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

I have vowed never to tell my pupils that I didn't do any homework from about year 9. I did coursework, eventually, but usually not til the teachers were literally pleading with me to hand it in so they had 24 hours to mark it before it had to be sent away. I came away with pretty much all A* at GCSE. I spent a lot of time in the head of 6th form's office due to no homework, then I was surprised that my A level results were a bit crap.

I was much better as an undergraduate, mostly because by that time I had dd1 so it was her future on the line as well as mine. I attended all lectures, even when things at home were incredibly stressful, and all coursework/assignments were completed well ahead of time. I got a first.

I attended just enough lectures and tutorials they said you had to attend. In my school days all my classmates thought I went home to study and do my homework but in fact I went home to read serials and novels and nap.

I tell my students that they are grown-ups and I will treat them as such and while I will do my best to help anyone who wants to learn, if they want to fail they must do so without troubling me or their coursemates too much.

I was all about anorexia and missed most of upper sixth, but had enough self-preservation to get to university and was quite diligent with attendance once I got into the course that was right for me (eventually!)

I attended a student feedback forum a couple of weeks ago. Interestingly they all wanted lecturers to be more hardline with students who weren't paying attention or were late/whispering/on phones etc. But they were a self-selecting group of course - the ones with the time, energy, wherewithal and investment to go to a 3-hr meeting! That worries me wrt making sure all groups in the student body are heard. Inevitably anyone with children and other responsibilities can't attend this sort of thing. there are of course all te module feedback forms they get, NSS, school surveys, etc!

Buffy Don't know about that. Always had reasonable feedback. I can be charming when I want to be.

Oooh, hello guys. I lost you for a bit there.

I was the most law abiding student going. I think I literally missed about two lectures my whole degree. In my first year, these generally started at 9am. Only once missed a tutorial, due to illness. Did the reading (but not the further reading, I wasn't that much of a geek). I never handed in an assignment late.

I really struggle with not obeying rules.

That is worrying, petula (and sorry about your sixth form experience).

I was thinking about a similar issue with how people get mentored (not just in academia, in any kind of work). It's really easy to want to help out people who're all bright and cheerful and know how to ask nicely; it's really hard with people who aren't. But they might need it the most.

Hello penguins!

I had optional lectures, so I got to be lazy. However, I also cancelled a couple of supervisions because I was visiting my boyfriend 200 miles away and my train got delayed. I am shuddering to think how arsehole-ish that was.

I dropped a course because some of its lectures interfered with lunch.

At least you cancelled, Jeanne, rather than not turning up...

I see you've been infected with the phraseology of your new employer

I was very law-abiding, too. The only lectures I missed were during the week I went home because my father had had a heartattack, and I'd been in to tell my personal tutor first, and they arranged to get copies of lecture notes done for me.

I did fall asleep in A-level history once, though. It was an upstairs room, and the sun was coming in through the window. I'd done a 5000m swim before school. I don't think I could swim that far currently. I reckon 2000m is my limit these days.

I was in a session about gender dynamics and careers today. They talked about all the informal mentoring men tend to get compared with women. Also that women tend to have mentoring that's more caring and about training and making connections, and men tend to get stuff that's more about business strategy and so on. (Can't remember details, it's been a long day, and the notes I took are still sat on my desk.)

Erm, it's where I did my undergrad, yonic, so I think it's that.

Teacher. Stick to teacher.

But yes, I think I was more of upto's persuasion.

EBear, I'd be really interested in that, if you fancy posting when you're less tired.

That sounds interesting, Bearhug.

Poinsettia, that's disappointing that university level students are still whispering and playing on their phones!! You'd think by that stage, they are all there because they want to be and find the subject interesting. Went I went to University, many, many years ago, you only bothered going to lectures that interested you. In my first term I narrowed it down to one. Then, on the day, I overslept and missed it!

My students are all over-excited and desperate for the end of term. Today I got very cross with one who was behaving in a rather silly way, then was very moved when he presented me with a lovely Christmas present! I was so surprised. I suppose, really, being rather silly at Christmas time is what 12 years old is all about!

Ah, did you? Got mixed up, nothing new there!

I went to almost all my lectures. Even the one I shouldn't have done where I had to leave to throw up

Maybe that's why I'm not an academic now - I was too diligent as an UG and exhausted my appetite

Wow. That's diligence to a whole new level.

My friend managed to do that in our GCSE English. She was not allowed back in.

In an exam? Yikes. Was it hangover driven?!

No, stress, I think. Poor lass. I'm very glad we're not 15 any more.

Rosa I think a lot of the dynamics have changed with tuition fee increases. Though actually the courses I'm involved with are mostly externally funded, and the funding bodies have attendance requirements (I believe) and because te course is quite vocational a lack of attendance is seen to reflect on a student's professional standards. Which means that even those who aren't engaged in the lectures will probably turn up otherwise they might lose their funding!

Thanks jeanne btw. I think the pressure of GCSEs was one of the things that contributed to disordered eating. I wonder whether the introduction of AS levels alleviated or added to the stress? Iirc prior to that lower sixth was more of a "fun" year where you (and the teacher) could explore some of the subjects in a more flexible way (I hve no idea if this is actually true - I was too young for that).

(Btw the missing school was because of truanting related to the ED - i was having panic attacks, rather than hospitalisation. It amazes me that I actually managed to complete a-levels in retrospect)

I really resent taking attendance for grown-up students. What a pointless exercise. You can lead a horse to the toilet but you can't make a horse shit. Or something like that.

Anyway. School Christmas show. But I want to stay at home and type up lots of LaTeX documents! >

I had to submit time sheets for the funding I got for my masters. It's how I know I've never worked so hard for anything else since.

In the second year of my degree, I didn't set foot on campus after November except for exams and turning in stuff. Somehow came away with a 2:1, no idea how. Do I win?

StormyBird, you probably do!

The thing is, my sleeping in class didn't really help me at all. I felt like an impostor all the way through my degree, like someone was going to find out at some point that I really had no idea about computers or programming.

Actually, now that I think of it, I still feel that way

So...

Apparently a McKinsey report has said, "Of all the forces that hold women back, none are as powerful as entrenched beliefs."
Companies have worked hard on overt discrimination, but it's harder to fix mindsets.

When it comes to mentoring, women usually receive supportive mentoring, about confidence, attitude, resources like training and encouragement. Men are more likely to get strategic mentoring, about business performance and business acumen, around making business-savvy presentations, proposals and decisions, in the image of a leader - and they get more exposure key decision-makers, how decisions are made in other functions and levels of the business.

(This mostly comes from a book on mentoring by Susan Colantuono, which I haven't read; I was also recently sent a link of a talk she did, which I have so far failed to watch.)

It rings true for me, and if I ask about things like budgets, I'm told it's not appropriate for my role...

stormy, I never set foot on campus. (Oh, ok, we didn't have one). I didn't attend lectures in my second year either. But I did repeat my third year, so you still win.

poinsettia - that sounds scary, sorry. I think AS has made it harder - when I did it (I was the second yearto do it) it was quite helpful, because you knew you could retake. But you can't really do that any more, can you? My mum tutors A Level and they do seem really stressed.

EBear - that's really interesting. I might try to get hold of the book, too.

The bit about men getting 'exposure to key decision makers' interested me.

I'm noticing (reading a lot of people's acknowledgements to try to get a sense of who helped them write their first books) that there is a bit of a difference.

Typical woman: 'Thanks to A and B, my thesis advisors, to C, D, E, F and G [junior people at approximately the author's level] who each read a chapter, and to my students in class H.

Typical man: 'Thanks to Professor Bigname, who read the whole book, to Drs QuiteBigName and VeryBigName, who offered comments on chapters, to my advisors A and B, and to my friends C, D, E, F and G. Also to Emeritus Professor Monumentally Eminent for [random tiny detail].

I'm never sure if the men broadly get (and ask for?) more help from eminent people - and having one person read your whole book is obviously going to be a huge help in a way reading individual chapters isn't? Or if men just puff up their acknowledgements more?