Feminist Pub XVIII, in which the Bluestocking greets the first signs of spring with a glass of something soothing

[PuffinsAreFictitious]

Just starting this one as the last is nearly full

In other news, I have finally had to hide the Style and Beauty topic. It has enraged me many times over the years but a recent thread about underarm hair in 8yo has pushed me over the edge. They don't seem to see anything wrong with whipping hair off a child the second it appears (along with introducing a skincare regime at the same age) and one said she was literally crying with laughter when I said that I celebrate my DD's new-grown hair and encourage her to be proud of it (which she is).

I'm almost personally affronted by the weather.

Sera that sounds quite bad. I go on S&B when I'm bored but only ever clicked on threads about shoes and clothes, since I my skincare and makeup regime consists of wash-face-put-some-aqueous-cream-on. I'm bored of my shoes and clothes but can't think what different things I might want.

I have no idea what the weather was like here at eclipse o'clock. I was stuck in a meeting from 09:00 to 10:00 in an internal meeting room with no windows, so missed all the (possible) excitement.

Apparently the clouds did break for a few moments above DD's school.

DS saw the eclipse - his school provided special glasses for him. He says it was 'really cool' (which is good, because he's been quite apprehensive about it all week).

Somehow sadly fitting that Oubliette should be trapped in a windowless cell room.

During my PhD I worked in a small basement lab, which we used to refer to as the Oubliette. It might have inspired my MN name a bit.

I remember playing solitaire on the intel 386 computer during the PhD .

The clouds made the whole eclipse a bit of an anti-climax at school. We all had pinhole viewers and we all trooped out to line up like a fire drill and we saw a miserable cloudy day that got a bit dull. Basically a normal Friday then. We saw NOTHING!

We had gorgeous weather im s wales, but we watched it on the telly anyway, apart from a quick attempt at a pinhole cerea box. Ds2 then helped himself to cereal for half of the day...

Tangent, sorry. So many "terrified of childbirth" threads of late - I get it, I was scared too. But I can't help seeing it as a symptom of a wider problem, where women are controlled and marginalised and birth is viewed in a narrow way in popular culture and also in hospital policy. It makes me cross.

And at a time perhaps when there is less social interaction in rl than has been the norm in the past, particularly cross-generational... So many of us live distant from and manage without wider family support nowadays.

Can I have a rant about the whole 'don't bother challenging low level sexism because there are more important things to worry about' thing?
Selfridges thread if any wants a dose of irritation...

Re armpit hair I've stopped doing anything to mine as of this year, quite enjoying it after about 20 years of shaving...

I've lurked here for sometime, may I now sit down & have a drink, please?

welcome, magi

I know what you mean about S&B. I like it for the most part, but the body hair threads are terrifying. So many women seem to think that hair is dirty, and that being bald from the neck down is the correct way to be.

I hope that I can inoculate DD against this (silently) via my habit of wandering around the house in various states of undress showing off my lack of dedication to any form of hair removal. I wax my underarms from time to time, but that's about it.

I have long given up on shaving anything. I have more important things to worry about. I am therefore challenging low level sexism by doing exactly what low level sexists think I should do.

I shave more now I am post menopause than I did before! My skin is so dry & I find shaving legs helps exfoliate them & moisturiser soaks in better.

I wish I could accept my facial hair & not wax & tweeze - but I just can't.

Hello magi! I'm very pleased to see you here.

Magi is indeed fabulous, folks. I have met her in RL at a meetup. She is wise and lovely.

Not so sure about the lovely & the wisdom is possibly only that of years!

I keep trying to embrace my hair and stop epilating. But societal conditioning always gets me in the end.

I did try not shaving under my arms. The hair was pitiful and dh didnt even notice, all it did was annoy me. So i've given up amd started again

I get my eyebrows shaped once in a while (probably about 3 times a year.) I shave my underarms once in a while, but not all the time, as the skin gets sore. Even more rarely, I wax my legs. I haven't done them for ages, but I am not particularly hairy anyway, and I don't reckon most people would notice without being right up close.

I do sometimes wonder how militant I might feel about depilation if I were hairier. I mean, it's quite easy not to shave if you don't have very noticeable hair in the first place. Mind you, I also don't dye my hair, and the white hairs are becoming more noticeable, particularly in one streak. So I suspect I would still not be very active when it comes to depilation.