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

Evenin' all. Please excuse the lychee juice I'm getting everywhere.

I heard this on women's hour recently and was so upset I actually had to turn off. Horrific. Those poor women.

The whole of the rest of their lives in pain, because they are just vessels

Not to mention how many babies were damaged or died as a result of this procedure. But never mind, at least the women could make more.

I'd never heard of it before. Is there no end to the horrors men find acceptable to inflict on women's reproductive organs in the name of religion (or even without any religious "justification")?

Annie I remember another FWR poster talking about that before. It is barbaric, and one of the most upsetting things I've read

Warning - this is graphic and very unpleasant.

I have just read the most appalling thing I've read in a long time. From 1949 (going on until as late as 1987!), in Ireland doctors tried a new technique called a symphysiotomy to avoid Caesarian sections - because of course having a C-section limits the number of children a woman can safely have, and good Catholic women should have many children. It basically involved sawing the women's pelvis down the middle with a hacksaw to make more space for the baby. The women were not consulted before this was done to them. They did not consent and had no idea what was being done to them. Many did not receive adequate anaesthetic. They were left with damage ranging from from chronic pain to full incontinence to complete paralysis of their legs.

Survivors of the procedure have appealed to the UN Committee Against Torture and been awarded some redress. But these women were left literally broken. There can never be enough compensation.

PS it is totally a feminist thing that it is hard to navigate space, steps, buses etc with more than one toddler. tbh it is not necessarily the spaces that have to change, as much as our expectations and general willingness to help and accommodate (arguably)

I have been on the verge of completely bottling out of a full bus (in South London) and then instead, experienced what felt like physical space rearranging itself around me, due to people's understanding, willingness to help, and knowing what to do. Things just happened for me and around me and I found myself (a few times) in a seat with a baby on my lap, a toddler on the seat next to me, all the heavy bags in the luggage space and the buggy folded up alongside them. This happened on a bus that appeared to have absolutely zero space before all the kind and capable women on it took over.

Similarly I have been in objectively much easier situations and felt like crying because people were just being so shitty about the fact that I had two children, and bags, and only two arms, and there were a few obstacles, and so on, and people were just being utter shits about it. "What do YOU want me to do?" (I did not shout) "grow more arms? Give away my baby? WHAT?!"

(this is why I hate certain threads on mumsnet where I feel like people are ganging up on the exhausted woman instead of helping her like the blessed women on the bus)

Congratulations on the job, Annie! Surely you can try to ask them to accommodate you with whatever you need to do it from Cambridge? Easier said than done... but if the alternative is to politely decline, then what do you lose?

Artifex, you need the baby on your back in something like a mei tai. It is much much easier than front carrying. Take the buggy, load all the crap in it, let the big one walk as long as as he can and when he can't put the little one on your back.

www.google.co.uk/search?q=mei+tai&client=firefox-a&hs=748&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=uKi2VMXkCc_haq_PgagL&ved=0CCwQsAQ&biw=1313&bih=761#rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&tbm=isch&q=mei+tai+back+carry+

OR get a Phil and Ted as Puffin says

BUT if you get the Mei Tai (instead or as well) you will find it useful for a long time (my dd1 is 5 and a good walker, but dd2 is 3 and can still be carried in the mei tai, on occasion - it is very small and light to carry for emergencies)

It's not really an avenue I'd seriously considered (I'm not fond of children), but on a temp basis, sure, why not! They have apparently hired someone who is Not Very Good and need a fill-in.

Like buses! Are you interested in it?

Blimey, good day!!

In other news, a friend who is a science teacher at a private school has just offered me a job.....

I'm no teacher, but any port in a storm!

Yy, Buffy. Penguins, DS is 9 mo, but he was a month early so I think of him as 8 mo.

Annie, that sounds very frustrating.

(Sorry if I am being pushy...)

Even if you can't take the job, is there any work you can do for them piecemeal? Can you take the role on a from home basis until they make a permanent appointment?

Did you interview for this a while ago?

"But I'm such a junior there's no way any company would be making accommodations for me."

Please please don't assume this from the outset. I bet Mannie Lobeseder wouldn't

It was posted in Metro online of which its reporting is pretty ropey, but has come to light that an orthodox Jewish paper photoshopped all the women out of the unity march, crazy! found a bbc link -www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/30798061

Nope, I have small kids and we're moving so that I'm near to work with a short commute - I have spent the past 4 years neglecting my family and they come first now. Thanks for the ideas, they are good ones. But I'm such a junior there's no way any company would be making accommodations for me. Nor do I want them tbh - I hate long drives and commutes. I just needed to rant.

Yy kickass - I always think post birth so many people just think about the baby and not the adult who just went through a medical and/or physical ordeal.

Could you work it if you split time between the London Wall office, the Cambridge office and the Oxford office?