Feminist Pub 17: The Bluestocking frolics in the fells and fens of feminism

Gosh, everyone's feeling rather battered I think.

Luckily I have 3 cauldrons here with chicken soup, sweet tea and brandy.

Can I just sit quietly in the corner this evening? I don't think I have the capacity for any coherent contribution to a discussion at the moment.

I know what you mean Cosmic. It's like reading the comments on any vaguely feminist news article. The futile rage that fills me is very hard to cope with. I usually rant at DH about it and he tells me not to read it. But then I think sometimes of that quote about the only thing evil needs to flourish is for good (wo)men to do nothing (I paraphrase) so occasionally I try to read it. Then start dreaming about starting my own micro nation where bigots and violent nasty people are excluded!

I do avoid those kinds of dicussions most of the time, Subtlety, but got drawn in to reading it last night. Couldn't look away. I am not robust enough to even read that kind of rage for very long, and I don't consider myself especially delicate. It really affected me.

Glad you liked it Buffy

Hope your day improves Buffy.

Interview went ok, I think. I felt like I talked too much? And I wish I'd given a few more specific examples. But we'll see I guess.

Post interview adrenaline rush has led to me eating a huge cream bun, feel a bit sick now.

Cosmic that's more or less why I stay away from ideology discussions on twitter - too much yelling and too many extreme views that I can't imagine anyone expressing to another person in real life (I hope anyway).

In other news, has anyone seen this? Depressing.

Thanks Knickerful. I was up too late last night reading incredibly unsettling twitter threads around That Letter. I eventually unfollowed all the feminist people because, frankly, it's just so horrible. White male person telling black female lesbian person to get over her cis priviledge and also that discussing FGM or anything related to female reproductive systems is cissexist. I would quite like to pluck his eyelashes.

Sorry to blurt this all out here. I am usually only a lurker on these boards, but I haven't got anywhere else to say this!

I got a letter the other day about my annual pay rise. A whole seventy pence a week! I'm not sure what to spend such riches on, but it won't be the sketchpads I saw the other day labelled "for girls" and "for boys". Girls grip the pencil with their vaginas, while boys use their prehensile penises?

Please may I come in? I've just been on twitter and all the shouting has made me miserable.

Ooh. Nice fire!

An inglenook's basically a girt big fireplace that you can sit in.

www.willkemp.com/Inglenook.JPG

(Actually, I'm not sure you can always sit in them. But the sort of chimney you could have sent a child up before Shaftesbury decided that was a bad idea.)

I am not actually sure I know what an inglenook is. I know of them from Anne of Green Gables, but ...

Thanks. I don't like craft ale but I like inglenooks. I nearly bought a house purely for the inglenook until I came to my senses and realised it had little else going for it

Sorry to hear that, petula.

Come and join me and penguins in the inglenook with the craft ale (or something).

It sounds depressing.

That too. If you've got a high-performing team, they're likely to be working well together so all them achieves more than they could as individuals - and a manager isn't likely to point out that his team doesn't perform well, because that reflects badly on him. It would be more okay if there are objective goals and measurements, but quite often there aren't. We've got one this year about showing a good attitude - well, fine, but how do you measure that without biases getting in the way especially in our department? How can you measure something like that objectively?

IME performance-related pay meant very little when it came to actual numbers, because each department was given a finite pot of money to be shared across all salaries. So if you had a high-performing team they would get less of a share each than the few highest performers (who might be performing well below the level of the high-performing team) of a below average team. It was such bollocks

Right, that's my assignment done, it was like pulling teeth. Why do they give such vague bloody titles for things? 500 of the hardest words ever... bah!

And performance related pay sucks ass... especially for unquantifiable things. I agree with EBear, it really does depend on how well you put yourself across to your line manager and how well you get on.

Feeling surprisingly glum after failing to get a thing I applied for at work that I didn't expect to get anyway. it's not a feministy thing at all though. Got useful and constructive feedback but feel like they were disappointed with my performance and I am too, despite the fact that I didn't expect to get it. Maybe that was the problem?

Can I have gin please? I tried in RL and regretted my choice.

Oh, performance-related pay is just such rot. It's way more dependent on who you get on with or not, rather than your actual performance, not to mention be given opportunities to perform. They need to insist on pay audits across companies. I wonder how that bill's getting on...

And a packet of Nobby's.

I'll have a nice glass of red please.

Pint of craft ale? G&T? Cider?