Feminism chat thread II

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

Since it looks like the first chat thread is about to fill up, here's the next one all ready and waiting.

Think of it as the gated commune with babysitting on demand and gorgeous poolboys serving the drinks :o

I like FeMNists very much.

I have had a couple of people ask me recently "oh, so you're a feminist?" in this sort of half curious, half horrified tone.

I've found that the reponse "Of course! Why would I want to be a second class citizen?" works well, at least in terms of shutting them up :)

oh well it's not like taking cat urine samples is a traditionally male thing though is it - I'm sure there are lots of houses where the bloke would be terrified and his dw would have to do it

how? power of suggestion? :o

Thanks, everythingchangeseverything.
do you understand childcare vouchers & mat leave too, by any chance? (taking the p now)

I was listening to John Julius Norwich's talking about the Borgias yesterday morning and it got me thinking about the way 'evil' women are villified much more than 'evil' men. Lucretia Borgia was much less awful than her brothers in many ways and yet her name is the one that's got the notoriety - I doubt many people have even heard of Cesare Borgia or her other brothers.

And same with Myra Hindley whose name resonates much more than Ian Brady's. There's probably other examples if I can think of them. Is there something about being a psychotic murderer which is perceived as even more unnatural for a woman than it is for a man?

Sorry, that's a bit of any early morning ramble!

christine, there's a line from Carol Ann Duffy about Myra Hindley: "but I was the devil's wife / which was worse" or something like that. In The World's Wife.

I just had a female pest control officer (who extracted 3 dead rats from my bathroom & under my kitchen units MY GOD), & I kept biting my tongue from commenting. Oooh, I thought you would be a man! Wish DD had been home to see that it's not always a man...

Thanks iskra, I will have a look - I like Carol Ann Duffy (although I wish she wouldn't read her own poems aloud!). And at the rats!

I picked up the Evening Standard yesterday and there was a photo of a female fighter pilot leaving for Libya. I was thinking how nice it would be if the subs no longer felt obliged to state that the pilot was a woman and could just write 'a pilot'

I think the whole poem is called "The Devil's Wife" iirc. I used to looooove Carol Ann Duffy. I interviewed her for the school newspaper (& Jennie Murray) [smug]

My inlaws refer to "lady doctors" still.

"well of course it is only the best part of a hundred years since a woman first got a pilot's licence".

I think that's a bloody brilliant comeback, don't see how you could improve on that really!
it actually teaches them something and makes them think.

ousel - & how many years since a man first got a pilot's license?!

"The problem is, I am a ridiculous old buffer", confessed the Air Commodore, 97, "in fact due to my extremely outmoded belief I should probably make way for one of those bright gels coming through nowadays."

Is that what he said?

I don't like photos of models being airbrushed to give a "perfect", unachievable appearance.

If fashion photo airbrushers are going to airbrush, I think the very least they can do is take the time and trouble to make it look biologically credible or possible.

Here are some less than perfect examples of airbrushing of fashion models' photos which don't appear to meet that requirement.

ousel - someone I know was turned down by BA for being too short. Now she flies for a big name airline in the Middle East, funnily enough, flying exactly the same kind of planes that BA operate. Perhaps they've moved the pedals in the BA planes?