Feminist Pub X: Regulars and new faces welcome, consciousness raising is a possibility.

[CaptChaos]

The old pub now has less than 10 posts to go, so I thought I'd start a new one. The old one can be found here

This is a place for feminist pom pom waving and talking about stuff which might not need a thread for itself.

Fill your boots.

I just made pizza without any cheese on it. At all

Haha Kickassangel, I did that this week too!

I find being referred to as Mrs is an easy way out of unsolicited phone calls. "Is that Mrs Stormy?" they ask. I say, "No." If they ignore and continue the spiel, hang up. Had to change all paperwork from Miss recently though, because it didn't seem right being Miss when I'm someone's mum.

Hey

doing my weekend throwing-links-into-the void thing

these two are really similar - one harrowingly personal on abuse in care by Samantha Morton (trigger warning)

www.theguardian.com/film/2014/sep/12/samantha-morton-interview-rotherham-sexual-abuse

and the other more abstract about "what went wrong in rotherham?"

blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/institutions-and-the-banality-of-evil-learning-from-rotherham-and-saville/?utm_content=buffer534d6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Both carry the same message: vulnerable people were ignored and abused because institutions have tacitly decided that it is ok to do so and high up people were even involved

ARGH really want to DO something

I think I need to find some way to connect my work with an organisation that works with vulnerable young people, esp. people in care. I am wondering: is there a way, by starting at work and positioning it as a "hey we are are a children's media company and we love to work with the community!" type thing it could be parlayed into something with a more political edge than just the material help we lob towards charities and children's hospitals etc (which is the form our corporate charity takes at the moment).

Very ill-formed waffle here. Does anyone have any experience of this sort of thing?

I think what I am trying to say is that working with mainly privileged middle class people, even if I just change attitudes in the company I work for, and drum up some awareness and anger - and using a particular kind of corporate community service as a way into this - could starting there be a way of affecting comfortable people's attitudes?

I just started a thread about the use of "tragic" events...hadn't even seen the conversation you guys were having already. It's such an easy way to take your mind off what actually happened

When people phone up asking to speak to Mrs Lobeseder I say "well I'm as close as you're going to get".

For Mrs Copper they will need to phone overseas. For Mrs DHsurname I just say she doesn't live here. Once a caller switched to asking for Miss DHsurname instead. That's even worse because we don't know such a person.

We have eaten two heads of garlic for lunch. I suspect I only need to breath on somebody to make them go away.

What went wrong in Rotherham? In my experience vezzie whistleblowers were ignored, disbelieved or accused of racism.

Indeed. Mrs DHSurname would be DH's step-DM, and she's a) overseas and b) very ill with a disease that has removed pretty much all her mental capacity so that conversation is a non-starter. Mrs MySurname is my stepDM, also overseas. I am Ms MySurname-DHSurname, but no-one ever asks for me. Possibly because I haven't got around to changing my name to the double-barrelled version in all the official places that I should. I'm waiting until I (hopefully) have a shiny new title too and will change it all at once,

I love your idea of persuading your work to shift some focus away from MC children and onto more vulnerable communities, vezzie. I hope you can manage it. Good luck.

Read the Samantha Morton interview. The police said their hands were tied because the abuse was in the social service department. If I decide to commit a heinous crime I'll make sure I'm employed in another government department first.

Invent the smellophone and you'll be all set, LordC.

I must admit though, part of me is glad when they ask for Mrs Stormy, because the title might be wrong but the name isn't. I inherited the landline number from a chap whose surname differs from mine in the initial consonant only. Callers for Mrs Glormy tend to get short shrift.

Thanks for the comments everyone - I think I have given a wrong impression of my work and the scope of what I can actually do!

ok...

I work for a children's media company (company A). It is staffed in the main by pretty comfortable people from pretty comfortable backgrounds. Many believe (esp the men) that all is pretty much right with the world.

this company has aspirations, in many respects, to be like another large children's media company (company B( which happens to run (or used to, not sure) various community volunteering schemes for its staff (it had the size and money to do so) - so you would get people on day release painting a play centre, etc, you could register and get CRB checked to read with children whose parents' first language was not English, etc.

in the UK, company A's (my employer) only charitable activities as far as I am aware, are though corporate giving of various kinds. However, given that it aspires to be like company B, only better; and given that its US operation has a million staff-driven non-work enterprises of a million different kinds, it is not a million miles away from the ethos of the place for someone to set up a staff volunteering programme.

Should this be possible, and were I remotely qualified to be involved in it, I would like such a programme to be connected to volunteering programmes (already existing ones - or new ones?) which connect adults as mentors to children in care.

I know not everyone is suitable for this but it's a way for a company who is always selling media to young people to give a shit about them; and it is a way for all of us to get a sense of what life is like if your mum dies and your dad is in prison. And this could be a highly political realisation - including just things like, why did your mum die? Why did your dad go to prison? And why can't your auntie have you?

I guess I am rather rose-tintedly trying to envision a more politicised version of volunteering than company B's very American, non-critical, hey let's patronise the poor kind of approach (if you knew who I mean you would know exactly who I mean)

are things like this always "let's patronise the poor"?

Aw, I would have eaten your cheeseless pizzas. I have to make it like that on purpose because cheese makes me vomit.

Am I unusual in not really caring which title people use for me? I mean I don't really care if they use Miss, Mrs or Ms. DH likes to make a big deal out of calling me "Mrs" since we got married but I'm quite meh about the whole thing In any case any of the English ones are miles better than the German "Frau" which sounds like a naggy, frowny, frumpy old lady to me.

Oh I hate that American "let's patronise the poor" kind of ideology.

But I think you are right in that the volunteering you describe is very politicised - perhaps too much for a mainstream company? But I'm swimming a bit in the dark because it's hard to understand what you're trying to ask.

You probably already know but if you want to look to a great organisation who help poor kids you want to look at Kids Company London.

So some soft toy animals can't be tidied away because they are nocturnal. Am I amused or exasperated?

That's either the cutest thing ever or your kids are playing you

Dd2 has some nocturnal toys too. I think it's cute, but I still make her put them in her bedroom and they can play as much as they want in there.

Haha! Get her to make them a special habitat to do their nocturnal thang in.

All animals, nocturnal or otherwise, go in the box once a week before our cleaner comes. Other times some of them can stay out.

Evening all. That's so cute about the nocturnal toys

I've come over here for a nice after repeatedly banging my head against a brick wall on the Oscar Pistorius thread.

"Yes dear. But I'm afraid they have to be culled now."

Keeping poor taste alive...