The Feminist Pub is Open - Chat, Rant, or pull up a chair here!

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

This thread started when we all decided to imagine what the perfect local for feminists would be like. So far, it has taps with plenty of good real ale, and some decent non-alcoholic alternatives too. There are comfy chairs and there's a feminist film night, as well as lots of nice feminist-friendly books on the shelves and space to curl up and read. The open-mic nights are attracting feminist singers and comedians, and we're just sorting out the feminist creche.

Please come along, draw up a stool, and have a good chat about whatever you fancy - as serious or as trivial as you like.

For starters, I have a half-pint of lemonade. What can I get anyone?

Brains are basically plastic. They change according to the environment and influences. Generally research in brain studies between women and men show very small differences. But what these researchers rarely say, is that there can be even greater differences in brains between people brought up in different countries.

I worked in a nursery for a short while. Parents used to say about how girls and boys were so naturally different even though they treated them the same. As an outsider, it was obvious that they treated their girl and boy child very differently. I am not saying they did this on purpose, although some parents do. But a lot of it is unconscious.

Cordelia Fine's book, Delusions of Gender is great at debunking the idea taht women and men naturally behave differently.

Well you could be right pacific
I often believe I lack the skills I'm meant to have for tHis life tbh.
But a part of me also thinks it makes sense. I must read more about this.
I work with women. I like women. I sort of think we are special.
Anyway. That is not scientific at all. And I am well overdue some sleep.

Goodnight all. Sorry about the GFs.

Blimey, you've been a chatty bunch tonight. Just took me 20 minutes and now you're all off to bed. I think I shall pour myself a rl drink, and start reading my homework for this week.

2 comments in response to this evening's musings: I both love and loathe feminist theory. Having plowed through papers on performanceability as opposed to preformability, I think that some of it is ponce tastic beyond belief. But I love how it make me think, and that I realise I am not alone in my mad musings.

And one thing I am sure that toddler boys do more than toddler girls is playing with their penises.

How right you are kickass I have 2 boys and they play with each others penises.

my DS does like his willy. He is a bit concerned that dd doesn't have one.
I worry he might already be projecting penis envy. I still have to explain to dh that she (and I for that matter) have our own "bits" not merely an area devoid of willy.

sorry for drive-by posting, but did anyone else see the global gender gap report 2013

i thought it was very interesting, and worth remembering that 'most equal' does NOT mean 'equal' (despite the friendly green colour)

RE Plasticity- A good friend is involved in post doctoral research on plasticity. I will hound her for some latest findings to share with you all soon. I love talking with her and am trying to persuade her to go into local schools to talk to both boys and girls about her work. She is a wonderful role model.

An area of interest for me is the influence of Gender in the way MH therapies gain popularity traction as best practice. Are Men conditioned to find the problem solving nature of CBT more appealing and asides from short term cost savings, is that one of the reasons why it dominates our practice when other approaches (Mindfulness,DBT/CAT to name a few) are so clearly more appropriate for many clients of both sexes?

All MH therapies have to be evidenced based and approved by NICE. There have been lots of trials of CBT, but not other types because they are new or nobody has funded a trial.

"personally, I would like to raise the annoying point that in (real) local pubs, I cannot think of a single real ale that's advertised to women"

Hooray, that makes me enjoy drinking it even more! In fact, can we have a pub with no advertising at all in it? Lists of beers and cakes, with prices and descriptions, and that's it? Maybe pictures of the cake.

AmandaClarke - As they have sisters, my two DD's are the opposite. DD1 (aged 4) saw DH naked the other day and said "Dadddy, what that?" in a slightly appalled voice.

Penguins

Grennie

I am an RMN but just musing on the fact that CBT could be described as appealing to 'traits stereotyped as predominately male'.

CBT is used in most CMHTs because it can be prescribed as a ten to twelve week course and is commensurate with the short term cost/goal approachof the funding bodies. It is not as successful nor appropriate as many are led to believe (although it can work wonders). I am CAT, Thorn, DBT and TA trained but most trusts do not want to fund such therapies despite sending you on the courses.

I would love to have more to read on placicity mignonette

I will be back when i have picked her brains Ghost. I usually see her in social/party situations with lots of cross talk so hard to extract information thatI can recall with any great detail but it is so fascinating. She is especially interested in how mental health problems can change or influence the workings of our brains so we have professional chiming going on.

Yes mignonette, I know sadly it is all about money. And that short term therapies are the ones thus preferred.

In terms of plasticity, I have heard that neurosurgeons laugh at the idea of a female or male brain. I have read a fair bit about this. This link summarises it.

www.kavlifoundation.org/science-spotlights/columbia-kibs-fantastic-plastic-brain

Whenever I have seen people quoting research that says otherwise, it has always either been old studies that have been shown not to be true, or research that is exceptionally poorly designed. I have read some of the research papers and they are as "scientific" as the research that provides "evidence" that homeopathy works i.e. not at all.

Thanks for that Grennie. My friend is one of those who laughs at such notions. She is interested in 'hormonal washes' but that is not her area of expertise, scientific research being a little compartmentalised and all.

You only have to read the research into the effects of critical psychological and emotional stress upon the brain to realise that it remains malleable throughout ones life.

I have one of each. My daughter is quite small and doll-like, and people really respond to her in a very cooing, 'Aww' sort of way.

Which is becoming a problem, because she's actually a bright, intrepid warrior with a startling temper, an astonishing ability to chuck things accurately at people and preternaturally good football skills. Not that I want her to be a trantrummy chucker, just illustrating how far from the conventional good little girlie archetype she is.

DH and I are both worried about how assiduously people pigeon-hole her into the 'cute little girl' box simply based on her appearance. We are really going to have to fight for her right to be herself.

DH said to me the other night 'You don't realise until you have a daughter how much women just get crapped on, it horrendous.' And it is. Welcome to my world, DH.

Eldritch I have a daughter like that too "And though she be but little she is fierce"

She is perceived as ineffectually 'girlie' rather than powerful and a girl because of her diminutive stature.

My niece used to be more like that. My SIL worked very very hard to try and make her a girly girl. She is still not quite like that, but she has changed. It makes me sad that so many can't just let their kids be themselves.

My daughter is now training to be a patissiere after not using her degree in the manner that she wished and she has to perch on a step up stool to reach the ovens with a peel loaded with heavy bread dough.

The men working with her can struggle with how to treat her- do they help, wait to be asked or leave her to find her way through. She is developing forearm strength but still cried with pain at the end of a day because her tendons hurt her so much. She also has metal rods attached to her spine and two less ribs than you or I (Kypho-Scoliosis) and so has an actual steely spine alongside her metaphorical one (!).

Very proud of her.

I like that quotation a lot, mignonette, where is it from? They should put things like that on T-shirts rather than all that 'Daddy's Little Princess' bollocks.

It is remarkable how differently she is treated on a dress day from how she is treated on a 'wearing Ds's cast-offs' day, when people actually ask, pointedly, if she is a boy (which is an oblique way of criticising DH for putting someone who is clearly female in a blue fleece and jeans). She's two, for heaven's sake.

Quite apart from the gender stereotyping and oppressive sexism of it, how dare people interfere with how we dress and raise our children? But they do, they really do. DH is starting to see how society collectively acts to make sure women do not stray away from the strictly defined roles and behaviours allowed to them.

Buffy, the thread meanders, raise anything you like.

Mignonette, she sounds wonderful. Power to her elbow (literally and figuratively). Has she ever done any weight training? It is brilliant and oddly liberating too.