Bluestocking lock in!

Evening wimmin. I’m flying solo from now until Monday morning as OH is on night shifts. Hope I can hang out here a bit. Cracking open a bottle of Pinot Grigio a client got me as a thankyou, and trying to cheer myself up. But it feels like every day more of the same old shit - I can’t believe people are haranguing Rose McGowan for standing up for herself when that paedophile sex offender had a go at her about why wasn’t she campaigning for transwomen to be in female prisons when she was at a book store presenting her memoirs about her own fucking sexual abuse! Every time you think your mind is boggled and your flabber is well and truly gasted, something else comes up and new vocabulary is needed.

I should probably step away and focus on self care but I agree there is this masochistic urge to keep checking to see what they are saying.

Yup the dudebros on Twitter are utterly infuriating and so fucking sanctimonious, it could feel like being lectured by 100 different versions of Owen Jones .....shudders.....

Need another D&S now I think!

I shall be tucking into homemade salmon burgers with lime mayo on focaccia but your dinner sounds better, enjoy!!!!

It is, terry, a Spanish beer and my current favourite.

I do love twitter but Oh-Oh, the number of right-on lefty dudes telling women how to DO feminism really is extraordinary

On the wine now. Decided to leave the paella until tomorrow, making breaded pork escalopes and spicy tom linguine. I'm supposed to be being 'good' as I have a wedding later this month and don't want to have to buy a new dress, but my existing ones are are tight.

Tomorrow....

Is Estrella a beer Assigned cause it sounds like it should be a brand of hrt /contraceptive pill?

Enjoy your evening after what sounds like a bruising afternoon battling TAs...I can only go on Twitter very occasionally now as it had such a bad effect on my mh ( it's like opening a doorway into some kind of hell dimension) so I'll toast you with a Dark & Stormy.

Chin chin!

Giraffe, I withdrew from my course this week. Many reasons. A minor one was the hiring of a new assistant prof transwoman. A very talented artist, and I mean in no way to diminish that. It brought it home to me (and has been cemented by the Rose McGowan incident) that as a middle aged white woman there is no room for my voice in the academy, and that years of study on my part aren’t going to be enough. I can’t even find evidence that the new prof even has a masters or a PhD. I really want to celebrate this as a sign that the bloody ivory tower is finally letting in some light, but all I keep thinking is ‘wtaf am I putting myself through this for, when it isn’t going to be enough.’ I look at the other candidates and am just gutted for them. I just can’t do it. I slunk out quietly amid an absolute cacophony of joyous backslapping about how fabulous the department will be now. I feel mean and duplicitous. But most of all tired. So absolute kudos to you for keeping on fighting.

Have been on Mumsnet and twitter all day. Raging of behalf of Rose McGowan. Sometimes I despair.

So, opening an Estrella, then a Rioja. And making paella. Olé!

What struck me as most alarming was the lack of historical context. Second-wave feminists were shockingly mischaracterised as women who distinguished between sex and gender, but then ascribed all the feminine-gendered traits to women, and it took the brave post-structuralists to come along and say that not all women are like that (and that sex and gender are not separate, but gender is fluid? I didn't have time to pick that one apart and I've never been able to make much sense of Judith Butler)

This really boils my piss. It's not the lack of gender criticality that does it, it is the poor fucking scholarship. It's a lecture by someone who has not read up on some basic fucking history that is quite accessible and easy to read, but who had instead sprouted forth with a biased account that was likely derived second-hand that she didn't bother to check. I see this happen in many areas, not just in feminism. It's base, sloppy, anti-intellectual and oh-so-common with newer academics who have come through a dumbed-down academy where 'experiences' and 'feelings' matter and where they likely didn't see a primary text throughout their whole undergraduate degree. Good on you for challenging it.

I'd suggest bringing copies of Millett's Sexual Politics to class or 'Notes from the Third Year' or de Beauvoir's Second Sex to class and waving them around.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/3157092-1CREEPYMANSPLAINER2KIDS?pg=3

Has anyone seen this?

So a drag queen and self described 3/4 on the spectrum of womanhood has won Celebrity Big Brother under the the theme of Year of the Woman - celebrating 100 years of women getting the vote.

He's spent the last few weeks mansplaining feminism (very trans inclusive) to the other men in the house. None of whom thought to ask the numerous women in the house their thoughts. Why would you when you can just talk to a man in a dress.

I can't even be bothered starting a thread about this. Think I'll just have another . Pah! At least India didn't win I suppose.

I don't know how you all cope with Twitter. I'm find FB wearing enough.

I'm obviously some sort of emotional masochist can't stop prodding at the sheer level of anti-woman hatred on Twitter.

I know that feeling

It's exhausting isn't it. Especially when it's coming from all directions at once.

That'll do nicely!

Have had a pretty crap week work-wise, pretty crap week in my personal life, and because I'm obviously some sort of emotional masochist can't stop prodding at the sheer level of anti-woman hatred on Twitter.

Don't seem to have any mixers in sorry

Is it too early for a double gin? I've had enough of this week!

Serial namechanger but I'm a student who posted before about transactivists at my university and wanted to update. Recent lecture on 'gender' which took the view that gender stereotyping from infancy was what led to differences - not ladybrains. However, it was also suggested that the gendered messages we receive become part of our identities/we identify with them, and this wasn't looked at critically.

What struck me as most alarming was the lack of historical context. Second-wave feminists were shockingly mischaracterised as women who distinguished between sex and gender, but then ascribed all the feminine-gendered traits to women, and it took the brave post-structuralists to come along and say that not all women are like that (and that sex and gender are not separate, but gender is fluid? I didn't have time to pick that one apart and I've never been able to make much sense of Judith Butler)

To be fair, the lecturer was very receptive to me challenging this and explaining that second-wave feminists fought against gender stereotyping and patriarchal dualisms! But I'm unusual as being a younger woman who read second-wave feminist books in my teenage years - if I hadn't spoken up, many students without prior knowledge might have had entirely the wrong impression about the movement. There was also then the criticism that all second-wavers were white middle class women who completely ignored class and race issues - there was no time to discuss that, as it would have been a derail. The lecturer (who is very good, and no personal criticism is intended) did agree with me that historically women were oppressed on the basis of sex, not gender.

Next week: lecture by a transactivist.

Here’s a cheering story - transactivists ‘reported’ an author to her publisher for her gender critical opinions on Twitter - and the publisher supported her publicly

While this is excellent, and I'm sure that Excalibur ARE very keen on free speech, you'd have thought that those reporting the author (Nora Calder) to the publisher (founder: Tina Calder) might have noticed that the publisher could possibly be motivated by more than free speech concerns....

Hairy, I see the women in the painting as adult women too
It makes me uncomfortable because it's the same old "hurray, man and naked women". I wasn't thinking for a moment that they were underage!

I happen to love that painting and have not yet decided what I think about its removal. I think if you are going to do something like that you need to provide some structure for debate, rather than just let it happen. There are also layers and layers of context, including that most artists are male (although there were a few prominent pre-raphaelite women) and even pictures or sculptures of naked men were created by men - hence David's small genitals considering his size - they have made him quite 'feminine' in many ways. And, of course, this is all about power and money. I'd like to see some of the debate centre on that and not just on prepubescent tits. Having said that, I believe that the model for Waterhouse's Ophelia actually died as a result of pneumonia exacerbated by being asked to lie in a cold bath for hours on end (but I haven't rumour checked that).

I agree Quentin. They've got a nice long word to wave around that they haven't a clue about so they've made up their own inane definition.

It was so creepy as well. "Why did you have to go and stick a wee anti trans dig in".