Feminist Pub 14: The Bluestocking, a place for feminist chat and feminists to chat

[YonicScrewdriver]

Welcome!

This is the 14th incarnation of the Pub and is meant as a place to drop by with random thoughts and meandering chats, on feminist or other related themes. Anything you want to mull over but not necessarily start a thread about. Alternatively, flop onto the chaise lounges with some

We have a pub goat, a feminist cannon for firing at crazy sexists and a variety of drinks and snacks. And stools/bar counters at female friendly heights. And a crèche in the back somewhere

Will link the last pub in the next post!

School signs always have "Headteacher: So-and-so + string-of-letters-after". I wonder why.

Can one of you come round and make the beasties brush their teeth and have a wash while I just sit here? It's not like I did a lot today, but I did manage to hunt down a Lego Minecraft Crafting Box... V. exhausting.

In the US, lawyers are doctors. The degree is Juris Doctor. No one uses the title, though, in case someone might try to get you to operate the defibrillator on an airplane.

There are doctorates here that aren't PhDs, I think, scone? DPhil is just a different abbreviation for a doctorate, but I think you can also do other kinds of things called professional doctorates? I have no idea, really, though.

annie it sounds really great - if it was un-traumatic I bet you overprepared massively and had the thesis at a higher standard than necessary, didn't you? Because you have been stressing over it.

I still haven't got around to changing my title on my bank cards. The only person who addresses post to me as Dr is my ex-husband, and my employer. I should really get onto that, shouldn't I?!

I've been really absent on this thread all term, but it's been brilliant to read and lurk, and I'll try to be a bit more present and supportive now.

I know we have a few US MNers on here, so just thought I'd say an early Happy Thanksgiving. Hope you have a lovely day and an enormous meal. It sounds a great holiday (though I'll never get the sweet potato and marshmallow thing )

Ah, glad to know I wasn't talking total rubbish, buffy.

penguins - good thought!

Happy Thanksgiving for tomorrow, everyone.

Thanks! I am up to my eyeballs with cornbread right now for my highly regarded (if I do say so myself) Southern cornbread dressing (aka stuffing). We will be having sweet potatoes topped with pecans and brown sugar, but NOT marshmallows.

I am expecting a new title-free bank card any day soon. I hope it will come tomorrow, before I'm away for the weekend. I can't have a title-free bank account, though.

I would also like to speak up for women's groups at work. Ours is fab, and I've had opportunities I wouldn't have had without it, really boosted my profile and given me opportunities to show what I'm capable of, plus I get to know what's going on in the company before my manager does.

Also, his manager initially tried to block my involvement, so the fact I can piss him off without doing anything wrong is justification enough for its existence.

My dd recently applied for a new passport and was advised not to put Dr as her title. The reason was that if she was on a flight and a passenger fell ill and the call went out for a Dr they might come to her. As her DPhil is molecular biology she might not be the best qualified to inflate a collapsed lung with a bent wire coat hanger and a Bic pen (as one medic famously did a few years back).

I don't get the idea that PhDs etc shouldn't use their title in case someone needs a medical Dr and asks them for help. You just say "sorry, I'm not a medical doctor" and they move on. The sick person won't be left in a worse position for it, they'd be just as lacking in medical help as they would be if you didn't use your title.

Alternatively, make sure your first aid qualifications are up to date.

We're not doing a Thanksgiving. We're going to Canada for the evening to watch a live show by the two blokes from Mythbusters. There will be a roast chicken at some point as we have several days off school, but I refused to do turkey twice in 30 days.

Turkey is for Christmas.

My mum is a GP and is an honorary doctor

My dad has an MD (unusual for UK medical doctors) but was a surgeon, so both Dr and Mr correct there

Has any non-medical PhD ever been strongarmed into helping in a medical emergency in a plane? >

When I was growing up Japanese soap operas were terribly popular, and always there was a woman who gets a terminal illness, and always there was a medical emergency in a plane and somebody has to operate with a penknife. Then either the woman dies or something miraculous happened. The aim of the thing was to allow you a good sob at early evening time, I think.

Lurcio, thanks for posting the TED talk, it was really interesting.

Paraphrase: "personal greatness" (your manner) is only a third of what you need.
Advice to women is skewed towards this. A man who mentored a woman and a man admitted later that he had helped the woman with her confidence and manner and taught the man the business.

Men can't stop seeing women as people-people. All the advice they are given is about their manner, about how to make the people around them feel comfortable.

I find this fascinating. Is this because the role of women (at work, at home) has traditionally been about taking care of people, their relationships to people, and a successful woman has always traditionally a woman who makes the people around her feel good, by being attractive, warm, and generally nice to have around? (I remember the time I asked for feedback after not getting a job after 3 interviews and was told about 3 times "it was very close between you and the other candidate." I asked: ok so what was the difference that decided it, or what should I work on? no answer, no answer, no answer, until finally "we all thought you were a lovely girl but we decided to give it to the other candidate." I was about 32 at this point when I was a "lovely girl".) Is it just impossible for the world to see women as instrumental to their feelings; as either "makes me feel nice" or "doesn't make me feel nice"; as either "a lovely girl" or "DO NOT WANT"?

Is it because on some some level men don't want to "let women into the secret"?

Is it because on some level men don't believe women can handle the hard stuff?

I find it really interesting and it has really only tweaked my thinking about my own stagnant career a notch.

Where my thinking was: I have potential but I have not persuaded the people around me to give me opportunities, training, go for the big stuff. This is a failure of my persona (within a context of systemically ingrained sexism); had I been a man, or managed my persona better as a woman, I could have done more; to some extent my good work has not been recognised

Where my thinking is now: I have (or had) potential but I have never really done anything excellent. I have not been trusted or mentored to try. There is not enough difference between my work and that of the next person and that is just a fact however I might complain about why that is. At the moment the volume of mundane work that I am saddled with is so great, so stressful, and so boring, that I simply do not have time to challenge anything or change anything; this is structurally deliberate, I am sitting within a relatively new structure that has been set up on the basis that the person sitting at my desk will be a work horse without aspiration, or time to have any

Those things are subtly different but not different enough to make any difference to me

Ow Buffy! I have a random self-inflicted injury too, but I've been moaning about it so much I will out myself if I divulge! Hope you feel better soon.

Oh no penguin and buffy! Hope you both recover soon.

I had random chats with random people and am angry at certain people for making them so upset. (Sorry not very informative but don't want to out myself and other people. Suffice to say it's the same people who make me angry.)

Ellis and buffy Just what I want to write.

Ellis, I so shared your pain.

My biggest professional success happened on the wake of being put up for redundancy. It's a long story that I still get angry about (the redundancy bit) so I'm not going to dwell on it, but the funny thing is that I was so angry about it that when I managed to secure an internal move, even though it was to a group that just needed a warm body in a certain location, I worked so hard and cared so little about what anyone else thought (why would I, when I had almost being kicked out when trying to conform) that I eventually ended up taking over the team. True story.

I am not sure I want to advocate anger as a strategy to move up at work, but it certainly worked for me.

Am interested in Ellis' post, but don't have time to post much atm. There is a very, very old business adage that says "Women have to be twice as good as men to get the same recognition." Seems very true in my experience.

Ellis, I have just started a book that I saw mentioned on here (I think on the coding thread, so thanks whoever that was!) called "Nice Girls Still Don't Get the Corner Office". It addresses exactly the kind of thing you are talking about and flies in the face of what people tell me I need to say and how they tell me to act at work, so it's really interesting. I've only started it so not sure what the conclusions will be but I have been nodding along so far.

Sorry to hear about your fall, buffy. Hope it wasn't caused by not-student heels?

Fibonacci, if you don't mind me asking, I am curious about what you said upthread about missing out on a promotion due to a women's group. Can you say any more about this?

Well done on anger as will-to-power.

I had a sickening thought on the train on the way home. If all the great plans of my bosses succeed then maybe in 2 or 3 years there will be expansion, more staff in my dept and a deeper structure ie a senior post of sorts. It just came into my head how I will feel if I hang on, keep hacking through this insane quantity of work, and they recruit someone else (probably a man) to do the cool stuff. I think I have to start looking for another job before that happens to me. I think I could actually go mad if that happens and I think, given the fact that I am getting no encouragement and have no chance to prove myself, that it is quite likely.

I will tell it in the next Femimist Pub Meet, promise!

What about going to your bosses now and saying that you want in the game, and how can they make sure it happens? Over the years I gained responsibility by sometimes taking it, when it was unclear who was responsible, and sometimes just asking for it outright.