Feminist Pub XX - may the summer rains wash the patriarchy down the plughole

Hello all, I'm new in these parts but I've been lurking for a while and I really like what you've done with the place I've posted on other parts of the site, but had to NC after the hacking. Anyhoo, I hope it's OK if I launch my career here with a MASSIVE feminist-flavoured rant? I thought it might belong in the pub as I'm a newbie so not 100% sure I should dive in with starting a thread.

I live in France and have a joint account with my husband with an international bank here. I kept my own name on marriage - let's say we are known as Jane Smith and John Jones. The bank account was opened in the names of M. John Jones and Mme Jane Smith (don't start me on the lack of availability of a "Ms" style option here - a separate rant for another time). I ran out of cheques and ordered us two new chequebooks, which I need quite regularly as they are still very reliant on cheques here (yet another rant for yet another time, but I digress).

When I went to use the new cheques today, I was horrified to see that the new cheques are in the name "M. ou Mme John Jones", and when I went to check the account, they have changed it to that on there too!! WTAF??? Previous chequebook is for M John Jones ou Mme Jane Smith, so what on earth has happened here?

It would have been bad enough if they'd just arbitrarily decided that my name should be Jane Jones, but they have ENTIRELY fucking erased me from existence, and I have no idea when or why this happened! It's like I've been teleported back to the 1920s, and I am INCANDESCENT.

I phoned the bank and put a rocket up them and I am promised a phone call from my account manager this week to explain, so I await with interest their explanation. You'd think in 2015 bank systems could cope with married couples being called different things without it being an issue, but apparently not. My best guess is some sort of background system change has happened and when they've done their data migration, the M option overrides Mme if the names differ. In which case I call SEXIST BOLLOCKS.

Grrrrrrrr! Feel better for getting that off my chest.

Inicked

Thank you steady. I was suprised that they resigned 1-1 last, I always assumed they'd be designed in order

The Life museum in Newcastle has a GameOn exhibition, lots of fun, all the older consoles are set up for people to play, with lots of info on history, sales, game design etc, it was very nostalgic playing on the Commodore. Felt old though. Dd couldn't believe you used to load games from a cassette!

It's a great day out if you're near Newcastle. Think the game exhibit is on til mid October, but there's lots to do in the rest of the museum (we spent the whole day on the consoles though :) )

Thank you INicked!

I'll ask DC for a link to a mad person who dresses up as Mario and throws bananas on the road while tearing round corners in a car.

good excuse to get back in the pub. seen , INickedAName?

MarioMaker is brilliant. To be honest, we only got the wii u for the Mario Titles,

You make your own levels, there's a good tutorial to give you the basics, but it's not difficult. You start with the green pipes, fire flowers etc available and then the more you play, newer themed items become accessible like boo house stuff, which at first I wasn't keen about, but it stops you being overwhelmed with a load of stuff at once, you can create levels in 8bit style, or the newer 3d style. Then you can upload them for players around the world to play.
You can also play levels that other users have uploaded, they range from simple, to very complex, there's some talented designs. I like to play created levels, wheras dd likes to create them. You basically have a Mario game that never ends.
You can get the wii u bundled with the limited edition version of Mario maker which includes the Mario maker amiibo (they are a collectable Nintendo figure that when placed on the gamepad, unlock stuff like costumes,weapons,extra lives etc in various games, a bit lit Skylanders but cooler in my opinion)
Dd traded her old psp in so we only paid £15 for the limited edition game (would have been £0 if they had the normal edition). If you do pick up a wii u, I'd recommend the latest Mario kart too, any Mario game really, Splatoon is lots of fun too.
Apologies for bad grammar, I got excited talking about Mario :)

INicked for your mum.

On a separate note:

MarioMaker! Tell me about it! All our gaming devices are hopelessly out of date and I'm contemplating a New Toy and MarioMaker looks really attractive.

I've decided today I'm doing fuck all, I'm going to bring dds wii u downstairs and play MarioMaker and I won't feel guilty for it.

My Mum has gone off in the caravan for a week, she's in the middle of her marriage breaking down and she really really needs some time alone because she's making herself ill working all sorts of hours and doing everything at home on top, while her husband watches! She's got the the "fuck it" point and has stopped doing things for him, and fucked off for a week alone. She seperated finances months ago so for the first time in years she has her own money, she's much more thrifty than her dh so has some spare cash and can afford to treat herself. I worry about her being alone, and wanted to bring her home with me, but I think it's something she needs to do for herself, so that she can stop and reflect in what she wants, because neither her or her dh are happy, I dont think he likes the change in her since she started earning, he's no longer her only focus and she's put him first for so long I think she's forgot his to be herself if that makes sense. I'm massively proud of her.

Hello everyone! What have I missed?

I've been working all the hours under the sun.

Thunderhead = sequel to My Friend Flicka, which i loved as a kid.

How's the thesis going?

Hahaha.

First week of term at my uni and am involved in a lot of welcome events so it's currently giving me panda eyes most of the time whilst I prep for those. Also got my first article back from peer review and editors want it back ridiculously soon the same time as my current chapter is due. Also having a bit of an existential crisis regarding academia as a whole which isn't helping with the motivation levels.

BUT the chapter I'm working on is fun and features some utterly barking mad historical characters, who brighten up my day when I finally get to doing some 'real' work.

Really good luck with 1 and about 2. Hope your thoughts coalesce and your changes go well.

or or , Buffy?

DH has bronchitis and has been coughing all night long for the past week. Selfishly this means that I'm sleep deprived whilst doing most of the cooking in the middle of one of my busiest weeks of the year!

Me too Buffy. Is there anything in particular making you tired?

Jordanne Whiley won the us open wheelchair tennis title. Go her!

I was thinking that sounded familiar!

Although it doesn't contain swing door saloons and six shooters (because it's set in the 20th century), Mary O'Hara's "Thunderhead" would fit the bill quite nicely as it's set on a horse ranch in Wyoming. Although it's the sequel to a children's horse story, it is more for adults really and very well written. The main plot is about a boy and his horse but a lot of it describes his mother Nell. Her character is well developed and a lot of the story describes her thoughts about her relationship with her husband Rob and the difficulties in their marriage caused by financial worries with the ranch (very realistically done) and his proud,uncompromising attitude. It also deals well with the father/son relationship and Nell trying to get her husband to come to terms with the traits in his son that Rob doesn't like (dreaminess, not being "man" enough). There is also a good bit about Nell herself, her thoughts about the land, the horses and the future - she's not just in the book as mother/wife, but as a person in her own right. I didn't like the book much when I was 12 as I just wanted a pony story, but I re-read it recently and thought it was very good. You don't have to have read the first book, My Friend Flicka (which is slightly more of a children's pony story) to read Thunderhead, and you don't really have to like horses to read it either I would think.

Not westerns but Louise Erdrich and Susan Power write about contemporary issues affecting North American Indian/ Native Americans

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Erdrich

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Power

(Although both tend to be of the beautifully written but what actually happened genre?)

There's a website I found yesterday,
WomenWritingTheWest

I'm not sure if it will be any use but the website is an interesting read.

There's a brief mention of cowboys in Wilder, but more of American Indians, but she cut out most of the real wild west stuff, because she thought it was too nasty for children.

Western as a genre tends to mean cowboys and saloons etc. Although, technically, anything about the west as it expanded could count. So any pioneer tales would do, although they wouldn't be 'pure' westerns.