Feminist Pub 16: where the Bluestockings develop armoured stockings to deal with the thousand paper cuts

Fab!

Yay for Dr Buffy, the reasonable feminist.

Not a big one for Buzzfeed, but sometimes they come up with a corker. I give you If Hermione Were The Main Character In “Harry Potter”

Poor Buffy.

Sofa soft? Fire pretty?

Nap good...

Well done DrBuffy YAY!!!!

This is a rather fine pub, and you lot do talk a lot, there's a lot of interesting stuff to read.

Yay for DrBuffy.

See - I use 'I think' if I don't know, and just state the fact if I DO know (or at least, believe that I know, which may or may not be the same thing.) I also teach students to write papers that sound confident and knowledgeable - state facts, don't prevaricate.

What really drives me mad is when I say something very clearly, like 'put that there' (with pointing to the place) and someone says 'are you sure? did you think about?"

I tend to just stare at them until they finish, then repeat the exact instruction again, to make sure that they got the message.

Last time we moved house, 3 of the unpacking team were great, but there was another younger guy who kept asking a second time, or saying 'what about'. I ended up giving one or two word commands to him, e.g. "upstairs, bedroom 2" with NO attempt at politeness at all, until he got the message that yes, I did know exactly where I wanted my furniture in my house.

I'm really good at speaking clearly and meaning what I say without 'fluffiness'. Men are not always nearly as good at listening.

Ooh. Dr Buffy. Well done

ha ha! love "they got the doctorate out"

Big huge bottles of champagne for dr buffy

Oh I don't doubt it's nuture. Will check out the book.

That's great Buffy

All hail Dr Buffy, the Officially Awesome!

I just got revolution for 99p off eBay - result! As for the way women communicate I totally agree. You can train yourself to make statements like men do. I think or I feel are ime perceived as passive.

You can.

Well, forgive me, but isn't it obvious it's nurture?!

Women tend to write "I think, it seems to me, in my opinion" type statement more often whereas men tend to write "It is, it will, the situation is" statements more often.

You remember in the last pub I was reading Revolution From Within by Gloria Steinem? Well, when she went to a reunion of some of her old friends from there they, to a woman, said "It is, I will, etc". They were all blue collar workers who'd spent their working lives in jobs surrounded by men who they treated as equals.

At the reunion of her college friends they all, to a woman, said "I think, it seems to me, etc", and the vast majority of them had left college and married men with well paid white collar jobs which didn't require the household to have a second income.

So it's nurture not nature. Fwiw, I tend to use both sets of sayings.

I recommend the book btw, it's written in a really conversational style but makes you think.

Thanks for the shiny new pub Fib, it's lush.

Yes, that is fucking shocking.

I struggle with this issue TBH. I had a wonderful female mentor very early in my career who handed my first self-appraisal back to me and told me to re-write it. I was shocked, and at only 21 not a little upset, because I was a good student and no-one had ever done that to my work. Then she told me I was too equivocal. Too tentative. I was 'quite good at' X and said I had weaknesses in Y. She said (in a more finessed way than I am about to) that no fucker in business would read something I'd written where I was all modest and understand to interpret it. I had to be blunt, and to the point, and not downplay myself. I had to say that my strengths were X and that I never had weaknesses, just areas I would like to focus on developing.

It was a valuable lesson. Yes, in some ways it pandering to the patriarchy as it's seen as a 'man style', but I don't think that you can separate that from the fact that women are conditioned to be modest. I was so shell shocked I never really thanked her, but I think about her quite a lot. She did me a big favour.

Fucking hell. I would be threatening with HR and the union and everything else for gender discrimination. Are there really such idiots?

I know - sorry - I didn't mean to direct my disgruntlement at you!

Complain...yes...I'd love to. But the thing is, they'd be handling my new application as well! So I think I might have to hold fire with that for the moment.

Oh, I wasn't disagreeing with you, poofus, more with the idiocy (as well as the sexism) of them using that term.

Is there any way to complain?