvergence, meet Rebecca Watson, find out that she is a human being and not a hatchet-wielding zealot, must be illuminating.

  4. says

    I talked to Cristina about this at CONvergence. This was right after she posted the video of the panel about harassment. She hadn’t realized anyoen had gotten the idea that she was an anti-feminist. She had been mentioned several times in the context of feminists are ugly, but hot girls know better, so now some people are feeling betrayed, I’m sure.

  5. Beatrice says

    Oh, yeah, I remember that video. I watched it just after hearing about Cristina Rad for the first time and it didn’t really leave a very good first impression.

    I read some of her posts here, but I must admit that I was a bit wary of her.

    I’m glad she decided to give these ideas a bit more thought and was ready to admit that she was wrong. A lot of people have trouble even considering they might be wrong, especially when it comes to feminism.

  6. says

    Cristina Rad demonstrates she’s an intellectually honest person. Changing one’s mind in the in the face of the evidence is exactly what a Freethinker should be doing. I guess the youotube neanderthals don’t get that.

  7. Sili says

    It’s pretty mind-boggling that anyone could think Christina would be manipulated into a position on any topic. They must not know anything about her.

    She’s a pretty girl with a nice pair of tits. She’s not supposed to think for herself. He job is to agree with teh menz.

    Any change of thought must be due to her agreeing with some different menz, of course.

    Yuck.

  8. peterhearn says

    MRA from reply #1 onward.

    Fuck, I’m really hating that crowd, to the point where I don’t ever want to read another MRA comment again.

    Yea it must really suck when someone links to scientific data supporting something you don’t want to believe.

  9. says

    The immediate and relentless attacks on her were outrageous and amazing.

    It’s if she’d come on camera, transformed into Lorena Bobbitt, then transformed into a Nosferatu, THEN transformed into Andrea Dworkin as Lich Queen, and FINALLY pulled out a Black & Decker Pecker Wrecker 9000 (complete with a Skepchick.org sticker in hot pink) and shouted “I AM COMING FOR YOUR MANHOOD!”

    I seriously do not get the fundamental craziness that happened. I mean I get it in the sense that it’s the Internet and people go insane behind their keyboards, but damn.

  10. says

    This MRA subset might take pride on the names atheist, or skeptics and love to pretend to be rational people. Yet they are behaving exactly the same as irrational conspiracy theorists do.

  11. says

    I’ve been getting this “PZ Myers made you do it!” crap too, for days now. So I actually did mention your name in the video embedded in my blog post, saying clearly that neither you nor anybody else from FTB was responsible for my change of attitude. But I guess people become deaf when they don’t like what they’re hearing.

  12. eigenperson says

    #16 peterhearn

    There is nothing remotely scientific about those papers. Just because something contains data does not mean it is science.

  13. Blattafrax says

    So did comment #1 get disappeared or something? That’s unusual.

    I was wondering what was going on there.

    It does make comment #2 rather more entertaining though.

  14. says

    But I guess people become deaf when they don’t like what they’re hearing.

    What you said.

    Also, this really sucks to watch people turn on you because in their eyes, you put on a different jersey, when you never wanted to play the stupid game to begin with.

  15. says

    Just FYI for science, the feminist link round up has all the science anyone could want. And it agrees with many feminist conclusions because (gasp) they’re drawn on science in the first place.

  16. ChasCPeterson says

    Would you mind listing just a few of the many “feminist conclusions” that are (were?) “drawn on science in the first place”?

  17. says

    Sure. That people are strongly influenced by society in ways which pattern their ability to discern and react to stimuli which they may but likely are not fully aware of (chilly climate, implicit bias, stereotype threat), that people will tend to look for ways to interact with society which benefit themselves (system justification, sexist humor as a tool for establishing social dominance, racism, sexism, classism, etc), that people’s behavior in society is circumscribed and expressed within what benefits them and what behavior is available to them (any of these concepts apply here), and that society cloaks the mechanisms of that system in different ways depending on one’s position (privilege).

    For the science of it, I’ve posted over 100 research studies to that link collection. Feel free to read the studies.

  18. nohellbelowus says

    @Cristina in #19:

    I’ve been getting this “PZ Myers made you do it!” crap too, for days now.

    Not even one widdle tentacle? I’ve seen cephalopods get into some very tight spots…

    (*I’ll get my coat.*)

  19. says

    Just a suggestion:

    I often read Pharyngula, especially the social justice feminism posts (hard to miss them) and I have heard of the ‘feminist(ism) link roundup’ before and now the ‘social justice roundup’, but I had no idea where to find them.

    No worries, I have found them:
    http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Feminist_link_roundup
    (which is titled ‘social justice link roundup’ but the URL still has the ‘feminist’ title.

    Thanks to all who put in the effort to make it. I will be reading it.

    After all that I suppose I should get around to the actual suggestion…. Which is: Make it Easier to Find, please! I say this because the people who should be reading it don’t know where it is and people who refer to it should actually link to it. I have seen references to it over a dozen times over the last few weeks and never a link.

    /rant

    I like Cristina’s video and the stuff she wrote on this. I am really glad she has ‘come around’ (as it were) because I was far less interested in her work after seeing some of her earlier videos on feminism. I will also recommend to the people I speak about this with to read Cristina’s blog on FtB along with all the others. It is good to have her back on the Light Side of the Force (or whatever.)

  20. says

    *yawn* @ tired old shit from MRAs. Feminism101’s website has a lot of stuff about the wage gap just for special cupcakes like them to argue with.

  21. Stevarious says

    So Christina mentions the wage gap in her blog, and a rush of MRA’s flood her blog to insist that the wage gap is perfectly fair because women aren’t as good as men at doing things?

    Doesn’t that really tell us everything we need to know about the people we’re arguing with?

  22. says

    I tried to post this last night:

    Just a suggestion:

    I often read Pharyngula, especially the social justice feminism posts (hard to miss them) and I have heard of the ‘feminist(ism) link roundup’ before and now the ‘social justice roundup’, but I had no idea where to find them.

    No worries, I have found them:
    http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Feminist_link_roundup
    (which is titled ‘social justice link roundup’ but the URL still has the ‘feminist’ title.

    Thanks to all who put in the effort to make it. I will be reading it.

    After all that I suppose I should get around to the actual suggestion…. Which is: Make it Easier to Find, please! I say this because the people who should be reading it don’t know where it is and people who refer to it should actually link to it. I have seen references to it over a dozen times over the last few weeks and never a link.

    /rant

    I like Cristina’s video and the stuff she wrote on this. I am really glad she has ‘come around’ (as it were) because I was far less interested in her work after seeing some of her earlier videos on feminism. I will also recommend to the people I speak about this with to read Cristina’s blog on FtB along with all the others. It is good to have her back on the Light Side of the Force (or whatever.)