Feminist Pub 16: where the Bluestockings develop armoured stockings to deal with the thousand paper cuts

[FibonacciSeries]

Carry on.

What I am hurt about is that this seems to be being accepted by this group as ok?

I suspect I am not the only one who has no idea about what you are talking about. I'm not accepting anything, just looking confused.

(I'm also not interested in the details - it looks like a personal spat started by a misunderstanding, and not something I want to get involved in.)

I don't remember the original disagreement.

For the record I don't agree with everything everyone says on here. Not sheep, me. But I don't have time to register all disagreement. Sometimes I don't even manage to read all the posts. Though I do try to.

On the use of "bitch" or "bitching" to describe a woman or her behaviour - let it be noted that I disapprove. Consider yourself told, whoever uses it. >

(whispers...)

...'t was about the Patriarchy's Most Fuckable Blonde

(and yes I'm afraid I was part of the spat)

Oh that. Hmm. I disapprove. >

Elilis

1. I apologise for getting your name wrong. I did remember that it wasn't Ellis and only had one l, but I missed the i. Sorry. I did try.

2. I was not trying to be passive aggressive, whatever you may think. I made my initial post, then regretted it so I added the second post. I didn't ask for my initial post to be deleted because I wanted the first part to stay.

3. The reason I am having trouble letting go is because last time you attacked me, you hounded me, I told you how much you were upsetting me and still you carried on under the pretext of us all trying to be better people. I was begging you to stop and you didn't. So forgive me if I'm still a little raw. As a result I actually feel physically ill every time I see you posting. That's how much you damaged me.

4. You are the one who has posted 10 times in response to my admittedly ill-thought-out. So who is the one who can't let go?

5. You can wrap it up in all the flowery language you like, but all I hear from your posts is "you are a bad feminist", whether that is what you intend or not. And from the discussion above I see I'm not the only one hearing that same underlying message.

6. WTAF is "she knows it is there, she isn't ready to face it yet, and will do so in private in the her own time" all about; to paraphrase a popular MN phrase, did you mean to be so fucking condescending? I know exactly what I posted and I'm perfectly fucking comfortable with it. Sometimes I say things that aren't very nice. I'm okay with that. It's who I am. What's I'm not okay with is you and your holier-than-thou attitude towards me when I do.

I have nothing else to say to you.

Uh, hold on - maybe it is me being confused. I guess that because I was part of that particular discussion, it's stuck with me, but it could be something else.

erm no I think that was some other occasion where I was slightly unpopular, but not quite as unpopular as when I disagreed with Annie.

(oh yes, just ask me for lessons in how to win friends and influence people, going cheap)

Maybe no one was online when I disagreed with Annie, in December. I am not going back to re-read it though, anyone can if they want to I guess, the week of 19 December sometime iirc, I am sure all sane people were decorating trees and ignoring my nonsense.

I wouldn't like, recommend it or anything.

Basically (disclaimer AS I REMEMBER IT) expressed disquiet about the pub being / being treated as / becoming a sort of place where people can bang in and express their eye rolling contempt at all sorts of illeducated nonsense being expressed by poor normal people in other places. It felt uncomfortable to me, for a whole host of reasons, many of them I was too restrained to say actually.

So I guess I am a bit pissed off because I tried not to say things I thought would be personally hurtful and keep it all a bit abstract, but it seems I am now a party to a feud, so, fuck it.

OK Annie I had no idea you were begging me to stop. I do not remember it like that and in that case I apologise.

Sorry everyone, it was incredibly stupid of me to poke Eilis. Sorry you've been dragged into my disagreements with her again. Serious lapse in judgement.

Nope, not done, further apologies but there's more to be said.

Eiliis, if you had come on here and said "Hey Annie, that was a pretty shitty thing to say about me, and 'bitching' is a really unfeminist term", I would have completely agreed with you and apologised profusely.

But instead, just like last time, you have turned my comments into yet another opportunity to give a masterclass in "How Feminism Should be Done According To EilisLiomoid", using me as the example of How Not to Be A Good Feminist. That's what's rubbing me up the wrong way so badly and that's why I'm so angry with you. If you have something to say to me, just say it to me in plain words. There's no need to keep referring to me in the third person, for a life lesson or for the amateur psychoanalysis of what's going on in my head.

Ooops, I broke the thread.

It's not you - I've actually done about 10 minutes work today.

No, not you.

We've been plimsoll-shopping with DS2. It's like the Goldilocks experience, minus the that's-just-right bit. We still have no shoes. Hmph.

Mine have to have trainers - no plimsolls will fit!

When DP and I lived in central america we were amused/disturbed/averting our eyes from the shop mannequins - all of which, even in littlewoods style grannys and kids stores - were more akin to the kind of thing you'd expect to see modelling latex french maid costumes in a dodgy sex shop.

My MIL doesn't have mirrors in the house. I found it weird trying to do my hair and stuff in the one small bathroom mirror. We can't have mirrors around DS1 - he's akin to the Cat in Red Dwarf and can't hold a conversation for admiring himself in it if one's around (he's 4 - but I first caught him licking and cooing to himself in the mirror at under 1.. definitely nature in his case rather than nurture!)

Although I didn't have my most productive day of work, I have done some good studying this evening. Although most of it isn't really staying in my brain. Never mind. I got through my networks exam on cramming up to the last minute and forgetting it straight after. This will work as well.

(Sometimes, I think I'm not in the right field...)

I've been at work all day and am now procrastinating because I know I have 60 year 9 reports to write :( I have a few days but that's at least 10 hours work on top of all the normal planning, teaching, marking, etc that I normally have to do :(

I can talk about mirrors though. I HATE how many mirrors I have to look in every day, without much choice. We only have a couple of small mirrors in our house, so I have to make a little bit of an effort to look in one at home (dd2 is 4 and LOVES looking at herself in mirrors at every opportunity). But at school, every time I go to the loo there's a mirror over the basin, then there are mirrors in random doors int he corridors, full walls of mirrors at the gym I go to, I literally cannot do any exercise class without having to spend the whole time looking at myself in an awful mirror. I would rather not have to look at myself the whole time, I'd be much happier not being very aware of what I look like.

www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/19/has-the-sun-axed-page-3-topless-pictures

Fingers crossed (thanks to spence for the link)

www.nytimes.com/2015/01/20/business/co-working-on-vacation-a-desk-in-paradise.html I just read this - it's about co-working locations in exotic places.

I'm trying to figure out how I feel about it - my first thought is that it's in my past - I have kids now, they're not going to welcome my 2 running around giggling and pesting them, and I don't want to wander off for a month without them on a working holiday (wouldn't be a holiday after the first few days - I'd miss them)

Smacks a bit of those company retreats that were all the rage back in the eighties.

I wonder if the atmosphere is as safe and supporting of lone women as it is of men?

i call that the worst of both worlds chunky

My ideal working condition: work uninterrupted for 4-5 hours, then put your feet up at home. Which is nearly what I do everyday - except for the "uninterrupted" bit, and the "put your feet up" bit.

Phew! That's my 5+ hours done. I have read some pretty awful writing. I'm quite ready to kick somebody really hard now. I'm off to swim and kick water instead.