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

[FibonacciSeries]

Carry on.

Yy, Buffy. Penguins, DS is 9 mo, but he was a month early so I think of him as 8 mo.

Annie, that sounds very frustrating.

In other news, a friend who is a science teacher at a private school has just offered me a job.....

I'm no teacher, but any port in a storm!

Blimey, good day!!

Like buses! Are you interested in it?

It's not really an avenue I'd seriously considered (I'm not fond of children), but on a temp basis, sure, why not! They have apparently hired someone who is Not Very Good and need a fill-in.

Congratulations on the job, Annie! Surely you can try to ask them to accommodate you with whatever you need to do it from Cambridge? Easier said than done... but if the alternative is to politely decline, then what do you lose?

Artifex, you need the baby on your back in something like a mei tai. It is much much easier than front carrying. Take the buggy, load all the crap in it, let the big one walk as long as as he can and when he can't put the little one on your back.

www.google.co.uk/search?q=mei+tai&client=firefox-a&hs=748&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=uKi2VMXkCc_haq_PgagL&ved=0CCwQsAQ&biw=1313&bih=761#rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&tbm=isch&q=mei+tai+back+carry+

OR get a Phil and Ted as Puffin says

BUT if you get the Mei Tai (instead or as well) you will find it useful for a long time (my dd1 is 5 and a good walker, but dd2 is 3 and can still be carried in the mei tai, on occasion - it is very small and light to carry for emergencies)

PS it is totally a feminist thing that it is hard to navigate space, steps, buses etc with more than one toddler. tbh it is not necessarily the spaces that have to change, as much as our expectations and general willingness to help and accommodate (arguably)

I have been on the verge of completely bottling out of a full bus (in South London) and then instead, experienced what felt like physical space rearranging itself around me, due to people's understanding, willingness to help, and knowing what to do. Things just happened for me and around me and I found myself (a few times) in a seat with a baby on my lap, a toddler on the seat next to me, all the heavy bags in the luggage space and the buggy folded up alongside them. This happened on a bus that appeared to have absolutely zero space before all the kind and capable women on it took over.

Similarly I have been in objectively much easier situations and felt like crying because people were just being so shitty about the fact that I had two children, and bags, and only two arms, and there were a few obstacles, and so on, and people were just being utter shits about it. "What do YOU want me to do?" (I did not shout) "grow more arms? Give away my baby? WHAT?!"

(this is why I hate certain threads on mumsnet where I feel like people are ganging up on the exhausted woman instead of helping her like the blessed women on the bus)

Warning - this is graphic and very unpleasant.

I have just read the most appalling thing I've read in a long time. From 1949 (going on until as late as 1987!), in Ireland doctors tried a new technique called a symphysiotomy to avoid Caesarian sections - because of course having a C-section limits the number of children a woman can safely have, and good Catholic women should have many children. It basically involved sawing the women's pelvis down the middle with a hacksaw to make more space for the baby. The women were not consulted before this was done to them. They did not consent and had no idea what was being done to them. Many did not receive adequate anaesthetic. They were left with damage ranging from from chronic pain to full incontinence to complete paralysis of their legs.

Survivors of the procedure have appealed to the UN Committee Against Torture and been awarded some redress. But these women were left literally broken. There can never be enough compensation.

Annie I remember another FWR poster talking about that before. It is barbaric, and one of the most upsetting things I've read

I'd never heard of it before. Is there no end to the horrors men find acceptable to inflict on women's reproductive organs in the name of religion (or even without any religious "justification")?

Not to mention how many babies were damaged or died as a result of this procedure. But never mind, at least the women could make more.

The whole of the rest of their lives in pain, because they are just vessels

I heard this on women's hour recently and was so upset I actually had to turn off. Horrific. Those poor women.

Evenin' all. Please excuse the lychee juice I'm getting everywhere.

I'd heard of it, but those stories are beyond hideous. Those poor women, and most of the doctors involved would be dead now, but what utter, utter bastards

Saw The Homesman tonight at the cinema. It was tough and harrowing but worth watching if you get the chance

I think there are some useful bits in this doc, even if Sheryl Sandberg doesn't recognise her privilege at times.
time.com/3666135/sheryl-sandberg-talking-while-female-manterruptions/

Good morning!

Marking place. Debacle GP visit yesterday evening and still pissed off. Harrumph. But must marshal the troops.

Buffy Not a serious thing. You know how sometimes DC has some minor ailment and then everyone over-react and you succumb against your better judgement and take their advice and end up wasting a lot of time and getting no further along? That sort of debacle.

I read Ebear's link. A quick thought: it's all very sensible, but what we really need is that men buy into this - not because women are not bias, but because lots of us work in an environment where men are the majority. There are some men I know who understand this, but some of them ... well ...