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.

[Downamongtherednecks]

Well done capt not just of bein retweeted, but on being deleted by BIL. One less idiot you have to worry about.

[Downamongtherednecks]

Wow, that was garbled.. I have hideous jetlag after getting the redeye from the US.

[kickassangel]

I understood and also thought well done on being unfriended.

[PetulaGordino]

Publishing has a lot of women, including quite senior. There is still a ceiling above which it is very male-dominate but I think it's higher than many other industries iyswim.

In terms of clients, I can remember meeting with a groups of neonatologists and all were white men in their late fifties. At one point they were discussing maternal choices. I was the only woman there and I haven't had children, and I got a flash of how odd it was to be having this discussion with not one mother participating

[DoctorTwo]

That New Republic article is interesting JTRB in that it confirms misogyny is alive and functioning. In this instance interesting = depressing.

[TheDoctrineOfWho]

Agree with DoctorTwo.

[TeWiSavesTheDay]

I was about to post that article - I thought it was interesting, it was good to hear from ftm trans people, they seem very underrepresented in popular trans culture. Looking at it from lots of angles I wonder if there are other differences between outcomes of mtf and ftm transsexuals? It must be a massive shock to go from being a privileged class to one that's not.

[TeWiSavesTheDay]

OMG - has anyone seen this research before www.lisashea.com/lisabase/womensissues/whenisrapeok/

And people think there's no rape culture...

[AnnieLobeseder]

That's absolutely horrifying, TeWi. Mostly that they found that 1/4 of men had raped a woman at some point. And I'll bet most of them wouldn't classify it as rape because they didn't jump out on her at knifepoint.

This ties in very well with the other thread that's ongoing at the moment where some very eloquent posters are making the point that there's far too much physical and sexual violence against women going on for it to just be a very small minority of men who are carrying it out.

[TeWiSavesTheDay]

Quite shocking to see it laid out. But very believable.

[scallopsrgreat]

Oh wow that article is frightening TeWi. So five times as many men would drug a woman to have sex with them if they were aroused rather than not.

Be careful women. Don't arouse the men. It really feeds into the trope that men can't control themselves. The men think arousal is a free pass to appalling behaviour. They've bought into the trope too. It suits them.

[vezzie]

Hi feMNists
I posted my thoughts about that NR article on the trans thread

For some insane reason* I have just read Diana Mosley's (née Mitford) biography of the Duchess of Windsor (Wallis Simpson)

It is ABSOLUTELY BONKERS and really, bizarrely, sad. I cannot explain how on earth I find it in my heart to feel pity for such big parasitic blobs of mindless, greedy, privilege, but the emptiness and silliness of these people just makes me feel really, really sorry for them (at the same time as laughing)

It is not deliberately sad at all. It is written by a friend, supposedly rebutting all notions that the King threw it all away for an evil siren and they would never be happy, etc etc. Even though it harps continually on their great happiness, it is so awfully terribly desperately unhealthy. And tragic.

(Obv Mitford / Mosley is a horrific fascist and any mention of world politics is seen through such an evil prism, it is BIZARRE)

anyway, Wallis' life's work was to be thin and to make her husband happy. That was it. Her husband's life's work was... nothing. He wasn't even supposed to make his wife recipriocally happy.

And it feels as if this is just representative of a whole class of people. Maybe an ex-king is exceptionally jobless. Effectively unemployable (maybe Workfare would have helped, hm?) but seriously, so much expensive pissing about by so many brainless useless dicks... honestly, it is heartbreaking

There is a ton of hiarious details, I might post some later if I can't stop them boggling around my brain, in an attempt to get rid of them




*99p kindle daily deal. Yes I am weak. Especially post 10pm on the sofa with a cup of tea, then I am very weak

[vezzie]

Hey
Sorry to double post but I can't help sharing this

half the viking warriors were female!

[scallopsrgreat]

I am fascinated by the Mitfords. My mum bought me The Mitford Girls by Mary S Lovell for Xmas. I haven't got round to reading it yet though. But you've prompted me to give it a go vezzie.

I do feel that the Mitfords were coached to please their husbands regardless of their own accomplishments or talents. So it doesn't surprise me that Diana would have that take on Wallis Simpson. She'd recognise herself in her.

[scallopsrgreat]

And the female Viking warrior article is also fascinating. It goes to show you how historical discoveries (and scientific ones especially to do with animals or anthropology) can be shaped by men and their preconceptions and need to have a gender hierarchy.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

The Viking warrior thing has filled my FB with people yelling variants of 'duh, we said so!'

It is a really big issue in general, confirmation bias. People do it all the time with stuff like book ownership too, and with who's in what professions. So you get people saying 'ahhh, clearly, all educated teachers were men because women were thick and illiterate' and not looking at women with names like 'Elizabeth the Schoolteacher' which are, y'know, kind of giveaways.

Ok, that may have been a personal rant.

[PetulaGordino]

the viking thing is interesting as i have just come back from a trip to scandinavia where i saw a lot of viking history stuff

i have to say though, looking at that article i'm a bit sceptical about the "warriors" part, and it's a very very small sample of burials.

that said, i agree that it is illuminating what assumptions are made regarding the sex of human remains - i assumed that they did look at the bones themselves rather than just the burial items, and i would be interested to know whether other cultures might have had similar misidentifications

but this is far from my area of expertise!

[PetulaGordino]

that paper was published in 2011. i wonder why it's only been picked up now

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

It's all over the place, but I don't know why really.

I think people are sceptical about the warriors part. I mean, you need knives and swords and so on, but you probably have them if you're a farmer too, right? But not my thing either.

[PetulaGordino]

i think it's partly because of not knowing the full story behind burial practices, there are an awful lot of assumptions (as we know well), and goods as sacrifices to the gods etc - maybe people used what they had more of available at the time of the burial?

actually last week at a museum in copenhagen i did look at this exhibit where the label said that it was thought to be a male child because it was buried with a small knife and i thought "how so?" to myself...

again though, i am way out of my area of expertise

[vezzie]

I think one of the most interesting parts of that Viking study is that it also seems to have shown that Viking women did make themselves look more scary by being fair and using eyeliner but not eyebrow pencil. As a ginger person I am very fond of this very scary look and am pleased to see it being given the academic attention that it deserves.

YY about the assumptions thing - Petula, the knife thing is really silly, as who doesn't need a knife? Does every female ever call a man over when they want something cut? And if so how do they do their all imortant ladies' kitchen/cooking-things-for-men work?

Hm. Good ploy. "Of course I will make your dinner. I just need a few things cut with your manly knife first. Please could you do this onion? these few vegetables and things? What about that meat, that would be a particularly manly thing to cut? Also, when you have cut these little things over here, you could just throw them in that salad bowl, for safety - oh no, you aren't making a salad, that would be women's work! - you are just doing a bit of cutting"

[scallopsrgreat]

I don't know if anyone has seen this but I meant to link to it yesterday. Fourteen of something. It's about raising money for Rape Crisis in light of Rotherham.

And yy to women and knives. I'm not a historian but I would imagine it is only relatively recent in human history that most women have been discouraged from defending themselves and becoming more 'genteel'. (It took a lot to write that word!). Confirmation bias was the expression I was looking for. Thanks LRD!