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!

[UptoapointLordCopper]

buffy > Agree with LRD about feeling fragile at the end of a PhD.

[allhailqueenmab]

Buffy

"So, I spoke up. Which solved some problems, but has created a load of new ones. One of those being the aforementioned emotional fragility, others being that I don't seem to be able to trust anyone who has a position of power over me at work. Also, I don't trust myself, my own perceptions or ability to negotiate the social and political processes of working. Plus I fear I am tagged with a troublemaker brush and am being subtly punished for it. It's a bit shit,"

no, it is very shit.
Hugs to you.

I just want to say that you are probably right about everything you are feeling. You are probably right not to trust people, if that is how you feel, and you are probably - temporarily! - in a situation where the social and political processes are deliberately tangled against you, creating various double binds etc, and you are right to feel that your course is not clear and it's hard to negotiate.

I am saying this not to be doomy - it will not be like this forever, and there are things that you can do - but because I think it is really important at times when things are tough to sit down and admit, yes, things are stacked against me right now. I am not giving up, they aren't going to win, but they are trying to fuck me over and they can.

The most valuable day of my working life was spent one Easter Monday, crying in a tent in my parents' garden in the rain, picking through in my head what was MY FAULT and what was THEIR FAULT. Some of it as MY FAULT and that was good because I promised myself to make some changes. Some of it was THEIR FAULT and that was good too because just setting it all out in my head and saying "YES! in this respect they are UTTER DICKS!" was really important for my sanity.

"I spoke up". I have never, ever, ever, had a good result from speaking up. I am sure you did it brilliantly and it was the right thing to do but I have been punished so comprehensively for doing it (quite badly and naively of course) that it is something I just don't have the guts to do any more. I know you felt you had to and I am sure you were right. I am just saying: you are not imagining the fallout.

I am sorry you are fragile. you don't deserve to be. If you give of yourself to your job anything like you do to us on here - and I know you must do, orders of magnitude more - they are bloody lucky to have you.

Hang in there, Buff x

[7Days]

Not a sap at all Buffy



cry away it's good for you

[7Days]

glad you are feeling better

It is horrible when what you know is right (speaking up) conflicts with self preservation (wishing to avoid flying crap)

As a feminist, that whole dynamic has likely passed you right by

[7Days]

[BillnTedsMostFeministAdventure]

We are going to need a new pub soon!

[BillnTedsMostFeministAdventure]

I still like The Jolly Greer

[AbbieHoffmansAfro]

The Harridans Retreat

[UptoapointLordCopper]

The Hairy Arms? The Hairy Armpits, surely?

[7Days]

The Riveter Arms

Though the Jolly Greer has a great ring to it

[AbbieHoffmansAfro]

Oh nothing Greer related, please!

The way the rest of the world is going on women's rights and feminism, we should probably just call it The Last Redoubt.

[allhailqueenmab]

The Wise Webster
The Shrewd Spinster
The Sisters' Solace
The Brewsters' Snug
Contingency, Solidarity, and A Cup of Tea

[AbbieHoffmansAfro]

The Mary Wollstonecraft

[OutsSelf]

Bad luck, Buffy. I've had middling results from speaking up in terms of concrete outcomes, and one of my very good friends was quite damaged by it in some ways but long term is in a much more positive position. But the contribution to a healthy working environment was important, and was only really discernible after the dust had settled. Also, out of the immediate departmental context - where we were "troublemakers" - in terms of the discipline as a whole, in fact we were more likely to be viewed positively as having integrity. The people in the department who "won" the internal struggle (two out of three of the troublemakers left in the end) are now much less likely to be able to move into new positions outside of the department and are quietly much more sidelined within the institution they are now stuck in. The troublemakers are now in much stronger positions professionally, and one assumes personally, as we have our personal integrity intact.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I don't mind what we call the pub, but I will say, purely 'Feminist Pub' seems to have the right effect of getting people's backs up!

I got a PM early on from someone who ticked me off for starting a 'parody' thread because, apparently, all we feminists could possibly be doing would be parodying right-thinking folks who Just Like A Pub.

[allhailqueenmab]

Yep, I think OutsSelf has some good points about winning long term respect as opposed to the short term easy life.
It is hard - your working environment can have a massive effect on your health and happiness - this is why you try to do the right thing - but this is also why things can be so hard to bear when you are in the thick of negative implications of having done the right thing.

The worst two people I have ever had to work with have disappeared without trace in the industry. Neither because of anything I did or said, although they both made my life miserable I absolutely believed that they were so much more valued than me it would be madness to take them on. But they were both people who made a huge song and dance all the time about their contacts and relationships in the industry and how well loved they were - yet now they have disappeared. Not that well loved when push comes to shove.

I bet there is a lot of love in your field for you, Buffy.

[UptoapointLordCopper]

That's Hilary's advice re: skincare regime.

[allhailqueenmab]

Glad you feel a bit better, Buffy.
I am sure you must be quite exhausted, as much as anything else.
I hope you sleep well tonight.

I am reading this

robertwhitaker.org/robertwhitaker.org/Anatomy%20of%20an%20Epidemic.html

And finding it devastatingly sad.
It is not explicitly feminist but I think it would be interesting to read a book like this which does examine the same sort of stuff from a woman -centred position.

I have a feeling - completely factually unfounded - that a disproportionate number of women have been encouraged to have their socially unacceptable edges drugged off. And the damage that can be done - according to this book - is horrifying.

It really makes me feel quite bloody minded about who I am. as I have been more and more for a while.

I had a bf once who suggested that I get a prescription for something because his snoring kept me awake. I was kind of horrified at the time but also aware that he thought I was rather up myself - rather a special snowflake - for thinking that that was a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut, and that perhaps a better solution for my precious self would be sleeping somewhere else. He was kind of outraged that I placed such a high value on myself. I am giggling a bit as I remember that. he was quite serious.

[BillnTedsMostFeministAdventure]

Sisters,

It's been a most excellent pub thread.

Thank you all.