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Original poster

February 29th - that boring hackneyed old crap again

81 replies

LineRunner · 29/02/2012 09:05

I've just switched the Breakfast News over, as it's now on its second report of the day on manicures, only to find ITV's equivalent is having a rather large and silly segment on 'ladies popping the question'. With a psychologist. And, for some inexplicable reason, Michael Portillo. (Will he now go on anything?)

Does anyone really care who proposes to whom and when? Is it just me who finds this stuff tediously whimsical and infantilising?

To even pretend that women 'get the upper' hand in crucial social and economic relationships once every four years is shallow and specious, I reckon.

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Original poster
LineRunner · 29/02/2012 17:52

Jericho, Re: the careers advisor. That's just ... I mean, on how many levels is that wrong?

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JerichoStarQuilt · 29/02/2012 14:43

Well done for insisting on that linerunner!

That's shocking, isn't it, that it hadn't seemed obvious to them before.

Incidentally, about jobs and marriage - my mate is job hunting and was told by a careers advisor to leave off her wedding ring as it 'makes people worry you might have children' Angry

Original poster
LineRunner · 29/02/2012 14:38

I think now that the pressure is really on for PhD completion in three years, the discrepancy could get worse not better.

Some years ago I was part of the group of academics that forced a rethink of grant awards by various bodies to the 'under-28s' or 'under-30s' category. The only exception to the age categories was medical absence from academia. When we argued that this indirectly discriminated againt women who had had time off for childbirth, we were at first told that they would consider pregnancy as illness. We said, No way. You are saying that what is normative is male.'

Anyway, cut a long story short, there were changes; but yet the real issues of time and availability (for married women/mothers) persist.

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JerichoStarQuilt · 29/02/2012 14:30

VG - to be fair, mine may also be anecdotal. I got it from a social scientist.

I just find it so depressing that the same expectations crop up everywhere - getting together with a nice educated type doesn't actually do anything.

I will admit, it hasn't occurred to me to joke about needing a wife - I just come on here, rant about DH being an insufficient DH, and try to take on board advice how to make him better. He is the most supportive male partner in my social circle, which is depressing.

The stuff the author of Wifework says, about how she got married and suddenly found herself falling into a pattern that didn't apply when she co-habited, really seems true too, IMO.

VictorGollancz · 29/02/2012 13:54

Jericho It's anecdote-tastic, but every single partnered male PhD student I knew either had kids when they started or had them during the PhD process. In sharp contrast, all the women I knew conceived within a year of completing - there was a bout of post-PhD babies!

It was that which truly drove home to (childfree) me the different impact having children has on the parents. It was inconceivable to the women (all of whom had partners/husbands) that one could have children and complete postgraduate study. It would simply have been impossible. Though I'm sure having children affects men deeply, either the male students hid their concerns completely or it had very little impact on their work life.

I've never met a female PhD student that doesn't joke about needing a 'wife'...

JosieRosie · 29/02/2012 13:25

Grin - will use that on DP later

Original poster
LineRunner · 29/02/2012 13:25

(For anyone just joining this thread, we are discussing the transmission of stupid cultural ideas via various forms of agency in a post-modern world.)

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Original poster
LineRunner · 29/02/2012 13:23

And there are also lots of people screaming these days about being ON NATIONAL TELEVISION.

You'll have to practice that.

DC: What's on the box tonight, Mum? Anything good?
Mum: What, ON NATIONAL TELEVISION, you ask? I don't know. I'll just check the NATIONAL TELEVISION guide.

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JosieRosie · 29/02/2012 13:15

No, never seen it LineRunner. Agree - totally beyond parody. Unmissable TV in my house though Hmm

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LineRunner · 29/02/2012 13:08

Do you remember when Jennifer Saunders did her spoof, Vivienne Vile? It didn't really work out as well as her stuff usually does, probably because Jeremy Kyle is beyond parody.

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JosieRosie · 29/02/2012 13:05

Grin. I've heard lots of adults talk about 'PUTTING SOMETHING ON THE END OF IT' in bellowing tones - wonder where they could have got that from????

Original poster
LineRunner · 29/02/2012 13:00

It's serious stuff, though, Josie.

I once heard of an academic argument on the rapid travel of children's chants around the country with no apparent outside agency other than the children themselves. The main chant/song used as an exemplar was 'One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl....'

The silly arse author clearly didn't know it was the theme song for Magpie - a massive children's programme at the time. More time in front of the box needed for that social scientist, methinks.

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JosieRosie · 29/02/2012 12:55

Brilliant LineRunner! And now I have something to say to DP when he asks why I'm watching/listening to this bloody crap stuff Grin

Original poster
LineRunner · 29/02/2012 12:53

Think of it as Zeitgeist 101, JosieRosie.

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JosieRosie · 29/02/2012 12:50

I'm another who has to watch Loose Women if I'm at home. I loathe it but I just can't help it. It's the same reason why I watch Jeremy Kyle, listen to LBC and the Jeremy Vine show Hmm

Original poster
LineRunner · 29/02/2012 12:44

Trills Grin I am kind of drawn in to Loose Women like a moth to a flame. I often have it on in the background when dealing with routine emails. Jane McDonald's on now doing a special proposal piece.

Thanks for the comment, GetOrf. It has helped being able to articulate a few things here, on February 29th!

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JerichoStarQuilt · 29/02/2012 12:40

I was told a really annoying bit of info the other day about marriage - there's this statistic kicking around about how postgraduate students who're married finish, on average, faster than unmarried ones (yay, go marriage!), and this is usually explained as the result of nice kindly supportive spouses providing financial help and encouragement. OTOH, postgraduate students with children (married or not) finish more slowly (not surprisingly). What pissed me off was that if you take into account the gender of students, the married/non-married effect is like this:

Fastest: married male students without children
Next: male and female unmarried students without children
Next: married female students without children
Next: male students with children
Next: female students with children.

I am sure this isn't surprising to anyone but it pissed me off anyway.

GetOrfMoiiLand · 29/02/2012 12:32

Christ line what a shitty situation you had.

I did laugh in your OP re Micahel Portillo.

Trills · 29/02/2012 12:30

A tip: don't watch This Morning or Loose Women.

It's much better for your blood pressure.

Original poster
LineRunner · 29/02/2012 12:26

I think it always happens - detriment - where there are children, as judges don't seem to understand the concept of potential loss of earnings, loss of promotion and loss of ability to take up career-enhancing opportunties (late meetings, early starts, overnight conferences, trips abroad) when one is a lone parent.

Anyway, the joyous news is that 'Women Can Propose To Men Today' is being covered on This Morning and will be covered shortly on Loose Women.

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KRITIQ · 29/02/2012 11:23

Only if you don't get taken to the cleaners, which does sometimes happen.

Nyac · 29/02/2012 10:59

Divorce is definitely a woman's friend.

Original poster
LineRunner · 29/02/2012 10:53

Also, as marriage clearly isn't forever any more, I would like to see pre-nuptual agreements becoming the norm.

I'd also like the tax situation made fairer. For example, more men than women are NRPs. I understand that NRPs (mostly men) pay child support calculated on earnings after tax, NI, pension construbutions etc. OTOH, most lone parents are woman and very dependent on childcare in order to work. In my current work, if I claim a necessary childcare payment for doing an unsociable-hours late meeting, the childcare reimbursement - even if paid directly to the babysitter - is regarded by HMRC as income and I pay tax on it and it leads to a reduction in tax credits eligibility. Now that's what I call a structural inequality.

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MooncupGoddess · 29/02/2012 10:49

I'm with you on this, Crunchy - I find our society's obsession with lifelong monogamy, and the idealisation of the couple bond, very alienating. And baffling.

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LineRunner · 29/02/2012 10:44

Ah yes, CrunchyFrog, I am positively aflame with gratitude. Can you tell?

My favourite moment post-divorce was when ExH asked if I would be sending the children to private school, as 'they deserved the opportunity'. He was paying £20 a week at the time and I had just lost my much-loved university job because I couldn't do the hours/childcare mix.

Actually looking back I think ExH and the then girlfriend behaved the way they did because they were in denial over what they had brought about. I was meant to be 'fine' because they were so guilty. That might also explain why his parents wouldn't lift a finger to help. That would have meant them acknowledging what their son had done. Explains a lot.

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