Feminist Pub 15: The Bluestocking hangs up its, err, stocking and hopes for a chatty Christmas and a Feminist New Year

[YonicSleighdriver]

Festive greetings!

This is the 15th 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, get some booze and snacks and hang out! Lurkers, newbies and oldbies welcome.

We have a pub goat, a feminist cannon for firing at crazy sexists and we cheer each other up when patriarchy grinds us down...

Last pub drinkie linkie:

Pub 14

DoctorTwo at DC but a bit at hipster. WTF are hipsters anyway? I've seen photos and stuff but am still none the wiser. Are they the self-consciously cool people?

We've been recommended weird beard beers.

I think the hipster philosophy is all about being a special snowflake and only liking really obscure music, literature, not following fashion, etc. Which is weird because now so many people are doing this that they all look and behave the same!

I've always been very suspicious about this cool "non-conformity" business. Everyone trying so hard to be different that they ended up the same.

I was very uncool when young and didn't give a crap, mostly because it really didn't even register how uncool I was. Damn it, I could have been the female Mark Zuckerberg . Unfortunately, years of learning empathy and trying to understand people swung me the other way, and now I'm a bit too easily upset/manipulated for my own taste.

I want to be just like all the different people

To quote...

Oh god I remember a friend at school insisting she was so special and unique because she was a goth.

Two other friends immediately joined the goth thing and dressed identically.

She is still a goth, though, to be fair whereas for them it was a teenage phase.

I was totally uncool at school, and still am.

Hipsters are wannabe unix sys admins.

• Hipster beards
• Unix beards

Mostly, they're just harking back to the Victorians.

(There might be something other to it all than growing a beard, but I don't think I've ever spoken to one to find out. Other than the unix sys admins.)

Fibonacci Same here! I didn't even know I was uncool too. Which is just as well. They can keep their cool.

I learned to programme in a Unix environment.

Is that cool or uncool?

Ooh, thanks for the weird beard beers LordC. I do like an American IPA. Maybe that makes me a hipster, though I don't share that over groomed look. DS and I both sport the unkempt 'dragged through a hedge' look beloved of Michael Foot.

I have been 'cool' perhaps once, probably between 1998 and 2001 when my favourite band of the time coincided with what the cool kids liked. They were loud, unkempt, not always on time but ultimately got the job done, and they resonated with me because, other than the loud bit, they sound like me in real life. :o For once the zeitgeist and I coincided, and the fact that Chris Moyles hated them made me love them even more.

According to the beards, DH is a hipster.

If I laugh any harder about that, I might have a bit of an accident.

Which band DoctorTwo?

Fabulous feminists, I want this job! Please help me get it. As you know, I am a scientist, but I also have a background in office admin, and you also know I am a kick-ass feminist. Ideas, tips, what to put in application.... you are all so wiser than me at jobs!

Job for Annie

This is what they wanted me to do as well as my day job. But there is a problem with Athena Swan expanding to a full time job and only large and rich institutions can afford to do, whereas the principle of gender equality should have been doable for all.

But will put my thinking cap on, though I haven't seen it lately ... Deadline is soon though!

That sounds great, Annie.

Obviously you should mention that you talk about this stuff in FWR.

No actual advice, other than general job application stuff. Good luck!

The bit I'm going to have to blag the most is the project managing - which is kinda crucial to the role.

You must do some sort of project management anyway, if only for your own things. Do you have any experience or knowledge of project management methodologies (e.g. Prince2, but there are loads of others)? Or at least of using MS Project or similar and Gantt charts and critical paths? It mostly comes down to planning and communication, however it's packaged up and which tools you use -- though I don't think most project managers would necessarily agree!

While I'm here, I just want to express the disappointment I felt when I first discovered Athena SWAN is an acronym, and there is no such person as Athena Swan after who the awards are named. However good its aims, it shall always be a bit tarnished for me. (Suspect my brain was making some mangled connection to Athene Donald.)

Hmm, the tricky bit is getting across my passion for promoting women in science without coming across as a frothing feminist loon!!

The band was At The Drive In DemistletoeAndWine. Their performance of One Armed Scissor on Jools Holland's show is probably my favourite music clip ever. Well, of any artist who appeared on Later anyway.

Maybe focus on tapping talents? The way the world is right now with ebola/climate change/cancer/etc etc we are fucked if we don't use all the people we've got. Obviously not quite in these words ...

Oooh, that's brilliant, thanks LordCopper.

Ooh, that job looks perfect, annie!

You never come across as frothing, but you do know your stuff with the feminism.

My brain makes the same connection, EBear!

Good luck Annie. I have no useful advice but shall send good vibes