Feminist Pub VII - Chat, questions, random thoughts too small for a thread ...

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Just setting this up while we finish off the last few posts on the old thread. Come in and pull up a bar stool!

had

Honestly, my typing is all over the place - my head knows what I mean, my fingers not so much.
Soz.

He was with someone? I'd be totally weirded and annoyed if I was her, was she not uncomfortable?

Staffs for everyone! I'm a qualified teacher, perhaps we should do a MN academy! We could all stop arguing about whether or not the relative strength and weight advantage men have makes a meaningful difference because anyone is fucking deadly with a six foot pole. Pick one up and witness the sudden levelling of the field. An experience all women should have! Suddenly become present

Ah, presence…

Here's something I've been pondering:
I feel I have more presence and am heard more when I am a bit heavier (I'm 5'6'', size 12-14 on a good day, usually 14-16).
When I am less fashionably slim (I have never been in danger of being skinny ) I get the impression that I am more likely to be listened to and that debates are more likely to go my way.

I am not sure whether it is to do with looking less 'attractive', as in "I am looking for a mate"??

Am I nuts?

Wouldn't be surprised….

I work in a school where we had an INSET day in which we had to suggest how the school could become more "rights respecting." I suggested feminist discussion groups (because all of the boys in our school take up more time and attention than the girls in the classroom, on the PE field, in special needs related issues, at break and lunchtimes etc etc) but everyone ignored that. I also suggested racial awareness discussion groups, as one pupil left over racial bullying, at least one other pupil suffers in relative silence and a temporary member of staff left early over racial abuse from pupils, but noone thought that was a good idea either. I also suggested assemblies to raise awareness about autism and to try and shame the pupils who were being unkind to the autistic pupils, and everyone thought that was a great idea but were too busy to organise it (in fairness, they were too busy, really). Still, we are, nontheless, on our way to achieving our "rights respecting" award. I've become very cycnical about schools!

Pacific I feel like that too. Somebody said something about it on the women and space thread and recommended Fat is a Feminist issue as a book to read. I downloaded it onto my kindle that night and it really is a fascinating read, it's a sort of self-help book to try and sort out the feelings and qualities we associate with our fat and try to bring them back to belonging to "me" rather than "my fat". I am a size 18-20 and have been somewhere between 16-20 for 15 years, with yo-yo dieting throughout that time. It was a real lightbulb moment to realise that I self-sabotage my diets all the time because I don't really want to lose weight, I like the presence I have when I'm bigger

rosabud I'm rather cynical about schools too. We have all sorts of awards, healthy eating (our school canteen has barely anything resembling vegetables), rights respecting (we have a mere handful of non-white British pupils and all of them have experienced some form of racism at some point), and we're ofsted outstanding as well, despite some departments having imo ridiculously low results (with a HUGE gender gap - girls getting 90% A-C, boys getting 40%, somethings wrong there)

Blue eyes Brown eyes! For all schools! You can involve the whole school or just one class, you can use it to foreground any kind of social exclusion in this way. You could be tres smart and do something really proactive about the use of playground space.

Clearly the MSG in tonight's dinner has me slightly agitated, sorry all

But PS the great thing about blue eyes Brown eyes is you have your "normal" school day around it.

I did the blue eyes brown eyes thing for a citizenship lesson last year. My form were most annoyed with me about splitting them up from their friends, but then when I gave the brown eyed children a really nice, interesting task involving the best equipment and gave the blue eyes a test they really kicked off. We were discussing racism but it could definitely be used for any prejudice.

Sorry LRD, I wasn't meaning to victim blame, sorry if it came across that way. Shocking that people ignore this kind of thing when it is happening in front of them.

I know, I'm sorry I snapped. I was just fed up with him/it.

Good morning.

Spent 20 minutes trying to get an appointment with GP for DS and then they told me I got the date of birth wrong. Panic! Luckily she just heard it wrong and I haven't totally lost my mind... Not a good start to the day. Exhausted already.

The news yesterday that Andy Murray has appointed Amelie Mauresmo as his coach reminded me of another sports item about a woman being the best candidate for the job.

Evening pubgoers! just a rant if I may?

On a management training course today and had to roleplay "the manager" and a man had to roleplay "the employee".

We had to have a difficult conversation and I had to tell him he hadn't been promoted. His instant reaction was "bitch!"

I know it was only roleplay , blah blah but I thought this was immensely unprofessional. Needed to get it off my chest.

Belle

That does sound incredibly unprofessional Belle, especially because it was only roleplay and he doesn't even have the "excuse" of proper emotions ruining his professionalism.

Did you get the feeling he'd been wanting to say that to you or another female colleague and used the forum as an excuse?

"Bitch" to your face?!
Never mind not getting a promotion, surely that warrants a sacking formal warning.

How was it dealt with at the time, Belle?

I expect he thinks that about female managers who make decisions he doesn't like in the real world. I've never even met him before the course, and thankfully we don't work together.

He sort of laughed it off, and no-one else heard or commented as we were working in pairs at that time. I thought of raising it with the facilitator afterwards, but the moment had passed and I didn't want to be "that woman".

I suppose it struck a nerve. In all the management training courses I have done, there were less than 25% women. This is what men really think of their female bosses, they just don't usually say it to my face but to each other.

I wish we could all see each other as 'people' first and foremost, and only then worry about gender…

Especially as this course was all about "respecting differences", "understanding individual perspectives" and all that good management speak.

Mind you, not as bad as the diversity training course where, commenting on the actors roleplay, one of the participants said "if a woman spoke to me like that, I would slap her".

"Dignity and respect, equality and diversity" are the buzzwords in the NHS - nice sentiments

Long way to go.

Its just so dull isn't it? Like we suddenly have to become sexist racist bores because of football. It is interesting how much can be re-arranged for men's convenience though. Extra night buses, screens in offices, time off work to watch when in a different time zone.