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

[FibonacciSeries]

Carry on.

Hello! It's stupid o'clock and I'm MNing.

Puffins, might be worth seeing a cranial osteopath? I reset a minor sacral shift in just one session, but not sure how much it would help for a really bad one. Still it might be worth exploring.

Anne, this is the time of the year when things are going to get moving re. jobs. Ride that tide! I myself am looking around and have had a couple of interesting chats, but I know mid to end of Q1 will be even better as people have their plans in place and need resourcing after the no-bonus people resign.

My back is still hurting today. Need to decide whether I'm going to yoga or sitting at a nice cafe with a nice breakfast.

Ah that's shit puffins - hope you hear good things from the lawyer but a battle is always exhausting.

Symph. Is horrendous, I hope they are successful in their campaign to get to the echr and sue the bastards.

I usually lurk, but the buggy dilemma called to me with my 3 under 5 an inline double like a Phil and Ted's could be a good choice it depends how much you need the basket space. Umbrella fold doubles are all useless for lots of use, they're just not sturdy or well designed enough. I have a slim side by side double, mountain buggy duet which I love and goes in and out of single doors no problem - the tiny aisles can still be a problem in crowded shops. The other options I find work quite well is single and toddler in a soft structured sling on my back.

You're right that life is designed for unencumbered people though.

I went for the cafe this morning though I have loads of work to do because I had a major "god, I'm crap at this mothering business" moment this morning!

Have just about recovered so should probably head back to my laptop!

yonic Are you me? I lectured the DC all the way to school this morning. Everyone stared at me. But I did refrain from telling them all to fuck off.

I've had the what-did-your-last-slave-died-off morning.

And the bloody internet is still not working. Thank goodness for smart phones.

I usually lurk but could do with some views on this, please, if anyone has any. I've just had a grant application turned down. I had some in-person feedback, which should have been very helpful, but it wasn't. It mainly focused on how good my application actually was, and how they'd wanted it to get funding, except for the fact that I "need to write it more like a man". Is this really OK? I would perhaps have taken it better if it weren't the case that the three people who did get funding are all men.

Poofus - no that's terrible, there is no man style!

what do they even mean by that, the old 'devoid of emotion' chestnut?

BDad, I beg to differ...

Caveat: NAMALT, NAWALT.

Women tend to write "I think, it seems to me, in my opinion" type statement more often whereas men tend to write "It is, it will, the situation is" statements more often.

Does that sound familiar?

Yes, an academic grant - but it wasn't the funders, it was my own institution's internal review process. Only three applications could be put forward. My unmanly application was the fourth.

Yes, I think they meant that some of it was a bit tentative. OK, I can deal with that (although that's annoying in itself because at this stage of a research project of course it's tentative!). What I wasn't keen on was "write it like a man" because we are putting the men's applications forward and not yours.

Crikey!

I do read important emails and take out all the "modest" statements before sending. Yes, I know this is colluding with the patriarchy, but shit needs to get done and all...

shitting hell poofus. who comprised your institution's review panel?

poofus, I find that shocking but not surprising.

I recently heard about a similar comment in the context of marking university scripts.

Incidentally, when I heard that, someone told me there was some evidence to show that readers think they can distinguish a male 'style' from a female one, but they aren't accurate. So, while I agree with yonic that there is a style we are conditioned to interpret as feminine, I am less sure that it's always women who use it.

I agree that "man style" and "woman style" don't map onto men and women necessarily. In this case, though, three men were chosen and I (and presumably lots of other women) weren't.

Actually, I am going to rewrite it shortly as I'm trying for another grant. I am polishing up my "man speak" right now.

Oh, I wasn't disagreeing with you, poofus, more with the idiocy (as well as the sexism) of them using that term.

Is there any way to complain?

I know - sorry - I didn't mean to direct my disgruntlement at you!

Complain...yes...I'd love to. But the thing is, they'd be handling my new application as well! So I think I might have to hold fire with that for the moment.

Fucking hell. I would be threatening with HR and the union and everything else for gender discrimination. Are there really such idiots?

Yes, that is fucking shocking.

I struggle with this issue TBH. I had a wonderful female mentor very early in my career who handed my first self-appraisal back to me and told me to re-write it. I was shocked, and at only 21 not a little upset, because I was a good student and no-one had ever done that to my work. Then she told me I was too equivocal. Too tentative. I was 'quite good at' X and said I had weaknesses in Y. She said (in a more finessed way than I am about to) that no fucker in business would read something I'd written where I was all modest and understand to interpret it. I had to be blunt, and to the point, and not downplay myself. I had to say that my strengths were X and that I never had weaknesses, just areas I would like to focus on developing.

It was a valuable lesson. Yes, in some ways it pandering to the patriarchy as it's seen as a 'man style', but I don't think that you can separate that from the fact that women are conditioned to be modest. I was so shell shocked I never really thanked her, but I think about her quite a lot. She did me a big favour.

Women tend to write "I think, it seems to me, in my opinion" type statement more often whereas men tend to write "It is, it will, the situation is" statements more often.

You remember in the last pub I was reading Revolution From Within by Gloria Steinem? Well, when she went to a reunion of some of her old friends from there they, to a woman, said "It is, I will, etc". They were all blue collar workers who'd spent their working lives in jobs surrounded by men who they treated as equals.

At the reunion of her college friends they all, to a woman, said "I think, it seems to me, etc", and the vast majority of them had left college and married men with well paid white collar jobs which didn't require the household to have a second income.

So it's nurture not nature. Fwiw, I tend to use both sets of sayings.

I recommend the book btw, it's written in a really conversational style but makes you think.

Thanks for the shiny new pub Fib, it's lush.

Well, forgive me, but isn't it obvious it's nurture?!

You can.