Feminist Pub 14: The Bluestocking, a place for feminist chat and feminists to chat

I don't know either.

The only "reason" I can think of is this: Well, my daughter/son is a proper girl/boy and this is what she/he likes! It works for us (and therefore for all right-thinking people). It's natural FGS. Stop fighting nature! You are doing them a disservice because this is what all their peers (which of course consist only of people of the same sex) like - you don't want them left out or bullied!

Still doesn't explain anything though ... It's a mystery.

Oh, and I suppose there's always the risk that their sons will catch "the gay" from a lego set which includes a female minifigure, or worse still, that their daughters will grow up into hairy, dungaree wearing lesbian feminists if they inadvertently buy them a toy train.

Dunno, Artifex. The only answer I've ever seen given is "well it will take me a whole extra minute to do my online Christmas shopping for my granddaughter if I actually have to search out the pink glittery shit amid the khaki violent shit without having a one click button which will do that search for me." Apparently this is more important than me being able to do my Christmas shopping and buy a toy castle for great niece and nephew which contains both male and female characters.

Question for you all. On threads about gender neutrality in toys or books, there are always people who push back against not labeling things 'for girls' or 'for boys' on the grounds that it doesn't matter. But if it doesn't matter to them, why do they care so much that other people to whom it does matter do something about it? I mean no one is trying to take their toys away or prevent them buying stuff. Can any of you explain this to me?

He's said a number of times "I believed myself to be a good guy, but I see now I wasn't. I can't believe my attitude, I can't believe what I've done."

Awareness is such a difficult battle, is he struggling with it a great deal cailin? It can be hard to manage those moments of awareness when the realisation hits you. Many, many people hide the truth from themselves, because seeing the reality of a situation would rock the very foundations of their world. It is much easier for them to manage their lies to themselves, than to face the truth that would benefit them so, so, so much more.

hoppy That's a great book. V. comforting.

I guess nobody understands everything, and it took me years before seeing clearly how things are, but it's the "yeah but no but" attitude that is the difference, I suppose.

upto I actually won a copy of that book on MN for submitting a picture of DS!

DH is a good guy, and always open to learning and reflection, and has battled a lot of gender stereotypes and had his own struggles with what masculinity really means, and sometimes he still just doesn't get it.

I said to DH too that we call these people "nice" when they have sexist opinions towards women when we would not have called them "nice" if they held racists opinions. Because women don't matter.

"I want to shake all these so-called nice men and tell them that they are all shit underneath and they don't even know it"

That's essentially what I've (unintentionally) done to my DH LordCopper. It's been weird but also interesting (in a difficult, emotional way) to see him come to terms with his own behaviour and to see how off his attitudes have been. He's said a number of times "I believed myself to be a good guy, but I see now I wasn't. I can't believe my attitude, I can't believe what I've done." It's been extremely hard for him. I can see why other men resist it so much.

I want to shake all these so-called nice men and tell them...

Gosh LordC, I want to do a lot more than that - I want to give them a verbal lashing that they will likely never recover from, which will leave them cowering and scarred for life. But I need an income as well

So they are shit and stupid.

I want to shake all these so-called nice men and tell them that they are all shit underneath and they don't even know it.

hoppy DS2 bought this book last year at the grand old age of 8 and was greatly amused.

Not feminism related, but can I just say; threenagers. Aaaaarrrrggghhh!

I cut the bagel up wrong, apparently. And his whole life is OVER.

Upto I hope my doors would open somewhere sunny. I am sick of the flipping DARKNESS. Still, only a month till the shortest day .

Thanks for that link about BPAS. I hope MN do support the campaign.

WRT work Zazzles and upto..I also love my job and the 2 people I work for, and all the people I work with.

However all the other women apart from one are admin staff. There are only 2 female professional staff and the other will be retiring soon. That kind of tells a tale on its own.

I'm not looking forward to my direct bosses retiring/leaving - one of the directors who'd be likely to become my boss is great and supportive on an individual level, but then comes out with comments like "here come the Witches of Eastwick" when, for ONCE, an all-female team from one of our suppliers comes in for a meeting. AARRRAAGGHHHHHHH.

Oh and Annie I meant not about your interview- I was on my phone and pressed the wrong icon!

Thanks puffin for the link.

Zazzles I love my job and where I work, but even with all these nice people (mostly men) around me I've just realised (how thick can one be!) that I can almost tick all the boxes in the list of how professional women are treated. It makes me so angry. I haven't had it out with some people yet because I'm scared I'll cry with anger.

Have you seen this thread about whether MNHQ should support BPAS in calling for buffer zones around abortion/women's health clinics?

Hello all, its early evening where I am, so I have gotten stuck into the sparkling moscato here (Wine, oh how I've missed you! ).

Is there any company out there in which it isn't a shit fight to work in? This week, the fucking incompetent men that I work with have pushed and pushed to get a certain job that they want me to do, done. And I have realised that my manager, who I thought was lovely, is in reality, a sexist pig. I complained to him that the job these incompetent men wanted me to do was worth about $130-150K/year, when the biggest products in my portfolio are worth between $1-10m per year. That lead to me coining the rather memorable phrase "I don't get out of bed for less than $1m a year in sales."

The worst thing was when I was explaining how worthless the proposed 'job' was, I got the head-tilty, waffly, man-splainy bullshit that men use to back each other up. FML (fuck my life)

yy definitely

In my area I've only ever seen mention of things that didn't work if they actually finally found a way to make things work, and often only the Big Names do that. But for every result that work there must be quite a few that didn't...

there are methodology journals (or sort-of-journals - they aren't always in standard format), but they tend to publish tweaks and improvements to current methodologies IME

I agree - a journal of "we tried this and it didn't work and we tried that and it didn't work" would be actually really useful. And that would let other people know that life is not as straightforward as they tell you in school. Especially in the mathematical sciences where people always say "but isn't there just a right and wrong answer"...