Feminist pub no 12: The Bluestocking Returns, this time with goats!

[YonicScrewdriver]

Welcome!

zazzles I'm so glad I don't have to wear Shoes of Fuckability. I wear nice sensible, flat shoes all the time, and if anyone told me I had to wear heels I would kick off big time. I can't walk in them and they hurt my feet.

I have lovely shoes, none of them with high heels. I have shoes that I can fucking walk in. Does that count towards fuckability?

Dragon I take your DP's role in our house. DP considers that everything I do in the house counts as working so once he is home we divvy up the jobs. Is that fair? Isn't he "lucky"? Though it is true that he has more flexibility and can go out for a drink without prior arrangement usually, while what I do has to be arranged before time.

I think I have more "cravings" for certain dishes than DP does and being in control means I can cater for them.

Yes LordC. I do think he's lucky, as am I. We do the same as you, in that while he is at home without children he does the food shopping, laundry and meal planning, then when we're both home all jobs are split. The thing that annoys me is that I am constantly told I'm lucky, whereas my friends who work pt do all that stuff (and more generally) and their husbands are NEVER told how lucky they are. It's taken for granted that women who work pt do extra housework, but men who work pt are angels for doing the equivalent amount of extra housework.

while dragonlette may (is probably) right about what her friends mean by "lucky" it may be more complicated (and a bit more reasonable) than that. I think that you are lucky, Dragonlette, not because that is what your dp does with some of his time, not at work; but because you have a house with 2 adults and 1.5 full time WOH jobs. that is an enviable position to be in because there is a ton of stuff that can be done nicely, calmly, in daylight with no pressure.

Like the bedtime thing. Presumably you do that to spend time with the dcs after being out at work all day, and he gets on with the dinner because straight after bedtime you will both be hungry. that sounds like bliss to me, I would very happily be either you or the cook in that scenario, just for the pleasure of having a time slot to do everything in and only doing one thing at once. My least favourite time of the day usually is 8.30 pm when I shamble exhausted into the kitchen which I last saw at 7.30 am and try to think what on earth I can make to eat and then open the fridge and realise I can't even think about cooking till i have found out what is making that awful smell. There are weeks where I cry literally every day with hunger or tiredness or both. Right now I can't face it and eat something from a packet on the train at 6.30, which is just making me fatter and fatter so I have draw a line under it and get back to trying to be sensible with food, which basically means being hungry most of the time.

I don't mean "lucky" in a snide way though. I mean it admiringly because you must have done a ton of stuff right to be in that position and you have made good decisions and clever arrangements.

One of the saddest things to me, right now, which makes me feel so unsupported, is that no one thinks about when i might fit some meals in or does anything to help me with them. when I lived at home as a child it drove me nuts that my mother was obsessed with meals and every arrangement to do anything at all involved as a priority arranging what that would mean to meals. Now I wish someone would make me something to eat sometimes

vezzie >

I cannot give any advice, but I remember trying to eat later with DP at about 8ish. It was terrible. By about 6 I was shouting at the kids (after being really impatient with them when they were eating) and felt like death. I changed my patterns now and eat with DC at about 5.30 and it made all the difference. Also I read somewhere (so must be true ) that it's better to eat earlier. I guess the problem is finding something healthy to eat earlier. A packed dinner!?

I am sorry to be such an awful moaner on this thread all the time. a packed dinner is exactly what I need, but then I have to pack it. I have 3 packed meals already, I always make the first one myself, the second one is hit and miss and the third one is always miss.

I am making up for it today with homemade chicken soup! I work from home on Fridays and the bones have been boiling all morning.

thanks for the cake, Buffy.

practically, vezzie, can you have something to eat before you leave the office at say 17.30/18.00 so you're not trying to go 7-8 hours without a meal? i know this is yet another bloody thing for you to remember as you trek off to work in the morning, but it might just tide you over

when does your dp eat? is this the thing where he cooks for himself only?

sorry x-post

vezzie

I've got really low blood pressure and eating regularly is very important for me, otherwise I get either crabby or weepy and it really impacts on my day.

At the moment, because I'm not working, I've been in the kitchen a lot, learning to cook researching new recipes, and I've found that the vegan blogs out there have the most recipes for healthy snacks. "Oh she glows" is a favourite in this household, since a lot of her stuff can be prepared in advance on the weekend. Yesterday I made chia seed doughnuts that are packed with good nutrients and very easy for DH to take to work as snacks. I understand you might be reluctant to eat snacks, but my experience has been that when I held off them, I'd end up so hungry that I'd gorge on really bad food the moment I had access to it.

As you can see, I'm really obsessed interested in nutrition so I'd be happy to provide some ideas and possible eating plans!

I'm also quite obsessed. We were brought up to never skimp on eating. I dropped lecture courses because they interfered with meals.

I agree with snacking when hungry. But I guess you need healthy snacks ...

i have hardboiled eggs as snacks. a bit boring, but i would be perfectly happy eating the same meals every day for three weeks - the only reason why i don't is because dp would fuss that i'm not getting enough variety

he went away a couple of weeks ago and i cooked a small joint of beef that i had got half price, and had cold beef with salad every day for a week

I sometimes do hardboiled eggs and eat them on my way to work! Usually starving by the time I dropped DC off at school ...

[[http://ohsheglows.com/2014/07/30/21-vegan-freezer-friendly-mealsnack-recipes-my-tips-for-freezing/]]

vezzie I agree that we're in an enviable position to have 2 adults and only 1.5 woh jobs (it's closer to 1.75 really). I'm not sure whether it was good decisions or a bit of luck that got us to that point. I'm sorry to hear that you're struggling to find time to eat, that must be incredibly hard. I'm pretty lucky in that I'm home by 5:30 every day and I snack on something when the kids eat at 6pm before dp cooks while I do bedtime (he arrives home later than me on days when he's working because he goes to the gym on the way home)

Those recipes look nice Biss. I might have to attempt to cook some of them next week when I'm on half term. Both dds are going to my parents for a couple of days so I'll have some childfree/dp free time to do with as I will. Dp complained a little that he never gets that much childfree time until I reminded him that he gets every Friday, and most weekends I take dd2 out both afternoons, so throughout the year he gets way more childfree time than I do, mine is just in more intense bursts.

Dragon, I think the "you are so lucky" thing is very insidious. Dh is a sahd and I get that sometimes. I never hear men referred to as being lucky for having a sahw.

It is part of the whole assumption that women will take in the main carer role. If their partner steps up, even if it is just the most natural and fair way to divide the labour based on temperament, economic necessity, time etc, that woman must be so "lucky".

The sad thing is that I think I am lucky. It shouldn't be that it am but I am because it's not the norm and it pisses me off.

DP does most of the cooking, but luck doesn't come into it. DD kicks off if I'm busy in the kitchen, and gets under my feet trying to help. Easier all round if I do toddler entertainment while he cooks.

As for shoes... One of the few good things about living way down the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum: Heels of Fuckability are rarely required.

workingbling are you tempted to say "well he had to do it because i refused to"? i would be. it seems to be how rather too many mother/father child caring splits pan out

dp's father refused to change nappies. i love him dearly as he is now, but WTF?? how can a parent just refuse to participate in the daily (more than daily) care needs of their child?

Have been meaning to post this link all week, and just gotten to it now:

HBR: What the Scarcity of Women in Business Case Studies Really Looks Like

HBR have selected "the top three award-winning case studies and the best-selling cases each year for the five-year window between 2009-2013 [which] yielded a total of 53 different case studies" and done a gender analysis and Bechdel test on them. The results are very, very interesting, although, not surprising of course.

Pumpkin, I like that idea! It's tempting. I would
Have to practice my confused face for when people
Look shocked and confused!

Evening all.

Been to the feminism in London conference this weekend.

I saw Gail Dines speak, and Rachel Moran. Met some lovely MNers, went to the pub with some of them afterwards.

Oh, and met SGM, after she / the ending victimisation website won an award.

Hi Norma, good to meet you yesterday [waves]

I am very glad that I went to FiL but was unprepared for how upsetting I would find the whole experience (listening to personal testimonies, reflecting on my own experiences and contemplating the scale of the problems that feminism is trying to overcome). I cried while I was there and have been crying today too. I normally come away from conferences and workshops feeling quite upbeat and energised, but not this one. I feel very powerless.

This is partly I think because I am tired and over-wrought, and have no space to take on any additional work so there's nothing obvious that I can go away and do - no committee I can join etc. I had a really long chat with DH this morning and that has helped in terms of making connections between things I was thinking about yesterday and issues in our family. I feel a bit more peaceful.

I was sceptical (to say the least) about the poetry, art, healing spaces etc that were featured at FiL and thought that they risk undermining the message, iykwim - they don't do things like that at, say, the party political or think tank conferences I have attended! But today I am wondering whether it would have been an easier process if I had taken some time in the day to seek some quiet space for reflection or enjoyed some music.

Hmm, lots of food for thought, lots of assumptions challenged - which I suppose is what you want from a conference. But blimey I'm tired today!

Oh how fab for you both going and for SGM.

I'm just borrowing the cannon for a poster who talks about getting "burned at the stake" and being "chased by pitchforks" and then goes into "only joking, aren't the little women excitable?" mode when it's pointed out people are in fact engaging politely with him...

BOOM!